Salvaged Page 17

  His chest rose and fell as he let out a long breath. “Let’s get out of here.”

  My feet couldn’t move fast enough as I followed his long-legged gait. I’d made him move all right. Now I just had to make sure I could keep up.

  Wheeler

  My hands were shaking so badly that I dropped the stupid little plastic key to the hotel room twice before finally touching it to the sensor and getting the door open. It was probably a touch over-the-top to drop everything in the middle of a workday and drag her off to the closest hotel, but as soon as those sexy words left her pretty, pink lips it was all I could do to keep my inner Neanderthal caged and not drag her off to my office and have my way with her.

  I’d been waiting on the words since the moment she let me put my hands and mouth on her sweet skin.

  It might have seemed silly considering she was practically begging me to have at her with her body and her hands, but I needed to hear that she was ready. I needed her to take that step. I needed her permission to touch her from the get-go and I knew that if we were going to be moving on to the next, inevitable step, I was going to need permission to fuck her. I needed her to be absolutely sure, and now that she was, I wanted to make sure she never had a single reason to doubt that I was indeed the right guy, regardless of the time or the place. I wanted her to have an experience that would always be a memory that made her smile, that made her happy no matter what happened between the two of us in the future. I wanted her to know she was worth dropping everything for and that she was absolutely the kind of girl that deserved something special like a fancy hotel room in the middle of the day and for our first time together. She deserved a bed that didn’t hold memories of anyone or anything else. Her nightmares couldn’t find her here and there were definitely no reminders of what I thought I wanted among the sleek decorations and the dramatically plush bedding and headboard.

  This was me and her, there was no space for anyone else.

  The dust had cleared and Poppy and I were left standing facing each other, the dreams we used to have lying in tatters at our feet. It was time to pick the pieces up and stitch together new dreams, ones that had pieces of her and pieces of me woven in the fabric so deeply that nothing could rip them apart.

  I dropped the room key again and this time Poppy was the one to retrieve it from the floor. She gave me a lopsided grin as she tossed it on the dresser next to the TV remote. I realized I was the one acting like a nervous kid on prom night. She seemed perfectly at ease as she let her purse fall from her shoulder so she could set it down. She turned to look at me with a perfectly arched caramel-colored brow and a playful smile dancing around that enticingly bare mouth. She pushed some of her long honey-colored hair away from her face as she looked at the bed and then over to me.

  “I’m all dirty.” I blurted out the words so fast that they made her jump. Her amber gaze drifted over me from the grease-stained hat still on my head to the worn toes of my work boots. She took the few steps required to close the space between us and lifted a hand so that she could run her fingers over my nose. When she pulled them back and showed them to me I cringed when I realized I’d hauled her out the garage without bothering to clean up. I looked like I’d been crawling around under a car, which I had been.

  “It was covering up your freckles.” She rubbed her fingers together and looked over my shoulder at the open doorway to the bathroom. “I think we should clean you up.”

  I swallowed hard and followed her gaze. “If you go in there with me, this is going to be over before we even get started.” She was the first woman I had ever waited on, and while I knew without question she was worth the time I’d spent slaying some of her furious, fiery dragons, my body was primed and well beyond ready to be rewarded for that unwavering patience. If she got naked and wet anywhere close to me and my aching cock, it was going to be game over.

  She snatched the hat off my head and threw it so that it landed on top of her purse. I lowered my head so she could get her fingers into my sweaty and flattened hair. I let out a quiet moan as her fingernails scraped along the sides of my scalp and trailed along the back of my head to dig into the tense muscles at the base of my skull.

  “Wheeler.” My name sounded so good when she said it all breathless and needy. “You have been really great about making this all about me, and I needed that then, but now I need you and I need this to be about us.” She lifted her eyebrows up and her cheeks turned a charming shade of pink that made me want to see if she blushed like that everywhere else on her body.

  It wasn’t like I really wanted to put up much of a fight in the first place. If she wanted to help me get clean so we could get all kinds of dirty together, I would be a fool to try and talk her out of it.

  I clasped my hands around the back of her head, mirroring the way she was holding on to me. I bent my head so I could touch my lips to hers, and whispered, “Let’s get wet.”

  She smiled against my mouth and the tip of her tongue darted out and touched the center of my bottom lip, leaving a damp spot that I immediately chased with my own tongue. Her eyes glimmered with promises and heat that made me feel like I’d had too many drinks too fast. She went to my head quick and made my body feel like it was out of my control.

  “One step ahead of you.” I growled at her sassy and sure words. Her newfound confidence might be more of a turn-on than her miles of silken hair and all that golden skin that only I was allowed to touch. “You need to catch up.”

  I growled at her again and put my hands under her backside and effortlessly lifted her up. She immediately wound her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. I was smugly pleased with myself when I realized she no longer felt featherlight. She was still slight, lithe and easy to carry from one place to the other, but the hollows in her face had filled out and there was more than enough to fill my hands as they curled possessively around the soft swell of her ass.

  Her nose brushed up and down the side of my neck and I shivered as her tongue darted out and flicked along the line of my pulse where it was thudding heavy and hurried as we stumbled into the opulent bathroom. The shower was a walk-in surrounded by glass with multiple shower heads. It looked like it was made with all intentions of more than one person using it to get clean. I set Poppy down on the edge of the sprawling vanity and took a step back so I could kick off my boots and peel off my filthy coveralls. She watched me with avid eyes that got hotter and hotter the more clothes I lost. Soon I was standing in front of her in nothing more than aqua-blue boxer briefs.

  She bit down on her lower lip and reached out a hand so that she could trail a tentative finger along the ridge of my cock that was stretching the colorful fabric to its limits. She had hesitantly put her hands on my dick when we fooled around before, but she typically pulled back like it would burn her. This time she kept up her delicate caress until she reached the waistband, where the eagerly swollen head was peeking out of the elastic. I had to lock my knees to keep them from turning to jelly when she used the tip of her finger to circle the sensitive flesh over and over again.

  “You always have on underwear that’s some kind of crazy color. Why no black or white?”

  Of all the times she could pick to ask me about my choice of undergarments, of course she would pick the moment when I couldn’t think straight because of the way her hand was sliding into those brightly colored briefs and wrapping around the rock-hard erection they were covering.

  I ran my hands up the outside of her denim-covered legs until I got to her waist. I watched her carefully as I worked my palms up under the hem of her baggy sweater. I started to inch the material up her rib cage but had to stop and suck in a breath when her grasp around my dick tightened and my eyes crossed because of how good it felt. “I dunno. You can find black and white anywhere and it’s kind of expected. It’s boring.”

  I got her sweater up over her head and let out a grunt of appreciation at the sight of her in nothing but her jeans and a soft, rose-colored bra. It looked
silky, so of course I ran my fingers over the outside edge and watched as the touch made her creamy skin pebble in anticipation. Her legs tightened around my hips as I trailed a lone finger directly down the center of her chest, lightly skimming her belly button and stopping to pop open the button of her jeans.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, so I stopped and started to pull back, not wanting to rush her. However, I had to chuckle when she used the grip she had on the most sensitive part of my anatomy to hold me in place.

  “Nothing about you is boring. All of you stands out.” She lifted her hips for me, and reluctantly pulled her hand out of my underwear so that I could pull her jeans off her legs. Her underwear matched the pretty bra and did very little to hide that private place on her body that I only knew by touch and taste. She wasn’t lying to stroke my ego. There was a visible damp spot right in the center of the silk that made my mouth water.

  “I spent my entire childhood feeling like I was overlooked, like nobody could see me. When I was old enough to do something about it, I made sure no one would be able to ignore me.” I put my hands back on her hips and pulled her to the edge of the counter so that her softness and wetness were pressed up against the straining hardness between my legs that was begging for some kind of relief. “I wanted to be seen.”

  She skimmed her hands over my shoulders, down over the wolf inked on my chest, and across each and every single one of the lines that were carved into my stomach. She traced the twin lines over my hips that arrowed into the elastic waistband of my underwear and brushed the backs of her fingers over the narrow shot of hair under my belly button that was practically a neon sign guiding her toward the place on my body that couldn’t hide the way I was affected by her.

  “I see you, Wheeler. Even when I wasn’t looking, I saw you.”

  They were words very similar to the ones I had said to her when I was trying to convince her to give me a shot.

  “I’m glad we both had our eyes open.” The last of the words dropped as she hopped off the counter so all of her was pressed against all of me. She hooked a single finger in the waistband and tugged.

  “Off.”

  Her eyes turned sultry and heavy-lidded. The insanely thick lashes dropping low as I did as she requested. It was the first time I’d been fully naked in front of her and everything inside of me quivered with the overwhelming need for her to like what she saw. I didn’t need to worry, like she said, she saw me even when she wasn’t looking, and now that she was looking, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  “That tattoo goes all the way down.” Her voice was hushed as she traced the swirling black ink that decorated my lower abdomen all the way down to the base of my cock. The tribal flames went as low as they could without actually being on my dick. They hurt like a bitch to get but I was glad they were there as her fingers lightly drifted over them, going lower and lower. Her touch seared my skin and I knew I would feel it long after we left this bathroom.

  I reached around her for the clasp on the back of her bra. She stiffened in my arms and lifted wide eyes up to mine. “I don’t know that I’m ready for that just yet.” She looked embarrassed to say it, which should be at odds with the way she was rubbing against my unleashed cock, but somehow it was so very Poppy.

  I tucked the front of her long hair behind her ear, cupped her face in my dirty hands, and lowered my head so I could kiss her. When I pulled back, we were both breathing hard and her eyes were unfocused. I stepped back and walked over to the shower so that I could turn it on and find the right temperature. She leaned back on the vanity, her arms bent as she braced herself so that she could watch me as I stepped under the steamy water and let it sluice off all the oil and grime from work. I popped open the mini-shampoo and scrubbed my matted-down hair and rubbed my hands roughly over my face and chest, chasing any other hidden smudges and smears that might mark up her flawless skin.

  “You have freckles on your shoulders.” Her voice wasn’t echoing across the room, so I wasn’t surprised that when I peeled open my eyes to peer through the falling water, she was now standing at the opening of the shower. She still had her pretty rose-colored underwear on but the embarrassment in her gaze was gone. She looked … hungry.

  I turned back around so I could rinse off my front and lowered my head so the hot water would hit the coiled tension in the back of my neck. The anticipation was the perfect kind of hell. I wasn’t in any hurry to escape the burn. “I have them everywhere.” They went hand in hand with the red hair that I must have inherited from my father, because from what I remembered of my mother, her hair was as black as midnight.

  I knew it was coming but still, when her fingers hit my slippery shoulder, it made my entire body jolt. Her palm smoothed over the speckled skin and then slid all the way down my spine.

  “Why doesn’t the tree have any leaves?” Her lips hit the center of my back and I felt the press of her now naked breasts against my hypersensitive skin. Her nipples dug into my back and her hands worked their way around my waist so that they were resting on the ridges of my stomach.

  I put one of my hands over hers and picked it up. She didn’t tug it back or fight me in any way when I lowered it to where my cock was standing straight up and resting against my abs. I curled her long fingers around the shaft with my own and slowly started to work her fist up and down. I rested my forehead against the cool marble of the shower wall and lifted my other arm above my head so that her entire naked length was stretched out against my back. I felt her wiggle her hips against my ass, our joined hands working over my throbbing cock. She was starting to get restless but I swore I could do this all day long.

  “It’s what my family tree looks like, barren and empty. I got it thinking I would add to it once Kallie and I got married and started a family. There would be leaves and blossoms, but now …” I shook my head and trailed off partly because I wasn’t sure what my family tree was going to look like anymore but mostly because she was using her thumb to rub enticing circles around the head of my dick. The slit was leaking slippery desire and she was catching it before the water could wash it away.

  Her teeth bit into the curve where my neck and shoulder met and the arm she still had locked around my middle tightened in a hug. My hips kicked involuntarily into our combined touch and my hand tightened around hers and forced it to move faster. My breath hitched and my eyes slammed closed as pleasure hit hard and heavy, looping itself around all my nerves and licking through my blood. I let go of her gliding hands and reached behind me so I could grab a handful of supple flesh. Her lips skipped across my shoulder blade and her nails dug into my stomach as I started rocking back and forth into her caress with no control. I was searching for the ending, seeking the completion that only her touch could give me, and I’d been waiting for it for so long that my control snapped and the torture of waiting no longer stung, but rather dug its claws in and hurt in a way that couldn’t be ignored.

  “Your tree is still growing, Wheeler. It’s going to bloom.” Her words whispered across my skin and I felt her rest her cheek on the barren branches that stretched from shoulder to shoulder.

  My balls tightened and drew up close to my body, the thick vein that ran along the bottom of my dick pulsed hard, and the entire throbbing shaft kicked insistently into her gentle ministrations. The slick tip was covered in pearly precum that she couldn’t seem to keep her fingers away from. I growled her name in warning, giving her plenty of time to pull away, but she leaned in closer, tightened her fingers even more, and worked the orgasm that was impatiently waiting from my body. She kept her fingers curled around my cock as my legs shook and air whooshed in and out of my lungs loudly. I pried my eyes open just in time to watch her stick her fingers covered in my release into the stream of running water so that she could wash away the evidence of what she did to me.

  I pushed off the marble and turned to catch her in my arms. I backed her against the slippery, wet wall and sealed my mouth over hers before she could protest or come up with
any kind of reason to pull away. I ran my hands over her slick skin and palmed the weight of her breasts in my hands. I circled the pointed tips with my thumbs and swallowed her cry of pleasure as I continued to eat at her mouth and lick across her tongue. I used my knee to part her legs and felt the way she shuddered when I did. I lifted my head so I could get my first look at her and wished I could stop time, just for a minute, so I could appreciate my first look over and over again.

  She was spectacular. Every single thing about her honey-colored and rose-tinted. Her dark eyelashes spiked dangerously in the water as she blinked at me, shyness and a hint of uncertainty creeping in. There was no room for that between us, so I kissed her again right before I got on my knees in front of her. She gasped when I was face-to-face with her most intimate of places but she was stuck between me and the wall, so there was nowhere for her to hide.

  I looked up at her and couldn’t stop the wolfish grin that I knew was stamped across my face. “You do turn pink everywhere else when you blush.” I could see the pink tones as she flushed from her toes to the top of her head. It was a good look on her.

  “Wheeler …” It was part question part plea.

  I continued to stare up at her as I grasped her leg behind the knee and started to lift it up over one of my shoulders. She shook her head and put one of her hands on the side of my face but it was my turn to offer her a plea. “Let me in, Poppy.”

  There was a moment where I thought she was going to pull away. She crossed her free arm over her naked breasts and cocked her head to the side like she was considering her options, but eventually the hand on the side of my face lightly touched the dimple that dug into my cheek and she gave me the barest of nods.

  I didn’t waste a second after that. I moved in, using the breadth of my shoulders to make space for myself between her legs as the water continued to rain down on us. I tickled the back of her thigh as I used my other hand to trace and fondle her wet folds. I’d touched her here more times than I could count. I knew what she tasted like on my fingers and what she looked like when she came around them, but I wanted her unique flavor to burst on my tongue. I wanted to taste what her pleasure felt like. I wanted to savor it and enjoy it like the rare and sweet treat that it was.