“Lay back. Open,” he ordered.
I did as asked.
Hop covered me then Hop entered me.
Even as my back arched, I rounded him with all my limbs.
Oh yes. God, yes.
This was what I needed. I couldn’t live without this. I couldn’t beat this habit.
I didn’t even want to.
“Beauty, f**k, missed how beautiful you feel,” Hop murmured, pounding hard and deep.
“Yes, but the beauty is you,” I gasped, lifting my head, shoving my face in his neck.
“Head back, baby. You know I like havin’ your eyes.”
I did know that.
I dropped my head back.
Hop thrust fast and hard, lifting a hand to frame my face, his thumb swept out to press against my lips, dragging at the lower one, claiming what he already owned.
I roamed his skin with my hands, scoring my nails into it, tightening my legs around his hips, claiming, in my way, what was mine.
All mine.
Suddenly, what he was giving me between my legs started overwhelming me.
“Hop,” I breathed.
“Yeah, baby, I feel it,” he grunted.
“Hop!” I cried.
“Fuck, so beautiful,” he groaned and it hit me, I cl**axed, my head going back, my body arching into him, my arms and legs convulsing around him as I heard him growl, “Yeah, so f**kin’ beautiful.”
Then I had his mouth on mine and the grunts of his orgasm driving down my throat.
He was right.
So f**king beautiful.
I knew his cl**ax left him when his tongue swept my mouth then his lips moved away, down to my jaw to stop at my neck and work there.
I turned my head and whispered in his ear, “You’re right. I’m shit scared of taking the risk of feeling the fullness of how much I love you.”
His mouth stopped working, his body went still, except his h*ps pressed into mine.
Then his head came up and I felt his eyes on me in the dark but he didn’t say a word.
So I did.
“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”
“Fuck me,” he murmured, his voice gruff, and not from just having come.
“My mom loves my dad like that. She took that risk. And she’s lived a lifetime of paying for that decision.”
“Baby.”
“I’m scared, Hop. I have been since I was eleven and I understood. And everything that happened with men all my life ending in what happened in Kansas City proved me right.”
“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, dropping his head so his forehead rested on mine.
“I pushed you away. I jerked you around. I built walls and held onto stupid excuses to keep us apart all because I was scared,” I admitted and he slanted his head, his lips brushed mine then gently, he pulled out of me.
He rolled, taking me with him as he scooted us up the bed and settled on his back with me in his arms.
I pressed closer. Winding an arm around his middle, I rested my cheek on his pec.
“I didn’t want just one night,” I shared.
“I know,” he said softly.
“I’d been watching you for years.”
“I know, baby.”
“I was ready to take the risk again. I just wasn’t ready to admit it until just now, outside, when you said the things you said, which were exactly what I was going through then you kissed me, and I knew I couldn’t live without you. But all that happened before, I put you through hell.”
“Lanie—”
I closed my eyes tight then opened them. “I’m sorry I put you through that.”
“I’m not, lady, because I loved every f**kin’ second.”
I blinked in the dark then lifted my head to look at him. “What?”
“Not havin’ you these past weeks sucked, but it led to me comin’ that hard, that fast and givin’ that same thing to you, it was worth it. And here you are in my bed, tellin’ me you love me and I’m gonna keep you here, so f**k yeah. It was worth it.”
He caught my chin with his finger and thumb to hold my face toward his as he went on.
“But before that, I loved every f**kin’ second, Lanie. Even when we were fightin’. And babe, you’re too hard on yourself. I threw my punches too and I know I can be a dick when I do. So don’t do what you do, take all this shit on your shoulders.”
“You were always up front. I didn’t know it but I was playing games.”
“Your head was messed up, Lanie. That wasn’t games. That was your way of straightening shit out.”
I liked that he thought that and I hoped he was right.
Still.
“We fight dirty, honey,” I noted.
“No, we fight honest. Trust me, I know when fighting comes from someplace ugly, someplace cold, someplace jacked. I got that shit from Mitzi. I also know when it comes from someplace else, feelings that are good, fights that are worth it to get past shit and learn about each other and I know that because that’s what we got.”
“Do you think so?” I asked.
“I know so,” Hop answered and his words were firm.
I pulled my chin from his grip and pressed my face in his neck.
“It hurts,” I told him.
“It hurts because you give a shit.”
This made sense but still.
“You said I made you genuinely happy,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I said that,” he confirmed.
I lifted my head to look at him again. “How? I jacked you around. I lied about what I wanted from the very beginning. Even though I didn’t do it consciously, I still did it. I screwed things up and then did it again and again and—”
“Baby,” he interrupted me, his body suddenly shaking with laughter, “didn’t you hear me when I said I like a challenge?”
“There’s a challenge, Hop, and then there’s a pain in the ass.”
Still laughing, he rolled us again so I was on my back and he was pressed into me.
“You’re beautiful, f**k me, seriously, so goddamned beautiful sometimes, swear to God, I think I can’t look at you any longer because if I do, your beauty will burn out my eyes.”
Oh my God!
That was so sweet.
“You’re funny. You’re crazy,” he carried on. “You’re just you and to hell with what people think. You’re total class. You could be a snob because you come from money and you got your kind of beauty but, because you’re you, you fit anywhere. You treat my kids good. You’re a fantastic f**kin’ cook. You let go in bed and come hard, givin’ me even more beauty. I lay in bed with you, tellin’ you stories about bitches I used to date and you giggle your ass off, you don’t get in my face about reminding you I used to date those bitches. I lay in bed, tellin’ you stories about my life and you look at me with those beautiful eyes of yours and listen like I’m tellin’ you God’s secret plan for harmony. And I sing you a song and you stand on a goddamned chair and shout I’m the shit then jump me when we get home. None of that, none of it, lady, is a pain in the ass. All of it, every bit, is worth fighting for.”