Shelter for Adeline (18 page)

“In the future, I’ll be able to stretch this out. But not this first time. I want to keep it slow and easy for as long as I can, but I’m gonna need your help.”

“Anything,” Adeline said immediately.

Fuck, he loved that too.

“Touch yourself.”

“What?”

“Reach a hand between us and touch your clit, beautiful. You’ve masturbated before, right?”

“Of course, but not…”

“Not with a man. Good. I’ll be your first with that too. Adeline, I promise, this isn’t going to take long. Touch yourself like you do when you’re in bed by yourself. It’ll be better with me inside you. If it’s not, you don’t have to do it again.”

With that, he felt her right hand unclench from his arm and ease down their bodies. He lifted up, giving her room, and then sat up straight. He eased back on his heels and lifted her ass until it was resting on his thighs. She was open, and now that he could watch his cock disappear inside her pussy, the control he’d been holding on to waned.

“Fuck, you have no idea how perfect this looks. You takin’ my cock as if it was meant to be in there.”

She touched her index and middle finger to her clit and he felt her jerk as she made contact.

“Oh yeah, you like that. Don’t close your eyes. Look at me. Keep your eyes on my face. Watch my face as I make love to you. Watch how much I love it.”

Crash knew he should look up into Adeline’s eyes, but he was too mesmerized by her fingers caressing her own body, and how she sucked his cock back into her every time he pulled out. Her juices glistened on his dick and he could feel her soaking his thighs under her ass.

“Faster, Adeline. I can’t hold back and I want to feel you orgasm around me first.”

She did as he ordered, rubbing frantically now. Her fingers moving fast and hard over her clit. He knew when she was about to lose it as, once again, her hips bucked upward and hung there, suspended as every muscle in her lower body squeezed tight and froze.

His eyes whipped up to her face, and as she climaxed for the third time, he saw what looked like love flash in her eyes before she tilted her head back and moaned.

Pushing her legs up and catching her knees in the crooks of his elbows, Crash came over her, slamming his cock inside her pussy. She was hot and wet and the final ripples of her orgasm washed over his dick. He pushed into her hard once. Then again. Then again and again. Finally, he felt the come wash up from his balls, through his cock, and explode out the tip. He held himself still inside Adeline as he orgasmed. Kept his eyes on hers, showing her everything he was, and everything he was feeling in his face.

Even though her knees were up by her ears, she skimmed her hands between them and took his face in her palms. She lifted her head and reached for his lips.

Without hesitation, Crash lowered his head and kissed her with all the built-up love and passion he had within him. He devoured her mouth as if he was adrift at sea and she was the only thing between him and certain death.

He sipped and drank from her mouth, all the while cognizant of the way her body hugged his from the inside out. After a long moment, he lifted his head and moved his arms, letting her legs ease back to the mattress. He leaned down and put his forehead against hers.

“I’ve never. Not once in my life. Felt anything as amazing as what we just did,” Crash told her. “It was perfect.”

“It was,” Adeline said in a soft, sated voice. Her eyes were half closed and she looked like she wouldn’t move even if one of his fire alarms suddenly started ringing in the other room. He liked the look on her.

“Stay put. I have to get rid of the condom,” Crash told her softly.

He waited until she nodded then eased out of her body with a groan.

“The worst part,” she complained.

“Definitely. If I could stay inside you forever, I would.”

“I don’t think that’d be possible.”

“Probably not. But it’d be fun to try.”

She grinned up at him.

“Don’t move, beautiful,” he repeated, not waiting for a response before sitting and putting both legs over the side of the mattress. He quickly walked to the bathroom and got rid of the condom. Then he cleaned himself up with a warm washcloth, threw it on the counter, and made his way back to Adeline.

He straightened the covers and climbed in next to her, pulling her into him and covering them back up.

“Aren’t you supposed to bring me a washcloth and clean me up?”

“What?”

“In all the romance books I read, that’s what the guy does. He tenderly cleans up the heroine and they snuggle the rest of the night.”

Crash chuckled. “No way in hell, beautiful.”

She pushed up to an elbow and glared down at him. “What? Why not?”

He pulled her back down so her head was resting on his shoulder and wrapped his arm tightly around her, keeping her still and flush against him.

His other hand moved down her body and covered her pussy. His fingers brushed back and forth in her wet slit as he spoke. “Don’t get pissed. It’s because I don’t want to wash away one drop of your beautiful scent. I want it on you, and me, all night.” He matched his words to his actions and ran his hand, damp with her juices, over his belly and cock, then returned it to her body. His fingers lightly played with her as he continued. “I want to be able to wake up in the middle of the night and know you’re here next to me. I want to smell you on my sheets, on my pillow, on my hands. We’ll shower in the morning and get clean. We can change the sheets if it grosses you out. But, beautiful, I’ve waited a fuck of a long time to have you right where you are, feeling like you do, smelling like you do. I’m not gonna wash away one bit of it. Don’t ask me to.”

“Oh…okay then.”

Crash smiled. “Okay then.”

A moment or two passed before Adeline said, “Those were the most amazing orgasms I’ve ever had too. I just…I wanted you to know.”

The words “I love you” were on the tip of his tongue, but Crash held them back. He didn’t want to flip her out or make this weird. “Sleep well, beautiful.”

“You too, Dean.”

Crash fell asleep long after Adeline did. He was memorizing the feel of her in his arms in minute detail. Finally, when he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, and when he knew she was deeply asleep, he whispered, “I love you, Adeline Reynolds. In sickness and in health. You’re mine.”

S
aturday morning
, and after another wonderful night of mind-blowing sex with Dean, Adeline woke up cuddled next to him…and sweating her ass off. She wasn’t used to sleeping with someone else and the extra heat he brought to the bed was almost unbearable.

She’d thrown back the covers and had her legs over the side of the mattress before she was hauled back by an arm around her waist.

Dean had gone on to show her the joys of morning sex…and getting sweatier.

Then they’d showered together, which was another new thing for her, and he’d made her a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs with cheese and some sliced fruit.

“Tell me more about this game we’re going to today,” Adeline stated between bites.

She was seated next to Dean at his kitchen table, as if he couldn’t bear for her to be more than a few feet away.

“You’ve met Sledge. His girlfriend, Beth, has agoraphobia…she doesn’t like to be outside. It has to do with being kidnapped a few years ago.”

Adeline gasped and blurted, “Kidnapped?”

Dean put his hand on the back of her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “She’s okay. I’m sure you’ll hear the whole story sooner or later, but the bottom line is that she moved to Texas to try to deal with it, and wasn’t doing so well. She got some help from a specialized clinic up in the northeast and she’s doing much better with therapy and medication. It’s sometimes still hard for her to be around large crowds, but she really wants to see one of our games. So Sledge set up a low-key thing with our law enforcement friends. It’s at a park near his house, so if Beth gets uncomfortable, she can easily get back home.”

“It sounds fun.”

“Oh, it’s fun all right,” Dean told her, his eyes dancing. “Although the cops cheat, so we have to be on our toes.”

Adeline laughed, getting the feeling the game wasn’t going to be anything like what she’d imagined. “I’m suuuuure they do,” she teased. “Who else will be there?”

“Well, all of the guys from the station, and Penelope. She usually plays, and can kick all our butts…even if she is a girl.”

Adeline punched him lightly on the shoulder. “That’s not nice.”

He caught her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. “Penelope isn’t always nice either.”

They both laughed.

“Who else?” Adeline asked.

“Playing for the cops should be Dax, Quint, Cruz, TJ, Hayden the only female in their tight-knit group, Conor, and hopefully Calder. They’re all in law enforcement of some type but not with the same agency. Oh, and maybe Westin King. He’s kinda new to the group, but he’s good friends with Dax.”

“I’ll never keep them straight,” Adeline muttered. Then raised her voice to ask, “And any women…other than Hayden, Penelope, and Beth?”

“Probably. Dax’s girlfriend, Mackenzie, and if Mack is there, her best friend, Laine, will be too. She’s with the newcomer, Wes. Also hopefully Mickie, who’s with Cruz, and Corrie. Corrie is blind, but you’d never know it. I saw her at one of our games and I swear she seemed to be able to follow the movements on the field with uncanny accuracy. She’s dating Quint.”

“Sounds fun,” Adeline told him honestly. She didn’t hang out with a lot of people other than her sister. She was usually tired from working, and also a bit nervous about having a seizure in front of others, so she kept to herself more than she probably should. It sounded like fun to get out and meet others…especially if they were friends with Dean.

“We always have a good time,” Dean told her, smiling. “We see the guys on the force a lot on scenes, and it’s nice to blow off some steam and hang out when they’re not working. But they’re cheaters…don’t let the fact that they wear uniforms and carry guns fool you.”

Adeline laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

He lifted a hand and stroked a finger down her cheek in a barely there caress. “Thank you.”

His tone seemed all wrong for what they’d been discussing.

“For what?”

“For this. For being you. For being willing to hang with me and a bunch of people you don’t know. For blowing my mind last night…and this morning in the shower, blowing something else.” He grinned and pulled her into him so he could kiss her forehead. He kept her there for a long moment then pulled back. “For giving me a chance. And lastly…for being so awesome and beautiful.”

His last sentence chased the tears from her eyes and she was thankful. “You’re welcome.” She totally thought
she
should be thanking
him
, but she’d let it go for now.

“It looks like we have an hour before we need to be there, so we have some time to kill…whatever should we do?” Dean asked, smirking.

Adeline recognized the look in his eye. “Dean, we’ve already showered!” she protested.

“Then we’ll have to be quick so we have time to shower again,” he returned easily. He pushed back his chair and stood, grabbing her hand and taking her with him in the process.

Adeline stumbled after him, giggling, as he towed her back up the stairs to his room.

“Eventually I’ll get more creative and we’ll christen all of the rooms in my house as well as the furniture, but I love seeing you on my bed, so for now we’ll stick with that.”

Adeline opened her mouth to agree, but before she could say a word, he was there. His mouth on hers, gently pushing her back onto his mussed sheets. Any thought of anything other than Dean and the way he made her feel was pushed far from her mind.

* * *

T
wo hours later
, Adeline sat on a hard metal bleacher between Mackenzie and Laine. Mickie, Corrie, and Beth sat behind them. They were the only ones at the small baseball park, and the laughter and good-natured taunts flew back and forth between the firefighters and cops as they played.

Laine had brought her dog along, a pit bull mix named Chance. She was a little rough looking around the edges, but was extremely friendly. She and Coco had hit it off very well and were currently lying side by side on the ground in front of the bleachers.

“I can’t believe all the crap you guys went through,” Adeline said, shaking her head. “Seriously…kidnappings, being stuffed in a coffin, being in the middle of a motorcycle gang war…it’s crazy!”

“Don’t forget a break-in and falling into an abandoned well,” Mack said, cheerily waving her arm in the air toward Beth and Laine respectively. “But I don’t think any one of us would say that we’d have it any other way.”

Adeline opened her mouth in shock as her eyebrows went up, and she wanted to say something but Mackenzie just continued talking, not giving her a chance.

“I mean, yeah, I wasn’t very happy in that stupid coffin, and I know Mickie misses her sister like crazy, even if she was mean to her, but we met our guys as a result. Well, maybe not as a result, but as a part of it all. If it didn’t happen, we might not be with them, and that would totally suck. So I can’t speak for everyone else, but I know for me, I’d totally do it again, hopefully knowing this time that it would turn out okay and I wouldn’t actually
die
, die, if it meant I’d end up with the sexiest Texas Ranger out there…no offense, Laine, Wes is hot too, but I don’t want him that way…but that calendar is hot. Swear to God I’m gonna frame it when the year is up because all the pictures are so freaking hot. Oh, and Beth and Adeline, you guys need to start talking to your guys because next up is a firefighter calendar. The cop one did so well, our nonprofit wants to move on to hot firefighters…and I just happen to know a few!” She giggled when she was done speaking.

“Take a breath,” Laine teased when Mack did just that. “Lord, I swear you can talk.” The other woman turned to Adeline. “You get used to her and learn that sometimes you just have to butt in if you want to get a word in edgewise.”

Adeline saw Mackenzie blush, but she laughed. “Yeah, sorry. I have a tendency to ramble.”

All of the women around them chuckled.

Beth muttered, “Understatement of the century,” and set them all off laughing again.

“So, how’d you meet Crash?” Corrie asked when the laughter had died down.

“I was on a blind date at the restaurant across the street from the fire station and my date ditched me when I told him I was going to have a seizure, and Crash came over and asked what was wrong, and that was that.”

Adeline had told the women about her epilepsy when she’d been introduced to them. It was obvious Coco was a service dog of some sort and she wanted to get it out of the way. The last thing she wanted was for everyone to be sitting around wondering what was wrong with her and why she needed Coco. She’d found over the years it was easier to explain it up front.

“I noticed you call him Dean,” Beth observed. “Is that how he introduced himself to you?”

Adeline thought the question was odd, but she half turned in her seat to look at the other woman. “Yeah, why?”

If possible, Beth smiled even wider. “Oh, it was just a conversation I had with him a while ago. I told him that Crash was a silly name, and if he really wanted to impress a woman he needed to tell her his real name from the get-go. He’s always been Crash. Glad to see he took my advice.”

Adeline wasn’t sure what to say about that.

Corrie suddenly stood up and yelled, “Run, Quint! Go, go, go!”

They all turned and saw that Quint had hit the softball way out in the outfield and was sprinting around the bases.

“How in the world did you know it was Quint who hit that?” Mickie asked incredulously.

“I heard him talking. And Calder called out ‘Get it, Quint,’ right before he hit the ball.”

“I swear she’s totally spooky sometimes,” Beth stage whispered to nobody in particular, which had all of the women giggling again. “Ears like a bat!”

Quint made it all the way around the bases…but only because Hayden shoved Taco just as he went to catch the ball Driftwood had thrown from the outfield. As a result, the ball went sailing past third base, allowing Quint to keep going without being tagged.

Squirrel chased after the errant ball, trying to get to it to throw to home base to Moose before Quint got there, but Conor somehow managed to get to it first and “accidentally” kick it farther into the outfield.

Everyone was laughing as the blatant cheating continued, but honestly, no one seemed to care.

“What’s the score now?” Laine asked.

“I think that makes it thirty-seven to forty-three,” Mack said.

All the women laughed again. There wasn’t one moment in the game that either side hadn’t cheated, thus the hugely inflated scores.

“This is nice,” Beth said suddenly. “Thanks for being here.”

Mackenzie turned and put her hand on Beth’s knee and Corrie put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “You know anytime you need us, we’re here for you,” Mickie told Beth.

“I know. I’m getting better at being outside the house…but I’m not quite up to a full-blown crowd yet. As it was, I took extra meds to get here today. I want to be able to get to a real game, and maybe the stair climb someday, but I also don’t want to be totally out of it from the drugs.”

“Maybe you need an assistance dog,” Adeline blurted, then kinda regretted it as all five women turned to her in unison. “I mean…well…dogs have been proven to reduce blood pressure in veterans with PTSD and soothe them in social situations, and it might work for you too.”

“Oh my God, that’s a great idea!” Mackenzie exclaimed. She turned to Laine. “You haven’t found homes for all of Chance’s puppies yet, have you?”

“No. There are still two left. There was a guy who wanted one, but I couldn’t bear to part with either of them yet,” Laine said. Then explained to Adeline, “Chance was the reason Wes found me when I was down in that abandoned well. She was a stray and was sitting by the edge of the hole in the middle of a field. She had puppies with her, but stayed with me anyway. We adopted her and took in her puppies too.” Laine spun back to Beth. “I’d love it if you took Second.”

“That’s a weird name,” Beth muttered, but Adeline could tell she looked intrigued by the idea. “I’m not sure Cade even wants a dog.”

“If a dog helped you, he wouldn’t care,” Corrie said resolutely. “I don’t have a Seeing Eye dog, but I seriously considered it a while back. They really can help, Beth.”

“Don’t I have to get a specialized dog or something?” Beth asked Adeline.

“Not necessarily. Breed doesn’t matter. If the dog can be trained, and if it can pass the qualification tests, then it can be a service dog. You just register it and you’re good to go. Coco was my pet first, and I had no idea he could even be a service dog…but one day he pawed me and wouldn’t quit, ten minutes later I had a seizure. I thought it was a coincidence, but it kept happening. I guess he was so in tune with me that he figured it out and smelled the chemicals in my body or something,” Adeline explained.

“She’d be able to go everywhere with me?” Beth asked, leaning forward in excitement.

Adeline grimaced. “In theory, yes. In practice, people are sometimes assholes about it.” She went on to explain her and Dean’s lunch at the Tower of the Americas. “I carry the explanation cards so people know it’s against the law to discriminate against me or my dog. A pit bull might make it even more difficult for you, but if it helps you, and Second can pass the test, fuck what other people think. Oh and by the way, Second is a great name for a dog…Second Chance, right?”