Give & Take (Redbeard Cove #2)

28. Lana

Chapter 28

Lana

T he door opens before I reach the top of Raph’s stairs. Raph steps out, picking me up and pressing his lips to mine.

“Neighbors,” I whisper.

“Fuck ‘em,” he says. He grips the back of my head in a desperate clutch as he carries me inside, kicking the door closed behind us.

“I’m not going to last, Sunshine,” he says in between kisses. “I’m barely going to last through tasting you.”

My pussy clenches at his words. “We don’t have to do that first?—”

“ I need to do that first.” His voice is thick with gravel. “I’ve been dying to bury my face between those thighs for fucking weeks, Sunshine. Since the moment—” he tosses me on his bed. My robe falls open, and there I am, exposed, up close.

Raph lets out a true romance-novel growl. I never knew what that sounded like until this moment. It’s a low thrum, a sound like a drawn-out caveman grunt .

“Since the moment I laid eyes on you, if I’m being honest.”

I don’t have a moment for any more modesty. “Less talk,” I say, spreading my legs for him.

Raph pounces, making me squeal.

He makes good on his promise, hooking his arms under my thighs and dropping those beautiful lips onto my already slick center.

I may be older than him, but he’s clearly got years of experience on me, because immediately, I can tell he knows exactly what he’s doing. I rage with the envy of knowing other women had him like this, but it vanishes into oblivion when he takes my clit into his mouth.

“What the hell is that?” I gasp as he lets go.

“What?” he asks, knowing exactly what I mean. He pulls my clit into his mouth again in a deft sucking motion. Pleasure spasms through me like jolts of electricity. I actually cry out.

“Raph,” I say, feral now. “I’ve never—I can’t—” But there are no words to describe what I’m feeling. I don’t even know why I feel compelled to say any. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me. When my hips undulate, his tongue flicks out in long hungry strokes, matching my rhythm.

I’m doing everything I can to not come—this is too exquisite to rush. But it’s like trying to stop a dam leak with a single finger. Between the tension we’ve built up and what he just watched me do in the window, I’m going to be gone in ten seconds flat.

Except just then, Raph stops.

He licks his lips, his eyes devilish. “Not yet, Sunshine.”

Raph flattens his tongue over me, stroking in an all new way. The pleasure comes at me sideways, opening delicious channels I didn’t know I had.

He sees it, letting out a chuckle as I grip his hair. “Bet you Silicone Simon couldn’t do this,” he says between strokes.

My laugh is joyful, but tinged in desperate exasperation.

Raph’s serious again a moment later. “One day, I’m going to fuck you with that dildo while I do this.”

All I manage is a strangled gasp. That, in particular, is something I’ve always wanted to try. Among other things.

“See how he likes that,” he says with a wink.

I want to tell Raph he’s ridiculous. It’s what I always tell him. It’s what I love about him.

But he strokes me with his flattened tongue again and I lose my mind.

Raph lets out a low sound of appreciation at the sounds I’m making, then lifts his head, thumbing my clit to maintain the rhythm. “I need to feel you now, Lana. To fuck you. Is that okay?”

“Fucking do it,” I say, not recognizing my own voice.

“That’s my feral girl.” His voice is deep and low and frankly, rearranges my brain chemistry. But Raph doesn’t get up. His eyes watch the ministrations of his thumb, and he lets out a low grumble as if jealous of his own digit. He drops back down with his tongue—teasing, slow, never enough to bring me all the way .

“Now, Raph!” I cry, frustrated and so on the edge I feel like I might tear up. It feels so, so, so very good. So, so, so very torturous.

A low chuckle sounds from between my legs. Then, “Now?”

“Raph!”

But just as I’m about to completely lose my mind, there’s a crackle of foil and a seamless shift from tongue to fingers. And then fingers replaced with a hot, round head.

Seamless.

“Lana.” It’s a response. An admonition. A promise.

His eyes meet mine as he presses gently at my entrance. I whimper, writhing underneath him.

Raph feels just as big as the dildo. But I’m not comparing. I’m going cross-eyed.

“Like this, Sunshine?” he asks.

“More,” I beg.

He’s restraining himself. Going slow. But when he strokes his cock along the length of my pussy, his lips tilting in a wicked grin as I grasp his ass and try to bring him closer, I know he’s teasing me.

“Is this okay?” he asks. He knows it’s not enough. He can feel me clutching at him. Begging with my hands and legs curled around his legs.

“No,” I say. “It’s not okay. Fucking fuck me, right fucking now!”

Raph laughs—a low rumble—and then he’s up and over me, his necklace dangling over my throat just the way I pictured.

When he presses in just a little, my vision bends. It feels so, so good and he’s not even a fraction of the way in yet. He closes his eyes, his smile gone as his jaw pulses. He’s holding back.

I don’t want him to hold back. I grasp his ass harder, tilting my pelvis up, greedily pulling him toward me. “More,” I say. “More now please.”

“Fuck, Sunshine. You feel incredible.”

“You’re barely inside of me!”

“I’m savoring you.” His eyes go soft on mine. “My sweet Sunshine.”

His tone is so tender, so soft compared to the hardness of him—in his arms, flexed next to me, the plane of his stomach, the length of him poised at my entrance.

But his words— I’m savoring you —does that mean this is a one-time thing? Is this all he wanted, to catch this prize and be done?

“No.” Raph shakes his head, seeing me begin to spiral. “Don’t do that.” He grips my jaw with exquisite tenderness. “I’m savoring you because we can only have one first. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be the best. Or the last. Or the only. It’s just the first, okay?”

“Okay,” I whisper.

He’s still not quite there.

“Breathe, baby. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

How did he know that? How did he uncover that little shard inside of me, the one that festers and throbs and warns me away from getting too close? The one that has me keep my cool so I’m always prepared. The one that says nobody stays for you. They come and they go but no one stays .

“None of that is going to happen, Sunshine.”

“None of what?”

“None of those thoughts you’re trying on. Nothing’s going to change. Except maybe me being more crazy about you.”

He lowers himself down on his elbows so he’s even closer to me. Rather than kiss my neck, or do some other sex-move thing, he kisses his thumb and presses it over my sternum. Right where my rapidly beating heart sits.

“I’m not going anywhere, Lana. Whether we do this or you tell me to stop. I’m right there.”

I know he means right now. Because he is in fact going somewhere, at the end of the summer. As he should.

Unless he doesn’t.

I pretend he means forever, because in this moment, where I’m not being rational, where I can only speak what my newly kissed heart wants, I want him forever.

“Be with me,” I whisper, lacing my fingers over his back. I tug at him, encouraging him to do what we came here to do.

And as he acquiesces, as the pendulum swings between us—he gives and I take and I take and he gives—he enters me, soft and slow and tender.

When he does, I swear I hear him breathe a single word.

But by then I’m too stunned by the sensation going through me. The fullness of Raph sinking into me as deep as he’ll go has my eyes and mouth going wide.

Raph’s eyes have darkened, his brows furrowed together. “Jesus, Lana. Do you feel that? ”

All I can do is nod as I cling to him, feeling the most staggering collection of emotions and sensations all at once. Like this connection we have is so powerful it’s overwhelming my mainframe.

As he bends a knee and tips it under me, bringing one of my legs up to go even deeper, I cry out. It’s pleasure, yes, but it’s also this otherworldly kind of joy—something pure and perfect—like fulfilling a promise I didn’t know I’d made.

I’m losing this battle in my heart. I’m barely keeping myself above water.

Because how can this thing we’ve created ever be over?

Raph pulls out and when he brings us back together, I force myself to focus only on the sensation of us joining. On the fun part of being with him.

It’s not hard. This is the best time I ever had.

It must show on my face, because Raph smiles. Which makes me laugh and then him laugh, and then we’re laughing and he’s thrusting and we’re in this rhythm that feels like a car, racing up switchbacks.

This is a high I’ll never come down from.

From somewhere in the cosmos I hear Raph in my ear, like I’ve somehow curled up inside his chest. He says, “Are you ready, Sunshine?” like we’re standing at the top of the road together, like over the edge is the wild unknown.

“Yes,” I say, and the moment the word comes, my climax does too. It comes head on, like a train with no brakes. “Raph,” I cry, my voice lost to the storm. I hold onto him like I’m drowning .

It’s only when I come to the blistering reaches of the wave that the word he said before forms fully in my mind.

When I said be with me .

Raph said “Always.”