Effortless (4 page)

As he was facing sideways, he started to flip onto his back, a
huge grin lighting his face at my forcefulness in taking the top. I
laughed harder as I shoved his shoulder down, keeping his chest on
the mattress.

Once I was firmly seated on his lower spine, he twisted his neck
to look back at me. “What are you doing?”

My hands played over the expanse of pristine flesh before me
while I answered him, a little huskily. “Well, I do feel guilty
about hurting you…”

He twisted around more as his lips smirked at me. “I did mention
that you made me come, right?”

I felt that flush return at hearing him say that word
again—come. It wasn’t even a dirty word, really, but hearing it
pass his lips reminded me of toe-curling, blood-boiling,
life-altering moments of ecstasy. Just hearing him say the word
made me want him even more. Smiling, I pushed back that feeling…for
now.

“I want to make sure you’re not…damaged.”

I ran my hands up his back, leaning over him so my hair brushed
his skin. I delighted when I noticed him shiver when my long locks
touched him. His eyes flicked over my face and his voice dropped.
“I only have one scar that can be attributed to you.”

His eyes rested on mine and my breath caught at the love I saw
in that gaze.  I didn’t think I’d ever get used to seeing how
much he adored me. It made all the flirting I’d witnessed earlier
irrelevant. None of those fan girls got that look from him. None of
those fan girls got to have this level of intimacy with him. Not
anymore. Evan was right, he played with them but his heart was
mine.

I nodded, surprised at how my eyes were misting. My thoughts
tumbled over to the memory he was referring to and I bit my lip. It
was a long time ago that he’d taken a knife wound while trying to
defend my honor. It was one of the most amazing and horrible things
that anyone had ever done for me. Amazing that he’d stood up for
me, and horrible that he’d been hurt. My fingers traveled down his
ribs, touching the mattress as I curled them around his body. I
leaned over and kissed the edge of the scar where I felt the
roughness cutting into that once smooth skin. He sucked in a
breath, his stomach clenching as my lips moved over the old
wound.

I smiled and kissed across his back as I thought of one other
major wound he’d gotten because of me. True, this one didn’t have
an external scar, the fracture having been reset without surgery,
but I knew it was damaged, under the surface. My hands ran up his
arms, squeezing the left one, where he’d broken it while getting
into a fight with Denny so many months ago.

I leaned forward and kissed that arm and his eyes softened as he
watched me. I knew he understood my gesture. “I adore you for all
your scars,” I whispered as I leaned over and gave him a soft kiss
on the lips.

His hand came up to grip my head, keeping me trapped in the
loving softness of his kiss. He deepened it and the fire of
anticipation coursed through me when his tongue brushed over mine.
My breath sped up and I leaned into the kiss for a moment before I
stopped myself.

Skillfully, I pulled away from his hand trapping me to his
mouth. With a playful scowl I smacked his shoulder. “You stop that.
I’m not done with my inspection.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, can you hurry up? So I can
make love to you and not this awful mattress?” He pressed his hips
against the bed beneath him for emphasis and I laughed. Laughing
himself he muttered, “We could switch positions when you’re
done?”

Ignoring that, I sat back on my seat at the base of his spine
and turned all of my attention to his glorious back. He seemed
fine, definitely no thin trails of puckered flesh from me tearing
into him. I leaned forward to kiss his skin and then I noticed it.
I paused as I looked more closely. It was faint, so faint you
wouldn’t notice unless you were literally an inch from his skin,
like I currently was, but it was there. Thin, white streaks down
his back, right where I’d raked him. I smiled inwardly that a part
of our crazy, intense night was still with him, maybe forever. As
much as I hated that I’d caused him pain, I was a little happy that
a reminder would be with him, wherever he went.

“Ah, found ‘em,” I muttered.

He started to ask me, “What?” when I playfully drug the very tip
of my tongue over the vague white line. He cut off what he’d been
about to say and a shudder went through him. Emboldened, I let my
tongue make a trail up between his shoulder blades and up the back
of his neck. Kellan squirmed and dropped his forehead to the
pillow, his breath definitely faster. Another old memory seizing
me, I very gently bit the back of his neck. He groaned.

Before I could really process it, and definitely before I could
stop it, he twisted underneath me, bringing up his arms to pull me
down to the bed. All of the air whooshed from my lungs with the
force he used to get me off of him. I giggled when he crawled on
top of me. His lips attacked mine, his tongue practically searching
for my tonsils.

I pushed him away from me. With desire evident in his smoky
bedroom eyes, he growled, “I said don’t tease me.”

I smirked and ran a finger across his parted lips. “Payback.” I
raised an eyebrow at him. “At least I didn’t do that in a crowded
club.”

His face startled. It was almost like he’d forgotten about that
very intense moment when he’d licked me in the middle of a packed
dance floor. Denny and Anna had both been somewhere in that club at
the time. His brow scrunched together as his eyes turned
recalcitrant. “That wasn’t very nice of me, was it?”

I slung my arms around his neck and shook my head. “No, it
wasn’t…but I liked it.”

His guilty eyes turned playful again as he thought about that
night. “I couldn’t resist.” His fingers trailed up my arms, raising
them over my head and causing delightful shivers to course down my
body. “You had your arms up here.” He cocked one over my head and
brought the other one above it. Holding both wrists in one hand, he
trailed his finger down my nose to my mouth. “You were biting your
lip as you danced.” I bit my lip again as I watched his hungry eyes
recreate the sight of me that had pushed him over the edge. His
finger floated over my lip and down between my breasts. I closed my
eyes but he kept going, dragging the finger over my still exposed
belly button to my shorts. He played with the waistband before
bringing a hand to my hip bone. “And these…these hips…” He leaned
over me to lightly breathe on my face, our lips brushing. “These
hips drove me straight to madness.”

He brought his lips down to mine and released my hands. I
wrapped my arms over his head, firmly holding him to me. When we
paused for air, I muttered, “You were watching me?”

He ran his nose along my jaw, flicking his tongue for an
occasional taste. “Ceaselessly.” His lips traveled back and forth
along my jaw. “I have many things to atone for, and I hate what
happened between us later, but I’ll never feel sorry for tasting
your skin that night.” I gasped and arched against him, lifting my
head so his lips could revisit my neck.

He obliged and feather-light touches made their way down my
skin. His mouth still on my neck, his fingers tore at the knotted
section of my shirt. In one smooth move he lifted the dark material
up and brought it over my head. His eyes lingered over my body for
a second before he harshly unhooked my bra and ripped it off of me.
My body pulsed with need as his burning eyes visually caressed
me.

With a sigh, he dropped his head to my stomach. “I need this
flesh,” he muttered as his tongue ran up me.

Fire shot through me at the contact and I writhed under his
touch. “I need you too, Kellan.”

He dragged his tongue between my breasts. “I need to see your
face when I do this.” He flicked his tongue all the way up to my
neck and I closed my eyes and groaned in response.

“I need to hear you when I do this.” He brought his lips, and
that miraculous tongue, to my breast, swirling it around the
nipple.

I arched my back and dug my hands into his hair. “God, yes…”

His breath heavy, he brought his lips to my ear. “I need to be
inside of you…as deep as I can go.” My body ached with his words,
my light shorts suddenly horribly uncomfortable as the pleasant
tingling between my thighs shifted to a full-on throbbing ache. I
moaned loudly and tried to kiss him but he pulled away.

He hovered above me and I opened my eyes to gaze at the god-like
man before me. His expression burning with desire for me, he
swallowed heavily. “And I need to hear you beg for it.” His
expression asking so much more than his words, he added, “Do you
want me?”

The throbbing that I didn’t think could get any worse,
intensified, and my mouth found his. “God, Kellan…please, yes,
God…please. I want you…I want you so much.” I also meant more than
just the words. He was asking me if he was the one I really wanted
to be with. I was telling him, as plainly as I could, that he
was.

I mumbled more pleas for him while our mouths enacted what we
both wanted. With heavy breaths and frantic fingers we pulled off
the remainder of our clothes and he did exactly what he’d said he
needed to do.

Smiling as I woke up the next morning, I yawned and stretched.
My arms and legs didn’t collide with another warm body in my chilly
bed, but I wasn’t too surprised. Kellan was almost always up before
me. I wasn’t sure why, but the boy was an early riser; he got up at
the crack of dawn nearly every day. He also was a night owl,
usually staying up just as late as I did, even on nights I closed
at the bar.  The man was sort of miraculous when it came to
sleep. It did eventually catch up with him, but he could go for
days on very little of it. Then it would hit him like a brick wall
and he’d sleep for twelve hours straight.

Shaking my head at him, I inhaled deep, my smile widening. My
favorite smell in the world, aside from Kellan’s natural scent, was
wafting through the house—coffee. Kellan was brewing a pot in the
kitchen. That was definitely one of the perks of waking up with
him.

Peeking an eye open, I saw that he’d left my bedroom door
cracked a bit. From the other room I could hear the pot peculating
and the sound of Kellan getting cups ready. He was also humming a
song. Relaxing back on my pillow, I just enjoyed the sound for a
minute. I pictured him out there, singing away in just his boxers.
It was a delightful image.

The sound of a key entering a lock broke the stillness of the
morning. It was immediately followed by the front door cracking
open. Sitting up on my elbows, I frowned. Was Anna just now getting
home? I knew she’d worked late last night and then mentioned she
was going out with some of the girls from work, but this was late,
even for her. Unless, of course, she’d already been
asleep…somewhere.

Maybe she’d met up with Griffin, to congratulate him on his big
event. But, it just as easily could have been somebody else that
she’d hooked up with. Anna and Griffin had a weird relationship.
When they were together, they were inseparable—all hands and
tongues and, ugh, grinding. But when they were apart from each
other…well, you’d never even suspect that they were involved. They
were very open to being with other people. It was odd to me, but it
seemed to work for them so I didn’t say much about it.

When Anna’s bright voice sounded a greeting, I immediately hoped
Kellan wasn’t in his boxers. I even looked around the ground to see
if his clothes were still on my floor. Luckily, they weren’t. While
he and Anna only ever acted friendly around each other, I didn’t
need my sister ogling him anymore than she already did. Physically,
she’d kept her distance once she found out that we were involved,
but like any fine piece of art, her eyes lingered on Kellan,
appreciating the masterpiece before them. I understood. I
appreciated him daily.

“Hey, Kellan, good morning.”

“Mornin’, Anna. You’re out late…or early.”

Kellan laughed as Anna sighed, a heavy bag clunking to the
floor. “Yeah, went to Pete’s. Ran into the guys.”

 Kellan chuckled lightly, probably surmising what I had
earlier, that she’d been entertained by Griffin until the wee hours
of the morning. It hurt my stomach a little to think about what
they’d probably been doing, and as I forcefully made my sluggish
body stand up, I tried not to.

Anna laughed huskily while I grabbed some lounge pants out of my
dresser, quickly throwing them on my naked body. “I heard you guys
did great at your big show.” Anna sighed forlornly. “I’m sorry I
had to miss it.”

Seeming like it made no difference to him, Kellan replied with,
“It was just a show, nothing you haven’t seen before. Don’t worry
about it.”

I shook my head as I threw on a thin, comfortable shirt. Just
another show? He was so casual about the whole thing. I knew that
it had meant something to him, though. It had excited him,
invigorated him. I’d seen it when he’d shoved me against the door
last night. I bit my lip at that thought and quickly ran my fingers
through my thick hair a few times, eager to see the passionate man
again.

Stealthily walking out of my room, I immediately saw Anna and
Kellan in the kitchen. He was leaning back against the counter,
facing me, his arms crossed over his chest as he carried on a quiet
conversation with my sister. She had her back to me, her long,
luxuriously shiny hair ridiculously perfect for the early hour.