Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(38)

“Oh. Oh God,” River gasped, feeling her loins tighten and quiver. “Yes.”

When Vaughn forced them both fully up onto the bed, the gravitational press of his body robbed River of lucid thought. As if every component of their beings craved contact, their left hands met and held above River’s head. “This is where I’d turn you over and f*ck anything I want to hear out of your mouth, isn’t it?” His right hand slid between their married hips, the pad of his thumb giving her clit the attention it craved. “This kitty likes when you’re on all fours, doesn’t it? You could never get that ass up in the air fast enough. Fuck, the way you used to look at me over your shoulder. Come get it, big daddy.” He broke off on a growl, releasing the hand he’d pinned above her head in order to grip her leg. “Next time. This time I’m begging to get back between these thighs. Permanently. I want it every goddamn day.”

River’s right knee was jerked up to her shoulder, Vaughn coming at her from an angle that ripped a scream from her mouth. Every pound of his formidable body drove her across the bed, her hands alternating between slapping him across the face and yanking his hair, urging him closer. Here was familiar. This place where her lover—Vaughn, always Vaughn—stole her humanity. Turned her into a climax-hungry animal, clawing, reaching, twisting.

And then the orgasm pummeled River, locking her muscles into a shaking tangle with Vaughn’s. She could hear his voice in the distance—and he was angry, in a breathless, awed sort of way.

“No. No. I needed you to take me back first,” Vaughn shouted into her shoulder, seconds before he lifted his head, giving River a front row seat to his eyes going blank, his jaw slackening. His masculine rumble of completion pushed her higher, prolonging the climax, doubling its potency. “Finally coming in what’s mine again. Finally. Finally. Say the words, doll. Please.”

She found the strength to move her head, pushing her lips up against his ear. “My body will always be yours, Vaughn. Always.”

With a broken sound, Vaughn moved down River’s body, slipping his sweaty forehead between her breasts. “Need this heart back, too. This beautiful heart.” He turned his ear to her chest, listening for a moment to the rapid beat before nodding, pressing his lips to the fluttering flesh directly above the clenching organ. “I’m sorry to you most of all.”





Chapter Sixteen


Vaughn could barely keep his eyes on the road as he drove River home. God, with the amount of time he’d spent inside her body in his lifetime, one would think he’d have had an accurate memory of the sensation. The clenching, the sliding, the push and pull. In his mind, his groin, his stomach. Everywhere. They were f*cking magic in bed together. There was no way around it. Before setting eyes on River that day in the school parking lot, he’d been with other girls. Not hundreds, but enough that he needed two hands to count. And yet something deep in the pit of his soul had compelled him to wait for River once they’d met eyes, swearing off all others. Thank God for that elusive something. Thank God.

A similar prayer had gone into tattooing her name across his chest. He’d been working a security job, escorting the family of a visiting businessman to and from their various activities while the guy worked. One afternoon, while waiting for the wife to emerge from a lunch meeting, he’d been standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, and swore he’d seen River walk by. He’d run. Without a thought, he’d been in a dead sprint toward the feather-light blonde hair floating on the wind. His lungs were burning, eyes gritty by the time he stopped, realizing he must have imagined her.

That night, he’d gone home and, using a prison yard technique, added her name to his flesh, ink and blood drying into the carved up skin. Maybe enjoying the pain meant he was sick, but he’d needed to divert the ache coming from deeper inside. And with the pain of being without River growing worse with each passing day, he’d known getting over her was a pipe dream. So he’d resigned himself to living with the agony and needed a representation of it. Something tangible.

Showing River tonight what he’d done had been the ultimate high, although he couldn’t account for why. He only knew watching her eyes run over the letters, hearing her breath catch, had healed something he’d thought never would be soothed, a raging that had been living under his bones for so long.

Unfortunately, she yet hadn’t vocalized whether she would allow the soothing balm she provided to spread over every part of him. She hadn’t put him out of his misery and taken him back. While he appreciated her need to be cautious and process everything through the eyes of adulthood, it was killing him. The silence, the fact that no part of them was touching…everything about waiting hurt.

Vaughn pulled his truck to a stop outside River’s house and cut the engine, neither of them making a move to alight. “Something tells me my house is a wreck.”

His mouth edged up. “Hire a cleaning service, and we’ll send Duke the bill.”

“Or we could just put him in a maid outfit and have him clean it himself.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Vaughn laughed. When the sound faded, he knew the elephant in the truck had to be addressed. “Look, Riv—”

“Yes,” she blurted.

His pulse skittered, hands clutching the steering wheel so hard they shook. “Yes to what?”