I physically couldn't keep my tongue off of Elodie. 

In her mouth, on her skin, inside of her...

There was no way I was going to wake up next to the beautiful woman beside me and not want to kiss almost every inch of her body. 

She stirred softly beside me as my lips trailed a path down her naked stomach, her muscles flexing beneath the hum of appreciation falling from my mouth. 

Soft butter sunshine from the early morning rays burst through the curtained windows above my bed casting the room in an orange-honey sheen that danced along Elodie's creamy smooth skin. 

Hair soft as silk splayed out atop my pillows, Elodie's back arched of its own accord, eyelids still firmly shut and mind still deftly entranced in the throes of sleep. 

Hands skating down her arms and sides, goosebumps arose on her flesh, but I didn't make my move to anywhere more sensitive until her eyes fluttered open and exposed to me those beautiful hazel eyes.  Until she woke fully, I'd continue exploring her skin softly, slowly...

A harsh breath of air hissed through her teeth as my mouth found its way to her bare hip bone, hips shifting up off the mattress and into the air, closer to my mouth. 

A sharp nibble of my teeth on her skin had her coming completely awake, hands flying to my hair as my tongue soothed away the sharp sting my teeth had just made. 

"Matthew..."

"Good morning beautiful."

I couldn't keep the satisfaction from my voice at having her waking up already so flustered. 

A hand traveling down between her thighs had me smirking at the evidence of just how turned on she was, the mirror image to the raging boner pushing against the fabric of my boxers. 

"Well, this is a great way to wake up in the mornings."

"We should make it an everyday thing, then."

My heart kicked in my chest to see how she'd react to that one. 

I had not been expecting the big three words that we'd uttered to each other the night before, but as they fell from Elodie's lips, almost as if they'd never meant to leave her thoughts, it just felt right. 

So fucking right and perfect and that she was the only woman I wanted in my bed, ever...but I didn't know if she was ready for that yet, either, but she was the one to say it first, so...

"Mhmmm..." she almost moaned out, her eyes closing of their own volition as my fingers began their slow and careful ministrations against her most sensitive parts, dipping in and out of her while her back arched up and I licked my lips at the sight. 

She cried out unabashedly when my teeth clamped onto her inner thigh, hips bucking and undulating for more of whatever I was willing to give her. 

Anything. 

Everything. 

I'd give her the air from my lungs and drown in the breathlessness of her presence. 

When my tongue finally found her center, she was dripping onto my fingers, keening and whimpering and moaning until I knew she was seconds away from orgasming. 

I pulled back immediately, fingers leaving just as swiftly as my tongue. 

"Matthew...?  What are you--"

"Just lay back and close your eyes."

My dick was achingly hard but I didn't dare touch it or think about my own pleasure, not yet.  Not when this was the most magnificent thing I'd ever seen, Elodie splayed out before me like a feast for me to devour and worship, kneeling before her like her body was my altar and her soul was my temple. 

Once her breaths had gone back to normal and she wasn't completely on the verge of coming undone, I started slow, one finger slowly swirling inside her while my tongue prodded her softly, barely enough to give her the friction that she was desperate for. 

When her hips followed my tongue as I backed away, I let out a low chuckle. 

"What did I say about patience last night, my love?"

The half groan/half whimper that escaped her pursed pink lips almost wrung a groan out of myself. 

She obeyed me, though, falling back against the pillows while I stayed in between her legs, a man caught up in the throes of pleasuring the woman who'd decided he was the one she loved. 

It was an overwhelming experience, having someone express their love for me so easily and perfectly. 

The only woman who'd told me she loved me besides my mother was my ex-girlfriend who'd cheated on me and only wanted me for my position on the basketball team as well as the endless stream of players she could hook up with behind my back. 

It never felt real with her, always so damn surface level and fake for the media. 

This was the real fucking deal. 

Elodie tore away all the pretense and the mask that I kept on for the public, shredded all of my barriers and threw them in the fucking garbage. 

So when she finally caught on to what I was doing to her, drawing out the orgasm that she so desperately craved, I couldn't stop the purely satisfied smile from crawling onto my face, even as I was buried in her. 

"Matthew, please," she begged, hands going once again to my hair to keep me anchored exactly where I wanted her, but just as she flexed inside of me and lifted up slightly off the mattress, I pulled away. 

"Please, what?"

"Please, please, please," she was whispering hoarsely over and over, as if I didn't give her what she needed right then and there that she would spontaneously combust. 

I half wondered if she could make herself come without me touching her, or if it would result in a ruined orgasm, but I didn't want to be that cruel with her.  Yet. 

I only hoped she'd love my games as much as I did.  So far, so good...

"Use your words, sweetheart."

"Please let me come, please, please," she chanted almost as if a prayer to the man between her legs controlling her pleasure. 

"Since you asked so nicely."

My fingers and tongue returned with a vengeance, her sensitivity dialed up to a ten and she was writhing around, as if she were no longer in control of her body, her pleasure navigating her body like a GPS system, a push and pull so savage it was akin to the churning waves in the ocean. 

Her explosion was so stunning I almost took my tongue away from her to watch from above, but I stayed firm as she rode it out, her cries of ecstasy filling the otherwise quiet room around us. 

When it became too much for her to bear, she began to pull away, but still I stayed put, fingers pumping in and out of her even as she contracted her muscles around me and pulled back.

"Matthew..."

I didn't pull away until the last spasms of her muscles had receded and she was strewn back against the pillows, sated and satisfied and completely breathless. 

Beautiful. 

I hovered over her, dick prodding her stomach, but I wasn't about to ask her to return the favor. 

She remained still for a beat, two, three...and then her lustrous eyes popped open and stared at me with admiration and lazy sleepiness reflected back onto me, and pounced on me, topping us so that she straddled my hips. 

I couldn't help but think that I'd finally found my perfect insatiable match as she began tugging my boxers down...torturously slow. 

***

Teeth brushed, hair combed, showered and fully clean, I think it's a safe bet to say that we both had licked almost every inch of the other's skin that morning. 

Elodie was seated firmly in my lap eating pancakes and stealing strawberries from my own plate of an egg white omelette when her phone chirped in her pocket. 

She groaned. 

"Why couldn't we just have one day without the bullshit?"

I kissed the top of her forehead before planting my hands on her hips and lifting her from my lap to take my plate to the sink. 

"Because as much as we wish, the outside world doesn't stop spinning just because you want it to."

She grumbled a response that sounded a lot like "at least let me enjoy my damn pancakes" before answering her phone. 

"Hey."

A pause. 

"I don't want to see him.  Can he do that?  He admitted to as much on national television, how can what we said in the article be slander?"

So it was a call about her father.  Great. 

"Isn't that completely against the whole point of a restraining order?"

After what Elodie had told me happened to her at the hands of her father all those years ago and most recently, there was no way I was going to let that asshole within a hundred feet of her.  Hell, a thousand feet.  A mile.  Fuck that asshole, they weren't going to ever be in the same vicinity. 

"Yeah okay.  I'll talk to him.  When and where?  He going to take me out to ice cream like old times?"

I stiffened at the mention of talking to 'him' but knowing Elodie, she was talking about her brother.  I hoped. 

"Okay, I love you too V.  Thanks for calling.  Give Evie a kiss for me.  Bye."

"Everything okay?"

I was so bad at playing it cool, I was basically a flashing red worrying sign. 

"Yeah, just my father getting a lawyer and slapping Eli with a defamation of character lawsuit.  It's bullshit and won't hold up in court, but apparently he's not above suing to get us to speak to him.  I'm having lunch with Eli this afternoon.  You're right--the world will never stop just because we want it to."

I couldn't help gravitating over to her on the dining room chair at the table, slumped and looking as if that light she'd basked in had dimmed in her eyes just from one simple phone call. 

I kneeled before her, hands clasping hers in mine, and met her eyes from where they'd fallen. 

"We don't get to block out the outside world, but we do get to decide how we react to it.  You're going to be alright, and this asshole is going to leave you alone, and whether he knows it or not yet, he's not getting anywhere near you again.  Do you hear me?"

Unshed tears glimmered in her eyes as she nodded her head, her teeth snaring her bottom lip letting me know that she wasn't going to respond verbally. 

I was going to scoop her up in my arms and tuck her against my chest until she had to leave to see Eli, but then it was my phone's turn to ring, a specific ringtone that I'd set for my family. 

"Looks like you're not the only one the world has decided to fuck over today, baby."

It was my father.  Without thinking, I put the phone on speaker. 

"Hey, Dad."

His voice was gruff and harsh in the air around us as he responded, so I edged away from Elodie and strode further into the kitchen on bare feet. 

"Why are you splashed all over every tabloid magazine in the grocery store, and why is your mother calling me complaining that it's about that girl you're with instead of your actual career?"

I gritted my teeth in annoyance.  One of these days, I was going to cut them off completely if they couldn't set aside their greed and irritation towards me for the steroids situation that I obviously had no hand in, especially since Eli, ya know, fucking confessed it was him who framed me in the first place. 

I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of it all. 

"It's not like it's going to hurt my spot on the team.  If anything, having the truth out there about Eli and what he did has only helped me.  I'm not suspended from the team anymore, and-"

"You were suspended from the fucking team?  And why is this the first I'm hearing about this?"

"I was going to-"

"Honestly son, if you'd take your head from out between that girl's legs for half a second, you'd see how toxic that entire family is to you!  The father is an addict and an abuser, and the daughter is probably all kinds of fucked up from that.  You need to find you a nice girl, respectable, one who doesn't have all of that baggage."

I didn't say anything.  I physically couldn't speak, because Elodie had heard every single word my father had said about her, and seeing her crestfallen face was like a knife's jagged edge plunged into my fucking heart. 

She turned away and strode into the bedroom before I could respond. 

"I don't think it's best if we have contact anymore."

"W-what?!  What the hell are you-"

"You are the most judgmental, narcissistic and self serving person I think I've ever met, and my mother is no better.  Once I got busted for steroids that weren't mine and you two never believed me, our relationship immediately changed.  I am sick and tired of you telling me how to live my life as a grown adult, lording over my choices and my career like you still have a say in anything I do."

"We do not lord over-"

"I wasn't fucking done speaking, old man.  I have put up with your bullshit long enough, tolerated your hate and anger towards me for years, but this is where I draw the line.  You can hurt me all you want, but when you drag the woman I love into it?  That is the final straw.  I think it's best if we go no contact, because I can't control my anger or my words with you when you act that way towards someone you don't even know, someone you don't even deserve to know.  You can tell my mother that if she wants to have a relationship with her only son, she can apologize for her years of behavior towards me, but if not, then the no contact goes for her too.  I am done with the both of you if she feels the same way as you do.  Goodbye, Dad."

My heart was pounding and my legs were shaking, but there was a sense of relief that floated through my body.  I felt free. 

God, I should've done that years ago. 

"You didn't have to do that, Matt," Elodie's voice rang out behind me, and I spun around to see her already dressed to go to see her brother. 

"Yes, I did.  It was a long time coming, you were just what I needed to put the final nail in the coffin."

She picked at her fingernails. 

"Yeah, but...your parents, they weren't abusive, were they?"

I was pretty sure I could guess where this was going. 

"They didn't have to hit me to be abusive, Els."

I came up to her and captured her hands in mine, loving this new, vulnerable Elodie who was shy and soft in front of me instead of the Elodie who had built a wall around me and the entire world to keep herself safe. 

"I just don't want you to regret cutting your parents out if they're still worth redeeming."

"They could be in the future, if they change how they act.  Like I said, it was a long time coming, babe."

"Okay..." she trailed off, arms coming to wrap around my middle as her cheek rested against my lower chest. 

"When will I see you again this week?"

"I don't know, I missed class yesterday because of...everything, and then skipped again today.  I'm going to need to stay on campus this weekend to catch up on everything."

"Well, I could always come visit you."

"Yeah but don't you have preseason practice?  You're not suspended, remember?  Every preseason, Eli is always so busy..."

I could detect some fear in her voice. 

"Hey, look at me."

She tilted her beautiful face up to mine and I smiled at the little divot between her eyebrows.  I reached up and smoothed it out with my thumbs, then let my hands trail down her face to rest at the base of her neck, thumbs resting on her jaw. 

"Stop worrying.  Yes we're going to be busy, but you're not that far away, and you always have a place to stay when you come to the city."

"I doubt my brother's going to like that I'm not staying with them in the city."

Her wry smile that cut through her features set my heartbeat pounding and my blood roaring through my veins. 

"You have to get going soon?"

Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated and hazy with our close proximity. 

"Mhmm."

"Sure you can't spare...five minutes?"

"Five minutes?  I don't know..."

I reached down to loop my arms around her legs and lifted her up into my arms, her own going around my neck as she squealed and I placed her on the countertop. laughing at the fact that she couldn't wear the stockings she'd worn over the night before because I'd ripped them with my teeth. 

"Please tell me you're going back to Eli's and changing before going out in this..."

The skirt was absolutely tiny, leaving nothing to the imagination, but the growl of approval that left my lips at finding that she'd left her underwear off for the morning was nothing short of caveman-like.

"Of course not!  That's why I need to leave now," she said, laughter glinting in eyes that were seconds away from tears less than a minute ago.

"You sure I can't convince you for five more minutes..."

My lips on her neck seemed to be her downfall. 

"Fine, five minutes."

"I could make you come in three."

The gasp that left her mouth as I kneeled before her for the second time that morning was pure paradise, and made her come undone on my tongue before the three minute mark. 

***

A/N:

What did you think of this chapter?

What do you think is going to happen with Elodie's father?

What do you WANT to happen next?

Fave scenes?

Scenes you want to see in the next chapters?

Please let me know what you guys think!

P.S.  Sorry for late updates, I've been back and forth between states for my husband's work and visiting with family, but I promise this book will not be abandoned!

Until next time my lovely readers, 
Kristen :)