Cannon (A Step Brother Romance #3) (21 page)

I reach up and undo her bra and let it fall to the floor.  "Addy Stone," I say, trailing my fingers slowly across the tops of her breasts, my eyes never leaving hers even though I desperately want to watch her nipples rise to attention the way I know they are, "I've wanted you since I was sixteen fucking years old."

She doesn't say anything, and I trail my fingers down her taut abdomen, then down lower between her legs, and she lets out a soft moan.  "Hendrix."

"I'm not finished," I say, my fingers stroking her slowly, methodically.  "There's not a day that's gone by since I was sixteen years old that I didn't think about you, that I didn't want you more than I could breathe.  Now you are going to swallow your damn pride and tell me how much you've fantasized all week about feeling my cock inside you."

Her breathing is faster now as I stroke her and I watch her toy with the idea of not telling me.  She's still angry about her clothes.  "I want you," she says, her voice breathy.

She licks her lips, and I do what I've been dying to all night – I bring my mouth down over hers, kissing her with such a ferocity that I think I might hurt her.  But she moans loudly into my mouth, encouraging me.

When I take a breath, she pulls wildly at my shirt, yanking it over my head.   I slip my fingers into her slick wet pussy in one swift movement, stroking her as I talk to her. "Tell me, Addison," I order.

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me how much you've been dying to feel my cock inside you, that this week has been killing you just as much as it's been killing me to not touch you."

"I've touched myself thinking about you," she breathes, then she cries out in protest when I slip my fingers from her.

I step back from her, unbuttoning my jeans as I watch her.  "Show me."

"Show you what?"

"How you touched yourself all week when you thought about me."

Addy slides her fingers between her legs and shows me, her fingers moving around her clit in circles.  I watch the expression on her face change, watch her lips fall open, as I stroke myself.  When Addy reaches for my cock, I move her hand away.  "Not yet," I tell her.

"Please, Hendrix," she begs, and the whimper she lets out makes her impossible to resist.  "I need…"

I kiss her hungrily, my appetite for her overwhelming everything else.  I don't give a shit anymore what anyone might think.  I don't give a shit about the insane, possibly disastrous consequences for her if anyone finds out.  I don't give a shit about anything outside of us.  I just want her.

Nothing about this is slow and sensual.  When we touch each other, it's fevered, frenzied, Addy's hands running over my chest, down my abdomen, then clawing at my back and scratching me.  It's me grabbing her hair and yanking her head up toward me, biting her lip.  We don't make it to the bed, even though it's mere feet away. 

I spin her around so that her back is toward me, her gorgeous ass facing me, on full display, and I run my hands down her body, over her curves.  "Put your hands on the bed."

Rolling a condom onto my length, I admire the view as Addy giggles.  "Sir, yes, sir," she says, so I slap her hard on the ass, and she yelps.

"Watch your mouth, sweet cheeks," I say, wrapping her length of hair around my hand and giving it a tug.  She moans, and the fact that she moans in response to that makes me crazy.  Sweet little Addy doesn't want missionary-style, slow and gentle sex.  Sweet little Addy likes it dirty.

She bends forward, letting out a long groan as I pull her hair again, pressing my cock against her entrance.  "You want this, Addy?"

"I want it," she moans.

I push, just a little bit, against her, sliding inside her and then stopping.  "Then say it, Addy."

"Fuck me, Hendrix," she begs.  "I want it."

I yank her hair again, and she groans, deep in her throat.  "Say yes."

"Yes, yes, yes," she says, her voice breathy.  Gripping her hips, I slide easily into her slick wet pussy.  She's bent over the bed, her palms flat, ass arched up, and I fuck her with deep thrusts.

This isn't the slow, romantic sex you read about in romance novels or see in the movies.  It's all heat, Addy and I.  I thrust inside her with the pent-up frustration of a man who's lusted after her for years.  What happened between us a week ago has done nothing to quench my thirst.

She makes these sounds that end up somewhere between a grunt and a moan, faster and faster as she gets closer so quickly.

"Harder, Hendrix, harder," she begs, and I lose track of everything else, including any sense of time.

When she comes, it's without any warning, and the sound that rips through her body is so primal, so incredibly unlike Addy, that as soon as I hear it, I have to let go.  The intensity of my orgasm is practically blinding.

Afterward, she turns to face me and takes my face in her hands.  I hold my breath, thinking she's about to launch into some meaningful, emotional conversation, but instead, she asks, "Now, where are my fucking clothes?"

I laugh, deep and long, so hard that I almost double over, before I pick her up again and carry her to the bed.  "I plan on keeping you out of clothes as much as possible, Addy.  You're not going to need them."

THREE YEARS AGO

I stare at the computer screen, the cursor blinking in the middle of the body of the email, the message empty except for the address my mother gave me.  She said that Hendrix is in Okinawa, on the other side of the world.

Hendrix is safely on the other side of the world, where nothing can happen between us. 
That was my first thought when I heard where he was.  It's fucked up that I thought that way.  It's fucked up that my first thought was about us, and not the fact that he's a Marine who could wind up in Iraq or Afghanistan.  I was relieved that he was stationed someplace so far away that no one could possibly expect me to visit him.  That makes me a terrible person, I think.

But my momentary sense of relief was immediately followed by an overwhelming sense of dread, panic at the thought of losing him in the War.  I had to count by fours, then by eights, then by twelves, until I was finally calm enough to breathe again.

Why is it that I'm sitting here, filled with the same sense of impending dread now, staring at a blank email to Hendrix?  It's only an email – it shouldn't strike fear into my heart.

I begin to type out what I want to say, one word at a time, stilted and disjointed.  Then I erase the words and begin again.  It's funny how the words flow so easily when I write them in my journal, lyrics to songs I'll never get the chance to sing.  But they don't come now that I'm looking at an email to the one person I want to write.

Instead, fear clutches at my chest and I can't breathe.

I wonder when I'll be able to breathe again.

PRESENT DAY

Hendrix is as good as his word, and I spend the next few days with him holed up in the apartment where I don't wear a stich of clothing except for his t-shirt when we come up for air.  Otherwise, we screw and lie around naked and talk about stupid stuff, laughing the way we use to when we were teenagers.  Hendrix's face takes on a lightness, a happiness that I haven't seen from him.

When I get a voicemail from my mother, lecturing me on how all charity donations, especially for things like my clothes, should go through her since she's my manager, I pick up a pillow from the living room sofa and toss it at Hendrix's head.  "You
donated
my freaking clothes?"

Hendrix grins, looking completely and utterly fucking pleased with himself.  "You're going to tell me you don't support veterans organizations?"

I slap him hard on the arm.  "You think veterans want my closet full of clothes?"

Hendrix laughs.  "Vets don't want your designer labels, sweet cheeks," he says.  "They're going to be auctioned off and the proceeds donated to a veterans organization.  But, I mean, if you want them back…"

"I can't believe you stole my clothes," I say, shaking my head.  I can't believe I'm not angry.  There's something about Hendrix that makes his completely over-the-top behavior, his over-protectiveness, suddenly endearing. Sex has to be making me stupid.

"I wanted you naked all the time," he says.  "It's a small price to pay."

"For you maybe," I say.  "I'm the one who lost her closet.  You go and do something so terrible and then it's for a good cause so it's impossible to hate you."

"We both know it's impossible for you to hate me anyhow.  Relax, sweet cheeks," he says.  "I kept the stuff I knew you loved.  It's in my closet."

Then he picks me up, his hands under my thighs, and carries me to the kitchen counter.  My ass is cool against the marble, and he grins up at me from between my thighs.  "I'll make it up to you," he says, touching his mouth to me.

"I don't know," I say, leaning back and closing my eyes, reveling the sensation of his tongue on me, exploring me.  "It was a lot of clothes."

"You're a spoiled brat," he whispers, and I pull his head closer to my pussy.

"I'm getting more spoiled by the minute," I say, as arousal washes over me like a tidal wave.

Reality doesn't intrude on us until a country music festival I can't cancel.  In the middle of one of the slow songs during the performance outdoors, I close my eyes and breathe all of it in for a moment, and I remember how fucking lucky I am. When I look over at Hendrix, standing off-stage, he gives me a "thumbs up" and that cocky, shit-eating grin of his.  And I feel a hell of a lot luckier.

After the performance, about to get in the limo, when it happens.  Fireworks explode -- once, twice, and then a smattering in quick succession.  Hendrix's face goes chalk white and he freezes, standing there beside the limo door.

"Hendrix."  I touch his arm, and he yanks it away, and he's shaking as another set of explosions go off.  Fear grips my chest when I see this normally strong man paralyzed by something I don't quite understand.  I take his arm, more firmly this time, guiding him into the back of the limo.  We sit in silence on the way home, and Hendrix is shivering.  I don't know what to do, but he doesn't push me away when I slide my arm around him.  He just lets me sit there beside him, pressed up against him, until the trembling seems to subside.

In my apartment, I take him straight to my bed, strip off our clothes, and climb under the sheets.  Neither of us say a word.  Hendrix puts his head on my chest, lying quietly against me, and I look up at the ceiling for a long time, not knowing if he's awake or asleep.  I don't know what else to do, other than to be here.  And I hope that's enough.