Page 16 of Unexpected Pickle

JEANNIE TAKES IT ALL IN

I don’t know how this got started, but I’m feeling it.

When did it come to this? Sleeping by the fire? Watching movies? His helplessness when the grill went up in flames? His arrival at the retreat or my crepe class, or was it all the way back when he first showed up in my kitchen?

Maybe then.

His mouth descends on mine again, and I know I could kiss and touch him all day.

But there is a fire burning in me, and I don’t think it’s going to get quenched with only that.

His skin is hot and smooth. He’s Magic Mike, Thor, and Travis Kelce all rolled into one. We’re stranded in the middle of a storm, as alone as two people can get, and no one has to know what happens here.

I slip my fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants. There are several pairs there. We were so worried about the cold, and now we’re getting naked.

But I don’t feel the smallest chill.

Hex lets out a low, feral growl as I explore the skin beneath the elastic. His hips. The dimples at the base of his back. Every inch of his body is rock hard.

Including the front.

He jerks me against him so I can feel it. With both of us kneeling, it hits me in the belly. That’s impressive.

I want to see it, see him, all of him, the parts he doesn’t show in commercials and photo spreads. I’m sure plenty have seen it before. I won’t kid myself about that.

But I want to see all of this glorious man.

I pull back. “Strip.”

His eyebrows lift. “Your wish is my command.”

“My command was your wish.”

He lets out a huffy laugh. “That’s the damn truth.”

He doesn’t bother with theatrics. He strips off his pants and whatever else might have been under there, along with his socks.

He stands over me, and I want to learn to paint. To sculpt. To commit this gorgeous being to something permanent. I want to look at him any time the urge strikes.

Because Hex is too much. Too glorious. Too…everything.

“You’re a god.”

He reaches down to pull me up to stand next to him. “Then we’ll be gods together.” And in one swift movement, he’s pulled all my sweatshirts off me.

I didn’t leave on my bra when I changed. But I don’t have even a second to get shy or insecure. Before the clothes have hit the floor, he’s on his knees, pulling a breast into his mouth, covering the other with his enormous hand.

I feel positively dainty with him, something that has never happened in my life. He overpowers me, eclipses my size with his.

And as he sucks deeply on my nipples, I feel the tug from my chest to my core, a line of pure fire creating a need in me so intense that it evaporates any other thought.

I wrap my arms around his neck, and he lowers me down to the swirl of blankets before the fire. He’s like a lion crawling over me, taking whatever part of my body he wants into his mouth, kissing, sucking, biting.

The cool air hits my belly as my layers of pants go down. My back arches involuntarily as he exposes everything at once.

“I’m going to taste you,” he says, as if offering me a moment to object.

I can’t speak. I thread my fingers through his thick hair as he makes his way down, moving the backs of my knees to his sturdy shoulders.

Then I’m lost, gasping, as he delves deep, sucking hard, adding fingers, expertly drawing every sensitive part into his mouth.

Another finger slides into me farther down, which has never happened to me in my life. I jolt upward, surprised, but I lose track of what part of him is where as I’m struck with a thunderbolt of pleasure that completely wipes out all thoughts.

This man knows what he is doing.

“Hex!” I cry, not sure of what is up or down anymore, where I end and he begins. My body convulses from everywhere.

The orgasm washes over me, my chin thrust upward, my body arching. His mouth stays on me, drawing out every last quiver. Only when I collapse into stillness does he carefully lower me down.

He kisses his way up my body, skipping no parts, letting me catch my breath. When he arrives at my face, he says, “I’m going to fuck you senseless. I have six condoms. It won’t be enough. What do you have here?”

Jesus Christ. Six?

“I’m fine. I think. About the need for condoms at all. I’m on birth control. Are you…okay?”

“Pass all health checks before every match.”

“It’s been…a while for me.”

“You sure?” His eyes watch me.

“Yes.”

I’ve barely finished the word when he grips my shoulders and thrusts into me.

I gasp, barely able to contain the feeling of being penetrated so hard and so deep. “Oh my God,” I tell him, clutching his arms, making him move with me until my body adjusts.

Then it does, and it’s wild, being so possessed. I can see nothing but Hex, feel nothing but his body, inside and out. He’s taken over every one of my senses. He smells of wood smoke and blackened steak. His skin is hot and smooth and moves with his muscles like a perfectly tuned machine.

His breath is a rasp in my ear and a warm gust against my cheek.

Taste. I want to taste him, too. I turn my head and sink my teeth into the beefy bicep near my cheek. His skin has the lightest taste of char from tending the fire.

This moment was made for me, for us.

His movements are steady and rhythmic, creating a slow build of tension inside me. Good Lord, is this going to happen again? I never orgasm from penetration.

But he’s so big, so strong, and fills me so completely.

My breathing speeds up. He must notice, as I feel his cheek against my forehead shift into a smile. “My Jeannie,” he whispers, and my name on his lips makes me tighten around him.

Then the sparks begin, like branches of lightning flashing off the center bolt.

I writhe beneath him, needing resolution, for this intensity to climax.

But he slows down, that smile pressing against my forehead.

He’s driving me mad, so sweetly insane. As his muscles flex beneath my hands, I’m not sure which I want more: to drive into the light or to stay in the throes of this sweet madness forever.

But I think I know how to make him crack. “Come inside me, Hex,” I say, blushing at the words. I’ve never talked like this to anyone. “Lose control in my body.”

His body tenses and a long groan escapes. He tries to hang on. I can feel it in how he moves against himself, wanting to speed up, to get wild, and yet hold back.

I squeeze around him. “This is just the first one, Hex. There will be so, so many more.”

And that does it. He stops fighting, bracing himself on the floor. Pounding into me with an abandon I didn’t know was possible between two people.

I want to laugh, to scream, and then I am, a high-pitched noise coming from me the likes of which I’ve never heard before. Everything in me flares, and the blast of heat is like a tidal wave crashing on a shore.

“Hex, Hex, Hex.” I can’t stop saying it. Maybe I’ve been saying it, inside me, every time I turned him away. It seems so silly, pushing him away when he was trying so hard.

The pleasure pulses over me again and again. I feel the hot rush of him inside me and it’s the most electric thing I’ve ever known. I already want it again and this one isn’t even over.

He stills and shifts, so our faces align.

Only half of him is lit orange by the fire, the other in shadow.

“I will change my life to align with yours, just to know we can be this way together,” he says, and it’s such a tender statement, so full of certainty, that I lift both hands to clasp his cheeks.

“You do, Hex. You have me.” I draw him to me.

And his body fits on mine. I can hold him.

We are a match.