“I’m gonna come if you keep that up, and I’ve been waiting for this, fucking dreaming of this for two months.” He dropped to his knees and lifted my knees, pulling me to the edge of the counter, pulling my legs over his shoulders and leaning forward with his mouth.
Thank God I shaved. That was my first thought as I watched his mouth come closer, his eyes right there on my most private place, a place that Scott had only seen once or twice, his interest more focused on—I lost thought, literally lost the ability to think when he ran his mouth softly over the space between my legs and then inhaled. Inhaled. The way you would to a peach, when you can’t get enough of the smell and you want more. I’d done it, countless times. I knew the look that crossed over your face, knew the way your eyes closed. I never, not in a million years, thought that a man would have that look at the way I smelled. It made me want to open my legs wider, made me want to grab at the back of his head and say it’s yours and take it please.
I must have made some sort of a sound because he looked up at me, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from begging, couldn’t stop my hands from pulling slightly on his shoulders, couldn’t stop one of my legs from slowly dragging up his shoulder, my foot finding a resting place, my body opening even more. He held my eyes for one, long second, his tongue dipping into and out of me. Then he closed his eyes, as if in bliss, and leaned forward, his head dropping, his hands sliding up my thighs and under my butt cheeks, lifting me up into his mouth.
I couldn’t tell you the things I said. The things I screamed so loudly that my lungs hurt. The man shouldn’t be allowed to have a mouth. Shouldn’t be allowed to use that thing like a weapon, to cut open a woman’s soul, her secrets, her control, and rip them all to shreds. I lost myself, in those minutes with his head between my legs. He took all the pieces that made me Summer and swallowed them whole, made them his. I screamed his name and laid myself bare, and when I came I think I told him I loved him. I didn’t really know. I didn’t know who that woman, naked on a kitchen counter, was. I didn’t know who that man, that heartbreakingly beautiful, sexual freak of nature, was. I just knew that right then, in that instance, I loved him.
And at that moment, in that breakthrough, he stood up in the midst of my orgasm, yanked me back to the edge of the counter, and he pushed himself inside of me. Pumped his hips quick and fast—deep, furious strokes that made my orgasm never stop, never slow; it just stretched further and further until I lost it, somewhere along the line, and it just became gorgeous, beautiful sex. I wrapped my arms around his neck and his lips found mine. He kissed me, then moved to my neck, his teeth grabbing, then his tongue, and I held on to his shoulders and wrapped my feet around his back and I held on to him with all of my strength and what little control I had left. And when he came, I felt his break, felt his mind fall apart, heard him gasp my name, over and over, over and over, a stream of incoherent mumblings as he lost everything and found it in me, his arms locked around me, hugging me to him, and then I was off the counter and on the floor and against his chest, and the kitchen was finally quiet, save our shaky breaths.
CHAPTER 97
He loved her. He did. He fucking loved this woman. He loved her giggle when she couldn’t control it. He loved the mischief in her eyes when she was playful. He loved how her body stiffened and hands balled up and her gaze could eat through a grown man when she was mad. But none of that compared to how much he loved her sighs, the sound of his name when she screamed it, the way her mouth responded to his kisses, her scent—God he could bottle her juices and become a billionaire, but he would never because he couldn’t, in that moment, ever imagine another man with her. He would kill to keep her his, pay every cent of his fortune, destroy his career and never have another if it would keep her his. This was not a rebound, this was not infatuation, this was the end of his life as he knew it, and the realization hit that even if she didn’t want him, he would never ever find another woman like her, he would never ever get over her. He closed his eyes, felt her leg move against his, her chest heaving against his, her mouth by his neck, and he had never been so terrified.
CHAPTER 98
The decision was made, after I finally rolled off him, my shoulders hitting the cold tile, my legs trembling when I stood, a moment of awkward silence between us before I giggled and he smiled, that we needed dessert. Ice cream, preferably. On that we agreed. I went to the bathroom and felt a moment of panic when the evidence of his orgasm came out. Right. Another unprotected experience. Good thing I had just finished my period, my window of fertility not open yet. Still, I should probably go back to Tallahassee. I should also have my head cut open and examined because I had lost something, somewhere, that kept me intelligent.
Quincy had no ice cream shops, at least not that were open on a Friday night past ten. We debated over our problem, but there was really only one solution.
“Walmart?” Cole looked at me as if I had suggested we stage a coup and overtake the Quincy government.
“Yes. You know, giant superstore, has everything at every moment of the day?”
“I can’t go in a Walmart.”
“Because…”
“Not to sound like a pompous prick, but because of who I am. There will be crowds. Paparazzi. And DeLuca will have my ass if I am photographed with you. Especially with…” He made some general hand gesture that I’m pretty sure was meant to encompass my magazine article.
“It’s Quincy. At ten-thirty at night. There will be, like, three people there. And look—” I opened the curtain and pointed. “All the photographers are camped out at my house. Waiting for me to go batshit crazy.” It was true, they were still there, a line of six of their cars, stretched out politely to the left of the Holdens’ gate. Mama was going to turn the lights on and off through the night and keep the blinds drawn, television on. She’d wanted to get more creative with the ruse, but I shut that down. Mama, when she got creative, could go a little overboard. “We could get treats for Cocky there!” I added.