Page 37 of Against All Odds (Ember Falls #3)

twenty-seven

Everett

O ur lips come together and I feel it everywhere.

After the most incredible date, she’s here, in my home, and I’m going to take her to bed tonight with promises and every string I can possibly find.

To have had her, to have remembered, brought everything back with a vengeance. The long-ago heartache was new again. Violet was my other half, and even though we were kids, I knew it then and it’s still true today.

The mess of her life is nothing compared to what it was like when she left me.

I groan and kiss down her neck, then up to her mouth.

Violet sucks in a deep breath, and I move my hands up her back, pulling her against me. I slow the kiss, taking my time and savoring every second of it.

She fits against me so perfectly, and everything feels like a damn dream.

Violet pulls back and our eyes lock, both of us questioning a million things, but not her.

I never question us.

I push my hand into her hair, gripping the silky brunette tresses. “Do you want me to stop?”

She shakes her head. “No, not ever.” I pull her mouth back to mine, and she moans. I let her lead, giving her the control I know she’s searching for. Everything in life has been happening to her—she needs to determine this.

To decide what she wants.

“Everett.” Violet’s voice drifts over my name.

I grip her hips, and her hands move to my chest. Her head drops back, giving me access to her neck. I kiss the skin there, then run my tongue down the smooth column of her neck.

“Anything you want, I’ll give you,” I promise.

“You, I want you. I have always wanted you.”

I am hers, and I always have been.

I bring my mouth back to her ear. “Then come with me upstairs. Let me love you.”

This pause is going to determine whether we do this or she pulls away again.

When her lashes flutter closed, I tense, awaiting her rebuke, but then her hands slide down and she laces our fingers together.

She climbs the stairs, and I allow her to lead me to my room without a word. When we’re inside, I quietly close the door.

Violet turns and walks to me. Her hand goes back to my chest. “This is going to change everything.”

I want to tell her that happened a long time ago. “Why?”

Her amber eyes bore into mine. “Because I won’t be able to lie to myself after this.”

“I think we’ve been lying to ourselves from the first minute we saw each other in the coffee shop.” I move my hand to her cheek. “I think we’ve been lying to ourselves for years that we didn’t feel anything, that this was over, that we were happy. But I haven’t been happy for a long time.”

Tears well in those beautiful eyes and then slide down her cheeks. “I’ve tried to forget you.”

“So have I.”

“When I close my eyes, it’s you I see.”

Her confession breaks me, so I give her one of my own.

“I’ve tried to forget you, to erase you from my mind so I could love another, but no one has ever come close to you, Violet. You stole my goddamn heart when I was fourteen.”

She tightens her fingers into my shirt. “Now what? How do we do this?”

That’s the easiest question she’s ever asked. “We stop fighting.”

Her eyes find mine, and we move toward each other slowly, my hand cupping her face, guiding her back to me.

When our lips meet this time, it’s soft, gentle, and unhurried. It builds like a song, the tempo moving to the chorus, and then the bridge hits. I kiss her deeper, my hands moving down her body, and grip the edge of her dress.

She steps back, giving me the space to remove it, and her hands rest on my shoulders as she steps out of it.

Violet is the most stunning woman in the world. As she stands in my bedroom in just her bra and underwear, it almost breaks me. It doesn’t matter that we’ve made love dozens of times—and even just a few weeks ago—because, right now, it’s almost like the first time all over again.

I push her hair behind her ear. “Are you afraid?” I ask.

She shakes her head with her lower lip between her teeth. “Never with you.”

“Good, baby. I would cut my arm off before I ever hurt you.” Her hands move to my shirt, pulling it off, and then she undoes my jeans, letting them fall.

I kick them off and turn her to face the window.

My fingers unhook her bra, and I slowly slide it down her arms, my mouth moving to the curve of her neck.

“I know you’re scared,” I say against her skin.

“I know you worry about what might come, but know this, Violet, I want all of you. Every part of you.”

Her breath hitches. “Every part?”

I move my hands down her sides, then around to rest on her stomach, acknowledging the child that grows there.

She’s been hurt, lied to, and betrayed by so many people.

I understand her need for reassurance, and I’ll say it until she believes it.

“Every part of you. I have lived years without you. I’ve felt that hole in my heart, and I’m going to cherish every minute we have together. ”

She turns back to me, her beautiful eyes shimmering from the light of the lamp. “I don’t want to go back to what life is like without you.”

My chest grows tight just thinking about what that would be like. The daily pain of going through life without her. The way my heart didn’t feel like it was even there. No, I’m not going there right now, because she’s right here with me.

Practically naked.

Time to rectify that.

“There is only now, and right now I want you naked, baby.” I squat down and run my thumb up her calf until I reach the band of her underwear.

I don’t take my eyes from her as I pull them down, leaving her bare to me.

“I have thought of you in my bed for months,” I confess.

“I’ve imagined you here, waiting for me, wanting me. ”

“I do want you.”

“Good. Climb up on the bed,” I command. Violet obeys and moves to the center. I slide my boxers off and crawl to her. “I want you to watch me take you with my mouth. Sit up higher.”

Her chest rises and falls, but she does it. I grin as I push her knees apart.

“Everett.”

“Eyes on me, Violet. Don’t look away while I get exactly what I’ve been starved for.”

I kiss her ankle, then the inside of her calf, and then her inner thigh. I wait, listening to the labored sound of her breathing before I lift my eyes to hers. She is staring down at me, and I move incredibly slowly, wanting to draw this out for as long as I can.

She’s panting, and I kiss above where she wants me most.

“Please,” she croaks.

“Since you asked so nicely.” I lick slowly, flicking her clit with the very tip of my tongue. Her hands move to the sides of her legs, clenching the bedding. I keep doing that, tasting her, loving her, listening to her noises.

Each one drives me wild.

She moans my name, sliding her fingers in my hair. When I increase the pressure against her clit, her legs clench around my head, and I don’t relent.

I lick, suck, and vary the pressure over and over. I lift my eyes back to hers and see she’s still watching. That’s my good girl .

For that, I slide my finger into her cunt, then another, loving the way she clenches around me.

I can’t wait for it to be my cock.

I move my tongue side to side, licking and sucking, circling her clit until she starts to shake slightly.

That’s it.

Come for me.

“I can’t stop it,” she says, her breath ragged. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Let go. I’ll be here to hold you together,” I mutter against her pussy.

“Everett, oh God!” she yells, and then I feel her come apart. I keep sucking and fingering her, wanting to draw every ounce of pleasure out.

When her spasms stop, I lift my head, and the sight of her in my bed, sated, is nothing I ever imagined. “You are so beautiful when you come.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” she says with a laugh.

“Trust me, baby, I wouldn’t lie to you.”

That is the one promise I will always keep.

Her fingers move to my hair, sliding her nails through. “Make love to me, Everett. Please.”

“With all that I am.”

I reach over into the bedside table and grab a condom, but she stops my arm. “We don’t have to ... if you ... I mean, you can if you don’t want to ...”

My God, the idea of taking her bare is almost enough to make me lose it right there.

“You’re sure?”

She nods. “I’m sure. I got tested after I found out he cheated.”

“I got tested about a year ago, but I haven’t been with anyone since,” I tell her.

“Please, I need you,” she says.

This time feels different. There’s something a lot more than sex transpiring between us. I adjust myself and slide in with one deep thrust.

We both gasp and I stay fully seated, unable to move or breathe or fucking do anything. I just stare down at Violet, and she rubs her thumb against my lips.

I rest my forehead on hers, feeling way too many emotions, and right now I can’t sort them out. “Violet.” I say her name like a prayer, a promise, a hope for what can be. “This feels like I’m ...”

“Whole.”

Instead of responding, I take her mouth in a searing kiss. I kiss her for the past, the present, and the future. It’s a promise and a vow that I will do this for as long as I can. I’ll protect her, the baby, the life we can have.

I’ll do whatever I have to.

“Please,” she pants. “Please, I need you to move.”

Slowly I slide back and forth. Together we rock, and her hands rake down my back as she arches her body.

“You’re close again, aren’t you, baby? I can feel your tight, hot pussy clenching around my cock. Do you want to come again, Vi?”

“Yes,” she moans loudly.

I edge myself to the side a little and move my hand between us. I rub her clit and she pants.

“Everett!”

“That’s it, Violet,” I say, holding back my own orgasm.

I want her to come again.

“It’s too much,” she says, her head thrashing side to side.

“No, you can do it. Feel how much I want you. Feel me deep inside of you, wanting you, giving you all of me. Fuck, Violet, it’s so good. You are perfect.”

That does her in. She screams as her orgasm rocks through her. I pump my hips harder as tension goes from my neck through my spine, and then I follow her over the edge.

I move her hair to the side and kiss her nose when we both come down from our high. “Are you okay?”

She looks up at me. “More than okay.”

Good, because I plan to wake up like this every day.