Forever Starts Tonight (Wilder Family #4)

Chapter 32

Jax

One thing was exceptionally clear. Every second I spent not kissing Poppy Wilder was a monumental fucking waste of time.

Tilting my head to lick into her mouth, I felt a shiver wrack my frame when the wet heat of her tongue slid around my own. Her lips, just as soft and sweet and firm as I’d imagined, pushed and pulled against mine while we traded breaths, traded sounds of pleasure and longing. I sucked on her bottom lip, and her quiet whimper lit that feeling under my skin, the fierce drive to take more, kiss deeper, touch harder.

My hands shook where I clutched her body to mine, sliding over her back, filling my palms with the firm curves of her backside while she writhed against the thigh I had wedged between hers.

Every inch of her body was warm and soft and curved, and I could spend all night just mapping the spaces that I hadn’t spent near enough time on during her night in my bed. There were freckles along her shoulders and collarbone, each tiny dot something that should be counted and memorized, kissed and kissed and kissed.

I dragged my nose along the edge of her jaw and inhaled deeply while she curled her hands around my shoulders and held me tightly to her. Taking her mouth again, everything in my head distilled down to this perfect fucking kiss. Poppy arched her back and moaned when I speared my hands into her hair and fisted the silky strands.

Now I knew I’d done something really great in another life. Saved a city from destruction or cured a disease or stopped a war because it sure wasn’t anything I’d done in this one to deserve a moment like this. To deserve her. To deserve anything like what I felt just by kissing her.

The world expanded in a heartbeat, growing to something so big and stunning, a dizzying kind of desperation had my hands clutching her tighter, wanting to feel more and more and more as I pressed her sweet, curved body against the wall behind us.

What was this feeling clawing at my chest?

I wanted to fuck her.

I wanted to hold her.

I wanted to kiss her for hours and feel her weight in my arms, and I’d be the happiest I’d ever been in my entire life.

I wanted to love her for the rest of this life and into the next one and the one after that. For as many as I’d get with her.

Ripping my mouth away, I sucked in a sharp breath and studied her kiss-abused lips and blown-out pupils, the high color on her cheeks. I rolled my forehead against hers and gently kissed her top lip, then her bottom, helpless admissions climbing up my throat that I did nothing to stop.

Not anymore.

“You are so beautiful, it hurts,” I said, the words aching as they escaped.

Everything ached, actually. Whatever piece of my heart she’d claimed for her own, it whittled away all my reservations and pumped blood through my veins to the sound of her name. Poppy’s eyes glossed over with tears, like she could hear all my thoughts, and for a moment, I wondered if she couldn’t.

If anyone was able to slice past my reserve, my inability to put voice to the things I wanted, that I feared and craved, it was her.

With a steadfast heart that couldn’t be swayed and a determination that could crack through the firmest of walls, this beautiful creature had chosen me to love, and I’d spend the rest of my life being worthy of it.

“Don’t cry, angel,” I whispered.

“I’m happy,” she whispered back. She kissed me deeply, a relieved moan slipping from her mouth to mine. Poppy pulled away and smiled, and I wanted to ink that smile onto my fucking soul. “I’m so happy, it hurts.”

My lips edged up in a crooked smile, the tips of my fingers roaming over the high, graceful cheekbones, the sharp cupid’s bow on her pink lips and the dimple that appeared when she smiled a true, genuine smile.

They tracked down the line of her jaw, tracing the graceful line of her throat as she swallowed. A helpless shiver wracked her frame as my fingers moved to her cheekbones, edging along the curves of her shoulders, over the edge of her shirt and the heaving warmth of her mouthwatering cleavage.

I ducked my head and whispered soft, unintelligible words against her skin while my palms coasted over her upper arms and down the line of her waist, curving over her belly before ghosting over the hard tips of her breasts. With the backs of my knuckles, I teased her there until she threw her head back on a helpless gasp.

“What do you need, Poppy?” I asked.

With a dazed, shaky exhale, she gripped my biceps and tugged my chest flush along hers. “You, just you,” she begged. “Please, Jax.”

With a groan, I slanted my mouth over hers again, the groan from my chest echoing in the quiet room as I licked against her tongue. She rolled up on her tiptoes, twisting her tongue against mine with a tilt of her head, then nipped at the tip when I tried to withdraw it from her mouth. Poppy and I stood like that, wrapped around each other, trading fierce kisses that snatched the air from my lungs and the thundering heart in my chest.

I pulled away from the kiss and cupped her face in my hands again, locking my eyes with hers. “Will you take me to your bed this time?” I asked evenly. “Or do you want to wait?”

With a heartbreakingly earnest expression on her face, she wound her fingers between mine and looked up at me in a way that had my chest cracking open. “This is real, isn’t it, Jax? I’m not imagining this or?—”

I cut her off with a hard kiss, pulling away almost immediately. “This is real,” I said fiercely. “You and me and that baby and however many more we make, because now that I’ve kissed you,” I paused, the heaving of my chest making my ears ring, “Poppy, now that I’ve kissed you, you’re mine, and I won’t give you back.”

The smile started in her eyes, something warm and soft and full of promise, and she tugged on my hands, turning us until she was walking in front of me, leading the way to her very big, hopefully very sturdy bed.

At the landing at the base of the stairs, she whirled, eyeing my chest. “Shirt off.”

After a glance over my shoulder to make sure the curtains were closed, I reached behind my shoulder blades to fist the shirt in one hand, pulling it over my head and tossing it onto the floor. Her eyes devoured every inch of skin as I uncovered it, and she licked at her bottom lip, dragging her fingers over the slope of my shoulders and dancing down the front of my biceps.

I jerked my chin up. “Your turn.”

She gripped the bottom of her tank top with two hands and peeled it over her head, her hair slipping down over her shoulders as she stood one step above me. The sight of her smooth skin and curves had my mouth watering. I slid my hands over her bump, holding her gaze while I placed a soft kiss just above her belly button. Poppy shimmied the waistband of her shorts down her hips, and I decided that just standing there without helping was incredibly rude. I tucked my fingers into the top and tugged, dragging my knuckles along the skin of her outer thighs, grinning when she kicked them off. Cut high on her legs were simple white cotton briefs.

I slid my fingertips to her inner thighs, watching with sharp-eyed interest while she tipped her head back and let out a gasping breath.

“I didn’t taste you here last time,” I said lightly, smoothing my fingers back and forth and back and forth along the front of her panties. Poppy rocked her hips, but I kept the pressure light. “Should I start here, angel?”

Her eyes snapped down to mine. “Later,” she said fiercely.

“So demanding,” I murmured. With my hands on her hips, I nudged her to take one of the steps, and she followed my direction, walking backward as I kept one step below her. I unhooked the belt holding up my work jeans, and the clink of the buckle had her swallowing visibly.

She stopped at the top step, gaze searing into mine while I pushed the jeans off and left them where they fell, left only in my black boxer briefs. Against the flimsy cotton barrier, my hardness strained above the waistband, and she sucked in a breath through her nose when she noticed.

“Your fault,” I said with a wry arch of my eyebrow.

That heat in her eyes melted away when my hands drifted up her back and found the clasp on her pristine white bra. Carefully, I peeled it off, staying on the step below hers.

“Look at you,” I whispered, tracing a circle along the edge of one hard-tipped pink nipple.

“Gently,” she begged. “They’re … sensitive.”

Low in my throat, I hummed. “Like this? ”

I leaned forward and placed a sweet, sucking kiss there. She sighed, clutching the back of my head as I gently sucked her warm, soft breast into my mouth, tracing the tip of my tongue along the edge, then dragging my nose across her chest to the other, lifting it with my hand and holding her gaze. In contrast, I carefully dragged the edge of my teeth along the hardened nub—lightly enough that she shivered, hard enough that her hands tightened along the back of my scalp.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Just like that.”

Digging my hands down the back of her underwear, I filled my palms with the warm flesh of her backside, laving my tongue over the tips of her chest. “Delicious,” I told her, holding her gaze as I brushed my mouth over her nipples. “Could do this all day. What about you, angel?”

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t take much more of this.”

I stepped up, and she took the final step onto the second floor, whirling into the bedroom with my hand clutched in hers. I crowded against her back, holding her hips flush to me while I rocked against her.

“You think I can?” I whispered hotly against the back of her neck. “You think I’m not one touch away from losing my fucking mind?”

I slid my hands along the front of her hips and tugged on the white cotton covering her. It got as far as tangling around her knees, and I found the hot, wet center of her with two fingers, sliding back and forth while her head dropped back onto my shoulder, her body sagging with a helpless moan. I held her up with an arm banded underneath the lush, mouthwatering weight of her breasts.

“That’s it,” I told her as she worked her hips over my hand.

She let out a low moan and even if I lived another hundred years, I’d never forget what it sounded like. All my best fantasies come to fucking life. There was nothing that would ever come close, ever do to me what she did .

“Been dreaming about this,” I told her. One hand between her legs, and one hand cupping a full, warm breast, I sucked at the skin of her shoulder while she writhed in my arms. “Been dreaming about this every night, angel. Want those sweet little noises you make and the way you clench so tight around me.”

Her breath was coming in short pants, and she clutched my wrist when I didn’t slide my fingers more than an inch inside her, circling just around where she wanted me most.

“Please,” she begged.

My hands gripped her hips again, turning her so I could slant my mouth over hers for a brief, hot, tongue-tangling kiss. When we broke apart, I rolled my forehead to hers and fought the urge to take her fast and hot and hard.

Later, she’d said.

We had time.

So much fucking time.

First, I thought with a shiver wracking my spine, I wanted something else.

I sucked her lower lip into my mouth, biting down before I released it, relishing the prick of her fingernails into my back. That bite of pain had me rolling my neck, clutching at any shred of control I had left.

My mouth watered at the scent of her, and I wanted her to melt on my tongue and feel her thighs snap tight around my head.

I pushed her to her back on the bed, wrenching her legs open as she moved backward to make room. Wasting no time, I wedged my shoulders between her thighs and licked straight up her center with the flat of my tongue.

My eyes fell shut at the taste of her, a groan wrenched from the back of my throat. I kissed her there too, luxurious, wet licks of my tongue against the softest, sweetest parts of her while my hips rocked mindlessly against the mattress underneath me .

Poppy moaned my name, and I slid my fingers inside her, hooking them up as I watched her go slack-jawed and mindless.

Her back snapped up, a sharp curve to her spine and a helpless gasp.

I met her gaze from between her legs, and she sobbed my name as she broke wide open, writhing against my face.

After another slide of my tongue as she came down and a sucking kiss just because she tasted too good not to, I pulled away.

“I’ll kiss you here every day if you let me,” I promised in a rough voice. “Have you for breakfast if I’m fucking lucky.”

With my forearm, I wiped at my face and prowled up over her lush body, slanting my mouth over hers and sucking at her tongue while she clutched at my back.

Poppy groaned into the kiss, and I tilted my head to deepen it.

This was us, wasn’t it?

A filthy, perfect mix of her personality and mine. Fucking heaven.

I’d never want anything else for the rest of my life, if I could have this with her.

I rolled my weight to the side and gripped her thigh in one hand, laying her leg over my hip. She was sensitive from the first orgasm, and I kissed her gently while I gripped myself in hand and teased her with the tip, allowing her to rock carefully over my length without taking me inside yet.

Poppy was still gasping for breath, her cheeks and chest flushed and her eyes so fucking dazed that I wanted to pound my chest. I kissed her and kissed her, letting the small rocking motion of my hips bring her back up.

Wanted to kiss her forever, this perfect woman of mine.

“I missed you,” I told her in an emotion-rough voice. “I missed you so fucking much. ”

Gripping my face in both hands, Poppy kissed me deeply, a decadent whimper slipping from her mouth into mine.

We got lost again, rocking against each other like we didn’t dare go further, allowing the deep, messy clash of our mouths to work us both into a frenzy. Her arms were tight around my back, and I couldn’t stop touching her everywhere.

I pressed her back into the mattress with the strength of my kiss, and she whimpered, sliding her hands into my hair and gripping tight.

Stopping the motion of my hips first, I had to stop the kiss too, because leave it to me to come like this. She felt so good. Too good. And I was feeling so much. Too much.

She took me in hand, and I hissed at the way she rolled her palm at the angry tip, working me with her tightly clasped fingers.

“Careful, angel,” I warned, “I’m not trying to come on those pretty thighs just yet.” I took her mouth in a ferocious kiss. “We can do that later.”

Poppy smiled, devilish and beautiful, and she pushed with two hands on my shoulders, rolling me onto my back as she swung her legs over my lap.

At the sight of her above me, so fucking beautiful and mine, I let out a drawn-out, “Fuck, look at you.”

Poppy tipped her head back, her full breasts on display, the curve of her stomach and her soft hips the perfect handle for my greedy hands. She worked her hips in tiny circles, sliding down inch by torturous inch while I gritted my teeth.

Better than anything.

This was better than anything .

When she was fully seated, she let out a decadent sigh, setting her palms on my chest, her fingernails digging into my skin.

“You gonna take what you want, beautiful?” I asked, keeping my hips still even if I felt like I might fucking die if I didn’t move soon. “I’m at your mercy. ”

Her lips curled up into a smirk, and she tightened around me. I groaned, my hands gripping her hips so hard I might leave marks.

Then she started moving. Back and forth, slow circular motions of her hips, and I met her with movements of my own until her breath started getting faster and faster.

She rubbed her pelvis over me as she rocked, and I could feel the telltale tightening, could sense how close she was. Pleasure built and swelled down my spine, even though something inside me was screaming for fast and hard, some visceral joining that would bind this moment into something as wild as she made me feel.

Poppy rolled her hips again, and I groaned. “Damn, woman, you are evil.”

She smiled, her dark eyes gleaming. “You know,” she said breathlessly, “we’re going to have to be a little creative with our positions from here on out.”

“Yeah?” I moved my thumb between her legs, and she gasped, her rhythm faltering. “Tell me.”

She held my gaze, teeth digging into her bottom lip while she changed the angle of her hips, and I groaned. “I bet you can guess,” she whispered brokenly.

Tightening my hands, I allowed my hips to rock up just as she came down. “Can I have you on your hands and knees, angel?”

Poppy gasped, hands gripping mine. “Yes.”

“Bent over the counter,” I moaned. “In that shower. On your side while I hold you down and you can’t move. Tiny little thrusts that’ll drive you out of your mind. That sound good?”

“Jax,” she sighed. Her hands slipped into her hair as she worked herself over me, her chin tilting up helplessly. “Hard, Jax. I need hard.”

My fingers dug into her flesh when she lifted until I almost slipped free of her body. Her eyes locked on mine, bright with challenge and heat and love, and I clenched my jaw and slammed my hips up.

She groaned.

From beneath, with her luscious curves bouncing from the snap of my hips, I took her like we both wanted. Sweet could come later. Slow could come later.

I braced my feet on the bed and watched with nothing short of awe as she broke apart above me, my name in a hoarse scream of pleasure that inked itself on my heart. The heat grew and spread over the base of my spine, bleeding into my hips and cracking open in my chest as I tipped over the edge with a roar.

I sat up, gripping her hair in a tight fist as I took her mouth in a ferocious, tongue-tangling kiss, milking what remained of our pleasure with short, rolling motions of my hips.

Her arms hung limp over my shoulders as we kissed, slow and sloppy and wet. Her teeth dug into my bottom lip, and when she pulled back, she was smiling.

Thumb brushing over her cheekbone, I stared up into her face as I kissed her again. When I pulled back, her eyes were wet.

“I’ve never told anyone that I loved them,” I whispered, my heart threatening to burst from my chest. “I think maybe I was saving those words for you, Poppy.”

I didn’t realize my eyes were wet too, until the first tear fell, and Poppy brushed it away with a gentle swipe of her fingers, cupping my face in both hands. The patience and understanding in her face had my throat tightening.

Never rushing me.

Never expecting me to be something I wasn’t, say something I wasn’t ready for.

What a gift that kind of acceptance was. What a gift she was.

“I love you,” I told her, and it felt impossible that three little words could hold everything that was pressed inside my rib cage for this woman. Saying them didn’t lessen the pressure, only added a sweet sort of weight and anticipation that I’d never experienced before.

For the rest of my life, I’d get to love her.

Have the privilege of being loved by her in return.

Her eyes fell shut and she rested her forehead on mine as we sat there, tangled and sweaty and perfect.

“I love you too,” she answered, her voice thick with tears.

With a sharp inhale, I wrapped my arm around her back and kissed her again, fingers tangling in her hair and my soul sighing with relief.