Cross Crease (On The Edge Book 3)

by Elizabeth Hartey

  “Don’t move,” he instructs. I follow his command as he moves to turn the faucets on in the bathtub. Four streaming waterfalls in each corner begin filling the massive tub. D pours something into the water. Mmm, lavender. He flips a switch on the wall. The water begins to froth with bubbles.

  “Now,” he says as he stalks back to me, “I can’t promise you’ll be able to walk when I get you back home.” He slides my shirt up. I raise my arms overhead to assist him in taking it off. “But I can promise it will be worth it.” He spins me around and pushes me against the cold countertop.

  He drops his sweatpants and kicks them off. He looks up and stares at our reflections in the mirror. I immediately recognize the predatory lust in his silver gaze. And then he glides his fingers down between my ass cheeks and into my already dripping center.

  “Oh, God.” My eyes close and my head drops back against his chest.

  “Open your eyes, Gorgeous. I want you to watch what I’m doing to you.” His words come out in a raspy demand. He uses his leg to spread my thighs further apart and continues to plunge two fingers in and out.

  I drop forward onto the unforgiving marble, I’m like hot putty in his hands. The cold surface is a relief to the heat flaming through me. He removes his fingers and pulls me back against him. His swollen thickness is aligned at my center. I grip the countertop in an effort to keep my legs from collapsing under me.

  “That’s right. Hold on tight,” D whispers and wraps his arm around my waist to clutch me against him. He plunges into me with a slamming thrust. Lights glitter behind my eyelids. I gasp at the deep intrusion. “Told you I was going to punish you for teasing me this morning. Didn’t I?”

  “Yesss,” I groan and wiggle my ass further against him.

  “You like when I pound into your tight pussy, don’t you?” His words are like gasoline on an already raging fire.

  My repeated yes comes out in another pleasured groan. I raise my head to look at our reflections. My heavy-lidded eyes are almost impossible to keep open. But I do as D instructed and force them open to watch as he slams into me. His heated gaze is wild with pure desire as he continues to pull out and pummel back into me.

  “I love the way this tight cunt feels when I’m fucking it.” He whispers his filthy endearment in my ear. My entire body vibrates as he drives into me, working me into a frenzy.

  In the short time I’ve been with him, I’ve come to understand one thing: D is not a gentle lover. He likes to be in control. But D and I have built our friendship on competition. As much as my body hungers for release in his powerful arms, it’s time to set the record straight. I give him a mischievous grin and clench, squeezing around his throbbing shaft.

  His eyes squeeze shut. “Ahh. Fuuuck. Pip. Shit. What you do to me.” His rhythm becomes more frantic, jackhammering me over and over against the unforgiving stone counter. He’s right. I may be bruised and unable to walk tomorrow but holy smokes it is definitely worth it. He’s deep inside me hitting that newly discovered wondrous spot again and again, sending me hurtling toward the edge.

  He grips my hips, pulling me hard against him and with one more powerful thrust he growls my name. We come together, bucking and groaning. His hot release thunders into me. D folds over me in exhaustion, his chest thumps against my back as our hearts beat in a mutual thrumming cool-down. But somehow, he manages to keep us both from collapsing onto the floor in sated feebleness.

  He pulls out, his spent shaft still semi-hard. His warm juices drip down my legs as he turns me around, gathering me in his arms. I nestle into him, circling my arms around his waist and resting my head against his heaving chest. We stand there for a moment, wrapped in mutual warmth, panting in contented bliss.

  At that moment he changes from the aggressive, powerful man fucking me, to the sweet, protective lover. His deep voice rumbles in my ear when he whispers softly, “I love you, Heaven.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Wolfe

  Her legs are still trembling when I kneel down and clean her with a moist towel. I pick her up, carry her to the tub, and lower her into the soothing warm water. She’s going to need the comforting warmth and lavender bubbles after the way I’ve been working her. But I can’t help myself. It’s as if my cock and I are both trying to make up for lost time.

  “You’re getting in with me, aren’t you?” She looks up at me with her flushed face and sparkling blue eyes. And I know I’m beyond fucked when it comes to this woman. My feelings for her go way beyond this unbelievable sexual attraction we have.

  Of course, I’ll get in the tub with her. What guy in his right mind would say no to this gorgeous woman inviting him into a bubble bath? But no matter what she asked, I’d never say no to her. I’d do anything for her, give her anything, stay with her forever if she’ll have me.

  “If there’s enough room for me.” I brush some bubbles off her face.

  “D, there’s enough room for your whole team in this tub.” She giggles. I swear to Christ my heart skips a fucking beat at the sound.

  “I’m all about teamwork, sweetheart.” I smirk, climbing into the tub behind her. “But if even one of those assholes came anywhere near this tub with you in it, he’d never play hockey again.”

  “No worries. If one of your teammates got anywhere near this tub with me in it, I’d be the one making sure he never played anything again.” She slides back between my thighs and lays her head against my chest. Circling my arms around her waist, I close my eyes and wonder how I got to be the lucky bastard who gets to have her in my arms.

  “I’ve been telling you for years I can take care of myself, D.” She tilts her head and looks up at me. “You just never believed me.”

  “I believed you.” I sweep her long hair to one side and kiss her soapy shoulder. “I’ve always known you were strong enough and smart enough to take care of yourself. I just wanted to protect you from…me.” The confession comes out with a big exhalation. Because she’s pressed against my chest, she rises up and down in the water in sync with my breath as if she’s a part of me. And she is…a part of me I’ll never let go.

  “You never needed to protect me from you. I’m a big girl. I can handle you.” She’s running her hand up and down my thigh while smiling up at me and my dick is beginning to thoroughly enjoy her handling.

  But I have to focus. It’s the perfect opportunity to get things out in the open. Before we get any further into this relationship, she needs to know the whole truth about my past. I don’t want secrets between us.

  “Pip.” I thread my fingers through hers. Not only because I want to be holding her hand when I tell her about the things I’ve done but because I need her to stop stroking my leg so I can think straight. “There are some things about me you don’t know.”

  “I know everything I need to know.” She nuzzles her nose under my chin. I want to say fuck this, pull her onto my lap and fuck her so hard I’ll forget my bullshit past. After all, it is the past. I’m a different person now with a totally different life. Maybe I shouldn’t risk telling her and losing her. After she knows, she may decide to walk away from me because my skank past is too much for her. But I can’t be the one to make that decision for her. I have to tell her.

  “No, you don’t.” I turn her around so she’s facing me. I pull my legs out from under her. If she’s straddling my hips, I’ll be balls deep inside her before I get the first sentence out. The jets are still pumping. The soothing lavender oil I dumped in the water for her is still bubbling. I reach over and turn off the faucets and consider turning off the jets too but then decide to leave them on. Something about the rhythmic sound and warm silky bubbles gives me comfort and courage to continue telling her my sordid tale.

  “I know you were living on the street when Batt’s dad found you,” she whispers and reaches for my hand under the oozing froth. She tangles her fingers in mine again.

  “Dak told you.”

  “No. He didn’t tell me. He would never betray your trust.”


  “Hah. He wouldn’t betray my trust, but he’ll tell you I’m a dirtbag anytime my name comes up.”

  “Yup. Pretty much.” Her lips tip up in a slight grin, and she shrugs. “The only reason I know about Mr. Battaglia finding you is that I kinda eavesdropped when Batt and Dak were talking about you at our house one time.”

  “Oh great. I was everyone’s pity case and topic of conversation.”

  “No, D. It wasn’t like that. Dak was concerned about you and wanted to know what he could do to help. Batt told Dak he would have to talk to you if he wanted to know any more because it wasn’t his place to tell him. I assumed since you guys were all so close, Dak did talk to you about it. But I never asked any questions, and he never told me anything. And I don’t need to…”

  “I need you to know,” I interrupt her. “I need you to listen to me. Don’t say anything. Just listen, because if you stop me, I won’t get through this.”

  “Okay.” She slides away from me. A waterfall jet streams down her back. She does a little wiggle to get into a comfortable position where some of the water is streaming down her hair and some of it is running over her shoulder, cascading over her tit like clear satin over silk. She’s a dreamlike vision stretched out before me, willing to accept whatever I have to tell her. Flawless beauty that doesn’t deserve the crap I’m about to lay on her. But she does deserve the truth. “I’m listening,” she announces.

  I take a deep breath, swallowing hard to get my head back into my sleazy storytelling task.

  “When I was nine, my mom and I were in a really bad car accident,’ I begin. The sound of skidding tires, crunching metal, and my mom’s scream resonates in my head. I rub my temples, trying to quiet the loud memory.

  “I’m so sorry, D. Don’t…”

  “I’m okay. Please let me finish.” Pip bites her bottom lip. Her eyes glaze with unshed tears. I realize my words came out gruffer than I intended. “Sorry, babe. I haven’t talked about any of this in a long time, but I need to talk about it now. I need to tell you.”

  “Okay.” She stretches her legs out and places them on top of mine. Having her silky skin against mine is an added comfort. I’ll share my bullshit story with her and then it won’t be a constant nagging silent obstacle between us anymore.

  “I was in the backseat and didn’t have a scratch on me, but my mom got pretty messed up. The impact shattered her pelvis, fractured a couple vertebrae in her neck, and left her with a severe concussion. The doctors didn’t even know if she was going to survive at first because they weren’t sure about brain trauma.

  “She survived, but when she came home, she was in constant pain. Some days she couldn’t even get out of bed. The only way she could function was by taking pain meds. After a while, she had to increase the dosage. It was the catalyst to her prescription med addiction, a vicious downward spiral. The more she took, the more she needed. I came home from school one afternoon and found her on the floor in her room. She was cold and stiff, lying in her own vomit.”

  “Oh my God, D. I…” Pip begins, but I give her a pleading look because I really need her to let me get through this. “Oh. Sorry.” She runs her fingers across her lips like she’s zipping them closed. I bite back a smile. Even while reliving my darkest day, she brings sunshine to the situation.

  “Anyway, my dad was devastated. He couldn’t get over her loss. She was his whole world. He was madly in love with her, and she was just as in love with him. The difference was my mom loved me too. He only wanted me because he knew it made her happy to have a baby and he wanted to give her whatever he could because he couldn’t afford to give her material things. Even as a kid, I felt the way he treated me like an intruder in their lives. He only put up with me for her sake.

  “When she died, he blamed me because she had been picking me up from hockey practice when we got in the accident. He never forgave me and didn’t want anything to do with me. He spent every day drunk out of his mind, trying to erase his pain. He lost his construction job, walked around like a zombie, completely out of it. We could hardly afford food. Every extra penny we had went to buy his whiskey. One night, when I was thirteen, he went out to get another bottle and never came back.”

  Tears are streaming down Pip’s face. Her breathing is stuttered as if she’s holding back sobs. I fucking hate that I’m doing this to her. Especially since I told her I wanted this to be a chill day without any bullshit drama concerning my past behavior. But I can’t keep this shit from her any longer.

  “I was placed in foster care. But the first family I ended up with was worse than living with my negligent father. I heard my foster parents talking one night. They were going to make me sleep with them. All three of us. Together. I was thirteen fucking years old.” Pippa gasps but clamps her hand over her mouth, trying with everything in her not to make a sound.

  “I climbed out the window. Ran away and never looked back. I ended up on the streets. I figured even that was better than being the sex toy for some perverted couple. It didn’t take me long to realize I had something I could use to make money. The ladies seemed very interested in my looks. Guess I looked older than my age. I got some fake ID and used it to get into places I was too young to be in. I began to make decent money servicing older wealthy women. Enough to buy equipment and get back into hockey. Then Dad…I mean Mr. Battaglia, found me and well, the rest is history.” I take a few deep breaths. My brow is covered in sweat. It feels like I just ran a marathon, but strangely restorative, like a heavy weight has been lifted.

  “All this time I’ve been pushing you away because I had so much sordid baggage. I’m a scarred mess. And your life is perfect. You’re perfect. I didn’t want to drag you down into the gutter with me.”

  Pip is wiping the tears off her face and squinting from the bubbles she’s splashed in her eyes. But she doesn’t say a word. For the first time, I can’t read her face. I don’t know what she’s thinking. Is she thoroughly disgusted? Is she pitying me? As much as I don’t want to lose her, I rather have her disgust than her pity.

  “Pip?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can you say something? I’m dying here.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Can I talk now?”

  “Yes. Talk. I’m done. Now you can talk. I need to know what you’re thinking.”

  The bubbles lap against her beautiful tits as she crawls toward me. She straddles my hips and brushes my hair back off my face. She presses her hands onto my chest and begins unconsciously tracing my muscles while she expresses her opinions on my fucked-up childhood. Her fingers on me are calming, soothing and—since I’m a guy and she’s a beautiful naked woman sitting in my naked lap, touching me—dick stimulating.

  “I’m not perfect, D. No one is. We all have our demons.” She cups my cheek and I turn my head to place a gentle kiss on her palm. “I’m so sorry the adults in your life, the people who were supposed to take care of you and protect you. were the monsters you needed protecting from. No child should ever have to go through what you did. I know I don’t have to tell you it wasn’t your fault your mom died. It was an accident, and the prescription med addiction is an epidemic too many people have had to deal with. But you were a little boy having to make decisions and choices most adults never have to make.” Her glistening blue eyes are filled with compassion and love. She is, honest to God, the most beautiful person I have ever known, ever seen in my life. I swallow the huge lump forming in my throat because no way am I going to start blubbering like a baby and add that level of humiliation onto my already overwhelming shame.

  “It’s true. I don’t know what it feels like to be you, to have had the harsh past you had. A past that broke you a little bit, broke your heart a little bit. But it doesn’t matter to me if you have scars. It never mattered to me that you thought your heart was too broken to love.”

  “Oh, baby.” I tilt my head to kiss her, but she pushes my face away.

  “No. Now I need you to let me finish.” She gives me a sweet smile.
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  “Got it.” I hold my soapy dripping hands up in surrender to confirm I won’t touch her until she’s done.

  “None of that ever mattered because I wanted to give you all my heart to heal yours. With everything we went through, I couldn’t give up because I loved you beyond any fault you or anyone else thought you had. I had some idea of what you must have faced as a teenager alone, trying to survive. But look at you now. Look how far you’ve come. I’m so proud of the way, with the Battaglias’ help, you worked hard to become the man you are today.” She drops her head and won’t look at me. Here it comes. The gentle let down. The ‘But I had no idea how bad it really was. I love you, but there’s no way I can be with you.’ Every muscle in my body tightens, bracing myself for her next words.

  “The thing is…I never cared about who you fucked or what you had to do to get here. I only ever cared about you. I love you, D. I always have.”

  I wrap her legs around my waist and tug her against my chest. I don’t care if she’s done talking or not. My lips capture hers. She hooks her arms around my neck. And she returns the kiss, tangling her tongue with mine. Jesus. This girl can kiss. She puts everything she has into it. I could live off her kisses. Between our hungry give and take and her declaration of unconditional love, I’m in full on arousal. I may be in this state permanently as long as she’s around.

  I clasp her hips and slide her closer toward me, lining my erection up with her entrance. She lets out a soft moan when she feels my shaft press against her wet pussy. Gripping her soap covered ass cheeks, I lift her and guide her down on to my cock as I slowly sink into her. Even in the slippery, bubbly water, she’s so damn tight. She gasps when I push into her but then settles down onto me, clenching around me. We keep kissing and breathing each other in as I thrust my hips up and guide her hips up and down on my shaft in slow, controlled movements.