Entangled (Evolve Series Novella 2.5) (9 page)

“Love you too, Laney.” He squeezes me back. “Thanks
for coming.”

“Hayden,” I hug her then rub her belly, “you take
care, lil mama. Get some rest and call me if you need anything, okay?”

“Ya’ll don’t be strangers now. Parker loves seeing
you, Laney.”

Dane congratulates them both as well, then we go
say goodbye to my dad, Rosemary and Evan’s parents before searching the crowd
for Sawyer. He’s nowhere to be found and the longer I have to search on my
aching dancing feet, the more aggravated I become. Until I spot him. Then I
just feel sad.

He’s sitting on top of the boat that’s upside down
on the ground, probably to drain out water, staring out at the pond.

“Can you go get the car?” I ask Dane. “Let me talk
to him.”

He kisses me and walks away, leaving me to figure
out what to do about Sawyer.

“Hey you.” I sit down beside him, nudging his
shoulder with mine.

“Hey, you guys ready to go?” He doesn’t even turn,
more speaking to the pond than to me.

“Whenever you are; no rush. As long as I don’t have
to walk in these anymore,” I lift my leg and wiggle my foot,” I’m good.”

“Hey, Gidge?”

“Yeah?”

“When did you know Dane was the one for you?”

“Honestly,” I chuckle, “pretty much the moment I
met him. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

“Saw, what’s up with you? You can always talk to
me, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.” He sighs and looks at me at last. “You’re my
favorite girl in the whole world. When I’m ready, you’ll be who I come to.”

“Okay then.” I kiss his cheek, then stand, reaching
out my hand. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 11

~Dane~

I
’d won the bet and wanted so badly to give
Laney the envelope. I had a whole elaborate plan in mind. The envelope would
hold a note telling her to meet me somewhere, where I’d get down on one knee
and ask her to marry me.

Not today—I’m not an idiot—but someday. A long
engagement is more than fine with me, but still… I want the promise, the words,
and the assurance that she plans to be mine forever. I had the ring made for
her months ago and was just waiting for the right time, but now the wind in
that sail is gone.

Judging by the way she’d talked at the wedding, I
know now she’s far from ready for my gift, even if I preface it with my
intentions of a long engagement. And honestly, if I have to lead in with a “don’t
worry” line, then that tells me right there it’s not the right time.

So, disappointed to say the least, I stuffed two
tickets to some beach resort in Florida in the envelope, my heart not in it.
Sure, I’ll take a weekend alone with Laney, in a bikini, anytime, but this trip
will be overshadowed with thoughts of what I’d really wanted to give her.

“Where you at, babe?” She places her hand over
mine, pulling me from my thoughts back to her.

“Nowhere. Here,” I reassure her. We’re at a nice
dinner, and I suppose now’s as good a time as any for her gift. I pull the
envelope from the inside pocket of my jacket, hung over the back of my chair,
and hand it to her.

“Ah, the bet envelope.” She rubs her hands together
and takes it, smiling mischievously. She opens it, pulling out the tickets and
jumping from her seat to my lap. “Babe, how is getting a weekend with you on
the beach me
losing
?” She giggles as she kisses my face.

“It’s me winning.” I grab her cheeks with both
hands and look in to her eyes. I want to tell her what I had planned, that I
want her forever. That you’re never too young if you know with every fiber of
your being that it’s right. That the thought of her giving me babies, half of
me and half their beautiful, stubborn, caring mother, makes me want to explode
from the inside out. But instead, I kiss her long and slow, then raise a finger
for the check. “Let’s get you home.”

“Mmm hmm.” She takes one last taste of me before
moving back to her own chair.

I pay the bill hurriedly and pull her up and out to
the car. Once inside, I dive back into her lips, unable to wait a second longer
to feast on her again. “I want you,” I moan in between nips and sucks of her.

“Then hurry and get us home,” she whispers, moving
to kiss up and down my neck, one hand in my hair.

I clear my throat and pull back, regrouping and
finding the willpower to start the car. “Keep your hands on your side of the
car, lady, or we’re never gonna make it.”

Since Sawyer still hasn’t gotten his head out of
his ass and moved in, and we’re closer to her duplex than my house, I head
there. I don’t care if Tate and Bennett are home or not—they can buy some
earplugs for all I care. I can’t make it all the way to my house before I get
inside her. If I can’t have her “yes,” I’ll take her “yesssss!”

She shifts in her seat, rubbing her thighs
together, obviously just trying to kill me. “Thank you for dinner, babe,” she
coos, “and the trip. Feels unfair, though, you won the bet. I should be
rewarding you.”

I shift madly into fourth.
Come on, Elmhurst
Drive.

“Oh yeah? What’d you have in mind?” I glance over
at her, licking my lips.

“I’m not sure, but you won the bet, bought the
place, the trip, the beds… I feel like I’m not giving anything. What can I do
to even it out?”

Say you’ll marry me someday. Wear my ring for
the next five years if that’s what it takes, but wear it, proudly,
definitively.

Nope, not the time, she’ll spook.

Move in with me? Well no, I just got her a place
of her own.

That’s the problem, I think more “adult” than
Laney. Not to say she’s immature, she’s far from it, in fact. I challenge you
to show me a woman her age who’s more put together. No, I think like a man who
already owns an empire, who already has middle age responsibilities and plans.
But I’m working on changing that, thus, I need to think like a guy her age, in
her life mode. I need to think like a college guy, just starting out as an
adult, with just the edge of the other Dane.

“Do you trust me?” I ask her.

“Completely,” she answers with no hesitation.

“Then give me tonight to be whoever I want. Don’t
argue or question. Let me do anything I want to you.”

“We’re still at like, twenty-four shades of grey,
mister.”

Jury’s still out on whether her reading those books
was a good or bad thing.

I chuckle. “I know, baby, but I want all twenty-four.”
I can’t not look over at her, slowing down my speed a bit as I do. Her eyes
aren’t scared or skeptical, but rather molten and intrigued. That tongue of
hers is tracing her bottom lip as her hands rub slowly up and down her thighs.

My girl is turned way the fuck on.

“Okay,” she whispers.

COULD HER HOUSE BE ANY FURTHER AWAY?

When we finally, and I am not exaggerating a
fucking bit when I say it felt like centuries, make it inside, I deadbolt the
door behind us. No one but she and I have the key and there will be no
interruptions tonight. I dock my phone and turn on the music, just in case
they’re home next door, and turn to her.

I bend a finger, beckoning her to me. “Come here,
baby.”

She kicks off her shoes and pulls out her hair tie,
letting her blonde locks flow down over her shoulders. She can’t not know she’s
attractive, but I don’t think she has any idea how fucking sexy and sensual she
is; not young-looking at all, a full-grown temptress.

I’d wanted to go crazy on her, but now
“Unforgettable” plays, so I decide to take my time, slow and meaningful, like
the song. I lift her arms and guide them around my neck, letting just my
fingertips touch her satiny skin as I slide them back down her arms. I pull her
by the hips until she’s flush against me and grind my hard-on into her stomach
as I sway us to the music. “You have no idea how you captivate me, do you?” I
ask low in her ear, nipping on its lobe.

“You do the same to me, babe.” She lays her head on
my shoulder. “I love you so much, Dane.”

“Not like I love you, Laney. You couldn’t
possibly.” I grab the hem of her shirt and whisper, “lift,” pulling off her
shirt as her arms go up. “No one could possibly feel like this. It’s like an
all-consuming need for another person, just to survive.” Next is her bra, which
falls to the floor beside us. I look my fill, focusing on my favorite freckle
in the middle of her sternum, my north star, then grasp one glorious breast in
my hand, teasing the nipple with one finger. “To know you’d give up everything,
anything else, but for that one person. Nothing else exists without them.” I deftly
snap open her jeans, unzipping them, then backing up. “Off,” I tell her, then
watch hungrily as she does what I say.

She doesn’t speak, waiting in silence, her chest
deceiving her calm façade as it rises and falls rapidly.

“Turn around,” I tell her, loving the view from the
back as much as the front. You can’t even airbrush that shit any better. The
white string of her thong disappears between the two perfectly rounded globes
and I rub myself now, biding my time. “Peel that thing off, baby, nice and
slow. Tease me.”

The song now is “I Could Not Ask for More,” by Edwin
McCain, a master of the moment, and I smile at the irony of his words. My Laney
is holy fuck hot, her outside the wrapping to the most caring, humorous, witty
soul you’ll ever want to meet. And when she bends over like that, sliding a
virginal white thong down her long legs, reminding me she is, in fact, pretty inexperienced,
also reminds me that she’s all mine and only ever mine. A feral growl escapes
me before I even realize. No, I couldn’t ask for another damn thing.

“Come back to me now,” I grind out and spread my
arms to my side. “You want me naked?”

She nods, biting down on her lip. “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“I want you naked, babe.”

“Then get me naked. Undress me.”

First she unbuttons my shirt and peels it down my
shoulders, kissing every inch of skin she bares. I help her with the cuffs and
let it drop onto the floor. She reaches up and twirls the cross around my neck
in her fingers, then leans in, placing kisses all over my torso as her nipples
press into me. “Keep going, baby. Pants,” I growl, needing to consume her,
barely holding back.

She goes down to her knees, working my belt and
pants open and easing them down my legs. I toe off my shoes and she takes care
of my socks. Now I’m left in just my boxer briefs, my erection obvious through
them.

She runs a finger over the outline. “For me?”

“For you,” I murmur before dropping down to her,
cupping her ass in my hands and forcing her mouth open with my own, our tongues
battling for power before we break apart to catch our breath.

If desire had a flavor, this would be it.

“Wrap your legs around me.” I stand back up,
carrying her to the other side of the room and bracing her against the wall
with my body as I make quick work of my briefs. Body to body, skin to skin, I
breathe for a minute, staring into her eyes and calming myself down a bit. I
can’t be too rough with Laney, as badly as I want to. But one thing I do want,
been dying to have, I ask for now.

“Can I have you bare tonight, baby? Just you around
me, nothing else?”

She nibbles on her lip, thinking. She’d started
some shot awhile back, and ever since, I’ve wanted to really feel
her.
“I’ll pull out,” I practically beg, not even sure why all of a sudden I’m
willing to risk this, but right now, it’s like a baser need in me.

She shakes her head and whispers, “okay,” and in
one deep thrust, I take her up against the wall. Aside from the one time Laney
and I forgot for the most glorious fifteen seconds of my life, I’ve never had
sex without a condom, and the boxes that advertise “so thin it feels the same” are
fucking fork-tongued liars. It feels
nothing
even
close
to the
same. I can feel everything, every swollen muscle, every throb and pulse of her
tight, wet, warm… I’m out of words, out of thoughts. It’s more than I can take,
and I have to know if it’s this real for her.

“Does it feel different to you, baby?”

“Yes,” she pants. “Softer, sweeter. You?”

“Oh fuck, you have no idea.” I bury my head in her
tits, delirious, inhaling and savoring the sweet tang of our comingled sweat on
her skin. I suck, bite, lick, and rub incoherently as I pump into her like a
madman. “Do your squeeze thing, baby. I wanna feel it like this, ahhh, yeah, ah—Laney!”

I try, Lord knows I do, but scared I’ll miss, I
pull out, jacking myself with my hand a few times and unloading all over her
stomach, and some even on my own.

Please don’t look at me like that, my love, I am
well aware you didn’t get off, but I need some practice on this whole “you get
to fuck an excruciatingly tight volcano bareback” thing.

We’ll work up to the squeezing thing. She’s way too
in control of her muscles to be milking me when I’m uncovered.

“Stay right there.” I point at her and then go to
the bathroom, cleaning myself up before returning to her with a damp washcloth.
I clean her off, kissing her face, her neck, and her shoulders as I do so.
“Baby, you have no idea how fucking amazing that felt. I’d never—I-I didn’t
know what to expect, but it damn sure wasn’t
that.”

She giggles into my neck, climbing into my lap.
“You should’ve seen your face. Your eyes rolled back in your head.”

“How foolproof is that shot you get?”

“Almost one-hundred percent. I’m not worried; you
were out in time.”

“Oh, I know that. I’m asking because we need to try
that again.” I lay her back and cover her with my body. “And again,” I kiss my
way down her stomach, “and again.” I slip one finger inside her, curling it and
rubbing against her inside wall.

She writhes and squirms beneath me, maneuvering
herself where she needs to before her moans finally become shrieks. “Right
there, you got it,” she squeaks, and I quickly add another finger and my mouth.
“Oh, Dane, don’t you dare stop.”

I use my free hand to brace her hip still or she’ll
scoot herself right out of ecstasy like a wiggle worm. She gyrates her hips as
much as my hold will allow, grabbing my hair and fucking my face until she
collapses, one long, satisfied hum echoing over the music.

“That’s twice for living room,” I say and we both
laugh together.

“We haven’t even knocked out the bed yet.”

I jump to my feet and bend over, scooping her up in
a cradle hold. “Your wish is my command, baby.” I carry her to the bedroom and
dip her towards the bed. “Pull back the covers,” I say. When she does, I toss
her in with a squeal and crawl right in beside her, pulling the covers back
over us.

We lay on our sides facing each other, me drinking
in her beauty, ready to go again any time she is; her…she’s thinking.

“Do we have too much sex?” she asks.

A chuckle busts out of me. “What?”

Told ya she was thinking, although that probably
wouldn’t have been my guess as to what.

“Do we have too much sex? We do it a
lot.”
She
scrunches up her nose, blushing my favorite shade of pink.

“A, there’s no such thing as too much sex. And two,
we’re young and in love—we’re supposed to do it, like three times a day. If
anything, we’re slacking, beautiful.” I tuck a piece of hair behind her ear and
kiss her chin, then the end of her nose, scooting closer to her. “Why do you
ask?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “I just think maybe we
forget about the other stuff sometimes. Before we started humping—”