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  Pepper’s mouth turns down into a small frown. Her eyes are hardened, her expression tight. Her cheeks are flushed, but I know it’s more than just desire causing them to burn, its embarrassment too. She slides free of my hips, reaching for her corset. I sit up and snag her arm so she’ll look at me.

  “I know this is new for you. I wanna do this right, and what I did at that party, it was unacceptable. If I’d known you were a virgin, I never would—”

  “I’m not—”

  “Pepper, you’re not the first woman I’ve been with. There was blood on my hands before I hit Luke, babe. A man knows when he’s with a virgin. Or at least, he should if he’s paying attention.”

  “Maybe you just weren’t paying attention then?”

  “Fine, you wanna play games, Little? Let’s play. Who did you sleep with?”

  “Who have you slept with?”

  “A lot of girls,” I deadpan. “Who did you lose your virginity to, Pepper?”

  “Jake,” she blurts. Pepper closes her eyes; if I didn’t know any better I’d say she’s regretting using the first name that came into her head, because we both know it’s a damn lie.

  “Jake?” I ask incredulously.

  “Mmhmm.”

  Pepper pulls away, snatches up her corset and begins fastening the little silver hooks. Her tiny waist disappears behind the fabric, then her ribs. Her soft breasts are spilling out over the top of the material and I’m pretty sure she’s going to need help to get them all tucked away again. I have no desire to see them all covered up, so I don’t offer and instead watch her struggle with the little hooks, growing harder at the thought of running my mouth over her taught nipples.

  “Bullshit. He would have told me.”

  “Maybe he was just as ashamed as I was. You’re not the only one in town who likes young pussy.”

  My eyes go wide and then I launch myself at her, scooping her up and pinning her to the blanket beneath us. “Let’s get something straight, I don’t like young pussy. I like your pussy; your age is irrelevant.”

  “That’s not what you said when I was fourteen.”

  “Your age is irrelevant now that you’re legal.”

  “I’ve been legal for two years, and my eighteenth was three months ago. What took you so long?” she challenges.

  “You’re avoiding the subject, Little.” I press my lower body into hers, smoothing my hand along her side, digging my fingers into her hip. “When did it happen, this thing with Jake?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Oh, I care.” I drop my head to her shoulder and place a slow line of wet kisses from her clavicle to her earlobe, gently sucking the soft flesh between my teeth. “Believe me, I care. A lot.”

  “What are you doing?” Pepper protests, but the words she feeds me are breathy and hot as hell.

  “You hate Jake,” I challenge in a whisper.

  “I can’t have sex with someone I hate?”

  “Do you hate me, Pepper?” I ask, rolling her rosy nipple between my thumb and forefinger and pinching hard.

  “Yes,” she moans. I’m only half certain that was a moan and not an answer to my question.

  I growl and push her back on the blanket, grinding my pelvis against her. Pepper closes her eyes and writhes with me. “You didn’t fuck Jake. You may not know it, but you’ve been saving yourself for this very moment from the time you were old enough to understand why your insides tightened when you looked at me. And I’m here to collect.”

  “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch.”

  “And you’re a pain-in-the-arse, spoiled brat.” I lean up on one elbow and slide the other between us, unfastening the button on her jeans, and yanking the zip down.

  “I hate you, Sammy Belle.”

  “Then you should have no problem handing your virginity over to me.” I tug her panties aside and stroke her. Rubbing her clit with my thumb, I dip a finger into her soaked pussy.

  “I didn’t sleep with Jake,” she blurts out on one really long, really breathy exhalation.

  “I know.” Laughing against her skin, I nip and lap her sweet flesh, drawing her nipple into my mouth and sucking hard. She moans and I release her, wanting to watch the way her pleasure contorts her face from angry girl into the incredible woman I have my fingers buried inside of. I sweep my thumb across her clit, once more, causing her legs to shake and her lungs to suck in her next breath too sharply, and then I remove my hands from her body and suck my fingers clean while she watches with wide, surprised eyes.

  The things I could show her.

  I tug the jeans from her legs and toss them aside. Pepper lies before me in a pair of black satin underwear and nothing else. Her hair is splayed out on the blanket, a fire engine- red halo. It’s been styled by my sister and Holly in sleek waves, making her look like an old Hollywood starlet. Kristine had done Pepper’s makeup. I’d made the mistake of entering the bathroom in order to take a piss while they were primping her and I’d nearly lost my penis as penance.

  She looks frightened, and determined—a scary combination on Pepper Ryan—as she stares up at me from beneath thick black lashes.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I say, kneeling over her and placing assuring kisses up and down her shoulder.

  “Not even if I ask you to?”

  “Not even then,” I say, and lightly trail my fingertips over the thin scars on her leg. She stiffens. She has that deer-caught-in-headlights look about her, and if I know her mind the way I think I do, then I know right now she’s just seconds away from running. I’m not going to let that happen, though.

  I trace my fingers up and down the run of scars. Even though I hate what they represent, there’s beauty in them too. I don’t understand it, and I hate that she needs to do it, but there isn’t a single part of her that I don’t love. There isn’t a part of her that doesn’t drive me fucking crazy or that I don’t want to touch. I press the weight of my body into her. I lean down and kiss her lips until her hips are rocking hard against mine.

  I pull away and peer down into her soft green eyes. “You want this?”

  “Yes,” she whispers. “Oh god, yes.”

  “You know that this changes everything, right?” I swivel my hips against hers. It’s not my intention to blindside her with pleasure so she can’t think clearly, but I can’t help it. She feels so good, and for the longest time, this is all I’ve wanted to do. “I didn’t wait all these years just to have you once and then give you up again.”

  “Yes,” she breathes, and fuck me, if it doesn’t have my balls shrinking up inside my body. “I want it. I want you, Sammy. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” I push up on my hands, edging away from her. Pepper groans, “Sam.”

  “Jesus, you’re demanding. Be patient. I promise it will be worth your while.” I grin and hook my finger into the side of her underwear, slowly pulling it from her body. I toss them aside and Pepper automatically closes her legs in an attempt to cover herself. “Little, if I’m going to fuck it, I’m gonna need to see it.”

  She sucks in a deep breath and slowly relaxes her thighs, but she hasn’t opened for me yet. I place my hands on her knees and force them apart, spreading her wide so I can take in the view. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “What? What’s wrong? It’s hideous, isn’t it?” She tries to close her legs again and I pry them apart, waiting for her to open her eyes and look at me.

  “It’s the most perfect cunt I’ve ever seen.”

  “Really?”

  “You have no idea how glad I am right now that Jake has never laid a finger on you.” I dip my finger into the wetness of her opening and slide it up, slowly circling her clit. Her body jerks beneath my touch. So fucking responsive. I lower my head and run the tip of my tongue from opening to clit and back again, delving inside her warm pussy as far as my tongue will allow. Then I proceed to fuck her with it.

  Pepper bucks and tries to squirm away, but I place one hand beneath her arse and the other over her abdomen and hold her i
n place. Her stomach jerks under my fingers, her breath comes in sharp gasps, and her thighs tremble against my head. “Oh god.”

  No. It can’t be that easy with her. Can it?

  Apparently it can, because if I didn’t know any better, Pepper’s on the verge of orgasm, and we haven’t even begun yet. I push her hips down and extricate myself from between her legs.

  “What are you doing?” she pants.

  “I told you I was going to make this worth your while. And trust me, baby, this isn’t yet worth your while.”

  I stand only long enough to remove my pants, shoes and socks, and I fish a condom from my wallet before I discard it on the grass beneath my feet. I tear the corner off the packet with my teeth and roll the condom on my cock. Pepper watches this closely. I don’t miss the way her appreciative gaze skims over my body from head to toe. “Like what you see, Little?”

  She nods and bites down on her lip, but her eyes are wide with fear, and considering it’s still warm enough to work up a sweat this close to the fire, she’s not trembling from the cold. I sink down to the ground and hover over her, edging her legs further apart with my knees. She’s breathing rapidly and I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with how close I’d brought her to the brink of orgasm a few moments ago. She looks the way she does before she gets lost inside her head, before a panic attack hits.

  “Hey,” I say, attempting to bring her back to the present. “Are you here with me, or are you lost inside that pretty head of yours?”

  She closes her eyes. “I’m here.”

  “Open your eyes, Pepper.” She does. “You trust me?”

  “Yeah, I trust you,” she says and then blurts, “Just … what if this is a mistake?”

  “When I touched you, did that feel like a mistake?”

  “No.”

  “When I took your pussy with my mouth, did that feel like a mistake?”

  She laughs. “No. It definitely didn’t.”

  I ease into the space between her legs, careful to keep tension in my hips so I’m not pressed against her; I’m merely hovering. What happens next has to be completely up to her. “I’m right here. I got you, baby.”

  I can pinpoint the second her reservations dissolve. Her lips part and it’s as if her eyes smile at me. All thought and fear melts away from her gaze. “I want you inside me, Sam.”

  I exhale loudly and sag against her. “Thank fuck, because I so badly want inside you.”

  Reaching between us, I take hold of my dick and slide the head up and down her gorgeous pussy, coating it in her juices. I position myself at her entrance and very carefully push inside. Her walls squeeze me like a vice. Jesus Christ.

  “Okay?” I grunt.

  “Yeah,” she whispers, but she doesn’t sound okay at all.

  I kiss her lips, nip at her jaw and whisper in her ear, stroking her neck with my fingertips as I do. “I got you. Let go.”

  She does. I sink in further, pulling out almost the entire way before I ease back in. It’s fucking perfect. Hot, tight, wet. With each thrust I feel her opening for me, just a little more. Being buried balls’ deep inside her is everything I imagined it would be and more. “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” she says. Her voice is thin and reedy, and I’m not one hundred per cent certain she’s telling me the truth because I’m not a small guy, and while I might have taken care of her hymen back at the Roberts’ house, the way she’s holding her breath makes me think it’s not all warm toasty feelings for her. I push up on my palms and slide out of her.

  With wide, frightened eyes locked on mine she whispers, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m a greedy man, Little. And I want seconds.”

  “What?” She frowns in confusion, but that quickly disappears when I ease my head down between her legs and lave at her pussy from opening to clit in deep, languorous strokes.

  “Oh god, Sam.” She clutches at my hair as I bury my face in her. Hooking my hand behind her knees, I push her legs towards her chest so I have better access to her beautiful glistening cunt and then I drive her crazy with my tongue, and lips, and hands, and even teeth. I pull away before she can come though, and I slide my cock back into her soft, wet heat.

  This time when I enter her, Pepper writhes against me. “Feel good?”

  “So good. So fucking good.”

  I push up on my elbows and slide free of her again. I shift down her body, trailing kisses over her heated skin. She whimpers as I bury my face in her pussy. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  I don’t answer, just double my efforts and then wrench out of her hands right before that greedy little cunt can finally explode with pleasure. I drive back inside, harder than before, and her hips rush up to meet mine.

  “I wanna feel you coming around my cock,” I say and slip my hand between us, finding her clit and stroking. She moans. Trembling, her heels dig into my arse and her nails in my back. Her pelvis grinds against mine, rocking, her sweet pussy seeking release. “That’s it, baby. Ride me. Take it.”

  I apply just a fraction more pressure with my fingertips, slam into her, and she explodes beneath me, around me, squeezing me from the inside and milking my own orgasm from me. I grasp her hips and use her body to pump the last of my release from my cock, and then I sag into the crook of her shoulder.

  “Oh … that … I … I don’t have words.” She laughs against my ear. It’s low and sultry, and very much a “just fucked” laugh. My lagging cock sits up again, but I ignore the bastard and slide free from her warmth. I can’t take her again tonight without driving in hard and fast and potentially causing her a hell of a lot of bruising, so instead I roll onto my back, discard the condom and pull her naked body on top of mine, tracing my fingers softly up and down her spine.

  She curls in against me and sighs. “Sam?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I’m really glad it was you.”

  “Me too, because I did not relish the idea of beating down any more punk-arse teenage boys to defend your honour and keep you from fucking this up.”

  “Why did you wait?”

  “I didn’t plan this, Little. Yeah, I’ve wanted to fuck you since you were fourteen, but that wasn’t my intention in bringing you here tonight.”

  She leans up on her elbows so I can see her face. “Then why—”

  “Because I got tired of fighting it.”

  “Well thank fuck, because at the rate we were going you’d have been sixty before you made a move and I’d be past my used-by date.”

  “How do you figure? I’m older than you, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember, and tonight I’m very thankful for it. But women have a shorter shelf-life than men.”

  “What? No they don’t.”

  “It’s true. Why the hell do you think men trade in the old for the new during their midlife crises?”

  “Well, I guess I got a head start then.”

  “Speaking of head. You, Mister, give great head.”

  “You like that, huh?” I continue my leisurely stroking up and down her back, though my caresses have gotten longer and much, much closer to her pert little arse.

  “Mmm, like is sort of the understatement of the century, Sam.”

  “Sit up,” I command, and when she does I wrap my hands around her waist and lift her so that she’s straddling my shoulders.

  She laughs, and it’s the first time I’ve heard her sound really free in a very long time. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m fucking starving.” I pull her up so that she’s sitting on my face and my tongue is once again buried deep inside her. I get lost in her taste, and her scent, and the fact that I’m finally owning her the way I’ve wanted to for years. I get lost in her and our bodies as they move against one another, seeking pleasure, and release, and love.

  I’ve fucked a lot of women, but that’s all it’s ever been: fucking. Mindless, emotionless fucking. With Pepper, it’s infinitely more. And I know already that I can never give this girl up. I don’t c
are if I have to live through a hundred beatings a day from Cooper, Jack, Elijah and Holly. I’d take them willingly, and then I’d smile and ask for more, because I’m never, ever letting her go.

  “YOU KNOW what’s ridiculous?” Pepper asks, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and turning off the TV. I frown, because I was sort of dying to know who the killer was on CSI Miami, or was it NYPD Blue? I don’t know, those shows are kind of all the same.

  “What?” I say.

  “Us.”

  “Why are we ridiculous?”

  “Look at us.” She gestures wildly with her hands, indicating to the messy lounge room. Empty bottles of beer litter the coffee table, and we’re about one fifth of the way through a bottle of Jack. Pepper’s wet towel—that she had twisted up in a knot on her head when she exited the bathroom twenty minutes ago—is resting in a heap on the floor beside her, and two empty chip packets sit on the coffee table, the contents devoured the second they were opened. I take all this shit in. I glance around my loft, which used to be pretty tidy before she moved in but now is not, and I feel like I should give a shit, but I don’t.

  A shrug is my only response.

  “It’s a Friday night and we’re here, in your shitty loft, drunk off our arses.”

  I sip my JD, wincing when it slides down my throat like a mouth full of razorblades, and say, “It’s also Valentine’s Day.”

  “It’s Valentine’s Day?” Pepper’s eyes widen and she looks as though she’s mentally marking off days on a calendar.

  “Yep.”

  “Do you see, Sammy? Do you see how much we suck at life?”

  “Yep.” I run a hand through my hair and try not to imagine her spread out on my bed, surrounded by rose petals, as I lick champagne off her perfect tits. Fucking Holidays.

  “But my loft is not shitty.” I say, trying to focus on something other than the swell of those gorgeous fucking tits beneath the thin cotton of her shirt—or, my shirt … if we want to get technical. “It’s the best fucking bachelor pad in the history of mankind.”