Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) (30 page)

He laughed. “Not hard to get that one right. I love you, and I want
you
.” He made a face. “I think you should help me erase the mental image I’ve got going on, though.”

“Yeah?” I pulled down on my V-neck, exposing more of my cleavage. “Like this?”

He bobbled his head from side to side. “It’s a start. Maybe a little more.”

I lifted the hem of my shirt up so the bottom of my bra and a little skin showed. “How about now?”

“I think maybe if you got rid of the shirt entirely, it’d be better.” He scooted back on the bed, put his spine against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, eyes on me.

“If I take off my shirt, you have to take off yours,” I said, grasping the hem of my shirt in preparation to strip it off.

“Fair enough.” Cade had his off in a blink, chest muscles rippling as he tossed the shirt aside. “Your turn.”

I peeled mine off more slowly, wadded it into a ball, and threw it at his face. He put it to his nose and sniffed, then set it aside. “Is the mental image gone yet?”

“Nope. I think I still need to see more of you.”

I grinned at him. “Well, then, maybe you should take off more of your clothes. I have my own mental images going on, you know.” I faked a shudder. “Those skinny, hairy legs…” He laughed, slid off the bed, and stood directly behind me. I swiveled on the bed to face him. He unbuttoned his jeans in a flash, but I stopped him. “Slowly. I like to watch you undress, too, you know.”

He frowned, as if this hadn’t occurred to him before. Then he shrugged and unzipped his jeans, more slowly this time, teasingly. When the zipper was down, he glanced at me, then rezipped and drew it back down again before tugging the denim down around his hips. I couldn’t help biting my lip as the bulge in his boxers was revealed, and I lifted an eyebrow at him, expectantly. He tugged the jeans back up, then grabbed the waist of the jeans and the boxers together, shoved them down together, baring his semi-rigid cock for me. Then back up, just as I was beginning to contemplate using my mouth to make him all the way hard. I’d used my mouth on him a few times since that first time, but never to orgasm. He’d always stopped me so he could get inside me, so he could come inside me. I loved the way he’d pull me away desperately, muscles tensed, eyes hot, the way he’d plunge into me and move slowly, deliberately teasing us both.

He pushed his jeans off, just the jeans this time, and stepped out of them, then crossed his arms and waited. I stood up, my boobs touching his chest. I couldn’t resist kissing his skin, his chest just above his nipple, just once, and then I unbuttoned my own jeans, unzipped them, stepped out, kicked them aside. He reached for his boxers, but I stopped him.
 

“Let me.” I pulled the elastic waistband down around his hips, to his thighs, to his knees, sinking downward with them so I knelt in front of him, glancing up with a sultry smile. Before he could move, I had him in my mouth, sucking hard and taking him deep, just to the point of gagging. He dipped at the knees, and then I stood up, satisfied with my handiwork. He was hard as rock now, standing upright against his belly.
 

He mimicked my maneuver, pulling my panties down and going to his knees as he lowered them, putting his mouth to my core and flicking his tongue through my entrance, once, twice, three times, just enough that I shuddered and felt myself go wet with anticipation.
 

I still had my bra on, and Cade was watching me expectantly as he stood up. I reached behind myself, freed the clasps, and shrugged my arms out of the straps, and then it was gone, at my feet, and Cade’s hands were on me, caressing my skin, thumbs brushing my nipples, bringing them erect.

Cade pulled me against him, crushed his mouth to mine and kissed me as though starved, despite having made love to me less than two hours before. No matter how many times we had sex, he always made love to me as if for the first time, as if he couldn’t ever get enough. He kept kissing me, and every time I thought he’d break away and push me to the bed, he would renew the kiss, his hands chaste on my back, my waist, holding me against him.

Finally, my own desperation had me breaking the kiss first, pushing at him, shoving him to the bed, to his back, crawling over him and straddling him. He shifted beneath me, and then I felt the broad head of his cock against my folds, and I breathed a sigh as he lifted his hips, pressing the tip inside me. I moved away from him, though, making him wait the way he’d made me wait. I smiled down at him, my hands on his chest, my hair hanging in loose black waves around his face. His palms skated over my skin, up my spine and down, over my hips and thighs and up to my tits, cupping them and squeezing them and lifting, pinching my nipples and moving downward. I kept my weight forward, letting the tip of his erection stay inside but not letting him in any further.
 

I was only teasing myself, though. I wanted him deep; I needed his fullness within me.
 

“God, Ever. I need it. I need to be inside you.” He lifted his hips, but I moved with him, away from his questing thrust.

“Hold still,” I murmured. “Just wait.” He froze, and I pressed a kiss to his mouth. “In fact, don’t move at all. Let me do everything.”

He slid his hands to my hips, gripped me in the bent crease where thigh met hip. “I’m not sure I can…”

I fluttered my hips, slight, small movements, not enough to let him in, but enough to tease him. “Try, my love.”

I waited until he was still beneath me, and then, in a single swift motion, impaled him deep. He filled me, stretched me, and I had to let myself adjust to his size. I couldn’t breathe, my mouth wide and brow furrowed as I felt his huge, thick cock buried inside my pussy. I shifted my weight forward, palms flat on his stomach, and he slid out of me, inch after inch of silky hardness carving against my sensitive folds. I paused with him nearly slipping out, and then crashed my hips against his, and he groaned with me. The next thrust was slower, and when I had him poised at my entrance a third time, I buried my face against his neck and adjusted myself so he was stretched away from his torso. This time, when I slid down his length, his thick shaft dragged against my clit, and I couldn’t help the gasping whimpers that escaped me.
 

I did it again and again, slowly, so slowly, my clit stuttering against his sliding erection. I clawed my fingers into his muscles as I felt a climax rising inside me, but I refused to hurry, refused to relax the stretching of his cock. He was groaning, trembling. He wanted to thrust, wanted to take control, but he was obeying me, letting me do what I wanted.
 

“Are you close?” I asked. “I’m almost there.”

“Yeah,” he grunted, “I’m so close.”

“Come for me, Cade,” I said, sliding down his length.
 

I felt him strain, shift slightly, saw the desperation in his eyes. “I can’t,” he groaned. “Not like this, not stretched like this.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really. It just…I’m there, but I can’t—can’t—”

I interrupted him with a gasp, pressing my lips to his and stealing his words, his breath, feeling the climax approaching like the edge of a storm. I moved slowly still, pressing my clit against his length, greedy to feel the way his hardness felt inside me, the way it made me shiver and twitch with each inch of him sliding inside me.

Between one breath and another, orgasm washed through me, exploding inside me, taking control. I sank down on him, burying him deep. I was so wet, so slick, and he shuddered inside me, deep, so deep. I clamped my teeth together and fought the scream that was bubbling in my throat. Everything inside me shook and twisted, heat billowing through me. I leaned back to sit on my shins, lifted up and sank down, again, and again, rocking my climax harder and harder, and then I felt him explode, felt his cock throb and thicken and unleash, felt the hot flood of his come, and I lifted and sank, screaming through my teeth. Cade was moaning with me, hands on my hips, helping me lift up and jerking me back down, crushing our hips together, slamming his cock into me.
 

I couldn’t hold myself upright any longer and fell forward against Cade’s chest, my body trembling, pussy quaking, muscles like jelly, and still Cade was thrusting, coming, groaning, and then he, too, was still and gasping.

After several silent, breathless moments, I shifted so he slipped out of me and I rolled into his embrace. “So, does this mean we’re moving in together?” I asked.

He didn’t answer immediately. “I have an ever better, crazier idea.”

I knew what he was about to say, and my heart stopped, because I knew I’d say yes. “Okay?”

“Marry me?” I opened my mouth to speak, but he kept going. “Before you say yes, I’m not saying let’s get engaged. I’m saying…let’s elope. Get married, like, tomorrow. Buy a condo in Royal Oak or something. Just…fuck it, start our lives together. I’ll never want anyone but you, never love anyone but you. I want our lives, our every single day to be spent together, as one.”
 

I felt tears prick my eyes. “Don’t fuck with me, Cade.” I heard the anger in my own voice, the fear and the doubt. “Are you serious?”

He rolled on top of me, pinning me to the bed, his flame-hot amber eyes blazing. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life. I’ve never—never wanted anything so much. I know it’s completely batshit insane. I knocked on your door two weeks ago, and now I’m saying we should fucking elope. I knocked on your door and saw you for the first time in four years and knew I’d never love anyone else. Two weeks, yeah, but it might as well be a lifetime.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck, my legs around his. “Yes, Caden. Yes. Yes.” I breathed in his ear. “Yesyesyesyes. A thousand yeses. A million. Forever yes.”
 

“I don’t have a ring. I don’t even really know where you go to get married when you elope except Vegas, and we both have midterms coming up. But—”

“I don’t care. I don’t need a ring. I just need to be your wife.” It felt so crazy to say that, it just toppled out of my mouth unbidden, and it made me giddy and terrified.
 

Cade buried his face against my throat and laughed. “Shit, that sounds…insane and amazing. My wife. Husband and wife. Ever Monroe.”

“Ever Monroe.” It sounded…perfect. “God, I like that.”

“Me, too.” He kissed me then, and I kissed him back until neither of us could breathe, but there was no need to breathe, for we had each other, sharing breath, sharing minds and hearts and bodies and eternities.

forever and always

“You’re insane,” Eden whispered to me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

It was four days after Caden’s impulsive afterglow proposal, and we had a signed marriage certificate, my twin as a witness, and we were standing in a tiny chapel connected to a quaint bed and breakfast Caden had found online that had “elopement specials” and a last-minute opening. He’d thrown this whole thing together in a matter of forty-eight hours. I’d expected a county courthouse justice-of-the-peace wedding, but of course, Caden had surprised me.
 

“It might be a crazy last-minute elopement,” he’d told me, “but you still deserve at least a little romance.”

He’d told me to go a salon and get “done up,” as he’d put it, and let him worry about everything. So I had, and I’d found myself begging Eden to come with me, to get our hair and nails done. She’d agreed to the manicure, since I was paying, and had listened skeptically as I tried to explain. She hadn’t quite understood, but she was my twin and she’d come with us to the B&B as our only guest and witness.

I stood on the far side of the doors of the chapel, dressed in a simple sleeveless, off-the-rack wedding dress with a plunging neckline, clutching a bouquet of roses, trembling.
 

“Ever?” Eden shook my arm. “Are you okay? You don’t have to do this. He’ll understand.”

I couldn’t breathe. I was about to get married. To
Caden
. I was still trying to figure out how this had happened, how I’d gone from weekends with Will and hidden paintings of Cade and sporadic letters to insane, earth-shaking, life-changing sex with Cade, to getting married, all in less than a month.
 

Was I completely crazy? Was I going to wake up and regret this? Should I tell Cade we should wait?

I pictured myself telling him I wasn’t ready, and knew he’d love me, understand, and not even blink. But…

I
was
ready. I was terrified, nervous, jittery, but I was also excited, giddy, and eager. I wanted to see his face as I walked the short aisle toward him, in a dress he hadn’t seen yet.
 

I gripped Eden’s hand and squeezed, meeting her concerned eyes. “I want to,” I told her. “I’m ready. I’m just…nervous.”

“Nervous? Shit, I’d hope you’d be nervous,” she said. “You’re about to get married. You’re not even twenty! You haven’t even told Daddy.”

I didn’t want to think about my dad. I hadn’t spoken to him in over six months, not because I was mad, but because we simply didn’t talk. He still worked insane hours, I was at school, and we just…we didn’t have anything in common. “And I’m not going to.”

“Don’t you think—”

I whirled on her. “
Ed
en. Shut up about Dad. I’m getting married to the man I love, and that’s all that matters.”

She raised her hands. “Okay, okay. Not like
I
want him here, either. Shit. It’s not like he’s been exactly present—”

“I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about Caden. I want to go out there and say ‘I do.’”

Eden pulled me into a hug, her dyed blonde hair tickling my nose. “As long as this is what you want. Be happy, that’s all I care about. You love him? He loves you? Good enough for me. It’s fucking crazy, but if it’s what you want, then I’ll support you. I might even be a little jealous. He
is
pretty hot.”

I mock growled at her. “Back off, bitch, he’s mine.”

Eden laughed. “I thought we were supposed to share everything! Can’t I just….borrow him for a few minutes?”

I glared at her. “Eden…seriously. Not funny. We haven’t even shared
clothes
since we were twelve.”