by Lily Harlem
“Just like I’m hard now,” he said, pulling back with an expression that was part grimace, part humor. “Damn shame I can’t do anything about it.”
I pulled in a juddering breath and tried to dampen my own desire. He was obviously planning on leaving much sooner than I thought. Like now.
I stared up at the picture above the mantel. It was a deer, a female deer standing alone on a rock, green landscape surrounded her and her nose tipped proudly toward a blazing sun.
“What time are you leaving?” I asked. I had to know. I couldn’t stand the torment another second.
“What?”
“When are you leaving? I presume you’ve organized someone to come ‘babysit’ me.” I folded my arms over my chest, being careful of my wrist but needing to hide my protruding nipples poking like darts against my red t-shirt.
“I’m leaving next week, Carly, with you.” His forehead creased. “What are you talking about?”
I studied his eyes.
“That was always the plan.” His brow crinkled in confusion. “Wasn’t it?”
“But, but I thought…”
“What?” He sat back against the sofa and rubbed his temple with one finger. “What did you think?”
“I thought after last night, after I was so pathetic, you’d want to leave.” I stared up at the deer. “I don’t mind if you do.”
“You want me to leave?” he asked slowly.
“No, no, of course not. I want you to stay, with me.”
“Well that’s what I’m going to do, not because I promised your parents, or because you want me to, but because I want to.” He reached out and touched my cheek. “And why the hell would I leave just because you cried?”
I swallowed. “Because it was such a show of weakness, I’d dreamed about the accident, about being high up. I was so scared and out of control, it was awful for you to witness when you only ever saw me as strong before the accident, plus I was so snappy with you, so cranky when we arrived.”
He shook his head. “You were a complete grump but you said sorry, it’s over, forgotten and everyone has weaknesses, Carly. Everyone has demons to battle, no one on earth is lucky enough to get away without any.”
“You don’t have any.”
He smiled, though his eyebrows pulled down in a frown. “Sure I do.”
“Like what?”
He tugged his bottom lip with his teeth. “I hate dentists,” he said, “which is a nightmare because whenever there’s a loose puck flying around it always seems to get me in the mouth.”
I looked at his perfect, neat white teeth.
“And,” he said, tucking a wisp of hair behind my ear, “I hate spiders, I never used to, but a few years back, when I was here sorting the barbecue after the winter, I got bitten by some evil little red thing, it made my hand swell like a balloon and I couldn’t hold a stick for nearly three weeks. So now I have a little arachnophobia going on. For a tiny thing they can really mess up your life.”
“But they’re easy things to cope with,” I said with a sigh.
His voice lowered. “Maybe, but sometimes I miss my dad as much as I would miss all four of my limbs.” He paused. “When I feel like that I just need to be alone, to be quiet with my thoughts and memories. He fills my mind and takes away my concentration. I can’t do much when his birthday comes around or the anniversary of his death.”
“You can always talk to me,” I said, hating the look of grief in his beautiful eyes. “If that would help.”
“Perhaps I’ll take you up on that, if you don’t mind fishing trip and family holiday stories.” He grinned suddenly and took my hands in his. “But that’s what this is all about, Carly.”
“What do you mean?”
“Getting to know each other, finding out how another person ticks. You need to know their strengths and weaknesses, dreams and fears, their moods—good and bad— and if you still want that person, need that person even when you know all the flawed stuff as well as the good stuff then…”
I tipped my head.
His voice lowered and his gaze captured mine. “It’s what it means to love someone.”
“Love?”
“I don’t know how you feel about me,” he said quietly. “Because you surprise the hell out of me with the workings of your mind, but I know how I feel about you.”
“How is that?” My head was whirring, my emotions ballooning in my stomach.
The right side of his mouth curled up a fraction. “I feel like for the first time in my life I’ve found someone I can imagine falling totally, one hundred percent in love with.”
I watched his lips form the words. Beautiful words that made my heart soar and my breath catch.
He turned his head and looked out the doors at the lake. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “It’s just happened so fast for me, what with the accident and all. Thinking I was losing you before we’d had a chance to begin was a punch to the guts.”
“Brick,” I said quietly. “Look at me.”
He turned and I rested my good hand in the center of his chest, over the sprinkle of dark blond hairs on his sternum. “I’m falling in love with you, too,” I said.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“You sure, ’cause you just asked about me leaving?”
“I just said I wanted you to stay.” I smiled. “In fact, no, I’m not falling in love with you.” I paused and saw uncertainty cross his face. What was the point in holding anything back anymore? This was where we were and this was how I felt. “I’m already in love with you,” I said, “I want, need to be with you. I don’t want you to go anywhere without me ever again.” There, it was said. It made me vulnerable, needy. But it was a truth that couldn’t and shouldn’t be denied for another second.
Suddenly he was kissing me. “I love you and I want you, too,” he said as his mouth trailed across my cheek. “And I need you so badly.” He kissed right next to my ear, pushed back my hair and pressed his lips to my neck.
“So have me,” I said, delighting in his delicate touch and the words washing like fine wine over my body. “Have me now, all of me.”
He groaned. “I can’t, can I?” He pulled back to look at my face.
“Why not?”
“You’re battered and bruised. I brought you here to rest and recover, not jump your bones.” He shifted on the sofa. I couldn’t help but notice the strain under his fly.
“I think it might be the perfect diversion therapy,” I said, reaching for his nape and pulling him back for a long, deep kiss. I wanted him to make love to me. It was the only thing that was going to happen next.
He moaned into my mouth. “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m sure.” I reached for the button on his waistband. “More than sure.” It was what my body was crying out for. I needed his skin on mine. I wanted him inside me, loving me, making me feel like the luckiest, most cherished woman on earth.
“Wait there,” he said, standing suddenly.
“Where are you going?”
“To get a condom.”
“No,” I reached for his hand. “Please, you don’t need one.”
He lifted his eyebrows as he looked down at me.
“I got contraception covered while I was at the hospital.”
“But―”
I pushed up and rested my hands on his shoulders. “And I’ve never gone without a condom.”
His jaw tightened. “Me neither.”
I went to my toes and kissed his cheek. “So forget that idea,” I said by his ear. “Because I need you, flesh on flesh, nothing between. Just us.”
“Sweet Jesus,” he said. “I swear, you’re turning me inside out.” He curled his fingers beneath my t-shirt, started to lift then paused. “You sure?” he asked with his eyes narrowed.
“Absolutely.” I’d never been more sure of anything in my life. In my head and my heart I knew Brick was the man for me. He was the man I wanted
to have sex with for the rest of my life, no one else would ever compare.
He slipped my t-shirt over my head and carefully stretched it over my wrist. The breeze fanning over the lake washed around my naked chest. A small shiver, part desire, part coolness, shuddered over me.
“Are you cold?” he asked, touching his thumb to my tight left nipple.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Honey, you’ve got goose bumps,” he said with a frown. “Come here.” He gently tugged me in front of the huge stone fireplace, reached for a remote under the deer picture and aimed it at the logs.
The fireplace burst to life. Orange and gold flames licked over the wood and flickered up toward the chimney, the heat instantaneous.
“Lie down,” he said, sinking to his knees and pulling me carefully down with him.
I stretched out on a luxuriously thick fur rug as the warmth of the fire enveloped me. The satin-soft hairs tickled my bare back and felt heavenly on my skin after the aches and pains of the previous days.
“Better?” he asked, stretching out next to me on his side.
“Yes.” I touched his lips with the pad of my index finger. “Thanks.”
He was propped up on his elbow and his gaze and fingertip trailed first over my collarbones and then my sternum. “You’re bruised,” he said, running a light finger over my lower ribs.
“Yes,” I said, trails of longing following his tracking finger. “But it’s fading.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t break more bones than you did.”
“I know.”
He ducked his head and touched his lips to the patch of blue-hued skin beneath my left breast. “Anywhere else?” he asked, his breath heating my flesh further.
“My right leg.”
He sat back on his heels and took hold of the elastic of my sweats. I lifted my hips and let him slide them over my buttocks and down my legs. On my right thigh sat a bruise the shape of the continent of Africa. It felt the same size too if I pressed it accidentally.
“Ah, honey,” he said, studying it. “That’s not fun, is it?”
I couldn’t bear the look of distress in his eyes. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt.”
“Liar,” he said, dipping his head to kiss it gently. “I’ve had bruises half that size that have kept me awake all night.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“You’re the one who’s silly.” He stretched out next to me again. “You’re the one who thinks it’s okay to ride your damn bike next to hundred-ton trucks going at sixty-five miles an hour.”
I frowned. “I’ve done it for years.”
“But you’re made of flesh and blood and bones that break, Carly, not steel and rubber. You’ve got to accept that you’re breakable, you’re not invincible.”
“I do accept that,” I said with a frown. “And why are we discussing this now?”
“I need you to promise to rethink your training.” He slid his hand over my flat belly and just skimmed the top of my small black panties.
I looked up into his face. It was set serious and his eyes bored into mine. “But the indoor track is so boring,” I said, “and―”
“I’m not saying always ride indoors, I’m saying re-think your routes, stay away from the big roads.”
“But they’re best for distance and―” I caught my breath as he dipped his hand between my legs and pressed me through the gusset of my panties. I opened my thighs and squirmed my hips. “I think you’re cheating to get your own way with this,” I said, swallowing tightly as he rubbed me gently and created a luscious spark in my clit.
His lips curled into a naughty grin. “Not cheating,” he said. “Just determined.”
My pelvis twitched for more sensation. “Determined to make me frustrated?”
“No, determined to keep you safe,” he said through a smile. “Keeping you safe and happy and satisfied has become my major goal in life.”
“I like the sound of satisfied,” I said, cupping his jaw and feeling soft bristles on my palm.
“Good, ’cause you will be.” He eased his fingers beneath the elastic of my panties and dipped into the first damp folds of my pussy. “On one condition.”
I let out a small groan, part frustration, part desire. “What?”
“You re-think your routes.”
“Why is it so important to you?”
“Because if I’m going to make love to you, not fuck you, not fool around naked with you, but make love to you, then I want to know you’re going to be hanging around for a while afterward.”
I studied his eyes, so intense, so passionate, so unbelievably resolute.
“If I hand myself over to you, Carly,” he said, softening his voice, “then you need to be there for me, don’t you get it, you’ve become my weakness. I’m a big, strong guy but if anything happened to you it would destroy me.”
Something way deep inside me melted. We’d gone so much further than a few casual dates in such a short space of time. I’d always hoped we would, and now it actually had happened I felt I’d overflow with joy. “Okay,” I said, smiling with relief and happiness. “I’ll work it out with Sheila, plan new routes and work indoors more.”
His mouth tipped into a grin and the small crease between his eyebrows relaxed. “Good,” he said, dropping a light kiss onto my lips. “You won’t regret it.”
I went to capture his face to kiss him again but he sank down my body, peppering me with light kisses as he went. The next thing I knew, my panties were being looped over my feet and he was settling between my spread legs. “You ready for the satisfied bit?” he murmured into my pubic hair.
“Yes,” I said as my pussy trembled with desire. I needed him to touch me, love me, kiss me there. He was all that existed in my world. Brick was my obsession and it seemed I’d become his, too.
He slid his fingertips up the inside of my thighs until they touched me where I was slick with desire. His mouth pressed down onto my strip of hair in a long hot kiss. “I’m going to make you feel so much better,” he whispered, lifting his head and looking at my pussy spread open for him. “Take your mind off all your aches and pains.”
“Yes, yes, please,” I murmured as my eyes closed and I became lost to the warm anticipation swirling around my body. I could feel his breath heating my damp flesh and his warm shoulders pressing on my inner thighs.
His tongue began to explore, his fingers gently joined in, rubbing at my entrance and my clit. A shiver tingled up my spine and I arched my back, reached for the top of his head with my good hand and let out a low moan of appreciation.
He slid his forearm into the hollow of my back and raised me to him, took me more fully into his mouth. I gasped at the feeling of dominant containment as his fingers pushed into me, filling me where I needed to be filled and touching me where I needed to be touched. The tip of his tongue circled and tangled with my needy nub as he sucked and kissed.
I raised my neck and looked at him lying between my legs. His head dipped up and down, his eyes were closed and his nose settled in my pubic hair. His shoulders were so wide, pressing on my spread inner thighs and shifting slightly as his fingers worked inside and around me. Beyond him I could see the water and trees, birds and lightly fluffed clouds. The forest carried on with its day as if I wasn’t about to be catapulted into a dimension of unbelievable ecstasy.
I dropped my head back to the fur. My climax growing, blooming, tightening. “Oh God, Brick, please, I need to…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. His tongue was lapping at my clit faster and faster, his fingers pulsing in and out of me, stretching me deliciously. The incredible sensations were building and ripening, overtaking me. “I’m going to…” Like an elastic band stretched taut, my orgasm was there, waiting to snap and spin me out of control.
He stopped.
All stimulation was suddenly gone. My orgasm, about to claim me, hovered just out of reach.
“Brick,” I wailed, squirming on the fur in annoyance.
He sat
back on his heels between my legs, silhouetted by the sun bouncing off the surface of the lake behind him.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, unable to contain the judder of frustration that rippled from the soles of my feet to the tip of my scalp.
“I want to come with you,” he said, shoving at his jeans.
“Okay,” I said. “But please, now, just hurry.”
His jeans and underwear were shucked off in an instant and he was naked above me. He folded his elbows on either side of my head so he was taking all of his weight. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his chest hair tickling my nipples.
“I’m not that delicate.” I wrapped my good hand around his shoulder, gently resting my bad one in the center of his back.
“You’re messed up,” he said. “I want to make you feel better, not worse. Let me know if I hurt you and we’ll stop.”
“Brick.”
“What.”
“Stop worrying,” I whispered, “and make love to me.” I tipped my hips and ignored a dull ache in my bruised thigh as I wrapped it around his upper leg.
The hot head of his cock prodded my pussy, just above the entrance. The ring was icy cold compared with the heat of our skin. And it was so hard and smooth. I could make out the shape of it, the ring and the ball—it was a shock to feel details on my delicate flesh after feeling it muted behind a condom. I whimpered with need. The sensation of his naked piercing was so much better than I could ever have imagined. It felt so damn naughty it must surely be an enormous sin on the chart of sinful pleasures.
“You feel amazing,” he said, adjusting his body so he was positioned right at my entrance. “Warm and wet and so open for me.”
“Mmm,” I managed, feeling the ring slip in a fraction.
He moaned and brushed my lips with his. “You sure about this?” he murmured.
“Yes, yes.” I smoothed my hand over his broad back, his skin warmed from the fire. “I’m sure.”
He began to push in, higher and higher, a hard, thick rod of flesh invading my pussy, stretching and filling me, widthwise and lengthwise.
I sucked in a breath. I’d forgotten just how damn big he was. And the ring, it was adding to the rigidness of his cock, creating the perfect extra pressure on my supersensitive internal flesh.
