OLIVIA
AT THIS POINT, I’m not surprised when the tears spring, streaming silently down my cheeks before I have the chance to attempt to stop them. It’d be pointless anyway. My every attempt at anything has always been weak as hell with this man currently kneeling before me.
“You love me?” I whisper the question, cupping Carter’s face. “For real?”
“Fu-u-uck.” His voice cracks with a hint of a chuckle as he sinks down to his butt. “I love you so fucking much, Ol, I don’t know what the hell to do with myself. Been screaming it at you inside my brain every time I look at you for the last two weeks.”
“Two weeks? But—”
“I know it’s soon. It’s really fast. But I’m super fast. At, like, everything, so it only makes sense that I’m super fast at this too. I’m a fast learner, so obviously I would nail this down quickly, but just because I did it so fast doesn’t mean I did it sloppily. I do things exceptionally well, as you know.” He aims a pointed look at my crotch, then his own, and wags his brows three times. He takes my hands in his and licks his lips. “I’m going to be really good at loving you, Ollie. I promise. Nobody will ever do it like I do.”
My brain can’t seem to formulate a response, because I’m too focused on how adorable he always is when he does this anxious ramble bit of his. Only he could find a way to make falling in love a competition.
He swipes at my tears, gaze a little wobbly as it bounces around mine. “I gotta tell ya, gorgeous, I don’t know what kind of response I expected, but you crying wasn’t it. Are these good tears or bad tears?”
I slam my face against his bare shoulder in an attempt to hide the tears that keep rushing, because, how much more could I embarrass myself here?
Carter’s hand moves slowly over my back in tender circles before he forces my gaze to his. “Hey, what’s wrong, pumpkin? You don’t want me to tell you again, okay; I’ll tell you every night after you fall asleep. It’s what I did last weekend.” His shoulders lift with a shrug. “I think I could do it again if that’s what you really want.”
“No.” Still crying. Cool. More of a wail, if I’m being honest.
Carter’s emerald eyes bounce between mine. “No?”
I drop my gaze, because I just can’t. He’s so intense, so beautiful, and my heart is going to explode.
He cranks my head right back up. “Look at me. If it’s too soon, if you’re not ready—”
“I love you, Carter.” Throwing my arms around his neck and my body in his lap, I tackle him to the ground—all two-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds of him—and assault him with an onslaught of kisses that I cannot foresee ever ending.
He shifts my face above his, pushing my hair back, letting my tears drop to his cheeks. “So these tears—”
“Happy tears.” I sniffle, licking the saltiness from my lips.
Carter’s proud beam lights the whole damn room. “Ohhh-ho-ho. My soft little Ollie bear. Have you always been such a fluffy marshmallow?”
“Shut up. You’re the marshmallow.”
He laughs softly, gazing up at me with a tender, crooked smile. “Say it again, baby.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
He growls, hands grasping my hips, fingertips digging into my skin as he pushes off the ground, nipping at my lip. “One more time.”
I drop my lips to his, a slow kiss coasting across his mouth. “I love you so much, Carter.”
He grabs my ass, sitting us up, and I wish this blanket wasn’t between us. “If I had to choose between you and Oreos for the rest of my life, I’d choose you every day, always.”
“Such a loaded statement.”
His nose trails my jaw. “You know how much I love Oreos.”
“I found six boxes in your pantry tonight.” I quiver as his breath tumbles down my neck, and when his lips close over the hollow of my collarbone, my head falls backward, granting him the access we both want.
“I’m gonna make love to you all night, Ollie. All. Damn. Night.”
I try to answer, but his tongue is swirling around my nipple, so all that comes out is a whimper.
“What was that? Didn’t hear you.”
“C-C—” The sound fizzles and dies as his hand slips beneath the blanket, fingers gliding through my sopping warmth, coating my clit, making it throb.
“Mmm, still didn’t quite catch you there. Try again, princess.”
“P-please,” I manage, fingers raking through his hair, grabbing those soft waves by the fistful. “Please, Carter.”
“Please what?” The glint in his eyes tells me he knows exactly what, he’s just being his smug self. I think he mostly likes hearing that special word, so I’ll give it to him again.
“Make love to me, Carter.”
His grin is explosive as he crushes me in his arms. “’Kay. One round of superior love-making coming up.”
I can’t help but laugh as he tows me to my feet, watching the blanket slip down my body, pooling at our feet. His throat bobs as he looks me over, like he’s drinking me in, memorizing every line, every curve, every detail.
Carter smooths my hair back, fingers pressing into the back of my head as he brings his face down to mine. “I love you, Olivia. Thank you for loving me back.”
How could I not? He’s a dream I never dared to dream. Flawed only in such a way that makes him wonderfully perfect. Kind and goofy with a massive heart, fiercely loyal, wildly passionate. I had been so afraid to love this man, a man who holds so much love in his heart, because I was too scared to see through his past, to know the real Carter.
I’m glad he forced me to see him anyway, because I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every part of me knows that this moment right here, right now, is where I’m meant to be.
Carter grips my waist, my hips, as his lips follow the path his hands take until he’s kneeling before me, gazing up at me. “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. So many. But you, Ollie? You’re the first thing I’ve done right.”
I want to tell him how wrong he is, how he’s been the man that so many people have needed him to be. I want him to see himself as clearly as I do now, but before I have the chance to speak, his mouth closes over my center, his eyes locked on mine.
Each lash of his tongue is steady and sure, precise and unhurried, and yet I feel myself unraveling by the second, heating from the tips of my toes right up to the top of my head. My mouth opens with a breathy whimper, and his hold on my hips tightens. Before I know it, my back is hitting the wall as Carter throws my legs over his shoulders.
And he turns into an animal, the plunge of his tongue sinful and punishing, the starved suction of his mouth drawing out every moan, every cry as his name tumbles from my lips over and over again. My fingers claw at his shoulders when his fingers spear my entrance, and Carter’s mouth tips with a wicked smile as he watches me fall apart at his hands.
He throws me over his shoulder and devours the distance to the bed, tossing me to my belly, and when I start crawling up to the pillows, I hear him tsk, fingers closing around my ankles, pulling me right back to the edge. Ass in the air, my toes hit the floor before his palm comes down on the soft flesh, making me gasp.
“I love every part of you.” His gravelly whisper dots my shoulder with goose bumps as he presses himself against me. “Including this fucking ass, and I’m still hungry, so you’re not going anywhere yet.”
I cry at the loss of his erection pressing against me as he slides down my body, dropping back to the floor. And when his tongue pushes inside of me again, my cry turns to a full-blown sob. He laps and laves, dives and pulses, fingers dancing, massaging, thrusting, and I’m just dying, dying, dying.
“My girl,” he purrs, dragging his tongue through my slit at an achingly slow pace, over that tiny hole, and I tear the blankets right off the bed, dying all over again at the way his husky, dark chuckle vibrates against me.
Carter’s a savage, ravishing me in a way that makes me feral.
“Fuck me.” I bury the breathy request in the fistful of blankets that smother my screams.
“What’s that, gorgeous?” His thumb finds my clit, pressing, rubbing, slow, slow, slow, dragging that orgasm out as it steals my entire body, leaving me quaking.
Groaning, I mumble the words again.
His fingers tightening around my hair as he pulls my head taut, staring me square in the eyes. “I’m gonna need you to ask again and a fuckload louder, so I know I heard you correctly.”
“Oh my God, you’re so damn annoying sometimes.”
He laughs against my shoulder, teeth pressing into my skin. The hot lash of his tongue soothes the bite of pain. “Annoying you is my favorite thing to do, right after loving you. So ask again and ask nicely.”
My eyes narrow as I briefly consider shoving him to the ground and mounting him like a horse. But I know how much he thrives on control and I like to give it to him, so I bite my tongue before I give him what he wants.
“Fuck me, Carter. Please.”
“Fuck you…” He shoves his hand between my body and the mattress, working me up all over again, biting his lip at the way I moan his name, grind myself against his palm. “Fuck you how?”
“Fuck me like you love me,” I say on a gasp.
He pierces me without hesitation, a single, punishing thrust that makes my eyes roll, pummeling into me with everything he has while he tells me how much he loves me.
And when I come undone around him, my body collapsing on the bed, he turns me around and tosses me on the pillows.
“Not done,” he growls, looping his arms around my legs and jerking me down to him as my ass slams against his hips. “If you want me to fuck you like I love you, that’s a forever kinda thing.”
“I like forevers.”
A gentle smile touches his lips, and he holds me close as he slides inside me, hips moving slowly, each thrust deeper than the last until it feels like we’re one.
Soft lips brush mine, and when my mouth opens on a cry, he swallows his own name.
“One kiss, Olivia. One kiss and I was done. My world obliterated the second my lips touched yours.”
A lone tear escapes my right eye, and Carter’s lips touch my cheek, stopping it in its tracks.
His pelvis rubs against my clit with every roll of his hips. I squeeze my eyes shut at the flames licking at my spine as his pace quickens, his breath choppy against my skin as he kisses my neck, my shoulder.
“Ready?”
I nod, squeezing around him as unbridled pleasure rockets through me, singeing every nerve ending in my body. Carter’s mouth latches onto mine, his tongue delving inside as we come together, bodies trembling, my nails leaving a path of a destruction down his in their wake.
“Fuck me,” Carter wheezes as he rolls off me, pulling me into his chest. “I one thousand percent love you more than Oreos.”
Carter leans on the counter across from me in nothing but a pair of boxers, eyes trained on me as he shovels noodles and spring rolls into his mouth. I’m doing the same thing, though I hope I look a little more graceful than he does. Then again, I don’t really care.
My legs swing happily from my spot at the kitchen island, and I smile at Carter as I tip my head back and open my mouth, dropping a forkful of noodles inside.
“If all you wore for the rest of your life were my dirty T-shirts, that’d be good with me.”
“I like wearing your dirty T-shirts. They smell like you.” He’s my favorite smell, all smoky woods and lime, and all I want to do is have his scent hug me all day long.
I set my plate down on the counter, licking the sauce from the pad Thai off my lips. “Can I ask you something?”
His head bobs as he chews. “Mhmm. Anything.”
I grip the edge of the counter, nibbling my lip while I contemplate how to word my question. “How come you’ve never dated before?” His face screws up with surprise, followed by disgust, making me giggle. “The real reason. You’re a natural. You’re insanely good at every part of being in a relationship for someone who’s never done it before, and I think you like it, so I guess I want to know why you’ve avoided it for so long.”
He gives me a saucy smirk. “You know what it does to me when you tell me how perfect I am at everything.”
I reach across the space between us with my leg, poking him with my toes in the slab of marble that is his torso. “Shut up.”
Carter chuckles softly and sets his plate down in the sink, skimming his jaw with one hand while he thinks. “In high school, I was too focused on training and getting scouted to make time for a relationship. I could’ve, but it wasn’t what was important to me at the time. I knew how good my chances were and I didn’t want anyone to get in the way. I didn’t want the responsibility of having someone that needed my time or attention.”
I nod my head thoughtfully. You don’t get to where Carter is without being focused and dedicated, passionate about what you’re doing and where you’re going.
“When I got drafted, my dad warned me not to jump into anything. He told me that it would be difficult to see through everyone, to sort out the people who genuinely cared about me from the ones who only cared about the fame and money. He didn’t tell me not to date or anything, just…told me to be careful. To take my time getting to know people, to be sure.”
Carter scratches his head and laughs quietly. “That scared me more than anything, not being able to tell. Scared me enough that I didn’t even want to try it. I mean, I saw it right away. The team took me out before our first game, and this girl…” He trails off with a sheepish glance in my direction before he slices his hand through the air. “It’s not important. I knew from the beginning that’s all a lot of women saw me as: a meal ticket.”
A frown tips the corners of my mouth. Although he may have reaped the benefits, it mostly sounds like a lonely life.
“Don’t be sad for me.” He closes the distance between us and lifts me against him, and I press my cheek to his heart as he carries me back up the stairs, settling me in the bed we remade after I tore it apart.
Carter pulls his shirt off my body and tosses his boxers to the floor before he crawls into bed, and I curl into his side. He strokes his hand over my hair, kissing my forehead.
“After my dad died, I wanted no part in relationships. When he died, my mom…She was crushed. Still is, honestly. She couldn’t function for nearly two years. I started to think she would never recover, and I don’t think she ever fully will. I know she seems fine, and she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She’s come such a long way. But there are still those quiet moments, those days where she doesn’t speak, where all she does is think, remember. They were so in love, and I know they’ll never lose that, but now all she has is the memories of what that felt like.”
Those green eyes shine with unshed tears as he looks down at me, and my nose tingles with my own urge to cry. For once, I’d like to be the strong one for both of us, so I kiss his chest and run my fingers up and down his arm. Carter’s eyes fall shut with a deep inhale before he continues.
“I guess I never wanted to be able to have that effect on a person, or vice versa. It’s scary to think that losing somebody can absolutely crush your soul like that, that you’ll spend the rest of your days living out your life, waiting for the moment you can be together again.”
Well, there goes that strength I was holding onto. It slips out of my eyes, falling on his chest, and Carter chuckles quietly.
“I know you think your tears are a weakness, Ollie, but they show me how huge your heart is.”
All I want to do is thank him. Thank him for letting me know him, the real him. Thank him for choosing me to be the person he tries this with. Thank him for loving me, for opening up to me, for being everything I need and then some.
But “I’m sorry” is what comes tumbling from my lips. “Sorry I was afraid for so long.”
Carter smiles down at me, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. “Don’t be sorry. I’ve learned that fear isn’t a bad thing. It shows you what’s important to you and how hard you’re willing to work for it. And I’ve been afraid of a lot of things in my life, Ollie, but never as afraid as I am at the thought of losing you one day.”
He turns onto his side and scoots down the mattress until his face is in front of mine. “You know what I think? I think we’re afraid of the things that have the power to change our lives. My life changed for the better that day I locked eyes with you. So much for the better, Ollie. I’m better when I’m with you.”
I know he’s right. He brings out a different side of me, makes me feel things I never felt before, face the things that scare me. I can spend my time yearning for the small amount of time wasted by me being afraid to love him, to let him love me. Or I can be grateful for where we are now, the love we share and the relationship we’ve built in such a short time, the love that gets so much stronger, deeper, every single day.
Carter’s lips meet mine in a tender kiss that brews a fire in my belly. “Stay with me forever. Please. I’ll be everything you need.”
I look into the eyes of the man I love and my heart swells with pride at who he’s grown to be, the way he’s supported the people he loves, and how he’s moved past his own hurt. “I want you to be you, Carter. And you already are everything I could possibly ever need and more.”
Carter turns out the light, curling his body around mine. His mouth works my neck, soft, slow, his palm over my belly as he makes me a promise.
“I’m gonna love you the way you deserve to be loved every single day for the rest of your life and my life. I promise.”
