32. Wade

Ray's small frame shook as I held her face in my hands, her mind spiraling. I could see it in the way she looked up at me frantically, could feel it in the way she breathed.

My chest felt like it was on fire. I didn't know what I could do to get her to believe me, didn't know how to fix things. I never should have said what I said to Zane. "Let me fix this. How can I fix this? Please, tell me."

"I don't know," she sobbed, her head falling forward as if she were crumpling in on herself.

I had done this. It was entirely on me, my fault, and I had no idea how to come back from it. Every bit of trust I'd built with her had dissipated, and she'd had weeks to build up her walls again, brick by agonizing brick. "Listen to me," I breathed, my fingers scrambling to get her to look back up at me, to face this head-on. "I love you. I'm so fucking in love with you, baby. I don't use that word lightly and I sure as hell wouldn't be saying it to you if I wasn't sure of it."

"I know," she whispered.

"Then please believe me." My own voice wavered, too much at stake to hold myself together. I'd come in angry with her, but now all I wanted was to piece her back together, convince her that I was true to my word. I wasn't the kind of man that could do that to her. She just had to believe me.

I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Please," I said, my voice breaking.

Another kiss, this time on her damp, tear-covered nose.

"Please."

Softly, gently, I pressed my lips to hers. She didn't retreat, didn't try to fight me, and I could feel the tears burning at the backs of my eyes.

"I love you," I insisted. "I love you more than I thought possible. I love you more than I could have ever imagined. Please, baby, trust me."

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and lifted herself onto her toes, grabbing me by the sides of my hoodie and pulling me in. She kissed me recklessly, fervently, little sobs breaking in for split seconds before she was on me again. Relief burned in my veins as I wrapped my hands around her back, tugging her in close to me, my own tears barely holding behind shut eyes.

"Believe me," I breathed against her lips. Digging my fingers into the fabric of her tee, I didn't ever want to let her go. I didn't have the strength to.

Walking her backward toward the wall, I cushioned her head with my hand before she made contact with it. I kissed her deeper, explored her mouth, memorized the way it tasted and every curve of the cavern. Every collision of our tongues made my body flush, little sparks electrifying every piece of me that had been dead for weeks. I could breathe again. I could focus, even if it was just on her.

"I need you," she whimpered, and a second later her fingers were clawing at my hoodie, pushing it down and off my shoulders. It dropped to the ground with a small thud. Skin met mine under my shirt, pushing it up, moving faster than I could keep track of. She was undressing me before I could even do it myself.

"I need you more." Words mumbled against her skin as I dragged my lips down across her jaw and under her ear, suckling and nipping at the skin there. Every inch of her smelled exactly as I remembered, like strawberries and frost. Air had never been so relieving, and I knew then that it would never leave me. I'd never be able to get that scent out of my mind.

She pulled my shirt up over my head and raked her nails down my chest, setting little fires everywhere she touched. I pushed my hands up under the hem of her tee, my fingers dragging across her bare back. Absolutely nothing beneath the fabric.

"I love you," I said again, and I wondered how many times I'd need to repeat it for her to process it, for her to believe it. "Let me show you."

Her chin brushed against the top of my head, a little nod. I lifted her shirt up and over her head before pulling her closer by the small of her waist, forcing her back to bend and her chest to rise. Trailing kisses down the side of her neck, I edged my way closer to her breasts, suckling the thin flesh that covered her collarbone and the top of her ribs. Her hands reached for my shorts, just barely getting a grasp of the elastic waist because of her position, and as much as she tried to get them down they wouldn't budge.

My cock pressed against the stretchy fabric uncomfortably. It had been weeks since I'd had her and I could feel every bit of pent-up need expanding my erection, making it nearly unbearable to handle. I had to have her.

She let out a soft cry as I locked my mouth around the nipple of her left breast. I gripped the waistline of her gray joggers and pulled them down over her rear, not a lick of fabric between my hand and her skin. They fell, pooling around her ankles and she quickly stepped out of them.

The temptation to pull back for a moment and admire how fucking perfect she was nearly overwhelmed me. I wanted to, but I wanted to touch her more, wanted to feel her skin against mine more than I wanted to bask in the view. "You are more than I could have ever asked for," I said again against her flesh, my teeth caught around the puckered bud of her nipple.

Her answering whimper was enough to make my cock throb harder. I could listen to that for the rest of my life.

"Bedroom," I said through my teeth. I pulled on the sensitive bud, dug my teeth in just a little harder, and released it. "Where?"

"Down… down the hall," she gasped, locking her arms around my neck to keep me close. "Behind the kitchen."

In one quick move, I lifted her by the backs of her thighs, forcing her legs around me. She clung to me like a koala, burying her head in the crook of my neck as I navigated my way through the small living space. It was compact, to say the least, smaller than anything I'd lived in and about equal size to the room we'd shared back at the resort. "Is your Mom home?" I asked, the thought suddenly hitting me like a freight train.

"No. She's in the hospital."

"Shit, is she okay?" I asked as I came face-to-face with a door that had letters glued to it, reds and purples spelling out Raylene. My chest ached. She grew up here.

"She's fine, it's just mild pneumonia," Ray sniffled. Her fingers rubbed the short hair at the nape of my neck, sending little shivers down my spine as I turned the handle of the door.

I wanted to tell her I was sorry, that I would pay for whatever bill that resulted in, but I was too taken back by the room laid out before me. Icicle lights, the ones you'd hang outside for Christmas, hung from the edges of the ceiling, wrapping around the room and casting everything in a warm glow. Deep purple walls covered in corkboards and old, fading posters held up with tacks. A painted black, whimsical bed frame took up the majority of the space, and across from it, a square television sat on top of a black dresser, a thousand wires coming from the back of it. She must have hooked up everything imaginable to turn it into a makeshift smart TV despite the built-in VCR.

I felt like I'd stepped back in time. Like I was seventeen again, staying over at a girl"s house for the first time because her parents were away, having a normal high school experience instead of being gone half the year competing. Something about it was nostalgic in a way that tugged at my heartstrings. It felt like afternoons at Emily's after school, two weirdos ostracized from the rest of the class for vastly different reasons. I'd never felt for her the way I did for Ray, though.

"If you're just going to judge me for my room you can put me down," Ray mumbled, a hint of irritation in her voice.

I had no idea how long I'd been staring at the sight in front of me with a completely naked Raylene wrapped around my body. "I'm not," I said. "I just wasn't expecting it, is all." I squeezed her tighter and crossed the small space to her bed. As I set her down and crawled on top of her, her eyes still slick from the tears, I could feel every single spring of the mattress pressing into my palms, my knees.

"I never got around to changing it," she explained. "And by the time I could have, I realized that keeping it the same seemed to help Mom remember where she was sometimes, helped her to remember me."

"I get it." I pressed a kiss to her lips, gentle and tentative, and within a second, she shifted. Her bare waist pressed against my shorts, rubbing, begging. She began to kiss me deeper, harder, rougher.

I pushed my shorts down my thighs and kicked them off, setting my cock free, letting it rub against the slickness between her thighs. Her answering moan was enough to set my skin on fire.

Fragile fingers wrapped themselves around my shaft, pushing me into position at her entrance. "Please," she breathed.

I throbbed in her hand, wanting this just as much, if not more, than she did. "Tell me it's real," I croaked, holding myself still against her. I needed to be inside her, needed it more than air, but I wanted to hear it first. "Tell me, baby, and I'll fuck you like you want me to."

"It's real," she whispered, pressing herself harder against me, lifting her hips to get closer. There was something there, something lurking just beneath the surface, that made it sound like she wasn't sure. "It's real," she whispered again.

In an instant, I buried myself to the hilt. I didn't care if she didn't believe it. I did.

I'd never felt more at home in my life.

She groaned at the fullness, her muscles clenching around my cock. I shifted her into a better position, lifting her legs and pushing them toward her chest before I began to move.

I would never, ever, tire of this. Of her.

Her fingers knotted around the back of my neck, pulling me down toward her and leaving little divots in my skin. I kissed her as much as I wanted to, as deeply as I wanted to. She returned it just as ferociously, her hips locked in place as I drove myself into her over and over, her thighs squeezing around my sides.

"I missed you," I grunted against her lips. She tasted like heaven, like a single glass of wine with a hint of salt from whatever her dinner had been. It only heightened the pleasure, making every thrust that much more intoxicating. "Every fucking second of the last few weeks, I missed you."

A little whimper broke past her lips, hovering in the space between us.

"I missed you in my bones." Fuck, I'd only just entered her and already I could feel myself building. It really had been too long. I needed to do something, both for me and for her. I wasn't ready for this to end so soon, and if this was going to be anything like the last twenty or so nights we'd spent together, I knew damn well it wouldn't be. Still, I didn't want to be a disappointment.

I dragged my cock out of her reluctantly, every part of my body screaming to stay in. "No," she mewled, fingers tightening around my neck.

"Flip over," I said. Backing up an inch or two, I wrapped my hands around her hips and steadied her as she rolled, mind and body struggling through the haze of excitement. "Put your hands on the headboard, baby."

Watching her fingers curl around the black iron frame nearly made me feral. She was going to need it for stability.

I grabbed her by the hips, forcing her ass back toward me, and lined myself up with her entrance once again. In this position, the options were endless—I could reach around her to play with her, could pull at her hair, could have her screaming with pleasure. But all I wanted to do was be back inside of her and make her body fucking sing for me.

"Please," she begged, her hips pressing back enough to slide the tip of my cock inside. I nearly keeled over just from the sensation.

Taking one deep, steadying breath, I drove myself in up to the hilt, her silken walls clenching around me. "Fuck," I groaned. The rush of it all, of her, was enough to make my knees weak.

I slipped one hand around her hips to her front, my fingers delving between her lips and rubbing gently at her clit in little circular motions. She shivered at the intrusion, her body twitching as I slowly began to move.

Flushed cheeks appeared over her shoulder as she turned to look at me. "Do you like that?" I asked, knowing damn well exactly what her answer would be. "You like watching me fuck you, Raven?"

She gave me a tiny nod in return as my hand roamed up her spine, the lightest of touches. Her rear hit against my hips as my thrusts picked up speed and depth, need and desperation snaking their way into every part of me. I wrapped my fingers around the base of her neck.

"Tell me," I rasped. "Tell me what you want me to do to you."

"Anything," she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper as she gasped for breath. "Everything."

Fuck why did that fill my head with so many filthy ideas of her on her knees for me, hands behind her back, my cock in her mouth… too many things that focused wholly around me. I wasn't that type of person but she made me untamed.

"Wade," she groaned, her body jerking with little movements as she grew closer to her first finish line of the night. Just the way she said my name made my hips stutter.

Digging my fingers into the back of her neck just a little harder, I used them as leverage to lift her head slightly back, bringing her closer to me. My lips, my teeth, my tongue met her skin in an instant, needing to taste the sweat on her flesh.

Satisfied that she would stay in position on her own, I dragged my free hand around to her front, kneading the thickness of one of her breasts as I sucked and kissed at the nook between her shoulder and neck. Her breathing halted, her walls closing in, and a second later a shriek tore through her as her body shook, wave after wave of an orgasm washing over her.

"Oh my God," she cried. Her knuckles went white around the black frame of her bed.

I didn't stop, though.

My fingers carried on, dragging her to new heights, making her squirm and moan from the overstimulation. "Please," Ray said through clenched teeth, one hand meeting mine where it refused to move. "You can't… I can't!"

"You can handle it," I rasped, my lips just a hairsbreadth from her ear. Every twitch, every pleading cry from her only brought me that much closer.

Hips moving in rhythm, pleasure lit my veins on fire, tearing through me in an instant as I shoved myself as deep as I could go inside of her. I groaned as my fingers finally stilled, allowing Ray to catch her breath and calm herself. I was muttering incoherently, had no idea if they were words or groans of ecstasy, but I knew one thing for certain—I never, ever wanted to leave.

As I slowly floated back to earth, chest heaving and cock twitching, I held her against me. I placed little kisses against the top of her head, the sides of her ears, anywhere my lips could reach. I couldn't let go. I wouldn't.

"I love you." I gripped her just a little bit harder as I let myself sink down into the bed. "I fucking swear it, Ray."