Loved Either Way, page 35
He still felt like that’s where he wanted Jacob to be.
“Do you want to take five minutes to check out the progress on your wall—” Malachi’s offer quieted when a beep interrupted him. He pulled the reason for the disturbance out of the pack pocket of his jeans, his gaze drawn into whatever he found on the screen.
Something good, Lucas thought.
It had to be.
The man grinned like a cat licking cream.
“What about the wall piece?” Lucas asked.
Malachi’s gaze darted upward to find Lucas waiting with his bag hanging from his hand before he pulled the back hatch closed. “Gracen is up to something—I can’t tell you what, or even what I just saw, but she is.” He put his phone away, stuffing it back into his pocket. “And now I have something I need to do in the house. Right now, actually.”
Lucas chuckled. “That important?”
“Something like that,” the man returned, smirking. “I suspect you probably want to say hello and catch up with Delaney for a bit, right?”
“That was my plan, yeah.”
Malachi’s head bobbed up and down. “Good, good.” He waved a finger between the two of them, saying, “And we’ll meet back up later—pizza and beer, eh?”
“Absolutely. I know where to find you.”
“Sure do,” Malachi replied, clapping Lucas on the shoulder as he walked on by, making a fast beeline for the house. Over his shoulder, he called, “The stairs for the apartment are around the east side.”
Lucas waved two fingers high. “Got it, thanks.”
The first time he visited the property, Lucas had not explored the apartment Malachi said had been built overtop of the garage. Apparently, Delaney’s friend and her partner had been using it as office space and extra storage for their home-based businesses, between the salon and wood working, but didn’t need the extra room in a pinch.
Hence, the offer for Delaney to rent it.
Which she had.
Knowing she would be a couple of hours further upriver than she had initially been when they first met made the time Lucas had been able to carve out for a weekend with her more special. Sacred, in a way, because they didn’t have a lot of it.
So, he didn’t want to waste any of it.
Lucas took the wooden steps on the far side of the garage two at a time. Salt, sprinkled liberally up the steps to keep them from getting icy, crunched under his shoes until he reached the large rubber mat on the landing at the top.
Someone else waited there for him, too.
Delaney yanked open the frosted glass door—similar to the main house, but smaller—with a happy shriek. “You lied—you told me you were in Woodstock!”
Lucas’ responding laugh at his trick having worked became muffled into the sweet-smelling crown of Delaney’s black hair when she engulfed his middle into the tightest hug of his life. Stopping at the edge of The Valley to finish his conversation with Lawrence proved useful when Delaney called right after, and he convinced her that he was farther away than was true.
To see her smile so big.
Just because her arms couldn’t reach all the way around him didn’t stop Delaney from trying, or taking the breath out of his lungs, either. Lucas laughed at her hard squeeze, and hugged her back with one arm while he used his other to keep the two steady and safe on the twenty-foot-high landing by holding onto the railing.
He kissed the top of her head in quick succession, murmuring, “God, yeah, I missed you, too.”
He heard what she didn’t say.
What her hug did.
Delaney chose that moment to tipped her head back, resting her chin on the middle of his chest while she grinned up at him, eyes sparkling. “I’m making something for lunch—and I stocked up on beer, which this goes perfect with. I promise. Are you hungry?”
His stomach chose that moment to make itself known.
She just laughed. “That’s a yes?”
“I got right on the road this morning,” he offered, “so that’s a big yes.”
Delaney pushed up on her tiptoes with lips pursed for a kiss that he happily provided, and the two lingered in that soft moment until she pulled away for a breath first. “Are you opposed to a very cheesy casserole?”
His favorite kind.
Especially with pasta.
Like the woman in his arms could read his mind, Delaney said, “I used spaghetti. Mushroom and tomato soup. Ground beef, and fry up a can of mushrooms. I’m sure you can figure out what happens to all the cheese.”
Yes, yes he could.
Lucas didn’t get to cook for himself as much as he liked, but that sounded like the type of meal he would make just to be able to reheat and enjoy again in the next couple of days. Leftovers made the best meals.
“For lunch?” he asked. “I heard someone was getting pizza tonight, too.” Lucas brow lifted high, and Delaney winked at the unspoken suggestion that the two things were not coincidental. “That’s a lot of good food.”
“I see Malachi didn’t miss you, then,” Delaney noted.
“Nope, but he—”
“Got distracted with something,” she interjected, a sly grin forming.
“You did something,” he accused.
Delaney only laughed, spinning away and out of his arms to turn and enter the quiet, bright apartment. Four windows in the small kitchen gave a full view of the garage facing the front of the property leading up to the road, while standing in front of the sink overlooked the fields in the back and the tree-capped peninsula range on the horizon.
Lucas hung his bag on the coat rack by the door, kicking off his boots next to Delaney’s on the entrance mat as well. “What did you do?”
“Well, nothing, really,” she said at the stove where she’d left a tinfoil topped glass casserole dish sitting on the top. Opening the oven door, she put the casserole inside, closed it up, and then turned the light to have a view through the glass on the outside. Smiling back at him, she shrugged and explained, “I may have asked Gracen to give Malachi something to do when you got here so that I didn’t have to share you with anyone else for a while. I mean, I’m glad he likes you and all, and not to mention, Gracen said he needs to make more friends, but—”
“You didn’t want to share me.”
“Like I said, I may have said something like that, yes,” Delaney returned, unconcerned.
“Did you, now?”
“Yep. Not apologizing for it, either.”
Good.
He wouldn’t want her to.
The news made his chest ache, and his lips stretch wide with a toothy, stupid smile. Delaney, who had turned to fiddle with the timer on a stove that was probably new to her considering she had just moved in the day before, finally got twenty-five minutes on the clock before turning around to find Lucas had caged her in at the stove.
Not that she looked bothered.
Those wide, beautiful eyes of hers locked onto his, and she tipped her head back to catch his oncoming kiss without a word. Not quick or soft like their one at the top of the step, he found the tang of mint on her tongue when his finally coaxed her mouth open. She practically melted into him, her hands finding their way in between the half-lowered zipper of his fleece-lined spring jacket to his chest overtop of his shirt.
He suddenly forgot about the rest of the apartment he hadn’t seen, and the promise of beer more than one person had mentioned after his arrival. He didn’t even notice the way the kitchen smelled like good, hearty food already, but he felt the way Delaney trembled as she drew in a shaky breath as their kiss finally broke.
Not that the two moved apart.
“Did someone go to town?” he asked.
By someone, he only meant her.
“I did—I got groceries and a few things,” she said, still happy to gaze up at him while her index finger stroked his pec.
A trip to town would be a big step for her. She’d admitted to him that her biggest fear about returning to the area close to her hometown were all the familiar faces she might run into on any given day. Including ones who might not be happy to see her.
“And?” he asked. “How’d it go?”
“I got the food. The beer, too.”
At that, Delaney reached over to open the bottom door of the white fridge for Lucas to see the case of canned beer, and a six-pack of No Boats on Sunday apple cider, sitting on the bottom shelf above the crispers. She moved to close the door, but he stopped her, taking a second look at the beer.
The familiar emblem—a moose’s head—couldn’t be missed.
“Since when do you drink Moosehead?” he asked.
Gracen winked. “It’s about the loyalty, right?”
Jesus Christ.
This woman was perfect.
Everything he wanted.
Lucas closed the fridge for her, grabbed Delaney’s face in his hands, and pulled her in for a hard kiss that muffled her giggles. “Love. You. So. Much.”
Every word followed another kiss.
She kissed him back for the last.
Lucas swallowed Delaney into a hug, refusing to get sentimental over beer. Well, not any more than he already did. “Yeah, fuck—damn, I missed you.”
She hummed happily against his chest, squirming in her oversized hoodie and black sweatpants the longer they stayed tucked together, arms wrapped tight.
The glittering of her eyes when she lifted her head again and the way her teeth pulled at her lower lip did wicked things to his mind—he knew that promising look of hers well.
“Well, guess what?” she asked.
Lucas smirked. “Do tell, sweets. I’m all ears for you.”
She tapped an almond shaped fingernail, painted matte black, against his chest. “You’ve got twenty-five minutes to show me how much you missed me before this oven beeps.”
Lucas wet his lips. “Oh, really?”
Delaney nodded, eyebrows lifting suggestively. “I mean, that’s just before food … of course.”
She wasn’t wrong, and they did have time to make up for.
Chapter 35
Delaney couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than naked in bed with Lucas. With his arms snaked around her lower half, he used her stomach as a pillow where his lips grazed dangerously low on her bare pubic bone.
“I’m not going to pick a game if you’re just going to start doing that again,” Delaney threatened, semi-serious. She faked throwing the Nintendo remote but the way he kissed, and then suckled, over the same spot had her grabbing the gray and black plastic even tighter. “God, you’re insatiable.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, shimmying lower on the bed to where his shoulders held open her thighs, “but that’s what you get for making me come like I was getting a handjob for the first time.”
He only needed a little while to recuperate.
And made every minute worth her while.
Of course, the timer on the oven beeped right about then, too. Maybe she could have convinced him to wait for food, but she also got to enjoy the sight of Lucas’ bare rear end heading out of the bedroom, arms full of dirty dishes, so the extra wait wasn’t so bad after all. Delaney then got the Nintendo up and running to play Mario while Lucas worked on clearing a second plate of food at the end of her bed.
Good thing he liked the casserole.
Eventually, after finishing the food, and coming back with an opened beer for both of them, Lucas made his way back to Delaney on the bed.
Hence, his current position.
Lucas grinned up at her, the day-old scruff on his chin scratching deliciously along her already sensitive skin. “Come on, you’ve tried three times to get through that level, now—”
“First of all,” Delaney told him, pausing the game so she could put all of her attention on him, “I am working on banking my infinite lives.”
Lucas smirked, saying only, “And now I get to make you feel alive—which one’s better?”
It wasn’t a real question.
The way his face lowered so his mouth could latch onto the most intimate part of her body had Delaney melting back into the pile of pillows behind her with a shiver. He had this thing that he did with his mouth and tongue. Kind of like the way he suckled on her pubic bone, but he did it around the hood of her clit while his tongue worked against the throbbing bud. The mixture of pressure and the repeated sensation while he slipped a thumb into her pussy to toy with the slick arousal he found there was enough to undo Delaney.
In mere minutes, really.
If he did it hard and fast—like earlier after she’d gotten him into her bedroom and naked on the mattress and box spring still sitting on the floor—the intensity could take her to orgasm in thirty seconds. It also left her almost too sensitive to the touch, and squealing from the way her body wanted to lift against the fast rise of pressure.
It wasn’t quite the same when he did it slowly.
Like now.
Instead of her eyes squeezed shut to deal with the overwhelming rush taking her over, she had her gaze locked on his where he watched her from between her thighs. He released the suction on her clit with a soft pop but the circling of his thumb smearing her juices and toying with her clenching, greedy slit still had Delaney trembling.
“Are we going to the camp tomorrow, then?” he asked.
Delaney let out a high, air-filled laugh. “You’re asking that now?”
Lucas rubbed his chin, wet with her, up and down her aching clit with a deliberate nod of his head. “Mmhmm.”
“Fuck, Lucas, I almost—”
“Came, yeah,” he interjected, winking. “I felt it—edged you out.”
She whimpered as that feeling of closeness to her orgasm faded away, but the constant friction from his thumb massaging harder along her inner walls kept her body on high alert. Just not there like she was.
“That’s one,” he said, kissing her pubis, and biting the fleshy bit of skin over the hood of her clit gently. Delaney gasped, inhaling sharply when he finally let the bite go. “Do it again for me, and then when I let you come on the third one, I’m gonna bend you over and slip right in when you’re nice and tight, and all hot and wet for me, huh?”
His thumb came out of her pussy just to slide the pad right up to her clit where he rubbed fast circles that made her hips jerk, and Delaney shout loud. In a good way, of course. The weight of Lucas resting into her lower half kept her pinned to the bed even as his thumb moved faster, and he recognized the telltale way her moans hitched.
And then he pulled away.
“Cabin tomorrow?” he asked again.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed, “yes, yes—the cabin tomorrow.”
Her fingers raked through Lucas’ hair when his mouth found her clit again. Already practically at her orgasm, it didn’t take long for the pressure of his sucking to take Delaney over the edge. His thumb found its way back into her cunt, catching the hot gush that came with the first wave of intense pleasure that started somewhere deep in her womb.
The sound that made its way out of her was guttural—like those first two lost orgasms came back for the third go-round to really wreck her. Her pussy was still pulsing when he withdrew his thumb and released the suction off her clit, but she barely had the chance to register the loss before Lucas had flipped her over in the bed.
His palms clapped down to her ass with loud slaps, grabbing tight to both cheeks while she tried fruitlessly to rise up to her knees.
He kept her down.
Flat to the bed, she felt Lucas straddle her on the messy, unmade bed. The weight of him rocked them on the mattress as he moved back and forth, only settling when she looked over her shoulder to find him focused. Holding his cock at the base, he rubbed it up and down the crack of her ass, letting out a slow breath.
“You sure you don’t want to take a ride into town?” he asked.
Whose fault was it when they both forgot condoms?
Did it really matter now?
Delaney’s heavy pants had yet to subside when she told him, “Let’s not make it a habit, okay?”
Lucas’ gaze flicked up to meet hers, and those dark eyes of his scream satisfaction as she started to push his cock between the wet folds of her pussy. On a long groan, as he took his time settling in inch by inch, he replied, “Yeah, fuck—okay, sweets.”
He wanted this as much as she did.
Besides, she took her pills on a regular enough basis.
Lucas snagged Delaney’s hands to hold them against her lower back while his other grabbed a fistful of her ass. The sting was so good—but so was the hard flex of his hips that seated him deep enough that all she could do was lay there and feel him.
God bless him for giving her a few seconds. Just enough time to adjust and get used to the too-full sensation of his thick nine inches. The moment she wiggled against him, though, she knew it was game over.
Lucas took that as his cue.
His fingers dug into her ass, his hand pushed hers at the wrists to hold her into the bed, and then he started the pace. A brutal rhythm that rocked the mattress into the wall under the windows with every snap of his hips. Her low whines, distorted into the bed sheets, matched the way their bodies met.
Every slap of skin pulled those noises out of her, but it was Lucas, and the way he didn’t slow or tease her into coming once he was finally inside her, that really drove her crazy. She craved the way his body took over hers—in size, and strength—how he used her to chase his own orgasm made hers begin to bloom all over again.
“Hell, yes. Show me how good you take that cock for me, Delaney,” he praised, voice husky and his words low.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop … please, don’t stop,” she chanted through choppy inhales that didn’t feel like enough.
“Never. This is my pussy—you better make her purr for me, baby.”
Delaney sobbed her way through another orgasm, the precipice cresting without warning when Lucas’ hips slammed even harder into her from behind. She could feel the way her body tried to milk him; how every ripple of pleasure cascaded into steady clenching of her inner muscles wrapped around him.
