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WE CRUISED OUT ON TO the road before I said a word, but I could feel her looking at me, waiting for me to explain what the hell had happened.
And I guessed I owed her an explanation. I was hoping we could both just head home after the long day we’d had, but clearly, it wasn’t going to be that easy. The bruise on my chin had given me away. I had watched it blooming over my skin on the drive over here, my heart sinking the whole time as I realized there would be no way to hide this from her.
“So what happened?” she asked me again, her voice tinged with worry. I hated stressing her out, especially given what had just happened. But I had to tell her. The only way we were going to get through this was if we were honest with one another.
“Tony and I got into a...scuffle,” I admitted. She inhaled sharply.
“You what?”
“It wasn’t anything serious,” I assured her. “He just...pissed me off. I should have controlled myself, I know that, but the way that smug bastard was looking at me, I couldn’t have done it if I tried.”
“Oh, okay,” she muttered, her voice shaky.
“He only got one good hit in,” I told her. “And there’s not much to him. He might like to play that he’s some big tough guy, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
I could see the whisper of a smile on her face out of the corner of her eye, and I reached over to take her hand and bring it to my lips for a kiss.
“I’m okay,” I murmured to her. “Really. You have nothing to worry about.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, clearly not certain how to respond to what I’d just said to her. We made it back without her replying, and she climbed out of the car in silence. Once we were in the house, though, she headed straight for the kitchen and pulled a frozen steak from the freezer.
“Sit down,” she instructed, pointing to the kitchen chair. I cocked an eyebrow at her but did as I was told.
“What’s that for?”
“To ice your face,” she replied, as she stepped in front of me. She tucked one hand behind my head to hold it steady and used the other to press the steak firmly to my jaw.
“Ow!” I muttered, pulling back from her on instinct. “That’s cold.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the idea,” she replied. “Here, just hold steady. Let me ice this for you.”
I knew this was her way of dealing with what had happened—turning it into something practical she could do to help me—but she really didn’t need to stress herself out so much.
“It’s not that bad,” I told her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her down on to my lap. She tried to hold the steak to my face a little longer, but eventually, she sighed and put it on the table next to her.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, slipping her arms around my shoulders. “I’m just...I don’t like seeing you hurt. That’s all.”
“Trust me, I’ve been through a lot worse than this,” I reminded her, tapping my bad leg. She glanced down and smiled slightly.
“I guess so,” she conceded. “But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with seeing you take a punch from Tony on my behalf.”
“Oh, I don’t think I was punching him on your behalf,” I replied. “He’s such an asshole. He deserved it. That was all for me.”
She laughed. Damn, it was good to hear her laugh. She had been through so much these last few months, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to lift it from her shoulders for a while and let her relax.
“Yeah, you’re probably not the only one who’s wanted to hit him,” she conceded, brushing my hair back behind my ear. Even with the throbbing pain in my jaw, being this near to her had my head running at a hundred miles an hour. I squeezed her a little closer to me.
“There’s something you could do to help, though,” I murmured, as I drew my mouth close to hers. She grinned a little wider.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, playing like she had no idea what I was getting at. “And what might that be?”
I kissed her then, not needing to say anything that my body couldn’t deliver for me. She relaxed into me, softening against me as though she had been waiting for this all day long. I knew just how she felt. There was something about sharing these moments with her that made everything else just vanish, all the stress that had been following us around suddenly not mattering to me at all.
She slipped her tongue into my mouth as I slid my hands down to her ass, sinking my fingers into her flesh appreciatively. She giggled and squirmed against me.
“Hey, I don’t know if there’s any proven medical benefit to you grabbing my ass,” she teased. I chuckled, already feeling my cock starting to stir at her flirtation.
“Yeah, but it’s a damn good distraction,” I remarked as I pulled her in for a kiss again.
We made out a little more, the frozen steak forgotten as it thawed on the table next to us. She pushed her hands into my hair, holding on to me for dear life, like she was making sure I was still really there.
As though I would have been going anywhere without her.
She pulled back, tipping her head to the side and biting her lip playfully.
“Well, let’s see how else I can distract you,” she murmured, and she slipped down off the chair and between my legs, her fingers teasing over the top of my jeans. I groaned at the sight of her like that, this gorgeous woman so willing to please me, gazing up at me with those eager eyes like she couldn’t get enough.
She unzipped my pants slowly, taking me into her hand and stroking a couple of times before she leaned forward to take me into her mouth. I tipped my head back and moaned at the feel of her lips and tongue wrapped around my head, her soft, warm mouth sliding down to take as much of my length as she could.
I managed to open my eyes again and found her looking up at me, one hand wrapped around the base of my cock, the other on my thigh.
“Distracting enough?” she asked, pulling back for a moment and stroking me a couple more times.
“Hell, yes,” I growled, and she leaned forward to take me into her mouth once again.
Kneeling on the floor in front of me, she blew me like it was the only thing she cared about on Earth at that moment. I loved seeing her like this, but the sensation was the best part—she really knew what she was doing, and feeling the passion she lavished on me was turning me on so much I couldn’t think straight. The pain in my jaw seemed to have totally vanished, the only thing I could think about how perfect her mouth felt around me.
I didn’t want to come like this, as tempting as it was. No, I wanted her on top of me—I wanted to make her come, to watch her as she tipped over the edge and into a release she didn’t want to deny herself. I reached down to pull her on top of me again, the chair creaking below us as she pulled aside the dress she had been wearing.
“You look so good like that,” I murmured to her, leaning back to take her in for a moment. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen a hotter sight in my life—this woman, the way she looked on top of me, the slight part to her lips as she waited for me to give her what she craved more than anything right now.
She dipped her head down to kiss me again as I planted myself at her entrance, and then pushed inside of her. She moaned against my mouth as she felt my fullness sliding into her, letting herself fully down on to my lap like she just couldn’t get enough.
“Oh, that feels perfect,” she gasped, her lips still pressed to mine. I could feel the way her body tensed against me, could feel the need coming off of her in waves, and I knew I needed to push it even further. I knew I needed to take her over the edge and into the release I could tell she was craving with every part of her.
I grasped her hips and began to thrust up inside of her, driving myself deeper and deeper into her with every thrust. I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t even think about getting enough. I just needed to keep moving inside of her, keep pushing myself in deep, keep forcing those sweet little moans of pleasure out of her lips with every thrust.
She was grinding herself down on top of me to meet me, pushing herself on to me hard. Her breath was tearing out of her lungs now, and her legs were starting to tense and clench around me. She was getting close, I could tell, and the pleasure was starting to build deep inside of me, too. I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to hold back.
How much longer I would be able to deny myself what I knew I needed right now.
Our lips collided as I pushed up into her one last time, holding myself there as the pleasure finally got the better of me. She groaned against my lips as she came, her pussy clenching around me, her hands grabbing for my shoulders to try and steady herself as she gave in to the helpless pleasure only we seemed able to give one another.
I held myself there for a long time, not wanting to pull out, not wanting this moment to stop. Our tongues danced against each other, still hungry for the taste of each other. I slid my hands back to her waist, letting the hem of her dress fall down once more, and she lifted herself off of me and leaned in to my shoulder to catch her breath.
“Yeah, I think you make a pretty good nurse,” I teased her as I slid my hand along her back. “I’m not thinking about my jaw anymore.”
She laughed as she sat up again, slipping off my lap—she tried to stand up, but had to catch herself on the table before she keeled over right on the spot.
“Hey, careful,” I warned her, and she paused before she reached for the steak that was sitting on the table.
“I need to get this back in the freezer,” she remarked, pulling open the door and carefully placing it back inside. “Since we’ve found more effective methods for dealing with your pain.”
I chuckled and pulled her on to my lap again when she was done, nuzzling into her neck and inhaling the scent of her. No matter what happened, no matter what we went through, as long as I had this at the end of it all, I knew I would find a way through. I knew there would be a way for us to make sense of all of it, because with each other, it just felt easy.
She sank into me, leaning her head against mine, and I listened to the slow in and out of her breath as she came back down to Earth. I didn’t know what was going to happen next—but right now, I didn’t really care about it, either.
