Neat (Becker Brothers, #2)(65)

“It’s stupid,” she said, tucking the edge of the sheet behind the top corner of the frame.

My hand jutted out, catching her wrist, the sheet falling to the floor in a puddle at our feet. I was still staring at the photo, unable to take my eyes away until I pulled Mallory into me. I tilted my chin down then, looking into the eyes of an artist. “It’s incredible.”

“Really?” she whispered.

I shook my head, swallowing, not knowing what the right thing was to say in that moment. Instead, I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and then bent ever so slowly to kiss her cheek. She sighed at the contact, hands reaching for the edge of my vest, and she pulled me in, not letting me back away.

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” I said, searching her eyes. “I don’t have the right words to tell you what it means to me. Thank you.”

She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against mine with a relieved sigh. “I wished I could have revealed it tonight, shown it to everyone, you know? I wish…” She swallowed, hands tightening into fists around the fabric of my vest. “I wish so many things.”

“What do you wish for most?”

“You.”

She answered quickly and effortlessly, sending my heart into a spiraling rhythm. My hands trailed up her arms, sliding to hold her neck gently, her forehead still pressed to mine.

“You can have me, Mallory,” I whispered. “If you want me, I’m yours.”

“I’m scared,” she confessed, her voice trembling with the admission.

I pulled her closer, our noses touching now, lips centimeters apart. “I’m fucking terrified.”

She laughed, the sound barely a whisper, but thick with emotion. Then, she pulled back, her blue eyes flicking between mine. “I’m sorry I ran last night.”

I nodded, brushing her jaw with the pad of my thumbs. “It’s okay.”

“Are we absolutely insane, or just somewhat certifiable?”

“Oh, we’re a special kind of crazy, that’s for sure.”

“Good,” she said, pushing up onto her toes. “I never liked being sane, anyway.”

Mallory pulled my lips to hers, and the way she kissed me was so desperate, so thick with need, I was sure I was her lifeline. The oxygen she needed existed in my lungs, the shelter and protection she craved was provided by my hands, the care and understanding she’d been searching for, she found in my embrace.

And I found all I’d ever wanted in her.

She was the spontaneous to my well planned, the art to my logic, the unexpected welcome to my day-to-day routine I didn’t even realize was suffocating me.

In that moment, I took my first breath on a new life with her.

We stayed connected at every point as we floundered up the stairs — hands in hair, lips locked, legs and limbs tangling and claiming until her back hit the comforter of her bed. The only light was the soft glow from the lamp in her living area, and that warm light spread over her like the glow of the sun as I stared down at her. My fingers began working open the buttons on my vest first, then my shirt, all the while with my eyes devouring that diamond of a woman I managed to find in the rough of Stratford, Tennessee.

She leaned up quickly when I moved for the button on my pants, clamping her hand over mine. I stopped, and she peered up at me, scooting until she sat at the edge of the bed. “Let me.”

My breath was heavy in my lungs, chest rising and falling as I watched her hands carefully, slowly, shakily unfasten the button on my jeans. She tugged the zipper down equally as slow, pulling the denim off my hips, down my thighs, letting them pool at my ankles. Her lips parted when she saw my erection under the black briefs I wore, and she ran her hand over the bulge, making my next breath nearly impossible to take.

It was too much already, seeing her below me like that — her blue eyes on my shaft, and then looking up at me, her lips parted, hot breath touching the sensitive skin of my abdomen. She pulled at the band on my briefs, glancing up at me through her lashes before her tongue slicked out and over the tip of me. I hissed, hands fisting at my side, and she gave me a wicked grin before pushing my briefs the rest of the way down, and wrapping her warm hand around my shaft.

It was ridiculous, the jolt of energy that pulsed through me at her touch. She pumped, and I flexed, and she grinned, and my eyes fluttered like I was being touched by Aphrodite herself. When she lowered her mouth again, this time swirling her tongue around the tip once, twice, a little lower, a little lower still, before taking me in completely — I lost it.

My hips flexed forward, sinking deep inside her mouth as my hands found a home in her hair. I gripped and pulled, earning me a satisfied moan from her that vibrated around my cock. I grunted my own approval, and she started to work — bobbing and sucking, alternating sinful, teasing licks with taking me so deep she gagged.

Mallory released me long enough to flip herself on the bed until she was lying on her back, head hanging off the edge, and then her hands reached around me, grabbing my ass and pulling me back to her. She took me in her mouth again, and this time, the new angle of her throat allowed deeper penetration, and the hottest fucking view I’d ever had in my life.

She was spread out on the bed, t-shirt hiked up so much from her flipping over that the bottom of her breasts peeked out from the hem. They bounced with every gentle thrust of my cock inside her mouth, and I reached forward, tracing the bottom of them before I squeezed. She moaned, making my eyes roll back, and I continued my trail down her toned stomach, dipping one hand beneath the band of her sleep shorts. My fingers skated between her lips, and I groaned, circling her clit and slipping one finger inside her easily.