“Yeah, my pink cheeks. I need to make you come.”
“I was sleeping.” Her voice is hoarse from the long night.
“So?”
Blinking slowly, she looks as if she may return to dreamland for a moment before she replies, “So you woke me up by fucking me.”
“And there’s somethingwrongwith that?”
“Well…”
“Well, better get used to it.”
“Mm, it-I-uh…” She’s nonsensical, just the way I like her. Neck raising toward the ceiling as she arches her back with the ecstasy only my dick provides.
“Tell me who makes you feel like this. Who is it who controls your pleasure?”
Her nails dig into my forearms as I lean over her face.
“Tell me, my love.”
With a whisper, she breathes what I’ve longed to hear. “You.”
Then she screams as her inner muscles clamp down on me, milking me for all I’m worth. Unable to stay up, I collapse on her, pressing my mouth over hers and soaking in the air she exhales into my lungs. The air I now breathe.
Swathing my tongue, I swallow her morning flavor, which is the most likePenelope. The water I now drink.
My teeth gather her bottom lip and apply pressure as she squeals, a pop of iron heat flushing my taste buds. “The blood I now bleed,” I say as I devour it.
“You’re insane.” She firms her mouth into a line, sucking on her bite.
I sit up on my thighs and slip out of her. An uncontainable grin stretches my face as I drag the back of my hand along my chin, wiping up our saliva. “Yeah, and you like it.”
“Out of all the men I could have been appointed to…”
Her words stab me like a dagger. With one swift movement, I grip the back of her neck and raise her off the mattress until we’re face to face. “Finish that fucking sentence.”
Black lashes tickle my cheeks as she looks down between us, a gasp escaping her chest. “Sometimes, Ryan, you scare me.”
“I love you more than I love myself, Pen. I’ll never let something happen to you.”
When she lifts her gaze, apprehension hangs on the whites of her eyes. “Do you really?”
A short huff comes from the back of my throat. She still doubts. “Yes.”
“You don’t know me.”
This makes my pain turn to riotous joy. Her arms jerk when I grasp them and force her face to mine, gathering her up for a tight kiss. With a sigh, I release her and leap from the bed, then slide into a pair of shorts.
“I know you like soft center-cut bacon, but no eggs for breakfast. You enjoy the feeling of your Harley under you as you take some of the back country roads. Math is not your forte, but that’s okay, because you read textbooks like a voracious vampire. It’s impressive.”
I move to the sink and run some water through my unruly black, shaggy locks. It moves into the design I like with ease. “I know which toothpaste you use and that you feel the need to floss every time you eat strawberries. Hell, I even know your brand of jumbo tampons and the pads you prefer on your light days. They’re right here, by the way.” With a toe, I point to the lower cabinet where I stashed them.
From a dresser drawer, I produce a clean, white T-shirt and pull it over my head. I search for the shoes I need from the closet while continuing. “Oz was the closest person to you, though you never told him about us, which makes me think you’re notashamed, but you’reafraid. Scared your father, Adal, and he would take freedom away from you. Like they’re the keepers of it.”
As I slide my feet into a pair of leather sandals, I give her a broad smile and cross my arms, leaning against the door to the hall. “You’re fiercely independent, but never had the opportunity to be on your own. Still timid that you may need someone to watch over you while you try things out and search for what you want.”
When I lick my bottom lip, she leans forward, her eyes growing wider. She gathers the comforter and holds it over her chest as I say my final analysis. “Because Iknowthat what Pippi Freidenberg wants most is to be independent, but tohave someone to do it with.”