34. River

THIRTY-FOUR

RIVER

Yeah, my little runner was going to ruin me. I knew it. I felt her breaking me apart as she sat there gazing up at me with so much trust and desire in her expression that she might as well have cut me open with a knife.

Wasn't sure how either of us were going to survive this, but the one thing I was certain of was neither of us were going to be the same.

Guessed I hadn't been since I'd seen her standing inside my shop's door.

Girl wrecking my world and turning it upside down.

A roll of greed rumbled in my chest as I edged back enough to take the entirety of her in.

The woman was wearing these fitted black sweats and this tight white tank that fit her in all the right ways. Chestnut hair mussed from where I'd been gripping it. Her lips were still pink and plump from our kisses earlier.

Body just barely beginning to writhe as desire slowly wound her into desperation.

"Looking at you is like looking at the sun breaking on a new day and wishing I could hold onto that moment forever. That's what I'm going to give you, Charleigh. A million new days where you get to wake up and shine all your light. Shower this world in your beauty because there's so fuckin' much of it, it's a disgrace to keep it hidden. Gonna make you shine, Little Runner. Fuckin' glow."

Her thighs trembled, need throbbing so heavy that I could already taste her arousal on my tongue.

My cock was stone, pushing painfully at my jeans, and I ran my palms up the inside of her legs. She arched as I went, though her fingers were gliding into the short pieces of my hair at the top of my head like she was looking for something to hold onto.

For a way to keep herself from floating away.

I could feel her anxiety, too. Nerves rattling her to the bone as she shivered and shook, right as my name dropped like a plea from her delicious mouth. "River."

"I've got you, Charleigh. I've got you."

"Please."

"I've got nothing but pleasure in store for you."

Her hands on my head urged me forward, and I let my lips press to the curve of her jaw as I inhaled.

Cinnamon and clove.

Might as well have been taking a deep, sating drink.

Except I didn't think I could ever get close enough. Didn't think I could ever get enough.

I let my mouth wander down the slope of her neck, lips barely suckling as I edged downward.

On a wispy sigh, Charleigh tipped her chin back, granting me better access. My palms slid up, moving from her thighs to circle her waist. My mouth kept progressing south, devouring all the flesh I could get to as I moved over the exposed skin on her chest.

"You nervous?" I rumbled as my lips caressed down to the scooped neckline of her tank, kissing over the thrashing of her heart and dipping just below the fabric to inhale the sweet skin of her cleavage.

Her nod was erratic. "A little. But I want you more than the fear."

"I would never hurt you." The promise dropped out of me without permission, and I prayed to fuck that I wouldn't. That I could see her through this without dragging her into the depraved depths of who I was.

"I know." It was a wheeze as she arched forward, baring more of herself, her fingers tugging at my hair.

Hard enough that it pricked.

And fuck. I liked it. This girl clamoring for what she wanted.

"If it's good with you, I'm going to take your shirt off because I'm goin' to need to see these pretty tits." Had been dreaming of them since that first night, when she'd been panting on my chair, just like she was doing now.

Body quivering in a need that had taken her whole.

"I think I'm good with anything. I trust you. I trust you." It whooshed from her mouth, and fuck, my chest squeezed tight.

With greed.

With lust.

With that thing that was so much bigger than just the want. This compulsion. This overwhelming reaction she elicited in me.

Like the girl was wielding magic.

Making me dream of things that were never meant for me.

But for a little while, I was going to pretend I could be every fucking thing she needed.

My fingers slipped under the hem of her tank, and I eased back and slowly peeled it up.

Chills lifted in its wake, and her hair tumbled around her shoulders as I tugged it over her head and dropped it to the floor.

She heaved a breath as she sat there staring at me.

Vulnerable and bared.

Most stunning creature I'd ever seen.

She had on a pink, satiny bra, the cups pushing up her small tits.

"Fuck me. You're a vision, Charleigh. A fuckin' fantasy that I don't ever want to stop dreaming."

I circled my thumb over her left breast, right over her satin-covered nipple.

She gasped and arched. "River."

"Look at you, already imploring, and I've barely begun. Going to make you feel so good, Little Runner, so good that every time this needy little pussy starts throbbing, you're always going to come running back to me."

Fuck. I kept saying things I shouldn't. But they poured out like a well that could no longer contain life-giving water.

I tugged the left cup down and exposed her nipple that was just as pink as her bra. Puckered and pebbled and peaked.

Begging for attention.

I leaned in and nipped it with my teeth before I curled my lips around it, giving it a suck.

Charleigh rasped an incoherent rush of words, and her hips jutted from the couch.

Yeah. Her pussy was begging for attention, too.

I suckled and licked while I pulled the opposite cup down and pinched that nipple between my thumb and forefinger, rolling it as I rolled the other with my tongue.

Her fingers were yanking at my hair to the point of pain, and fuck, I liked it. Liked her trying to claw her way to get close to me. The zings that were ripping down the back of my skull and shooting straight to my dick.

Her hands moved, nails raking down my back and fisting in the fabric of my tee, struggling to drag it up.

A rough chuckle skated free as I edged back a fraction. "You wanna take a look at me, Little Runner?"

She gave me an erratic nod, that mesmerizing gaze doing wild, wild things. "Yes. I want to see you."

"All yours, gorgeous."

Was pretty sure it was true. I was all hers. This girl could ask anything of me, and I'd give it to her.

She pulled up the tee, and I helped her by winding out of it, and she nudged me back by the shoulders until I was hovering two feet away from her.

Hungry eyes raked my torso.

Taking in the atrocities I'd carved on myself. The graphic scenes. Life and death and obscenity. Gnarled, twisted faces, phantoms and wraiths, a haunting written across my body because it was the only thing I'd known.

Her regard darted all over, as if she were taking stock, reading me, and stowing the information away.

She should be repulsed, but she let go of a ragged breath as she let her fingertips drift from where No Mercy was tatted on the front of my throat, all the way over the five demons I'd marked on my pecs, down to my abs that were hard as stone with the amount of restraint it took me not to dive in and devour.

"How are you so beautiful?"

My chuckle was raw. "Not sure what you're seeing, baby."

"I'm seeing you."

I should have rejected it, the way she was looking at me like she could see through the years of hardened scars that covered me like armor. Like she was witnessing my sins play out on a reel, had direct access to my memories, and she might still want to be there with me, anyway.

"It's you who's beautiful. You who knocks the wind out of me every time I look at you." I dipped back in, kissing across both of her nipples, before I kissed up her chest and to her jaw. Then I dove back in and took that delicious mouth.

Cinnamon and spice.

Girl knocking through me. Pure intoxication.

Fingertips sank into my shoulders, raking and ripping, urging me closer.

Our tongues tangled, mouths clashing with the desperation of the kiss, and I angled back enough that I could get hold of the waistband of her sweats. I ripped myself from her mouth so I could pull them down her long, lean legs.

A tremble rocked her as I took her in where she squirmed on the couch, and I reached out and dragged the tip of my finger through the crotch of her panties.

"Pink," I grunted.

Yeah, it had definitely become my favorite fucking color. A pretty flush rolled across her flesh. "Just the way I like it," I told her .

"Would you have been disappointed if I was wearing blue?" The slightest tease edged her raspy words.

A chuckle was slipping free as I wound my fingers in the sides of her underwear. "Don't think there's a chance you could ever disappoint me, but I do have to admit, I'm pleased."

Charleigh glowed, this fucking sweet, desirous smile taking to her stunning face. "Maybe I want to please you the way you promised to please me."

Couldn't stop the hitch of a grin at the corner of my mouth. "You won't catch me complaining."

I hooked my fingers in the edges of her underwear, and I slowed. "You still good?"

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. "Yes. Please."

There wasn't any hesitation in her.

She lifted her ass from the couch to help me, then she shivered as I began to wind them down.

Her thighs.

Her knees.

Her ankles.

Girl so sexy I was finding it difficult to breathe.

I edged back as I pulled them from her feet, then I took her by the ankles and pressed a kiss to the inside of each one before I propped her heels on the edge of the couch.

Exposing her fully.

My heart nearly seized, cock so hard I couldn't think.

Her cunt was swollen and pink .

The woman drenched.

Lust hammered through my veins. My mouth watered as I slipped my palms up her legs until I had her by the knees, spreading her wider.

"You have any idea what you look like right now, Charleigh? Spread out for me? Soaking wet and pussy swollen? Never seen a more delicious sight. I'm in fuckin' ecstasy, and I haven't even had you yet."

I dipped in and took a good, long lick. Tongue sweeping through her lips before I rode up to her engorged, throbbing clit .

She jerked, and those fingers sank deep into the back of my head. She pressed me closer as she whimpered, "Oh, God."

I eased back a fraction, blowing a soft puff of air against her nub, a clash with the heat.

She twitched and drove those needy fingers deeper into my skin. "Don't tease me, River."

"No teasin' to it, baby. Just taking my time so you know what it's like to be cherished."

A soft gasp rolled her throat. "That's what I feel like. Like with you I might be."

I dragged lazy kisses along the inside of her thigh as I murmured at her flesh, "You're going to get it now, what it's like to be someone's queen."

More promises I was a fool to make, but it didn't mean that it wasn't true. I was going to lift this girl up high.

Adore her.

Worship her.

Show her the perfection that she was.

Her chest arched from the couch when I dove in again, this time lapping and sucking, stroking my tongue through her pussy.

I moved to spread her lips so I could get better access to her clit. I swirled my tongue around it.

Charleigh was instantly losing her mind, squirming and thrashing as she tried to get closer.

I had to wind my arms under her legs and hold her by the thighs to keep her seated as her body sought to rise toward the sky.

And my name was chanting from her mouth, "River. River. River."

Licking her in long, hard strokes, I let go of her leg and brought my fingers to her cunt.

I shoved two deep inside the hot well of her body.

She arched as pleasure twined her in a bow.

I could feel it gather in every one of her muscles. The way ecstasy was knitting through her, building to become something so powerful she wasn't ever going to be the same .

The threat of rapture rasped from her mouth, air jutting from her lungs and those nails digging into my flesh.

I liked rough, and I wasn't going to mind a bit if this girl tore me apart.

I stroked deep and hard, tongue lapping in time. My cock strained as I listened to all the desperate sounds she was making. Couldn't wait to get inside her. Wreck her the way I'd promised, the kind of wrecking she was going to be begging me to do again and again.

I coiled her so tight that I could feel the second before she split. Every nerve ending in her body zapped and flickered with the coming of bliss.

"Want to feel you come on my tongue and around my fingers. Then the next time, I'm going to feel you come around my cock."

I grumbled it against her clit before I started to lick.

That was all it took, and my girl was going off. My name ripped up her throat as she came, her body fully arching, rapture so full I thought she just might levitate.

Pleasure streaked across her flesh, a bright glow that spread with the ecstasy shooting through her body.

Her walls throbbed around my fingers and her cum spilled across my tongue.

I ate it up.

Her sounds and her heat and her spirit that I could feel reaching out for me.

"River, oh God, River."

Barriers stripped, no walls left.

Like she was offering me her loneliness. Offering me her fears. Asking me to own all the parts of her that had become too burdensome to hold.

And I wanted it.

I wanted her good and her bad and her everything in between, and I knew that made me nothing but a bastard because she didn't have the first clue who I really was. She hadn't heeded the warnings I'd given her because her mind and heart were too good to endeavor that far into depravity .

Too right to fathom that type of immorality.

But right then, I couldn't consider it because she was twitching and shaking as I held her in the palms of my hands, slowing my movements as the aftershocks ticked through her body.

One second later, she was throwing herself at me, her arms around my neck and her mouth pressing against mine.

I groaned, surprised for the shortest beat, before I was splaying a hand across the back of her head so I could control the kiss, my tongue licking deep into the scorching welcome of her sweet, sweet mouth.

Charleigh whimpered, and her nails were raking down the front of my chest as she murmured against the kiss, "Now I get to feel you come against my tongue."