She rolled her hips beneath him, and he gasped out her name. She bit him again, at the base of his throat this time, and he almost came on the spot. Then she slid her fingers into his hair and dragged him down for a kiss that stripped him to the bone, that destroyed him from the inside out, her sweet little tongue tasting him with shameless greed, her lush mouth frantic. And she whispered, “Please.”
He grasped her soft hips, buried his face against her shoulder, and fucked her. Each thrust was slow, hard, deliberate, wringing gasps and then whimpers and then long, rolling moans from her. He gritted his teeth as his orgasm came barreling at him like a freight train. It would be so fucking good, but he didn’t want this to end. It couldn’t end. Being inside her was undoing him, taking him apart and putting him back together differently, better, more himself than he’d ever been before. So he forced himself to hold off and gave her what she wanted, what she begged for: more of his dick, more of him.
But when she came again, shuddering beneath him, her hot pussy fluttering around him, he couldn’t stop his release. With a growl, he thrust wildly, once, twice—and then everything around him shattered until it was all just colors and light, colors and light.
Neither of them moved for a good, long while, but eventually he had to get up. Had to do something with the condom. Luckily, he’d planned for that, too. When he finished and was relatively cleaned up, he lay back down beside her and gathered her against him, pressing a kiss to her head.
“Would you do something for me?” he asked.
She said, her voice sleepy, “I would do anything for you.”
The words struck him like an arrow to the chest. Like she’d just loved him out loud. Like she wanted him the way he wanted her: completely and impossibly and with ill-advised devotion. Happiness bloomed inside him like a garden. He held her tighter and continued, “If you can’t sleep tonight, I want you to wake me up. Okay?”
She didn’t reply. She was already asleep.
*
Red packed up the next day with a silly smile on his face—one he was happy to see reflected on Chloe’s. Those smiles somehow remained throughout the day, despite Chloe’s morning joint pain, and the argument they had over which road was the A46 on the way home. Her sense of direction—or lack of—was the ninth wonder of the world, after King Kong. He understood now why she rarely used her car.
“You really do need me around,” he said with barely hidden satisfaction, his urge to be useful fulfilled. “For camping and map reading and all that shit.”
“I don’t need you around,” she said pertly. “Not for directions, and not even for the list, as I’ve come to realize.” But then her gaze flitted to his and her lips tilted a little. “I just really, really want you around.”
His grin was a mile wide.
They got home at lunchtime, and he knew he was supposed to go to his own flat and give her space and all that crap, but she was a bit wobbly and sleepy-eyed. He wanted to feed her and put her to bed, so he bullied his way into her flat. He cooked. He made her eat. He supervised her shower much more closely than usual, and found another use for the cute little plastic seat she had in there.
But eventually, finally, the heady mix of love and lust that was powering his cock like the greatest battery on earth calmed down, and Chloe’s energy levels dipped at around the same time. So they found themselves back in bed, still slightly damp, in a cocoon of warm, naked skin and pounding hearts and soft, searching mouths, and he thought he’d never felt so purely, completely good in his whole damn life.
She trailed a finger over his chest, then pressed a kiss to his heart. “I rather like you, Redford.”
He tried to turn his grin into a groan. “No one says my full name as much as you do, you know. You throw it around like rice at a wedding.”
“Weddings on the mind, hm?” she asked in that familiar, mocking tone. “Clearly I am excellent in bed.”
Usually, he’d snicker and shoot something back and they’d snipe at each other for a while. But the truth was, he did have weddings on the mind, if that meant that he absolutely planned to marry her arse at some point in the not-too-distant future. And the fact that he even knew that made him feel so weirdly vulnerable, all he could do was mutter something vaguely belligerent and curse his heating skin.
She pulled back, looking delighted and also ready to rib him until the day they died. “Red! You’re blushing. Why are you blushing? Oh, do tell me—”
“Shut up, woman.” He sat up and kissed her pretty mouth quiet, and she leaned into him with a sweet little hum.
Then came a knock at the door that had them both jumping out of their skin. Their bare skin. Which was a problem because, a second later, they heard the rattle of a key in the lock.
“Ack,” Chloe yelped, and leapt off the bed with an agility he had literally never, ever seen from her. She winced at the movement—he didn’t care what she said or what fancy medicine patches she put on, she was definitely hurting after yesterday—then grabbed frantically for some clothes.
“Who is it?” he whispered, sitting up and looking around for—oh, hell. His dirty clothes were stuffed in Chloe’s washing machine, which she seemed to use as a wash basket. His bags were in the living room, which he couldn’t get to without running through the hall, balls swaying in the breeze for whoever just came in to see. Looked like he was stuck in here with his own bare backside and Chloe’s several thousand notebooks. Maybe he could use those to cover his junk if anyone burst into the room.
Or you could use the fucking sheets, genius.
Oh yeah. Chloe’s panic was catching.
“I don’t know who it is,” she told him, hopping around as she stabbed her legs into a pair of pajama pants. “But the options are either my parents—”
Crap.
“Or my sisters.”
Fingers crossed for that option. This wasn’t quite how he wanted to meet Chloe’s mum and dad. Ideally, he’d be, at a bare minimum, clothed for that introduction.
“Chlo!” a cheery voice hollered from the hallway. “It’s us! Hope you’re not dead!”
Everything about Chloe relaxed as she shoved on a pajama top. “Eve,” she said with obvious relief. “And—”
“I know you’re not dead,” called another, eerily similar voice. He realized with a jolt that all three of the sisters sounded almost identical. He’d never noticed before. “I’d feel it if you died, darling. Which means you’re ignoring us, you bitch.”
“Annnnd Dani,” Chloe finished, rolling her eyes. But then she looked a little shamefaced. “Gosh, I was so distracted preparing for our, um, trip, I haven’t texted them in two days. Maybe three.” She frowned, grabbed her glasses from the bedside table, and told him, “I won’t be a moment.” But then she hesitated, turned back to face him, bit her lip. Raising her voice, she called to her sisters, “I’m fine! Just . . . give me a minute!” And then, to Red, she whispered, “Would you like to come?”
He looked down at himself. “I’m naked.”
“Oh, yes.” She blinked.