Between Here and the Horizon

by Callie Hart

  He was fearless. He was confident. He was strong, and he was honest. He was also a little broken—a truth that he didn’t mind owning. Carefully he ran the tip of his index finger over my forehead, between my eyebrows, down the bridge of my nose. His finger lingered over my lips, and I had to fight the urge to dart my tongue out and lick him. A strange urge to have. I wanted to so badly, but I behaved myself. Over my lips, then, and over my chin, running his finger down the column of my neck to my collarbone. “I’m not used to this,” he said softly. “I don’t know how to handle you. You seem so…fragile.”

  “I’m stronger than I look,” I whispered back.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Then you don’t need to handle me with kid gloves, Sully. I won’t break.”

  “You don’t know how rough I can be,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated against my chest. A rush of desire slammed through me, taking me by surprise. I’d never felt anything like it before. My mind was already imagining the places Sully might take me, all the sensations he’d be able to ignite in my body without even trying. I felt drunk on him, my head reeling from the scent and the warmth and the feel of his hard packed chest resting flush against mine.

  “You’re looking a little red there, Lang. Are you cold?” he asked. There was a wicked glint in his eye, though—he knew I was far too hot if anything.

  “No. I’m fine. Just tired. Maybe you could show me where I’ll be sleeping?” I’d found his bedroom just fine when I’d needed to get fresh clothes for him a few weeks back. I wanted him to take me upstairs, though. I wanted to enjoy the last remaining hours of Christmas Day wrapped up in him, naked, all pretentions and inhibitions gone. Sully rubbed the pad of his thumb against my bottom lip, staring at it, apparently fascinated.

  “Okay,” he mouthed. “Then let’s go.”

  My body hummed as he led me upstairs. I was at odds with myself, shaking with nerves and shaking with anticipation, and just shaking for the hell of it. Sully opened the door to his bedroom, and then dipped to kiss me lightly on the lips.

  “Goodnight, Lang. If you need anything, I’ll just be up one floor in the observatory, okay?”

  I didn’t know what to say. Dumbly I nodded, trying not to let my confusion show. He wasn’t going to sleep with me? We weren’t finally going to have sex? Sully kissed my neck, his teeth gently nipping at my flushed skin, and then he backed away. He disappeared up the winding stairs that continued up to the observation deck of the lighthouse, and I stood by his bedroom door, paralyzed.

  What the hell?

  Thirty seconds passed, and then another full minute. He didn’t want me? That was such bullshit. No. Just no. I didn’t walk through into his bedroom. That would have been the easy option. Instead I chose the harder, far more embarrassing route. My Christmas Day was not ending like this—alone and confused. I was going to confront him. Ask him what the hell was going on. I took the stairs up to the observatory two at a time, already planning all of the harsh, unkind things I was going to say to him when I reached the top.

  “Sully Fletcher, you are the most—” My foot hit the top step and I saw him standing there, moonlight pouring in through the bowed windows, casting silver shadows across his perfect skin, and I suddenly forgot what I was going to say. He was naked. And he was waiting for me.

  “Took you long enough,” he said. “Very brave, though, Lang. Very, very brave.” He walked slowly toward me, and I felt as though I were about to tumble back down the stairs. He was a work of art. The lines of his shoulders were strong, broad and powerful. His chest was a slab of muscle, forming a perfect vee lower down where his hips dipped into his groin. I couldn’t look away. His thighs were muscular and covered in a light smattering of hair. And his cock…

  Before I married Will, I’d only slept with one other guy. He’d been smaller than Will, but he’d really known what to do to make a woman come. Will had been considerably bigger, but he’d thought it didn’t matter (or maybe just cared less) how he used his size to bring me pleasure.

  I already knew Sully possessed both size and expertise, though. One look at the way he moved as he walked toward me told me he was a highly sexual guy. And he was so huge. Almost frighteningly so.

  I glanced back up and saw that he’d caught me staring. “It’s okay, Lang,” he said. “Don’t hold back on my account. Look as much as you want. Touch as much as you want. Taste as much as you want. I sure as hell won’t be holding back.”

  “Shit. I think I’m freaking out a little.” Admitting that to him was hard. Not as hard as admitting to myself how inexperienced and unworthy I suddenly felt. And vulnerable. God, so, so vulnerable. Sully padded barefoot to me and slid his arms around me, lifting me up off the floor, hands moving underneath my thighs as he guided me to wrap my legs around his waist.

  “Don’t freak out,” he commanded. “Relax. Breathe. I’ll stop whenever you want me to. Just say the word.”

  “Okay.”

  The roof over the observatory was a dome of pure glass. In the center of the room, a huge mirror reflected the light from a surprisingly small bulb behind a wire mesh cage; it swung around to the left, and the brilliant wave of pure white light washed over us, casting a stark silhouette in the beam. Sully wasn’t lying when he said he’d been sleeping up here. A low-slung cot was pushed up against one side of the dome, neatly made, his clothes laid out on top of it. He carried me across to it, but he didn’t put me down on the mattress. He lowered me back to my feet and pressed me up against the glass, then began kissing my neck, licking and biting at me until it felt like the sea of stars overhead were spinning too brightly and way too fast.

  His heart was slamming in his chest beneath my hands, beating just as crazily as my own. I couldn’t stop touching him. My hands ran up and down his back, my fingernails digging into his flesh, until the texture of his skin changed, very slick and smooth feeling, and I stopped. It was the scar on his side—the one that run up onto his back. Sully didn’t seem to notice me hesitate before I stroked my hand across the scar again, feeling the topography of his body alter as I explored.

  He continued to kiss at my neck, but eventually I felt him stiffen a little. “Who’s the one wearing kid gloves now, Lang?” he growled under his breath.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. It’s just—”

  “It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t bother me. You don’t need to tiptoe around it. I have a scar. It’s pretty big.” He leaned back and gave me a roguish smile. “Now feel free to get over it and pay some attention to the rest of my body. How about…here.” He took hold of my hand and slid it down, so that I was touching his hard-on.

  “God, Sully…” I curled my hand around him, squeezing gently, and his eyelids shuttered, his breath coming out in a short, blunt gasp. Slowly, I worked my hand up the length of him, looking down between our bodies so I could watch what I was doing to him. It was fascinating, seeing him literally grow harder and pulse in my hand as I worked my way up and down his flesh. It was even more fascinating when I glanced up and saw the expression on his face—so much lust and desire, warring with his need for self-control. His bottom lip was fastened between his teeth, and he was biting down. Hard. I’d never seen a look so openly sexual and heated on a guy’s face before, and it damn near broke me. I wanted to tear my clothes from my body, shove him back on his makeshift bed, and sink myself down on him immediately. I doubted he would try and stop me, but if I did that it would be over too soon. I wanted to savor every last second of this experience. I needed to commit every last second of it to memory, to hold onto each moment we shared as we kissed, and touched and explored each other’s bodies.

  My senses were overloading, greedily trying to shove each other out of the way so I could focus on how he looked, how he felt, how he smelled and how he tasted all at once. Sully seemed as if he were fighting the exact same battle.

  “You’re not real,” he told me, curling a piece of my hair around his index finger. “How can you be?”<
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  “I’m pretty sure I am,” I said breathlessly.

  “Then why do I constantly feel like I’m underwater when I’m with you? Dreaming? Imagining every second?” His mouth came down on mine, hungry and demanding. I didn’t tell him I felt the same way. He wouldn’t give me the breath to do it. He demanded it all from me, demanded everything I had. His hands worked their way underneath my shirt, moving confidently upwards, until he was roughly cupping my breasts. He bit my lip at the same time, tugging on it sharply, growling a little. My head was spinning. The powerful beam of light swept across us again, turning night into day, and Sully took hold of my shirt, pulling it off over my head in one swift movement. My bra didn’t last long either. He reached around and unfastened the clasp at the back, then tore the straps from my shoulders, throwing it over his shoulder.

  My back arched away from the wall of thick glass behind me so that my chest was offered up to Sully; he took full advantage of the fact and bent over me, taking one of my peaked nipples into his mouth, and then the other. His hands were full of me. My head was full of him.

  “Sully. Oh my god, please…” What was I begging for? I didn’t even know. For him to be inside me? For him to throw me down on his bed and take me? I definitely wanted that, but my plea was asking for more than that. Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t ruin this. Please don’t let me ruin this. Please don’t let me go. Please don’t let me love you…

  Begging could only get you so far, though. I was filled with an undeniable, solid awareness of myself, and how little control I had over my own heart. It was a treacherous, cruel thing that kept trying to lead me down a path I didn’t want to go down. In reality, I was blundering my way blindly down that path already, lost and so turned around that I didn’t know which way was up, and Sully was the only thing I could see anymore.

  He smoothed both of his hands over my hair, then down over my shoulders, resting them on my hips. “How stupid are we being, Lang? How much further are we going to let this go?” he asked hoarsely.

  “I don’t know.” My own voice was small. Unsure. Scared. Sully pressed his forehead against mine, breathing out heavily. He closed his eyes, muscles in his jaw jumping, like he was struggling to stop himself from tearing me apart.

  “I already told you,” he said. He sounded calm, but it was a false calm, too flat and too even to be real. I could still feel how crazed his pulse was beneath my hands, evidence of his true emotional state. “I already told you I wasn’t going to hold back.”

  “Then why are you?”

  He laughed softly. “For you. Because I’m thinking of someone else before myself for the first time in a very long time. Frankly, it sucks.”

  I kissed him. I kissed him long, and I kissed him hard. “Let go of the reins,” I said. “Neither of us want to be gripping them so tightly right now.”

  He opened his eyes. I felt as if I were pinned to the spot, unable to move. “No bullshit?” he asked quietly.

  “No bullshit, Sully.”

  My feet were off the ground. One second I was leaning back against the glass, still stroking my hand slowly up and down his hard cock, and the next I was in his arms. He rushed to the bed, and I waited for the sensation of falling as he lowered me onto the mattress, but it never came. He tore at the sheets and the blanket that were on the bed, throwing them to the floor, and then he was tearing at my jeans, too, ripping them from my body. Dropping to his knees, he planted his hands firmly on my ass cheeks, and he buried his face between my legs, biting at the soft cotton material of my panties, groaning loudly. “Fuck, Lang! What the hell have you done to me?”

  I was too stunned by the feel of his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of my inner thigh to stutter out a response. He pressed the flat of his tongue against me, pushing my legs open a little wider, and then he was hooking my panties out of the way with his index finger and he was licking me, tracing his tongue torturously slowly over my pussy, teasing at my clitoris, still groaning in that pained way that made me want to scream.

  He pushed his fingers inside me as he licked, and my knees buckled out from underneath me. Sully laughed under his breath, guiding me so that I was lying on my back on the welter of sheets he’d just thrown into disarray on the floor.

  “Does that feel good?” he asked softly. “Because it feels good to me. And it fucking tastes good, too.”

  “Shit, yes, it feels good.”

  “Perfect.” He bent down between my legs again, pushing them wide open so he had better access to me. His mouth hovered less than an inch above my pussy. Looking up at me, eyes half closed, lips wet, he said, “Watch me, Lang. Watch me eat your pussy. Keep those eyes on me, beautiful. I want to see your face when you fall apart for me. I want to see your eyes roll back in your head when you come.”

  I obeyed him without question. He flicked the very tip of his tongue over my clit, pumping his fingers inside me, and it was simply too much to bear. I rocked against his mouth, panting, barely conscious of what was happening anymore. I kept my eyes on him, watching him work his tongue over me, and before long I could feel it rising inside me—that tingling, prickly, delicious, demanding sensation that sank its claws into me, threatening to pull me under.

  Sully must have sensed I was close; he started rubbing me with his thumb as well as stroking me with his tongue, and that was it. All I could take. I tumbled, I fell, I screamed and I writhed. Sully grabbed me by the hips and didn’t let go. He kept his mouth on me until I was shaking, my heels slipping and sliding on the floor as I kicked, unable to control my legs.

  “Shit, shit, shit! Oh god. Sully!”

  He leaned back, giving me a moment to regain myself. The arrogant wisecrack I was expecting never came. Neither did the smug celebratory pat on the back. I cracked open one eye, and Sully was staring down on me with a look of unmistakable awe on his face. He looked so serious that I felt a flush of heat blossom all over my skin.

  “That was incredible,” he said, his voice a low whisper. “Fuck, Lang. You’re explosive. You’re motherfucking dynamite.” He was working his cock in his hand, moving swiftly, his grip tight. He wanted me. He wanted me so badly, I could see it plain as day in his eyes. The feeling was mutual. I let my knees drop to either side, and I slowly moved my hand in between my legs, lightly touching my fingertips over my pussy.

  “Now,” I told him, refusing to break eye contact. “Please, Sully. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

  I wasn’t ready for what happened next. He looked savage as he fell on me, one hand roughly groping at my breasts, the other supporting his weight as he angled himself between my legs. His hips were pressing against mine, our bodies in alignment, and then he was grinding them upward, thrusting inside me, and I couldn’t stop myself from crying out.

  Sully immediately went very, very still. His eyes were wide, unblinking, as he hovered over me, his erection buried deep inside me. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You feel…” He trailed off, closing his eyes. “Oh my god, Lang. Shit.”

  His reaction was electric. I was electric. I could feel it flowing through me and into him, a relay of intense energy that promised to consume and destroy. Unable to stop myself, I began to rock my hips underneath him, shivering with pleasure at the friction that built up between our bodies.

  Sully growled again, snarling almost. He stopped kneading at my breast and moved his hand down between my legs again, rubbing at my clit while he slowly, carefully, began rocking in time with me.

  We fit together perfectly. I felt myself melting into him as his movements grew faster, until we were both crazy with the need for each other, clinging onto each other, biting and kissing and digging our nails into each other’s skin.

  It felt like we both sank beyond ourselves, like we lost track of where we were. The light swung across us again and again, washing over us, casting shadows and highlights across our bodies, but neither of us seemed to notice. The world had shrunk to the smallest of spaces; nothing existed outside of the small observatory wher
e Sully held me against him and thrust himself into me, faster and faster until I was begging him for release.

  It came unexpectedly, like a meteor strike, devastating and total. I screamed, clinging to him, head kicked back so far it felt like my neck would snap, and Sully came too, roaring, pressing his forehead against my collarbone, panting, warring for breath as his body shook.

  The calm that settled over us after was like a blanket, shielding us, keeping us warm despite the snow and the ice outside. We lay together for a long time, Sully still on top of me, still inside of me, and I drew circles and lines into the hard muscles across his back, down his side, over his scar. We breathed as one, our bodies mirroring each other as we finally came back into ourselves.

  “Well,” Sully said quietly, after a very long time had passed. “We’re well and truly screwed now.”

  “Why?” I whispered back.

  “Because. That was the best sex I’ve ever had. I’m definitely going to want to do that again, Miss Ophelia Lang from California. I’m going to want to do that again a lot.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Capable

  The rain woke me the next morning, globes of water pattering lightly against the glass dome of the observatory. Sully was still asleep. His feet were sticking out of the bottom of the sheets, still on the floor where we’d collapsed into unconsciousness. His bare ass was sticking out of the covers, too, and I couldn’t help myself. I sat up carefully and allowed myself a long moment to admire him in his sleep. He looked less restless than he did when awake, but his brow was still furrowed, as if he were still plagued with the weight of his burdens in his dreams. I lightly stroked my fingers over that creased area between his eyebrows, and they eased, all but disappearing.