Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(36)

“I should be more sorry,” she breathed. “I know I should, but I can’t be.”

She was so damn beautiful, blonde hair fanned out behind her on the bed, it took Vaughn a moment to speak through the crowding of emotion. “I’m not sorry, either, River. You hear me?” He swallowed the growing lump in his throat. “I’ll thank God every day for the rest of my life you did what you did. It’s why we’re here together now.”

…

For long moments, they simply breathed into each other’s mouths, blue eyes searching brown, but those exhales turned to pants in short order. River’s relief had freed her, blowing exhilaration up her spine. He’d loved her. Vaughn had loved her, and he didn’t condemn her now for the reckless attempt to reach him she’d made in the heat of the moment, trying to connect with him some how, some way.

Laying on that crappy motel bed, they were survivors of a self-imposed disaster, and healing became River’s sole purpose, her hands raking down Vaughn’s back to grasp the tight curve of his buttocks, encouraging him to rock against her, to use her as shelter from the fallout from the truth bomb they’d just set off.

“Take me hard,” River husked, licking the rough skin of Vaughn’s neck as it vibrated with a starved growl. “Make me scream. Make me feel you in my stomach.”

Her last word ended on a moan when Vaughn pulled her wrists up, crossing them above her head, driving into the notch of her thighs at the same time. “You think after forty-nine months and six days without my woman’s *, I’m going to make love to her like some soppy f*cking poet, Riv?” He craned his neck to hiss against the valley between her breasts. “Spread your thighs. The way you did that night for my bare cock.”

Wicked flashes of pleasure went off at the tips of her nerve endings, a reaction her body knew would only ever come from Vaughn. But something he’d said paused the progress of her knees falling open. “Forty-nine months and six days…”

She gasped when Vaughn caught her jaw, his fingers firm and unyielding. “No one else. You hear me? There’s been no one else.” Using both of his knees, he widened her thighs with a merciless push. “I’ve spent this whole time behaving as if we were married. It’s the only way I could stay sane. Making believe you were my wife and I’d see you when I got home at night. Maybe I’m a crazy man. I don’t know. I don’t—”

River freed one of her hands locked above her head, slapping it over Vaughn’s mouth. Her heart had reached its fill line and brimmed over. It couldn’t handle another jolt from the invisible electric paddles in Vaughn’s hands. Between them, their harsh breaths whirled, chests heaving as they stared across the scant inch separating their mouths. “You’re my crazy man.” She tilted her hips beneath him, sliding them back and forth against his huge, protruding erection. “Remind me how crazy, Vaughn.”

His eyes flickered from aroused to grave for a split second. “Be careful what you wish for, doll.” Throat working up and down, Vaughn reached behind his head, snagged his shirt and yanked it off, baring the rough-hewn body of her fantasies. But, oh God, it was different. Different didn’t do it justice.

River reached out with gentle fingers and traced the jagged, violent, inked-over scars marring his once-perfect chest. Scars carved in the shape of her name, so crude they appeared as if they’d been inflicted with a dagger. A sound tripped over her trembling lips. “What did you do?”

“I needed something to remind me I’d been lucky once,” Vaughn murmured. “I know it’s not pretty, Riv, but that ain’t nothing compared to waking up and trying to…exist without you.”

His admission cut the leash on something wild inside of her. Frantic for a more substantial connection with the man staring down at her like he could suck in his final breath at any moment, River wedged her hands between them, unbuttoning Vaughn’s jeans. Heavy lids came down to conceal his eyes, that stubbled jaw going slack. “Do you have a—”

“In my pocket.” Vaughn’s eyes blazed open. “Wrap it up this time, you understand? I need about ten years of f*cking you without a break. Just want to slide right up inside my woman’s * and remind the back of it what my tip feels like.” He slipped a hand between River’s thighs, twisting his hand in her panties and tearing them off. “Mmmm. You kept it warm for me.”

“Yes.” Lord, she’d missed the way he spoke to her. The way no one had ever dared, as if they were two objects put on this earth for the sole purpose of providing pleasure, giving them permission to touch, talk, move how they wanted. With frantic fingers, she delved into his pocket to locate the condom, holding it between her teeth as she unzipped his pants, whimpering and sobbing the whole time.

The muscles in Vaughn’s arms, neck, and chest flexed, his eyes squeezed closed, his mouth chanting the word hurry, again and again. River thought he would drive himself inside her the moment she’d seen to their protection—she needed him to—

but he took her by surprise, sliding off the bed’s edge and positioning his mouth just above her damp femininity, hovering there as he perused her beneath half-closed lids.

River lifted her hips with a needy sound. “Please.”

“Stop that begging,” he growled. “I’m doing this right, begging for you this time around.” His stiffened tongue dragged through her folds. “Asking you to please let me ram my cock into this pretty flesh. Need it. Need you. Need you so bad.”