As much as I recognized that Tyler wasn’t what I really wanted, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was the only safety net I had between me and Josh. That he had to stay in place, or I’d plummet. There was no question in my mind. If there was no Tyler, I would crash into Josh so hard my heart wouldn’t survive the impact.
I just needed Tyler to get home. Now. I needed him to protect me from myself and remind me why we were together. To distract me and make me fall back in love with him and—
“…I reenlisted.”
I stopped so fast my heel wobbled and I almost rolled an ankle.
What???
My fingers fumbled, and I dropped my cell with a smack on the hardwood floor. I scrambled to pick it up, and I held the phone in front of me with shaking hands and played the message again on speaker.
Then I listened a third time just to be sure I heard what he said.
He reenlisted.
He broke up with me.
It was over between us.
No more net…
I became an instant danger to my own heart. I tossed the phone onto the sofa, took off my heels, and bolted to the door.
Josh was already coming up my steps at a jog. As soon as he saw me in the doorway, he started in on me. “You can’t go walking around alone in the middle of the night, Kristen. It’s not sa—”
I collided with him, throwing my arms around his neck, and crushed my lips to his.
He didn’t even pause. Not for a second. He kissed me back.
His mouth was urgent and didn’t ask questions, like he knew this moment was a gift and he didn’t want to risk having to return it. But I needed him to know. I broke away, gasping for air, my forehead to his. “Tyler and I broke up. He left me a message. He reenlisted. I told him if he did that, we were through. And he reenlisted.”
I didn’t care. In that intoxicated moment, I did not give one fuck that Tyler and I were over.
He studied my face for a split second before he answered by kissing me again.
He was like slipping into warm sheets. It was everything safe and perfect. All the tiny, stolen, fragmented pieces of him that I’d collected over the last few weeks, his smell, the feel of his breathing against my body in the tow truck, the contours of his shirtless chest in the garage, the roughness of his hand on my bare knee, the study of his mouth when he wasn’t looking—all came together into a familiar and exhilarating rush as he pressed against me and kissed me.
Hands plunged down my back to cradle my ass and he ground into me.
Only sex. That’s all it can be.
“Do you have a condom?” I breathed.
He shook his head, trailing his lips down, ravaging the side of my neck.
I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone in over six months and I have an IUD.”
He kissed me roughly under my jaw.
“Have you been with anyone since Celeste?”
“No.” His eyes came back up to mine and I could see the desire, like smoldering embers in his irises. “And I’m good without one if you are.”
This man wanted me. We wanted each other. I was in that rare window of time when the bleeding had stopped. That once-a-month respite from my period hell.
And I’m in love with him.
I was going to sell my soul to have him. I would fly too close to the sun.
But I would do it with conditions.
“Okay, no condom. I don’t like them anyway. But Josh, this is just sex. Nothing else,” I whispered. “You have to agree or it stops now.”
My eyes drowned in his. My breasts pressed into his chest, his breath rolled over my lips, his hands pulled me into him, and I was small and protected, nestled into his firm body. It was better than the hug I’d envisioned. It was paralyzing.
Say yes.
He didn’t answer. He smiled against my lips, wrapped my legs around his waist, and carried me straight to the bedroom, devouring my mouth as he staggered through the door.
My dress pushed up around my hips and his hands held my naked thighs against him. The straining in his pants, pressed into my panties, drove me almost mad. I felt like a crazed animal. I wanted to rip his clothes off him with my teeth.
He set my feet down in the middle of the room and I tugged at his shirt, desperate to run my hands along his bare chest. He kicked out of his shoes and peeled off his shirt, and his warm masculine scent ensconced me as I grappled with his belt buckle. The metallic clink was like a mating call that made us both frantic.
I fumbled with the zipper and he took over, his fingers quicker than mine, pulling his pants down. He sprung free and I gasped. “Oh my God…”
The man was a bull.
It was the most beautiful penis I’d ever seen. I stared at it, holding my breath, wondering if it would even fit.
If this was a Copeland family trait, no wonder his mom had seven kids. I’d never put this away. I’d make this damn thing my screen saver.
My wide eyes came back up to his, and he bounced his eyebrows and grinned. Then he turned me and gathered my hair to the side of my neck and kissed along my shoulder, pressing the length of that enormous thing against my ass as he unzipped my dress, letting it fall around my ankles. I panted like a dog in heat.
“Don’t touch my stomach,” I breathed. “I have this thing and it makes it bloated and…”
He nodded against my neck and his hands came around to cup my breasts, grinding into me again from behind.
I ground back.