“Do you love me?” I asked her. It was simple. It was what I needed to know.
She sighed and closed her eyes tightly. “Yes. You already know I do.”
That was what I needed to hear. I walked around the bar and straight to her. She opened her eyes when she heard me approach. They were haunted with pain. Pain that I had caused. Pain that she didn’t deserve. I’d make that up to her. I would spend my life doing it.
“Then forgive me. Please. Give me another chance. Because Lila Kate Carter, I’m completely in love with you. I can’t see my life without you in it. All I want when I open my eyes every morning is to see you there beside me. And at night to sleep with you in my arms. Just, let me show you I can be that guy. The one you thought you had found in Eli. I can be him. Just a little more fucking exciting because he is too damn structured and you’d soon be bored as hell.”
“Why now? What changed?” she asked. Still cautious and unsure.
“Because I can’t fight this anymore. I thought I was protecting you from me, but I can be the guy you deserve. I love you so fucking much there will never be a man that loves you more. That much I can guarantee you.”
She smiled. It was small and soft then she shook her head in disbelief. “I’m a fool.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“No, you’re not.”
She tilted her head back. Her chin lifted. “Yes. I am. Because as I stand here and argue with you, I know that I am going to forgive you. I’ll do it again too if I have to. Why can’t I shake you, Cruz? Why? What is the insane hold you have on me?”
My heart felt so damn full I wanted to do a fist pump and let out a shout of victory. “I’m pretty damn sweet,” I teased her.
She smirked. “No, you’re not.”
“Okay. fine. Maybe not sweet. But I can be. I’m going to be. I am going to be all you need me to be. I swear it.”
“What happens when you get bored with me?”
I reached for her then. “I’ve known you all my life. Never once have you bored me. Not even when you were so uptight you could barely walk,” I grinned as I said it.
She laughed. That had been what I was trying for. “That’s not exactly smooth talking.”
I held her back and pressed her up against me. “No? I’ll work on that then.”
Bending down I kissed her lips softly. She leaned into me and kissed back. A soft, pleased moan came from her mouth, and I tasted deeper. Held her closer. This was all I was going to need. It made all the other times, all the other girls and women pale. They were forgettable. Lila Kate had claimed my soul.
Lila Kate
THE LAST OF the blueberry pancakes I’d made for Eli were finished off by Cruz as he sat beside me at the bar. His left hand was on my thigh while he used his right hand to eat. He’d kept me close. Even after our kiss, he hadn’t wanted to stop touching me. As if I were going to vanish.
As unreal as this all was, I was dealing with guilt over the way Eli had left. I’d tried to talk to him and convince him to stay but he’d been right. He and I never stood a chance as long as Cruz was taking up so much space in my heart.
“This was amazing. I was starving. A night full of regret and Jack Daniels will do that to you.”
I smiled and started to move, but his hand clamped down on my leg. “Don’t go.”
“I was just going to clean up.”
He turned to face me and captured my legs between his thighs. “It will keep. You don’t have to clean it just yet.”
The way he looked at me had me worried this was a dream and I was about to wake up. It was hard to accept. “You just want to sit here and look at each other then?” I asked him enjoying this. In case I did wake up soon and had to be heartbroken over it.
“We could,” he said then his hands went to my pajama top and pulled it over my head. I hadn’t put on a bra this morning since my pajamas were baggy. My breasts were bared to him. His focus on those and nothing else. “Or I could continue to get you naked, carry you over to that sofa bed and sink my dick into that silky hot pussy of yours,” his voice had lowered to his sexy growl.
“Oh,” I replied.
He chuckled. “Yeah, oh,” he repeated and then I was in his arms and we were headed to the sofa bed.
He nibbled on my ear causing me to squirm in his arms and started whispering exactly what he wanted to do to me. Just like in New Orleans he was focused on me. How he could make me feel. But when he put me down I didn’t lie back. I wasn’t nervous. Not now.
I reached up and began to undo his jeans. He watched me. He didn’t speak or move. I got them undone and pulled them down his hips until they fell to the ground and he stepped out of them. I then jerked his boxer briefs down and his larger than I remembered thick penis of his sprang free.
“You keep looking at my cock like that, and we aren’t gonna have any foreplay,” he warned.
I got on my knees and ran my hands up the front of his thighs. The muscles under my hands tensed. His body went completely still as if frozen. When my right hand wrapped around his hard shaft he groaned. I didn’t give him time to react. My mouth covered the head, and I pulled as much into my mouth with one suck as possible.
“Fuuuuck,” he groaned and his knees buckling. A hand was on my head, and his thighs were trembled. “Lila, Jesus.”
As my mouth covered the smooth skin, my hand began to easily slide up and down it with a pump after each lick and pull of my mouth. Cruz began panting. His breath was uneven and hard. I could hear it, and I savored the way he was completely under my control.
My tongue circled the head and he hissed as his hand fisted in my hair. My ponytail wrapped around his hand as he began to pull and push my head as I worked my mouth over him.
“I don’t want to know why you’re so good at this. Jesus, Lila, holy hell this is better than all the times I’ve imagined this while taking a shower.”
I smiled up at him, and he smirked as his chest rose and fell rapidly. I watched him. Keeping our eyes connected as I ran my tongue over him. Teasing. Flicking the tip and then going back down on it.
“God, baby, just like that. Fuck, that’s good.”
I had never wanted to give a guy a blow job before. But Cruz. I’d imagined this and thought about it. Wished for it. More than once over the past few years.
“I can’t,” he groaned and pulled me back then tossed me on the bed. His eyes were dark, pupils dilated. With one tug, he had my pajama bottoms and panties off. The firm muscular body I was fascinated with covered me. “Open for me, Lila,” he demanded.
My thighs fell open, and he captured both my wrists and held them over my head. Pinned to the mattress. “I was gonna be fucking sweet, but now I need this pussy. You’ve made me crazy, and this won’t be anything resembling sweet, baby.”
The first thrust was hard and I cried out from the pain but my body tingled with pleasure.
“You,” he growled then plunged into me again. “Can’t. Suck my dick like a pro and look like an angel and expect me to be sane.”
I started to laugh when he filled me again and again, taking my breath. All my thoughts. Just the steady climb toward the release I knew was coming. The beautiful explosion that was only possible in his arms.
“I’m addicted to this. To you. Your goddamn pussy,” he said it like he was angry about it. But then he began kissing my neck and taking little bites of my skin. It was erotic and sweet even if he thought it wasn’t. Cruz would never be like Eli. He wasn’t structured, polite, or predictable. Those were traits that I had. I craved something else. I craved the excitement of Cruz’s wildness, dirty mouth, rule breaking. All the things I wasn’t. It balanced me. He was my fit.
“Lila,” he said as he lifted his head and sank into me completely.
“Yes,” I was breathless.
“I love you, but I’m about to flip you over and fuck you like a paid for it.”
I didn’t have time to respond before he had me on all fours and his hands were on my hips as he began to pound into me from behind. I lost my breath. The angle where he entered me sent me closer to the climax I craved.