Only Creed.

Creed stopped kissing me when our breathing grew heavy, we were panting, he was grunting and I was moaning. Our lips brushed, our breaths mingled, our h*ps collided and his lips slid down my cheek to my ear.

“I want you here. I want you in my home, my bed, my life,” he murmured, the smooth out of his voice, it was low and so rough with sex and emotion, it was abrasive, scoring through me.

“Baby –”

“I want your clothes in my closet. I wanna hear your voice in my house when you’re talkin’ on the phone. I want you sittin’ beside me when we’re watchin’ TV. I want shit you like in my fridge. I want your razors in my shower. I want my roof over your head. Your car in my garage. I want to give you what I should have been giving you for sixteen years. As good as you deserve. A showplace. A place where I can make you happy.”

God. He was killing me.

“Creed, let me –”

He didn’t let me finish. He pressed on, driving in, our bodies jolting with his thrusts, his voice harsh in my ear.

“Give me that, Sylvie. Give me that and, swear to God, I’ll give you everything.”

“I –”

His head came up, his c**k drove deep and stayed planted and his eyes burned into mine.

“All I’ll ask. All I’ll ever ask. You give me that and you got a lifetime of nothin’ but take.”

“Give me my hands, baby,” I whispered and he released my wrists immediately. I moved them to frame his face, lifted up so I was close and kept whispering, “You can have that. You can have anything from me but only if I get to give as good as I get.”

He shook his head, moving my hands with it and grinding his c**k into me. It felt so good my lips parted.

Creed spoke.

“All I want is you. You make my home yours, you’ll never have to give.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Creed.”

He pulled out, slammed in and his face jerked down toward mine so fast, I pressed my head into the pillow in an automatic response. I held my breath at the expression in his eyes even as I gasped it in deeper when his hand slid down my belly and his thumb pressed hard against my clit.

“I vowed to you I’d take care of you. I vowed it. I thought I was doin’ that when I left you. I wasn’t. I need this, Sylvie, and you gotta give it to me.”

“It’s not –”

He started moving again, powering fast and deep, his thumb circling my cl*t and my neck arched on a deep moan.

His lips went to my throat and my fingers slid into his hair. “You gotta give this to me,” he demanded, voice thick.

“Creed –”

He went faster, deeper, harder.

Oh God.

My fingers in his hair fisted.

“Baby –” I breathed, it was building and it was going to overwhelm me.

“Give that to me, Sylvie,” he ordered.

“Okay, yes,” I gasped. “You have me. You can have anything.”

“Fuck yeah,” he grunted, his thumb pressing harder, his h*ps driving faster, his mouth took mine. He shoved his free arm under me, wrapped it around my hips, slammed me down as he powered up and I moaned my orgasm down his throat.

Two minutes later, he groaned his down mine.

He took a few moments to recover then rolled us, still connected, so I was on top and he was on his back.

I lifted my head to look down at him before I informed him, “You know, the rulebook states anything agreed through sexual manipulation is thrown out after the act.”

I saw the white flash of his smile before one of his arms snaked around my waist and got tight while his other hand slid into my hair and pulled my face closer to his whereupon he informed me, “Yeah, if you’re makin’ love with a normal guy. If you’re doin’ it with a badass, it’s a totally different rulebook.”

I had to admit, this was true.

“I’m a badass too,” I reminded him.

“You are,” he agreed readily. Something, by the way, I truly believed that he believed. Something, by the way, I totally loved about him. “So, in future, baby, you got that option open to you.”

Good to know as well as something to look forward to when it was my turn to coerce something out of him.

“Right then,” I tipped my head to the side, “maybe you’ll explain exactly what I agreed to.”

His arm around me got tighter, his fingers flexed against my scalp and the white of his smile faded from his face.

“You know, Sylvie,” he whispered.

He was right. I knew. I knew, back in the day, he was acutely aware that I had an in-ground pool, a stable full of horses, a fancy car, a huge house, a housekeeper, all provided to me by my piece of shit Daddy and if I hooked my star to his, at first, he couldn’t give me any of that.

I didn’t care. He was right earlier. That was a trap from which I would move, after he left, to a prison.

But Creed was a man, all man, even back then and he didn’t see it that way. Not then and obviously not now. He never wanted me to feel loss. He never wanted me to have any reason to regret choosing him and no matter how much I talked, how hard I tried to convince him I didn’t need any of that shit, he didn’t believe it. I was young and he was worried following my heart was blinding me to reasonable life considerations an older person would take into account.

He was wrong then.

He was wrong now.

“You know, I’m a different Sylvie,” I stated quietly.

“I know, baby.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know that too.”

Okay, now I was confused.

“Then… what?”

“My house. My furniture. My housecleaner, pool guy, gardener. Your body in my bed,” he replied.

I didn’t get it.

“What?”

“I take care of you,” he answered. “I provide for you.”

Uh-oh.

My body stiffened over his.

“Creed –”

“You work. You earn. You enjoy yourself. You do what you like. You buy me shit if you want. But I provide, Sylvie.”

“That’s crazy,” I told him.

“It’s what you just agreed,” he told me.

“Okay, but it’s crazy.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is,” I shot back. “I’m not seventeen and depending on you, Creed.”