Page 19

18

Calista

Before

Fane told me to meet him in front of an apartment building that was about a fifteen-minute walk from the on-campus dorm I still shared with Jelly.

I couldn’t believe it myself that I had finished my second year of studying and still had the wherewithal to share a room with her.

Since the first time I asked her to keep her clothesless shenanigans to an all-time quiet, I’d found a random naked stranger in my bed exactly three times and had also once been woken up by what had to be the most hard-core sex I ever had the displeasure of involuntarily witnessing.

I mean that I woke up in the middle of the night because they fell on top of me .

That was three days ago.

I called Fane to come and get me, and I’d been staying with him and Ash ever since. I refused to go home, which sucked because Fane didn’t live anywhere near campus.

Me: Hey, I’m here.

Fane: Floor 3, Apartment 26.

I could feel the confused scrunch of my brows settle into a semi-permanent state from the moment I entered the building till the moment the elevator doors opened.

This building was nice. The part of Artington we were in was definitely classified as the nice part. It made sense, considering the University of Artinginton was just up the street, but we were nowhere near Fane’s, and we didn’t know anyone who lived here.

We’d been together for just over a year, so all our friends were pretty much the same. Unless he’d branched out unknowingly, I was pretty sure we had no friends in this building.

The door to Apartment 26 was wide open, and there was Fane, standing in the middle of an open-plan apartment. The floorboards were ashen-color wood with white walls and modern light fixtures. The kitchen drew my focus straight away with its midnight-blue cabinets and marble countertops.

It was huge, and it made me think of Fane. He loved to cook. More specifically, he loved to cook for me, and boy did I love to let him.

There was one long hallway that disappeared off the living space that had huge, half-mooned windows that let in all the sunlight of the day. The space immediately felt warm and homey even as it sat empty.

“Are we breaking and entering?” I said, after taking a minute to appreciate the way this man looked in a pair of black fitted jeans. I’d never really been one to keep my compliments to myself. “Your ass looks really good in those jeans too.”

“Funny,” Fane said, turning to face me. “I was told that exact same thing this morning.”

“By who?”

“My girlfriend.”

“You have a girlfriend? ”

“Mmm,” he hummed, walked up to me, and let his hands wander from my ribs down my back, letting them rest just above the curve of my ass. “I do.”

“Well, she sounds great.” I placed a hand on each of his cheeks and gave them a little smoosh.

“She is.” He nodded, his words coming out wonky.

“A real giver.”

Fane’s smile couldn’t be contained by the light hold I had on his cheeks. I’d come to realize that there were fewer things in life that gave me this feeling of intense, overwhelming gratitude as being someone who got to see the way he smiled. Second only to getting to hear him laugh.

He didn’t give them out freely, and usually the ones he did give out were restrained. Kind but subdued.

Not with me. I had his all-in smiles. When Fane smiled at me, he did it with his soul, and my God, he was beautiful.

“She certainly gave this morning.” He gave me a quick wink and a kiss to the corner of my mouth before he straightened up and stepped back.

My face was immediately flaming red because now I was thinking about this morning. Him, naked and warm and solid. The way his stomach muscles contracted with every rapid breath, his hands white-knuckled as they gripped the iron frame of his bed, the sounds that poured out of his mouth as I eased him into mine.

Great. Now, I was actively having a hot flash, which just made him grin even wider because, damn him, he knew where my mind had gone. If the look on his face said anything, he was pretty happy with himself about it.

“So.” I cleared my throat and rolled my eyes at him. “If you’ve already robbed this apartment, I don’t know what else I could help you with.”

“The next part is where you come in.” He trailed behind me, keeping just enough distance between us.

“And what’s that?”

“Getting all our stuff in here.”

That stopped me in my tracks.

“But this isn’t your apartment.”

Fane looked at me with equal parts excitement and vulnerability. “No, it’s not.”

“Okay.” I nodded, not at all following him, but from the tone of his voice, my stomach had begun doing flips.

“However,” he went on, and I just stood there, heart lodged in my esophagus, waiting for whatever he was about to say. He cleared his throat, keeping his eyes on mine. “It is our apartment.”

There was the right amount of blood in every part of my body until he said those words, and then suddenly there wasn’t. It was rushing around in a panic, trying to figure out where to go.

Fane’s face went from unsure to worried in a split second, and then he was there, arms wrapped around me. Always keeping me steady.

“Baby,” he murmured, ducking down to get me to look at him. “Baby, look at me.”

I shook my head, too busy trying to look around him.

“I—” I had no words. I had nothing to say. What was there to say when you were in the midst of living out something you had actively wished for your entire life?

“You don’t like it,” he said like it was a fact. A reprimand he was giving himself.

“Fane.” I shook my head again and tried to step away from him so that I could see him without craning my neck.

“I’m going to kick Ash’s ass. I asked him if this was too soon. He said it was too late . What does that even mean?” Fane dropped his arms from where they were wound around me and turned away from me, running a hand through his long, shoulder-length hair. He usually kept it up, but today he’d left it down, and it was doing incredibly sinister things to me.

“ Fane!” I wasn’t the sort of person who raised their voice, but every now and then when he got in his own head, it was like he couldn’t hear me and it was all I could do to snap him out of it.

The look he gave me was heartbreaking. It was every ounce of the vulnerability I saw from before but without any of the shy hopefulness that had accompanied it.

“Fane,” I croaked out, knowing it was only a second before my eyes were too misty to see him properly. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

He was so damn oblivious sometimes.

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed, swiping at my eyes, watching as another of those rare and beautiful soul smiles split across his face again. “You’re telling me I get to live with the love of my life for the rest of my life?” I spluttered.

“Are you sure it’s not because you just don’t like living with Jelly?”

“That’s definitely why. I’ll never recover from seeing Bernard Evans from that angle.”

“You said his leg was hoisted ?”

I nodded rapidly, my tears starting to fall, “Hoisted on my headboard.”

He tipped his head back, filling what had just become our first home with one of my favorite sounds in the world—his laughter. Like a tether to my soul, that sound tugged me right toward him until I was wrapping my arms around him and tucking my head under his chin. The perfect fit.

I hiccuped into his jacket, unabashedly wiping my nose on him before meeting his gaze. “You’re just making all my dreams come true without even trying.”

His smile melted into something small and tender, like he didn’t believe my words but was certainly trying to. “I’m actually trying very hard.”

“You’re doing a super job,” I said, stretching on the tips of my toes, my mouth hovering just an inch from his.

“Thank you.”

He closed the distance between us, molding his mouth against mine. My body sagged at the relief of it, a groan of satisfaction poured out of me at the same time as one rumbled from deep in his chest.

That was all it took—just that one moment—and I needed him.

With one arm around me, Fane picked me up, still pressing me firmly against him and brought his mouth back to mine. I had no idea how he did it, but he managed to carry me across the apartment, close the door, and leave me breathless with the sort of searing kiss that no one in their right mind could ever forget.

Fane kissed me as if it were the last time, and wanted to regret nothing.

The brush of his stubble, the swipe of his tongue, the nip of his teeth on my lower lip. It was an overwhelming amount of sensations for one person to feel all on their own.

“Calista,” Fane rasped, his eyes rolling at the scrape of my nails against his scalp. Sinking my fingers into his hair had become an obsession of mine from the first moment I’d done it. “I need you now,” he ground out, his mouth claiming mine in another all-consuming kiss. One that made me acutely aware of how wet I was, how desperate I was to feel him again, even though I’d had him inside me just hours before.

He walked us over to the kitchen counter and the moment he set me down, my hands dropped straight to his jeans. “I really love these, but they need to come off. Now.”

The small smile of satisfaction on Fane’s face sent another pulse of desire through me that made me almost positive I could have come without him even touching me. I was pushed even closer to the edge when he shrugged off his jacket and reached back to pull off his shirt with one hand.

“Jesus Christ,” I breathed, my hands shaking. The button on his jeans finally gave, and I wasted exactly zero seconds reaching into his black briefs.

Everything about Fane was the perfect mixture of hard and soft. That was also the case for his cock. I watched him, enraptured, when I wrapped my hand around his steely length, so thick that my fingers didn’t touch, and marveled at being the person who got to see him come undone.

I moved my hand in slow, sure strokes, captivated by the way his breathing hitched. The way his fingers flexed from where they were splayed along my rib cage over my dress. A small gasp floated out of my parted lips, and Fane’s violet eyes snapped open, focusing right on me. They took stock of my hooded eyes, my shallow breathing, the way my throat worked on an impossible swallow.

“Tell me, Rose,” he rasped, letting his eyes fall from my face down to my tits, which were full and heavy. My nipples pebbled and were far too sensitive to be scraping against the fabric of my dress. “You’re desperate to feel me fill that tight little cunt of yours, aren’t you?”

I nodded my head probably a little too enthusiastically.

“I want your words, baby. I want to hear you say it.”

“Yes,” I breathed. “I am.”

“If I pull up your dress, will I find your pussy bare, Calista?”

“Y-yes,” I stuttered, trying to keep my focus on his eyes, to keep from being transfixed at the way my hand still glided up and down his cock.

Fane’s eyes dragged down my body again, and I felt the path of his gaze as if it were the pads of his fingers. The flat expanse of his tongue. A shiver racked through me.

“Fane.” A plea, a prayer, a question all in one.

I finally dropped my eyes, enthralled with the way my hand looked wrapped around him. Entirely enamored by the way his stomach muscles were shifting. Clenching and unclenching, like the restraint he was showing didn’t come as easily as he was putting on. Like I was driving him as insane as he was driving me.

Fane reached for the hem of my dress where it settled just above my knees. His eyes locked at the juncture of my thighs as he slowly, torturously, lifted up the material inch by inch until I was exposed to him fully.

The sound that escaped him was a mixture of pain and pleasure. I was too focused on the way he looked to be concerned about anything else. The flush in his cheeks, the swipe of his tongue along his bottom lip.

The trail of his fingers along my inner thigh sent a jolt through me, making my pussy clench around nothing at all, making my legs spread wider on reflex.

Fane’s eyes darted to my face. “Dirty girl,” he breathed before sinking two fingers deep into me.

The intrusion had been so unexpected I released my hold on his cock, my hands fumbling for the edge of the counter with a white-knuckled grip. A yelp of surprise echoed around the empty apartment, ringing in my ears while he pumped two long fingers in and out of me, using the same torturous pace I’d been using on him.

The moment his thumb brushed over my swollen clit I was already toppling over the edge. Wave after wave of pleasure pulsed through me, Fane’s fingers never changing their steady pace, drawing out my orgasm until it was too much. Until my hand wrapped around his wrist to stop him.

“Fane.” I was pretty sure I slurred his name. “ Please .”

“Please, what?” Through the haze of my fading release, I could see how clear his eyes looked. The violet in them looked electric. Enraptured. He looked spellbound.

“Fuck me.” I wasn’t remotely self-conscious of the neediness of my own voice. The strength of it. The moment Fane Mackenzie touched me, I didn’t even know myself. Someone strong-willed, steady in her own right. The only thing I did know was that if he didn’t keep touching me, if I didn’t feel him the way I needed to, then I would absolutely die.

The smile he gave me was knowing because he was all too aware of what he did to me, and he loved it.

I watched him wrap his large hand around his cock, pumping it twice before squeezing the base. “Are you going to watch, Rose?” he asked at the very same moment he ran the head of his cock along the seam of my pussy.

He stopped abruptly and my eyes shot open. “Lift your arms up, baby,” he said, his voice gentle and warm. It had surprised me at first the way he could be soft and rough with me, all at once.

I lifted my arms, and Fane lifted my dress up and over my head so that I was completely naked before him. Lowering his head, he took one peaked nipple between his teeth, biting with just enough pressure to make me groan before tracing the tip of his tongue up the valley of my breasts all the way back to my mouth. He gripped my throat with his free hand, kissing me brutally, all tongue and teeth.

“Perfect,” he said against my lips before pulling back and notching the head of his cock at my entrance.

“Watch, Calista,” he said between gritted teeth, pushing into me slowly. And because I couldn’t resist him, I looked down.

“Oh, fuck, ” I choked out. It didn’t matter how many times I’d done exactly this, it never got less hot.

“Do you see how fucking perfect you are for me?” he rasped. I chanced a quick look at his face, but he was solely focused on the way he was pushing into me. “Fucking Christ. ”

“F-Fane.” I could have thought his name or said it out loud, I really had no idea.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, mesmerized. “Mine. How the fuck are you mine?”

Fane pushed right into the hilt, pausing the way he always did while I adjusted to the size of him. I watched him lift one hand from my thigh, dragging it up my stomach and across my heaving chest and up to my throat until the two fingers he’d had inside me were pushing at the seam of my mouth.

“Open your mouth, baby.”

And I did. Fane pushed his fingers flat against my tongue, so far back I gagged. The sound pulled at the corner of his mouth a little, and with a wicked glint in his eyes, he started to move.

There was no slow and soft. Only his digits in my mouth kept me steady while I watched him push into me again and again. The slapping of his body meeting mine filled the apartment around us in a cacophony of overlapping noises that made me really hope that the walls between us and our new neighbors were thick enough for them not to have this moment be their introduction to us.

Fane pulled his fingers from my mouth while his hand left a trail of my own saliva down my neck to where he pushed softly on my chest, urging me to lie back on the counter.

There was nothing but the sound of us coming together. Over and over, mixed with the sound of my arousal.

“You’re so fucking wet for me, Rose,” Fane said, his hand dragging from the center of my chest down, putting pressure just below my belly button. “So perfectly tight.”

I whimpered his name, my eyes starting to roll at the budding pressure of another orgasm that pulsed at the bottom of my spine. “Fane, I—”

“I know, baby.” His voice was rough, his grip on my hip tightened, and the pressure on my stomach increased. “I want to feel you come, Calista. I want to feel the way you squeeze my cock. Let me feel it. Please .” The hand on my stomach moved to my clit, where he rubbed hard, fast circles.

My back arched off the kitchen counter, and stars took over my vision. I might have even passed out.

It was small, delicate kisses up my stomach and a teasing lick over my nipple that settled me back into my body. My heart was still thrumming, and for all the pleasure he’d just injected into my body, one look at Fane had me ready to jump his bones again.

He was so classically handsome with this rugged edge. He would look exquisite in a suit in a boardroom or on the back of a horse in a pair of faded blue jeans and a cowboy hat.

“We’re going to need to sanitize this counter,” I murmured, reveling in the way it felt to have him laugh into the skin of my neck.

He pulled back and stunned me stupid with the look on his face, like even though I told him he was actively making my dreams come true, I was his dream come true.

That’s how Fane looked at me.

“Welcome home, baby,” he murmured.

I blinked rapidly, trying to swallow back the emotion clogging in my throat. Of being able to sit in the knowledge that this was the first home of many we might have, and I would get to keep Fane Mackenzie for the rest of my life.