Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1)(83)

He sank his fingers into her hair, pulled her closer, and kissed her. She came to him so easily, like she knew this was where she belonged and how they should be: the two of them kissing in the cold, their bodies creating more heat between them than the fire just a few feet away. Above them the sky had long since tumbled into star-spotted night, and below them the earth was fresh and real like the way Chloe made him feel. Her cool hands pressed against his flushed cheeks and her lush mouth joined with his, and he loved her so much his heart felt too big for his body.

So this was bone-deep contentment. He’d almost forgotten, for a while.





CHAPTER TWENTY


Around Red, Chloe tended to talk a lot. But there was something about this kiss, this hungry, hopeful, heart-filled kiss, that pushed her gently into silence, like sliding underwater and blocking out all sounds from the outside world. He surrounded her now. He held her tight. Even when their lips parted, when his hands left her so he could put out the fire, when he unzipped the tent flap and sat back on his knees so she could crawl in first, he was still holding her somehow, deep inside in a way that soothed her. So she didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She was drowning in long-coming lust, and soon she’d be under him.

Lord, she couldn’t wait to be under him.

Red crawled in after her, zipped up the tent’s flap, and they were plunged into an odd almost-darkness that seemed otherworldly. She could make out the vague shape of him, those broad shoulders and the fall of his hair unmistakable even as shadowy outlines. And she had the oddest, deliciously heavy feeling that he was looking right at her.

But the feeling faded as he turned away, fiddling with something she couldn’t see. After a moment, she heard a click—and then there was light. Chloe blinked as her eyes adjusted, then gawked as reality filtered in. Somehow, he’d wreathed strings of fairy lights all around the tent, glowing pinpricks that illuminated the small mountain of blankets and cushions.

She stared, awed. “Oh my goodness. This is what you were messing around with earlier?”

“When you were shouting at me to hurry up and feed you? Yeah.” He winked. “Honestly, the things I put up with.”

Her heart was a burning, brilliant thing lodged against her ribs. “Red, why did you do all this?”

“For you,” he said, as though it was obvious. “It’s always for you.”

Camping had been on her list because it seemed gritty and normal and slightly scary and more than a bit of a challenge, but truthfully, she’d barely wanted to do it. Now, in this moment, she realized just how magical Red had made it. Not only by arranging everything, by making her laugh all day, by remembering her limitations so she didn’t have to constantly point them out—but with things like this. Things like the marshmallows. The extra effort he put in to make this a wonderful experience instead of a checked box.

She looked up at him, his hair gleaming like silken flames, his beautiful face still flushed and his lower lip caught between his teeth, and she realized that his sharp eyes studied her with something like trepidation. As if he was nervous. As if he wanted to know that she liked it.

How could he doubt that she loved it? How could he doubt that she loved him, that she wanted him and trusted him and hungered to do everything with him just for the joy of experiencing his reactions?

She was in love with Redford Morgan, and quite horribly, too. It smacked her over the head so hard she felt dizzy. She should be afraid, should want to hide it, but the knowledge lit her up until she felt just like the fairy lights, and hiding that would be something close to a sin.

But the feeling had come on too fast, surely, for him to feel the same, so she wouldn’t blurt it out yet. Instead, she told him, “I adore you,” and it was truer than her heartbeat.

He smiled, his worry easing in an instant as he crawled toward her, his proximity shrinking the already-cramped space. “Oh, do you?”

She couldn’t believe she’d said something so emotional, so honest, but she also didn’t want to take it back. She’d started all of this in order to be brave, and now, for the first time in a long time, she felt it. If she were to die tomorrow, she wouldn’t have regrets anymore. “I do. I really, really do.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Button.” He pushed her back against the cushions and she laughed as she bounced a little on the blow-up mattress. But the laughter faded in her throat when Red lowered his body over hers, pressing her firmly into the blankets, grounding her and whipping her into a frenzy all at once. Her lips—and her legs—parted on a gasp. He kissed her jaw and whispered against her skin, “So. You gonna let me slide inside that pretty pussy tonight, Chlo?”

“Yes,” she breathed, trying to arch up against him. But she couldn’t because there was no space between them in the first place, the hard planes of his body forced intimately against hers, her legs wrapping around his waist as if they were puzzle pieces slotted perfectly together.

“Good.” He kissed, then licked, then sucked the base of her throat. She shivered at the hot, wet love, at the lust it stirred between her thighs, and wondered if he could tell her pulse was racing. He must be able to hear the way her breaths sped up and grew ragged, must feel her hips trying their best to rock against his. Her clit was already swollen and needy and desperate for a little more pressure, for sweet friction. He didn’t provide it. Instead, both of his hands found both of hers and he twined their fingers together. Through their clothes, she could feel his hard cock wedged tight against her cleft—and yet, all he did was hold her hands.