Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(29)

In the background, somebody on the television screamed.

He brought his hands to hook around her sides, over her ribs, intending to push her off. But she felt so good. He couldn’t feel the press of her body against his scar, not the swell of her breasts on him, but still he could feel her everywhere else. He could feel her inside, making his heart thump. She turned her head and kissed his chest.

“Adrienne.” The break in his nose compounded by the turmoil in his heart made his voice sound gruff and strange to his own ears, almost mechanic.

She tipped her head back and looked up at him. Her hair swayed softly and brushed over his hands.

She’d seen the worst of him—body and soul, she’d seen the worst. And what he saw in her vivid blue eyes was not fear or revulsion. He recognized exactly what he saw.

“Adrienne, I love you.”

Her smile was sweet and sincere. “I love you, too.”

As he bent down to kiss her, he slid his hands down her sides and over her hips, clutching her thighs and pulling her up off the ground. Without hesitation, she circled his hips with her legs, the flowing skirt she still wore wrapping around them both. He walked back to the bed.

Putting his knee on the mattress, he laid her down and followed right after to lie over her, shifting a little to the side so that he wouldn’t crush her, and so he could touch her. When his hand came around and cupped her breast—small in his palm, but pert, tipped with a pink nipple standing erect—she arched way up, pushing herself hard into his hand, and she tore her mouth from his with a cry.

“Wait!” Her word was nothing but a breath.

At once, he moved his hand from her and pushed it instead into the mattress, propping himself up farther, lifting his wrecked chest completely away. “I’ll stop. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t stop. I just need to go a little slower, okay? My head is…” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Just slower. But not stopping.”

The movie was over and had started playing the menu screen on a loop. Badger reached over for the remote and turned it off. “Okay. Slow as you want. Are you okay?”

“I’m with you. So yeah.” She brought her hands to his head and combed his hair out so that it draped around them, closing them off. He leaned down and kissed her, moving his hand to rest on her hip. Her hipbone was sharp on his palm.

Kissing Adrienne made his chest hurt in a wonderful way. Her tongue was small and silky, and she was not shy at all. She sucked and nipped and licked, making sweet little sounds as if she thought he was delicious. And she definitely was. He wanted to taste all of her. So he finally tore himself away from her pretty mouth. He kissed the dimple in her chin and then worked his way along her jawline and down her neck. She smelled and tasted perfect. Not like flowers or fruit. Just like her, but it was perfect. And so much of her skin was touching him.

Never before had he felt like this. He’d lost his virginity in the clubhouse. He’d never been with anybody but club girls. Adrienne was the only civilian he’d ever kissed, and, until tonight, he’d never done more than kiss her. He’d never even kissed her anywhere but her lips. And now she was under him, her breath so heavy that every inhale brought her tighter to him, her hands clutching at his shoulders. It was as if she had forgotten what he looked like, as if it really didn’t matter. He didn’t know if he could stand to go slow for much longer.

Needing more touch, he moved his hand carefully back to her breast and held it again. Again, she arched into his palm, but this time she didn’t cry out. This time, she moaned and flexed her hips, still covered in yards of skirt. She ground lightly against his thigh, and he had to stop and rest his forehead on her collarbone for a second. When he brushed his thumb over the hard little pebble of her nipple, she jumped and whimpered, and he had to taste her.

He moved down, kissing and licking over her collarbone and her shoulder, brushing his beard lightly over the tender skin at the join of her arm and her chest until she squirmed. The experience of her supple body writhing against him, in his hands, was indescribable. His cock strained inside his jeans, and he flexed his hips against her thigh.

In response, her leg slid between his and pressed hard to his groin, and he thought he’d die. Then he took her breast into his mouth, and he was sure of it.

She moaned and hugged her arms around his head, holding him where he was, his mouth on her, drawing her nipple against his tongue. Now their hips were flexing together, grinding on each other, and f*ck, he was going to lose it in his jeans. He released her breast with a grunt and pushed up, then dropped his head to her chest, breathless.

He’d wanted to go slow, to treat her right. To take care. To prepare her for who he was now. To make her ready for his horror. But she’d seen it, his darkness inside and out, and she’d writhed against him, her body moving so hard on his that he could feel her on his dead chest. Now he felt her heartbeat thrum rapidly on his forehead, and he said quietly, “Adrienne, if we don’t stop now, I don’t think I’ll be able to.”

Her hands came to his face, sliding into his beard, and she lifted his head and looked hard into his eyes.

“We’re not stopping. We’re tired of stopping, remember?”

“I hurt you.” He brushed her lower lip, still bearing the mark of the worst thing he’d ever done. “How can you trust me?”

“I know you, Badge. I love you. It wasn’t you that hit me. You’re not going to use again, are you?”