36. Utah

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

utah

A nything she told me to do.

Easier said than fucking done.

Having to, very consciously, control and restrain myself in those moments probably landed in the top five most difficult things I’d ever done in my entire life. For all the effort I was putting into reminding her to just experience that one moment as it happened between us, I was constantly telling myself that I just needed to keep it together and keep it gentle this time, so she’d trust me next time.

I didn’t make any attempt to get her into a different position. If she panicked, I wanted her to be able to see my face. Even though she didn’t seem to have much of an interest in that while I was on top of her. She actually seemed to go out of her way to try to hide from my sight even. Her arms were locked around my neck to try to hold me as close to herself as possible, and she’d buried her face against my neck.

The concern over whether or not she was okay was a welcome distraction, nonetheless.

I needed to focus on that.

Because that was the only thing keeping me from being the fucking Ten Second Tom of every woman’s nightmares.

I tried telling myself for a minute that it’d just been a long damn time since I’d done this without condoms. That was why it felt like I could die the moment that we were done here, and I’d be perfectly content with my life’s accomplishments. But that just wasn’t the truth.

This weird little woman was where my life had always been headed.

Everything about this was different.

I forced my arm under her neck so I could essentially cradle her entire head against me to give myself the chance to speak right into her ear.

“You feel so good, Memphis. So. Fucking. Good.”

The tiny whimper that came out of her in response to my words made me want to find out what she sounded like when she screamed, when she couldn’t keep it together anymore, when she really let go.

“Please don’t stop,” she whispered.

Fuck.

“Colt, please. Keep going. Just like this.”

Fuck, again.

All the fucks.

So many of them.

Nothing but fucks.

She dug her nails into my neck, and she arched up into me. I couldn’t do anything but fucking pray that this was what she felt like when she came, because I wouldn’t be far behind her. At some point, I’d stopped with the steady motion of just rolling my hips, and I realized that I’d gone to full-blown pounding into her. I forced myself off of her just enough to be able to look down at her when I couldn’t hold my orgasm back any longer. I watched her bite down on her bottom lip with that final thrust rather than let loose whatever scream should’ve been able to escape.

“Jesus, Utah.”

Back to Utah.

Just that fast.

I put my hand on the side of her face and left it there until she opened her eyes.

I’ve loved you from the moment that I laid eyes on you, angel.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Memphis put her hand over mine and nodded.

“I didn’t mean to get rough,” I said quietly. “You just—do something to me.”

“Maybe I can figure out how to do more of whatever that something is next time,” she giggled. “Because damn.”

Next time.

I smirked and tried to shift my hips to pull out of her, but I paused when she reached for me again.

“What are you doing?”

“Not a single thing between the two of us is dry anymore, Memphis. And I don’t just mean between your legs. We’ve been out here in a fucking downpour for way too long. We need to get inside.”

“But—”

“We live in the same house, sugar. I’m the one driving you back to that house. You’ve spent all day every day bossing me around for months. I didn’t do this just to run from you. You will always know how to find me.”

Her hand went to the back of my neck, and she raised up on her other elbow until she could get her forehead against mine.

“How do you always know what I need to hear you say?”

Because I’ve never been anything but fucking crazy about you.

I leaned down just a little further to kiss her again.

I had my very soaked clothes back on shortly after that, and Memphis was wrapped in the only dry blanket that had been left in the cab of the truck.

“Utah?”

“Hm?”

“Can you maybe not tell Indy about—you know, how all that started?”

“It’s between you, me, and the lightning, angel,” I said and leaned across the seat to kiss the side of her head. “You really think I’d tell Indy anything about this?” I asked and laughed.

“I don’t know. Guys are weird with this kind of thing, aren’t they? Aren’t you supposed to brag about conquests or whatever?”

“We’re not in high school, Memphis.”

“I was under the impression that men never really matured much beyond that,” she said, leaning her head against my shoulder while she laughed at herself.

“You never matured beyond being a sasshole,” I said, just to prove that I really wasn’t mature at all.

“That’s still not a word,” she laughed.

“It is now.”

When I put my hand on her thigh that time, she unwrapped herself from the blanket just enough to sneak her own hand out to lace her fingers through mine.

She was less than pleased to see Indy still sitting up at the kitchen island when we walked back into the house. She tried to stop and even backed up into me, like she’d planned to go somewhere else. She looked up at me over her shoulder and shook her head, but I couldn’t do anything other than laugh.

“We’re all adults,” I said and put my hand on the small of her back to push her forward.

But Indy just wouldn’t have been Indy if he didn’t take every opportunity to make a situation uncomfortable. He laughed the moment he saw us. No doubt because it was the middle of the night, Memphis was wrapped only in a blanket, and there wasn’t a single square inch of me that was dry.

“So, watcha been doing?” he asked and leaned forward on the countertop to rest his chin in his hands.

“Good night, Indy,” I said and continued to push Memphis through the kitchen toward the hallway. She picked up the pace significantly the closer that we made it to her escape from his prying eyes.

“Details in the morning, my friends!” Indy called after us.

“I can never speak to him again,” Memphis whispered when she stopped just outside her door.

“You’re the only one who’s uncomfortable about it, angel. He’s just nosey. And maybe a little pervy.”

She looked from me to her door, and then back to me again before her eyes finally dropped to the floor.

“Is this where I’m supposed to ask if you’ll call me tomorrow?” She asked.

I couldn’t keep from chuckling “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

“No. No, of course not. That’s weird, right? Too much too soon and all that. We haven’t even talked about —. I don’t know what this makes —.”

I stepped all the way against her to squish her into me and kissed the top of her head.

“There’s nothing to overthink, Memphis. I’ll just be upstairs. I’ll be there all night, like I am every other night. I’ll be in the kitchen in the morning, like I am every other morning. If you want me to call you from my own room the moment I open my eyes, I will. You’ll be pissed because it’s earlier than you usually care to consider starting your day, but I’ll do it.”

“There’s no way this is real life,” she whispered into my chest.

“What?”

She shook her head and forced herself back half a step to get some space between us. She stood up on her toes and leaned into me to kiss my cheek.

“Thank you, Utah.”

I waited there until she closed the door between us before I went upstairs to shower and collapse into my own bed to replay the entire day in my mind.

Pleasing a woman had never been something I struggled with. I very much enjoyed it. Controlling how and when a woman fell apart at my command was always pleasant. I’d satisfied women. I’d taken virginity. I didn’t hurt anyone unless they wanted me to. I was willing to do just about anything that was asked of me during sex. Most things were fair game, because why the hell not? It was a fucking blast to give a woman exactly what she wanted.

All of that meant I was a pretty safe bet for a good time.

So, sex wasn’t new for me.

Being involved in sex when it allowed a woman to regain some form of control and power over her own body, and whatever happened in her mind in regard to sex, though? That was brand fucking new. That was most definitely not a role I had ever played. It was probably the tamest I’d ever been as far as the actions themselves were concerned, but I was under the impression it was exactly what she’d needed anyway.

It only took me about a quarter of a second past thinking about the way she’d said my real name before I decided I wanted to be anything Memphis needed. Whether that meant she needed someone to teach her to drive, someone to take her to a bar, someone to look at the stars with, or someone to fuck her right back to life, it was all going to be with me.