Stolen Lust

by Charmaine Pauls

  There’s lots of space to move back, but he doesn’t put distance between us when he gets up. He’s standing so close our bodies are flush together. He’s towering over me, staring down at me with his hair falling over one side of his face.

  He washed. The smell of disinfectant doesn’t cling to his skin any longer. His hair is damp, smelling of spring grass and mountains. My gaze slips to his naked chest. The disks of his nipples are contracted. He’s chiseled like a statue, like Michelangelo’s David who has turned from marble into flesh and bone.

  My head barely reaches his shoulder. I have to crane my neck to look at his face. The stubble on his jaw is darker. How will it feel if he rubs his cheek over mine? I give an internal start. That thought did not just run through my mind.

  His eyes tighten with awareness. It’s minute but enough to tell me he knows. He waits. His arms hang patiently at his sides. Those big, veined hands are deceptively relaxed. His strong, slender fingers are loose, motionless, but he’d flex them into fists or curl them around a throat in the blink of an eye. A man like him is always ready. Always patient. Waiting for me to make the first move.

  I take a step back. “What time is it?”

  His face is a mask again. He only lets me read what he wants me to see. “Close to five.”

  The sun will be up in half an hour. If he’s a man of his word like he claimed, he has to let me go soon.

  He doesn’t push or challenge me. He goes to a cupboard and takes out a can of baked beans. “It’s not much, but it’ll fill your stomach.”

  Turning his back on me, he takes a flip knife from his pocket to open the can. His back muscles ripple. Despite the gunshot wound in his shoulder, his actions are strong. He doesn’t show a stitch of discomfort.

  I can’t help from asking, “How do you do it?”

  He shoots me a glance. “Do what?”

  He looks so devastatingly hot, my mind battles to separate ethics from admiration. Maybe admiration is the wrong word. Maybe it’s just pure old lust, a biological female reaction to his male beauty and virility. “Carry on like you’ve never been shot.”

  He shrugs and turns back to serving the canned food on a plate. “Habit.”

  “You don’t have any other bullet holes in you, so you can’t be used to it.”

  “I’m used to the pain.” A floodgate of questions opens up in my mind, but my thoughts go quiet when he adds, “Just like you must be used to the sensation of suffocating.”

  Involuntarily, my throat closes up, responding to the empathy in his voice, showing him how accurate his assessment is.

  “Want a drink?” he asks, walking with lazy strides to the cooler box and taking out two bottles of beer.

  Grabbing the bottles in one hand and the plate and a fork in the other, he carries my breakfast to me. He dumps the plate on the table and holds my eyes as he twists the caps off the beers.

  Pushing one into my hand, he says, “Cheers.”

  I take the bottle automatically. It’s lukewarm in my sweaty palm. The fact that it’s no longer cold must mean he’s been camping out here for a while. I watch with mesmerized fascination as he lifts the bottle to his lips, tips it back, and swallows. His throat moves in a disturbingly male way, reminding me how alive a woman can feel in a man’s strong arms.

  Nope. Not the direction my thoughts should be taking. I look away, anywhere but at him. My gaze falls on the book on the table, the one he’s been reading. The title catches me by surprise. It’s a textbook about political economy.

  “Seeing something interesting?” he asks in a low voice.

  I look back at him. “No.”

  Hiding behind my bottle, I take a sip. The brew is dark, not the blond beer I prefer, but the bitter liquid soothes the dryness of my lips and the scratchiness in my throat. My thirst is relieved, but my body grows warm with a flush.

  I need distance. A single step backs me up against the table. Trapped. I rest my backside against the edge, trying not to look like I’m fleeing.

  Leaning forward, he plants his palms on the table and cages me in between his arms. I’m not sure that I’m woman enough for the intensity in his eyes. Instinctively, I know he’ll crush me on every level, but I’m not strong enough to look away.

  He puts his beer aside. The bottle slides over the wood as he shifts it a safe distance away. Safe for what?

  My mouth turns dry again when he takes the beer from my hands and leaves it somewhere on the side. He grips my waist and lifts me onto the table. I’m sitting like a ragdoll with my legs dangling over the side. Closing his fingers around my knees, he squeezes a little and spreads my legs enough to step between them. He tilts his hips ever so slightly, just enough for the length of his body to press against mine. The unmistakable hardness pushing against my stomach gives me pause. My words are useless again, my ammunition all blanks.

  He grips a lock of my hair and inspects it as he rubs it between a thumb and forefinger. “You’re prettier than a doll. Know that?”

  I swallow.

  “My sister had a doll like this with baby-blue eyes and platinum locks. Never did think that prettiness was close to real,” he muses. “Until I saw you.” He drops my hair and drags his gaze back to my face. Desire sparks in the depth of his eyes, making the amber specs glow in the brown. His voice is low, soft. “It’s been a while.”

  My heart trips over a beat, and my breathing quickens. Only, this time, it’s not my illness. The chemicals I took are still in my blood. This reaction is natural. Wrong. I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  “You don’t have to say yes just because it’s been a long time for me,” he says even as he cups my breast over the camisole and strokes his thumb over my nipple, teasing the tip into a hard point.

  “I…” I gasp when he pinches gently and forget what I wanted to say as he rubs the lace over the hard tip of my breast with the heel of his palm.

  The lace adds extra friction. The abrasiveness is almost too much. The boldness and unapologizing crassness of the act catches me off guard. It feeds a secret desire deep inside me, a twisted kind of craving I haven’t admitted to anyone, and my defenses slip just enough for him to steal inside my fantasy.

  He’s already lowering his mouth to mine as he says, “You can say no.”

  Instead of going for my lips as I expect, he diverts to my neck, but he doesn’t kiss me. He drags his nose along the column of my neck to my temple. Inhaling deeply, he makes a sound in the back of his throat—a groan of appreciation.

  “You smell nice,” he says in a husky voice. “Like flowers. What is it?”

  “Orange blossoms,” I croak out.

  My heart thunders in my chest at where this is going. I’m keeping perfectly still, a cornered animal submitting to the stronger one while I rack my brain for a clever strategy to save myself.

  In excruciating gentleness, he catches my hair in a ponytail at the back of my neck and arranges it over one shoulder. He brings his mouth to the exposed shoulder, ghosting a kiss over my skin before bringing his lips to the shell of my ear.

  A shiver runs over me. Again he doesn’t press his lips to my skin. Only his breath touches me, bathing heat over that sensitive spot when he says so softly I think I’ve heard wrong, “You’re mine.”

  As soon as the promise is spoken, he seals it with a kiss. His lips part over the shell of my ear, grating me with his stubble. It’s a dry, possessive kiss, a kiss that assumes familiarity while sparking with the excitement of exploring new territory.

  I go still, not because I’m weak, but because it’s a first kiss. First kisses, no matter where or how they’re given, are sacred. A first kiss tells everything. It tells a woman if a man is going to fuck her or make love to her. It tells her how a man is going to treat her for the rest of her life. It tells her if he’s going to make her coffee the morning after or get his secretary to send impersonal flowers. It tells her if he’s going to hold her hand when they walk together or be engrossed in his phone. It tells if
he wants her to shut the door on her way out or if he wants to grow old with her.

  He scrapes his teeth over the lobe of my ear, dragging my scent into his lungs as if it’s his right to get high on the smell of my skin. He tastes me as if he’s trying something new he plans on eating forever.

  This kiss isn’t a roll between the sheets or forever. It’s both and everything in between. I’ve never been kissed like this, with so much patience yet enough intensity to burn up my skin.

  My palms are sweating. A flush runs from my stomach to my toes. This is foreign territory. I have no idea what I’m doing, except that I’ve consented to this with my silence. Still, he gives me a backdoor, leaving me free to speak as he drags his lips to my jaw. My answer is to tilt back my head, giving him better access to my neck.

  He doesn’t take the offering. He grabs it greedily, sucking a path down the arch to my shoulder and back up my throat. When I still don’t say no, the gloves finally come off.

  Grabbing my face in one big hand, he splays his fingers over my cheek and drags me closer. Our mouths crash together when he meets me halfway. Flames erupt over my body. The explosiveness of the arousal is a new height for me. Maybe it’s the danger. Maybe it’s him. Maybe it’s knowing how short life is or the impulsive side of me I’ve never managed to tame. Maybe it’s believing sex beyond the disappointing average doesn’t exist and the joy of him proving that sad assumption wrong. Maybe it’s a combination of everything, but when he grabs my ass and yanks me to the edge of the table, he’s won.

  He was right. There’s nowhere to run. Not in this. Not when my ex-boyfriends called me a nymphomaniac for my healthy appetite for sex, and Ian makes me feel normal.

  He plunders my mouth, already fucking my lips with his tongue. It’s hot and demanding, the urgency I expect from a man who hasn’t been with a woman for a while. He grinds his erection against the juncture of my legs, making me wet.

  Mindful of his injury, I grab his shoulders to steady myself. His skin is warm and his body hard. He catches my lip with his teeth, and I reciprocate the pain by dragging my nails over his skin. He palms my breasts and groans deep in his throat. I drag my hands over the hardness of his abs, tracing the grooves of his six-pack. The dusting of manly hair covering his chest is coarse under my fingertips. His skin contracts, and his stomach flutters under my palms. He digs his fingers into my waistband and jerks me harder against him.

  I moan at the small display of roughness. We’re doing a dance of give and take. He unbuttons my jeans, and I reach for his belt. He pulls down my zipper as I undo his buckle. I grip his zipper, but he catches my head between his hands and tilts back my face. The movement forces me to fold my arms around his neck to stop me from falling. He watches me with disturbing intensity as I lock my ankles around his waist.

  Bringing down his lips to mine slowly, he goes from frantic to patient again. He closes his eyes as he kisses me. The kiss is thorough and meticulous. It’s aimed at exploring and arousing. It’s offering a tender caress. It tells me he’s not going to fuck my body. He’s going to worship it.

  “Yes,” I say, moaning into the kiss.

  “Yes, fuck.”

  His words are heated, the approval in them messing with my head because they have no right to make me feel good. He kisses me with slow precision, focusing on every second as if he’s burning it to his memory.

  Damn it, he knows how to kiss. He explores with his lips, teeth, and tongue. He takes with abandon, demanding everything, and cherishes me in turn. It’s a simple exchange, an age-old, instinctive one, and it’s easy to follow a man who knows how to lead.

  I explore him right back, tracing the seam of his lips with my tongue before tasting him deeper. A groan vibrates in his chest, giving away the urgency of his need, but he doesn’t hurry me along. He lets me get my fill.

  When my jaw is tired and I slow my kissing, he locks his hands around my waist to hold me up as he moves his lips to my breasts. My sex is aching and swollen by the time he licks my nipple through the lace of my camisole.

  “This color suits you,” he says, sucking the lace-covered tip into his mouth. “I like it on your mouth too.” He hums his appreciation. “Purple like a plum.”

  I arch my back when he gives the other breast the same treatment. I’m lost in passion, drowning in a dark sea of need, and for the first time the lack of air doesn’t scare me. I can die happily like this.

  He kisses a path to my navel, leaving a wet trail on the silk. I want him to take off the camisole, but at the same time kissing me through the silk drives me crazy. His tongue is wickedly hot yet teasingly out of reach, separated from my skin by the fabric.

  When he grips the waistband of my jeans again, I lift my ass. He peels the legs of the jeans off my body and drops the garment on the floor.

  Fixing his eyes on the matching lace panties of the underwear set, he drags his palms up my thighs. “Fuck.” He spreads my legs wide. “That’s so damn sexy.”

  The compliment makes my body glow. He grips my thighs and drapes them over his shoulders. I’m worried I’ll hurt his wound, but he’s already buried his head between my thighs. He watches me as he drags his lips over the lace that covers my folds.

  The look in his eyes is feverish, starving, but the work of his mouth is patient, savoring. When he grazes my clit with his teeth, I give up. I throw back my head and rest my weight on my elbows.

  A tearing noise sounds. Air rushes over my wet folds.

  His voice is thick with more approval. “You wax. A landing strip.” He traces my slit with a finger. “My favorite. So fucking pretty.”

  The pad of his finger teases my clit. I don’t let thoughts get in the way. I don’t analyze what we’re doing or why it’s wrong. I simply ride the tide he’s building when he gently parts me and slips a digit inside.

  “How many, baby doll?”

  Incoherent, I lift my gaze back to him. “What?”

  “How many men?”

  “None that matters.”

  My answer pleases him. He plunges deep, stroking a sensitive spot with his finger that makes me cry out.

  “You want to come on my finger or on my cock?” he asks, giving a few shallow thrusts.

  We’ve passed the point of no return. We both know it, but he’s still giving me the choice.

  “Cock,” I say, my voice breathless.

  His words sound raw. “My kind of girl.”

  He withdraws his finger and takes his wallet from his back pocket. I’m spread in front of him, my knees still hooked over his shoulders as he takes out a condom and drops the wallet on the table. He’s looking at what’s on display, greedily ogling my nakedness, and I bask in the undivided attention. I soak up his male lust.

  He makes quick work of working his jeans down his hips. He’s commando underneath. His cock is thick and long. It comes as no surprise that it’s perfectly shaped, straight and proud, just like the rest of him. The crest is smooth and bulbous, glistening with a drop of precum.

  He’s still looking at my sex as he rolls the condom over his erection and strokes himself twice. Holding my hip in one hand, he takes the root of his cock in the other and rubs the head over my slit, using my arousal to lubricate him. My breath catches when he parts my folds gently with the broad head, wedging it just inside.

  Only then does he lift his gaze to mine. The intensity of his stare makes the brown of his eyes seem darker. The weight of his lust bears down on me as he plunges forward and stretches me. The pleasure rips me in two. It comes like a bolt of lightning, stealing the air from my lungs. It tears and burns with a white-hot flash of ecstasy, setting me on fire and making me need more despite the bite of pain that’s inseparable from the pleasure.

  His fingers dig into my hip as he pulls out until only the crest stretches me. Before he slips out completely, he slams back in. I moan at the force. It’s violent like my lust. He grips the back of my head, supporting my weight in a broad palm as he starts moving.

  His t
hrusts are gentler, aimed at synchronizing our releases. Mine comes fast anyway, and when my inner muscles clench around him, he lets go of my head to rub a thumb over my clit. Everything contracts. My thighs quiver, and my body pulls tight. Release ripples through me in waves of heat.

  He pushes deep, stills, and let’s go with a grunt. The grimace on his face tells me he’s coming hard. He pulses inside me, swelling even thicker, and collapses as if the climax has taken everything from him.

  Too quickly, it’s over. Not that I can take more. I just don’t want it to end.

  He lowers me onto the table, using his palm as a cushion for my head, and lets his upper body rest against mine. His breath is warm on my neck, his lips soft as he kisses that spot behind my ear where he’s uttered such a shocking and careless claim.

  “Fuck,” he mutters against my skin.

  Lifting his face, he looks down at me. His expression is a spectrum of emotions, all open and on display. He doesn’t hide the satisfaction or admiration. He lets me see everything, allowing me to feed my ego on his vulnerability.

  It’s a gift, an enormous one, that only a man with bucketfuls of strong self-esteem can offer. A lesser man could never make himself such an open target, because letting me see this truth requires a transfer of power in which he gives me everything. He shows me how weak I make him and how much he liked what we did.

  There’s no remorse in his eyes as he searches my face. “You doing okay?”

  “Mm.” I’m lethargic and high on endorphins.

  His eyes warm with satisfaction. The crooked curve of his lips makes him look impossibly handsome. “Need a bath? There’s no running water, but I can make a fire and heat some.”

  Without thinking, I drag my hands through his hair. The shaved side is coarse under my fingertips while the long strands tangle in my fingers.

  He hisses when I pull. He narrows his eyes a fraction, heat sparking in the depth of that wise, rich brown. He grows thick inside me again, but as I tighten my muscles to pull him deeper, he pulls out.

  “Not so soon,” he says in a strained voice. “You’ll be sore in the morning.”