by Quinn, Cari
Once I reached the base of his hand, I shifted until he was cupping my cheek. Until my hand covered his, holding him in place. He lowered his head and I lifted mine, needing to see him when our mouths touched. The barest of contacts, an exchange of breath.
This was the point where we’d jump at each other like animals, dragging off clothes, tearing flesh and sanity.
Not this time.
His teeth grazed my lower lip, a sweet pinch. I curled my tongue and invited him inside, my free hand trailing over the bones and sinew that made up his shoulder to the strong column of his neck. Then upward, to buzz over his scalp and tug lightly on his hair. He gasped into my mouth and I fed on that burst of breath, swallowing it down and seeking more. I sucked on his tongue and then he sucked on mine, our kisses slippery, wet, unhurried. The pressure built, becoming more intense with each second. I squirmed against the couch, my clothes already an annoyance against my oversensitized skin, but he made no move to ease my discomfort.
One of his hands finally closed around my breast, and by then, I was on the verge. I didn’t know how I’d gotten there, only that the heavy drumbeat between my legs was nearly unbearable. His long fingers plucked at my nipple, circling as slowly as a bee picking the perfect petal to drink from. My breasts felt heavy, full. Like all the want in my body had centered there, and at the apex of my thighs.
His fingers wandered to my other nipple, and he moved even slower, turning time into molasses that he dripped drop by drop on my parched skin. I leaned up into him, opening up, greedy for every sensation.
I’d never felt this much before. Never allowed myself.
I’d closed myself off to so much. Afraid that blows wouldn’t kill me, but being loved like this surely would.
He slanted his head and licked a path from my collarbone up my throat, pushing my head back into the cushion. His teeth scraped over my pulse and all I could do was breathe faster, knowing he’d read my arousal in the primitive throb beneath my skin. His breath shuddered out, cooling the trail he’d left behind, and I shivered beneath him, exposed completely though I still wore every stitch of clothes.
Finally, he could see me.
The more sinister meaning of that phrase tried to hammer through the cotton clouds of lust, but I refused to let it. There was only Tray and me, and a lumpy couch with a spring that hovered beneath the threadbare fabric. If I shifted, I could have that intrusive bolt of pain that would keep this pleasure from being too drugging and deep, and he would never even know.
I stayed still.
My fingers wound tighter in his hair, pulling his mouth back to mine. Our lips brushed. Once, twice. A hundred times. Each moment lasting longer than the one that came before. His hands spanned my cheeks as he explored me thoroughly, every lick of his tongue resonating far inside me.
This couldn’t last forever, but God, I didn’t want him to stop.
I gasped when he picked me up and settled me across his lap. He draped the blanket over us, then drew my head against his shoulder. Holding me there, he rocked, just rocked until the storm of desire grew into an ache so powerful that I panted against the side of his neck.
He flicked open the button of my jeans and dragged down the zipper. I was squirming again, incapable of remaining motionless. He eased his hand into my panties to skim over my mound. So close to what I needed that I trembled. He brushed the thin strip of hair before delving lower and separating my swollen lips. The tip of one finger slipped inside and I threw my head back, so grateful to have even that slight pressure on my clit.
Sliding lower, he spread the wetness we’d made, increasing it while I whimpered against his throat. There weren’t words for the depth of my need for him. I didn’t understand where it had come from, or how I walked around each day with this vast well of it inside me. Nothing ever quenched my thirst.
His fingers weren’t enough. As much as I loved them, and the way he plucked at my clit with such patience, extending the moment until I was shaking in his arms, I had to have more. There was only one thing that could feed this insatiable hunger.
I lifted my head and pressed my quivering hand to his cheek, pulling his mesmerizing gaze to mine. I knew he’d understand what I wanted without me having to ask.
His throat moved and his eyes brightened, flashing like wet jewels. Then he removed his hand from my panties and slowly, carefully, tugged them and my jeans off. He shifted me on his lap, and I straddled his knees while he fought with belt, buckle, and zipper to get down his jeans and boxers.
With the blanket still shrouding us, he positioned me, drawing me over him in a fluid motion that was as effortless as sinking into a warm swimming pool. The ripple on my hips belonged to his hands pulling me down.
Taking him in, I inhaled and savored the burn of the air expanding my lungs.
I could breathe again.
His hands, the wonder and magic of them, slipped under my shirt to close over my breasts through my thin bra. Using them as anchors, he nudged me up and back down, the tempo of his thrusts matching the staccato pattern of his breaths. They exploded against my throat, against the underside of my chin. My knees dug into his hips and my fingers clamped on his shoulders as I used their strength to propel myself higher, faster. Knowing he raced with me, his heart surging in time with mine.
When I fell, he would too.
The need wound tighter and tighter in my belly, a tornado turned inward. It touched down everywhere, flattening everything in its path. I couldn’t think past the swamping urgency to take more, to bring him farther inside my body. Him filling me made the world bearable. Made me bearable.
I gasped as I clenched him, savoring the pressure of him opening me so fully. Of him stroking upward into me to warm all the spots that had gone dormant and cold. Nerves and needs flared to life, and my heavy breasts dragged over his chest with the rise and fall of my body. The blanket hung around my shoulders, and my shirt billowed around his hands kneading my flesh, and somehow even that increased the intensity.
We had to be quiet. Carly was sleeping. And yet screams were shrieking in my head, a silent accompaniment to the furor in my core.
Bending over him, my long hair streaming down to shelter us both, I shattered. Exploded into a billion shimmering pieces. My cries burst against his neck, his cheek, his hair.
I went on autopilot, mindlessly driven to keep the sensations coming. I’d waited so long for them. For him.
For this version of me.
One of his hands streaked down my damp torso to clutch my hip as he groaned against my throat. The raw, ragged sound shot me over again, and I was still quaking from the aftershocks when he let go deep inside me. Drenching waves of heat scorched me from the inside out, extending my pleasure until I grew too sensitive to endure another second.
Replete, I slumped against his chest and curled around him with his still half hard cock pulsing gently inside me. I didn’t want to let that link go.
His big hand came up to cradle the back of my neck while we drifted together. I could’ve fallen asleep just like that.
If the buzzer hadn’t rung.
His low groan broke the sex trance, and I lifted my head to find him watching me with such worry and love that my throat constricted. How had I gotten so lucky? Surely there would be a price to pay for getting to be with someone so beautiful and perfect, even for a short time.
You already paid it. With interest.
I doubted that could be true. The debt kept mounting. All I could do was hope I’d still have something left in my account when I had to balance the scales for being with Tray.
The buzzer rang again.
“I’ll get it,” he said quietly.
I nodded, rising off his lap. The sigh that escaped as he left my body couldn’t be helped, and from his wince, he didn’t enjoy the feeling any more than I did.
Sinking onto the couch, I drew the blanket around me, huddling as if it wasn’t a sticky-hot September morning.
Tray tugged up his box
ers and jeans and yanked up the zipper before moving to the window to open it. A warm breeze filtered into the room, lifting the ends of my hair. Clearly, he wasn’t chilled like me.
He cast me another quick glance before he went to the intercom. “Yeah?”
“It’s Gio.”
Normally, that voice would’ve made me groan. Now I only watched Tray with a distant fascination, as if I’d never quite seen him before. Barefoot, he prowled across the room, his jeans hanging low on his hips. He opened the door and propped his arm on the jamb, waiting for Gio to arrive.
“This is getting to be a habit with you.” Tray stepped aside to let him in.
Giovanni glanced from Tray to me, his shock evident. He strode into the apartment and crouched in front of the sofa, his blue-black eyes filled with a concern I didn’t know he possessed. Not for me. Maybe not for anyone. “Are you okay?”
I waited a moment, expecting Tray to interject that I was fine. But he was waiting too.
“Yes. I’m…” What? Alive? Breathing? Maybe I should focus on what I was just this very moment, and let the rest come as it would. “I’m good.” I returned Tray’s stare until his lips curled at the corners and he looked down, his version of a blush.
God, I loved that man.
Giovanni rested his hands on his thighs and shifted his gaze between us, shaking his head. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all…”
“Keep interrupting us at the wrong time and you just might,” Tray said darkly, and I muffled a laugh into the blanket.
Giovanni surprised me by chuckling. “Yeah, well, stop doing it so damn much.”
“When I’m dead.” Tray crossed his arms and lifted a brow. “Whatcha want this time?”
“I assumed you’d want to go get your car.” Gio rattled his keys, and Tray blinked as if he’d just remembered he didn’t have his ‘Vette.
If I hadn’t known he loved me more than anything—I didn’t understand it, but I knew it—that would’ve proved it.
“Oh, yeah.” Tray’s gaze landed on me again and he shuffled his feet. “Well, uh…”
“I’ll be fine, Tray. You can go.”
“Nah, I’m cool. I don’t need it right now.”
“I’m here, remember?” Carly said from the doorway, and three heads turned my sister’s way.
I was halfway to my feet to go to her when I realized my jeans and panties were still crumpled in a not-so-discreet puddle on the floor. Tray cleared his throat and I slumped back down. “We’ll be fine,” I corrected.
Giovanni chuckled again, but he was still staring across the room. If I’d been fully back to myself, I would’ve said to hell with the lack of pants, thrown the blanket around my waist wrap-style, and dragged my sister into the bedroom. The sex vibes pinging all around weren’t just coming from me and Tray.
Not by a long shot.
But I wasn’t ready to go back to being militant Mia just yet. It was so goddamn exhausting being on guard all the time.
For once, I just wanted to bask in the afterglow and talk to my sister. Just talk. Not argue.
“Go,” I said gently to Tray when he hesitated by the door. “I promise, we’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. Us girls can take care of ourselves.” Though Carly bounced down on the couch beside me with a smile, I didn’t miss the shadows under her eyes. If she’d slept, it hadn’t been well.
My fault.
“That so?” Gio asked, his voice as mild as the day outside. Easy. Almost relaxed. But the blue in his eyes had receded, leaving only unrelieved black. And those eyes were trained squarely on my sister, who was looking everywhere but at him.
“Don’t go down that road, man.” Tray moved behind me to gather my hair in his hands. Carefully, he worked out the knots and tangles. When he’d finished the task to his satisfaction, he tugged back my head and laid his mouth on mine. “I love you,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear, plain as day.
My face flooded with heat. So did the rest of me.
I wanted to say it back. God, I did. But the words got stuck somewhere between my mind and my vocal cords.
Gio whistled under his breath. “Damn, this is like those soap operas my mom used to watch.”
“It is pretty sickening,” Carly agreed, inching closer to me on the sofa. She tipped her head onto my shoulder and waved her hand at Tray. “My turn now. Scram.”
Tray walked backward to the door. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’ll give her girl parts a rest.”
Snorting, I elbowed my sister. I still wasn’t at my normal level of angst. It was sort of nice, and more than a little disconcerting.
If this was what it was like to be on the other side of a psychotic break, maybe they weren’t as bad as I’d feared.
Giovanni followed him to the door. “Mia. Carly.” His voice lowered on Carly’s name to the point that I cast a quick side-eye at my sister to see how she was reacting.
She was examining her bright red toenail polish.
Okay then.
The door shut behind them with a firm but definitive click.
“What’s going on with you two?” I couldn’t help asking. Also a side effect of new Mia. Old Mia would’ve demanded and threatened and possibly put chainmail over the door to keep the offending penis safely on the other side.
“Who?” she asked, all innocence.
“You know who, Carly Ann.”
“Ah, there she is.” Carly peeked up at me from under her reddish-gold fringe of bangs. “Faux Mia was freaking me out.”
I laughed and gathered the blanket closer. I was sweating underneath it, but I wasn’t quite ready to let it go. And there was the whole lack-of-pants thing too.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I said after a moment, wanting to go there about as much as I wanted to entertain what might be going on between Gio and Carly. But I had to. This safety bubble I’d hidden in since my ill-advised punch at the club had to pop soon.
I was already sharpening the needle.
“You scared the hell out of me, Ame.” Her chin wobbled and she held her position for a few seconds before launching herself into my lap. She wrapped her arms around me and held on tight. “I love you so much. Don’t scare me like that again. I can’t take it.”
Tears sprang into my eyes and I clung to her, rocking her like our mother had done with us when we were little. When Carly had come along, we’d traded off sharing our mama’s lap until the day we’d decided it was better if we each took a thigh and all cuddled together. I’m not sure our mother had loved it as much as we had, but we’d been in heaven.
Now we just had each other. No matter what, we always had each other.
“I love you too.” I stroked her silky soft hair and rubbed my cheek over the top of her head. “You were better than any doll.”
She sniffled and lifted her head, her big blue eyes luminescent with tears that tugged at my heart. “What?”
“When you came along, I always insisted on pushing your stroller. Screw the dolls. I had a real live kid.” Laughing a little through the tears, I cupped her face between my palms. I’d done everything I could to make sure she was safe. She was my first concern every moment of every day. Even now. “Mama indulged me, because hell, it kept both of us out of her hair.”
“She knew you’d keep me safe.”
“It was all I ever wanted,” I whispered, shutting my eyes against the voice in my head. It was coming back, the soft words piercing the bubble.
You won’t run, because I know where to find your pretty little blond sister. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Reminds me of my Olivia. So innocent.
See, I hadn’t needed the needle after all. I just needed to wait for reality to catch up with me once again.
But even while trapped in the loop in my head, the name Olivia snagged my attention. Who was she? I’d assumed it was his wife. He’d had one at the time, or he’d had one once. I’d seen the gold band he took off every time he touched me. That
was my signal. When the gold band came off, I knew what would happen next.
Maybe it wasn’t a wife. Maybe I’d been too wrapped up in what was happening to me to think clearly.
An ongoing problem, that.
“I want to keep you safe too.” Carly burrowed against me. “You were almost catatonic last night, and I didn’t know why. Fox was so scared. Even Gio. It was like you were broken again.”
Not broken, period. Broken again. Because we all knew I’d been broken before. Perhaps all the years in between were a long, slow descent right back to that place.
Unless I fought my way through.
“Something happened,” I said, debating how much to tell her. I didn’t want to keep her in the dark, but I also didn’t want to increase the load on her shoulders. She was only eighteen. She was innocent, just as she should be.
Was that long-forgotten Olivia still innocent too?
“Tell me,” she said quietly, taking the choice from my hands. I couldn’t lie to her, not when those earnest blue eyes peered into mine.
I ran through the whole night for her. Tray getting drunk, me going to pick him up at the club. I didn’t call it a strip club—she’d probably get the wrong idea about what Tray had been doing there, and besides, I couldn’t help feeling like it was my duty to shelter her—and I didn’t spell out exactly what that fancy-suited creep with the shiny gun holstered at his waist had said about me and Tray, but she got the gist.
“You punched him out because he knew your past. Somehow.” She narrowed her eyes. “And because he was a sadistic fucker who twisted things.”
That about summed it up, yes. Along with the fact that someone had been sending me harassing texts and calling me just to breathe in my ear, and this guy conveniently had a line into my past that he should not have had. Amelia Anderson and Mia Anderson were two roads that shouldn’t meet. I hadn’t exhaustively buried my tracks, but to my knowledge, no one had dug up the bones before.
