by Naima Simone
“Fuck.”
I snap my head back, because—yeah. I’m not a man who’s comfortable with words, but were they that bad?
“I’m also an ugly crier,” she whispers, then sniffs.
Amusement bubbles up in my chest, and I lean back, shifting my hands to cup her face but she dips her head, dodging me. But I don’t allow her to. I palm her cheeks, tilt her head back and stare down into the face that I suspect will haunt me even after I return home months from now.
Tears glisten in her eyes and track down her face.
“No one has ever said anything so lovely to me before.” She turns into my hand and kisses my palm. “No one has ever seen me like you do.”
“Fuck them,” I mutter, kissing those tears, tasting them, claiming them.
She laughs, grasping my wrists and leaning her head back farther. When my lips brush her the corner of hers, she presses her mouth to mine. Within the next instant, our tongues are tangling, dueling and sucking. There are certain places on her body where her scent is richer, undiluted, and headier. Here, her mouth. That shadowed valley between her breasts. The spot where torso meets hip. The drenched, sweet haven of her pussy.
I can’t get enough. I could feast on her forever and still suffer hunger pains.
Bending, I cup the back of her thighs and hike her up. Her legs wind around my waist, heels locking at the small of my back. Our mouths still partake of each other as I guide us to the office/break room. Carefully, I sit her on the tabletop and attack her coat. As soon as it’s on the floor, I go for her scrubs top, leaving her in a T-shirt. But before I can rid her of that, too, she leans back, and goes for the metal snap closure on my overalls.
We both tear the sleeves down my arms, and I have my T-shirt up and over my head in record time. Same with hers. Leaving both of us bare from the waist up except for her bra. And, with a quick snap to the clasp between her breasts, even that barrier is gone.
A groan travels up from my gut and out of me. Goddamn, these tits. I palm them, swooping in for another searing kiss while I skim my thumbs over the beaded nipples. Circling them. Flicking them. I eat up her whimper, silently demand another by pinching those fat tips, tweaking them. And she gives it to me.
Her fingers tighten in my hair, jerking my head back. I growl my displeasure at that, because I’m not even close to being finished with that mouth.
“What do you need?” she breathes. Turning the tables on me, giving me back my words. And asking me what no one has bothered to before. No one.
My lungs seize, and for a dizzying moment, it’s almost as if I’m having an asthma attack. I can’t breathe past the constriction. My heart works overtime, and black and gold spots dance at the edges of my vision. But just as suddenly as the sense of suffocation sweeps over me, it disappears, and air painfully rushes back into me.
“Axel.” Her fingers massage my scalp, tugging me close until our lips are a breath apart. “What do you need from me? Whatever it is, just ask.”
I’m more naked than I’ve ever been in my life, even though I’m still wearing jeans under my overalls and boots on my feet. But staring into her honeyed gaze, I trust her not to reject me. Not to… leave me.
“Kiss me.” I tap my mouth. “Here. Slow.”
She leans forward the scant distance separating us to take my mouth, and she makes love to it. Sexes it. Her tongue sweeps in, licking at mine, entwining with it, seducing it, inviting it to play, to dance.
By the time she pulls away, my chest is pumping hard, rising and falling so fast, so hard, the air rushing out of my lungs explodes like grenades between us.
“Here.” I point to my neck. Mark me as yours. “Don’t be gentle,” I mimic her from the first time we were together.
Heat, amusement and something else—something softer, more tender—flashes in her eyes, before she lowers her lashes, bends her head and latches on to me. Her teeth graze my throat, and a groan escapes me as that promise of the sweetest edge of pain races straight to my cock. She comes through on that vow. Sinking her teeth into me, she bites down, sucking, bringing her tongue into play, branding me without even being told. Maybe she needs that as much as I do. Needs others to know she’s been there as much as I want them to know I’ve been hers.
God, I hope so.
Delivering one last, luxurious lick up my neck, she hums and nuzzles the base of my throat.
“Here.”
This time, I don’t point, I tunnel my fingers through all that thick, beautiful hair and show her. Guide her to one nipple. Let her nip, tease, draw, and suckle. Then lead her to the other. Allow her to repeat the same torture. By the time she brings her fingers into play and twists the damp, small tip while raking her teeth over the other, I’m gritting my teeth and wondering how I’m going to survive this without reverting to the base animal that howls and claws at me from the inside.
“Tell me.” Her panting bathes my skin. “Anything.”
“Lie back.”
She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip, and unable to help myself, I thumb it loose. “This is about you—”
“Then lie back.” Cupping the front of her neck, I gently squeeze. “Please.”
Her breath catches, chest rising, and she arches into my hold. Does she even realize what she’s asking me for? As those eyes go hooded until only a narrow band of golden-brown is visible, I know the answer.
Yes. Yes, she does. I give it to her.
My fingers tighten just a fraction, and her moan vibrates against my palm even as she reclines on the table, her hand coming up to clasp my wrist. Her back bows, those gorgeous tits pointing toward the ceiling—taunting me, daring me to taste, to feast.
And I have no control when it comes to her.
But there’s something I want more. Something my mouth is watering for. My gut is damn near cramping for a taste of.
Releasing her throat, I quickly remove her trainers then jerk her scrubs and underwear off, tossing them to the floor.
Jesus, she’s beautiful. So fucking beautiful.
As lightly as my rough hands can manage, I encircle her ankles, placing them on the edge of the table. Spreading her wide for my hungry gaze. So wet. All that bare, brown and pink flesh drenched and glistening for me.
For me.
Chest filling with more than just air, I release my hold on her throat and bend to her, burying my face in the sweetest, softest place on this earth. Her sharp cry bounces off the grey walls of the room, almost as lovely as the clit I’m strumming. Clamping her writhing hips down, I devour her, granting her no mercy, no quarter. I’m too starved, too desperate, having gone too long without her. A whole twelve hours.
I dip my head and, flattening my tongue, trail the path between her folds, pausing to suck one and then the other. There’s no part of her that I don’t pay proper homage to, because she deserves it. This is the only gift I have for this warrior queen, and I’m not holding back.
Lust is a grinding wheel in my chest, my gut, and my cock throbs, roars with the hot rush of blood. And pushing two fingers into her tight, quivering pussy only ups the ante of when I’m going to shame myself by blowing like a green kid with his first sight of a tit. As her slick muscles squeeze me, I shudder, my balls drawing up tight, and yeah, coming all over the back of my zipper is a definite possibility.
“Axel,” Zenobia whines, her fingernails scraping my scalp, pussy humping my face. “Please. Inside me. I want you inside me.”
I want her to gush over my fingers—long for that pretty clit to tremble and flinch against my tongue, but in all things, her needs supersede mine.
Pulling free of her, I hoist her off the table and flip her face down on the top, that perfect arse up in the air. My eyes not leaving her, I shove my overalls down, followed by my jeans. Moving forward, I cover her, my chest pressed to her back. My face buried in her neck. My fingers tangled with hers.
Though my dick pounds with the need to be balls-deep inside her, I wait, savoring the beauty of our di
fferences. My large frame to her petite build. My angles to her curves. My paleness to her darkness. My vulnerability to her strength.
She’s the perfect foil to all that I am, and it humbles me.
Physically shaking my head, as if the gesture can rid it of those fanciful thoughts, I lean back, stroking my palms down the elegant length of her spine. Grasping her rounded hips, I kick her feet wider apart, and because the gnawing greed won’t allow me to wait any longer, I plunge inside her pussy.
Our mated groans rent the air, and I still.
Fuck. This pussy.
I’ve been inside her countless times since that infamous text, and impossibly, each time is like the first. Still tight. Still liquid fire. Still heaven and hell. Still bliss and torture.
Still the answer to every whispered prayer and unspoken dream.
We haven’t used condoms since that first day. She’s on the pill, and we’re both clean. And after having been inside her bareback, strapping back up again after experiencing her without any barrier would’ve been a little painful. But I would’ve, because in the end it’s her choice. Still, I might’ve shed a tear when she agreed to go without. This, having nothing between us, is blasphemous joy.
I groan. Dammit. I don’t want to move, but damn, I have to.
“Ready, pet?”
She nods, and I cover her once more, reaching above her to grasp her fingers and curl them around the edge of the table.
“I’ve…” I grind my teeth together, willing the words to go back down my throat. But they don’t listen. “Missed you.”
Even though she’s stretched out on the table, her body still tenses. But after a moment, it relaxes, and she nods again. “Missed you, too.”
It’s soft, almost too soft, but I catch it. The admission shoves into my chest, wraps around my heart, squeezes, and my breath stutters.
Just my asthma making another appearance. That’s all it is.
My grip on her hardens, and I pull free, my cock dragging over trembling muscles that set alone almost send my hurtling over into the abyss. My stare is fixed on my flesh and the thick wetness coating it.
Slowly, I sink back inside her, watching as her pussy swallows me whole. After that first pause where she becomes accustomed to me all over again, she takes me so good. Like she was created for me. Like she can’t get enough of me. And from the grunts, the dirty grinding, and pleas to “fuck her”, she can’t.
This woman. She unleashes something feral in me. And as I hike a knee up on the table, spreading that pretty pussy wider, plowing it harder, deeper, all I want is to mark it, mold it so she will never be satisfied by anyone who comes after me. So she will always crave me.
Always come back to me.
“Axel, I need—” She breaks off, lowering an arm and arching up to reach between her and the table to touch her clit.
“Put it back.” The order is blunt, sharper than intended, but I’m more animal than man, and in this moment, she’s my mate. And I’m responsible for her pleasure. “I got what you need.”
Clamping one hand on the nape of her neck, I hook an arm around her neck, find that fat button of flesh and strum it, rub it… pinch it. She chokes on a cry, the tortured sound like a love ballad that strokes down my spine, my arse, to the soles of my feet, then arrows to my balls and cock. That pussy strangles my dick as she comes, soaking me, milking me, hauling me toward my own end.
And I go, a willing sacrifice.
My hand leaves her neck and wraps around her waist, hugging her to my chest, even as I don’t let up on her clit, even as I continue to pound her sex. I fuck her. I embrace her.
I need her.
I die a little for her.
And as I come crawl back up from the abyss, broken and bruised and so fucking free, it’s her arms that surround me.
A peace that’s as foreign to me as this country fills me as we stumble back to the chair, her cuddled on my lap. We don’t speak for several minutes, and that’s okay, because for some reason, I can’t seem to catch my breath. She plays with the ends of my hair while I quietly draw in a deep breath. Or try to. But the wheeze that I am very familiar with rattles in my chest and my ears.
And because she’s a nurse—and her ear is pressed to my chest—she catches it.
“Axel.” She straightens, frowning, studying my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nowt.” But the shortness of breath it’s said on ruins the veracity of it. “Just asthma. I have an inhaler. Nowt to worry about.”
“Where is it?”
She scrambles off me. And I stand, tugging my jeans and coveralls up, then retrieving my inhaler from my pocket. She quickly dresses but keeps her gaze on me as I take two puffs on it. But unlike earlier, it’s not easing the constriction in my chest. A bolt of panic crackles through me, but I forcefully shove it away.
“How’re you feeling?” She comes to me again, leaning close, listening to my chest. When she tilts her head back, the concern on her face hasn’t disappeared. “It doesn’t sound any better. Is the inhaler not working?”
“Sometimes, I need to take it again.” Which I do. And wait. And it feels a little better. Thank fuck. But then I’m coughing again, and it’s tighter, not as wet. The wheezing not as loose. And the panic returns. Because I’ve had asthma since I was a child, and I know the signs. Yet, I suck on the inhaler again. Two more times. Two more times. I don’t need to glance at the back of the dispenser to see the counter on zero, even though there would be a reserve of at least ten more doses.
“Axel, we should probably go to the emergency room so you can get a breathing treatment.” Her voice took on a clinical quality that makes my skin crawl with humiliation. Moments ago, I was the man fucking her, making her cry out in pleasure, and now I’m a weak patient.
The whistling of my air echoes in my ears, and my chest is beginning to ache, but I grab up my T-shirt and sweep it from the floor and drag it on.
“No.” Fuck, why did that have to come out so goddamn feeble? “I’m fine.”
“You’re obviously not,” she snaps.
“Let it go, Zenobia.” I stumble over to my welding table, but even that’s an effort and has my breathing even more labored, my chest pumping even harder to provide air I don’t have. Shit. Fuck.
“Screw this.” She snatches up her purse. In seconds she has her cell phone out and to her ear. “Yes, this is Zenobia Hester. I’m a nurse at Memorial. I’m with a thirty year-old male experiencing a severe asthma attack. He’s used an Albuterol inhaler. Six puffs.”
She gives the person on the other end the address the workshop, coming to kneel beside me. I block her voice out, her scent out.
I concentrate on trying to breathe.
That way, I can also keep the anger and humiliation at bay too.
Just… fuck.
Chapter Fifteen
Axel
“Now tell me again how things are strictly platonic between you and Zenobia.” Simon peers down at me, hands tucked into his white doctor’s coat. His blue eyes narrow on me, but it’s not irritation or anger darkening them. It’s concern.
I get it. He was on duty when the ambulance brought me in, so that had to be a bit of a… surprise. Still, I don’t answer. More specifically, I can’t. Because I’m currently sucking on the nozzle end of a nebulizer.
Which Simon is using to his advantage.
“I’m sure the dirt on her scrubs and the severe case of sex hair she’s sporting could’ve come from scrambling up in the ambulance, but somehow I doubt it.” He props a shoulder against the wall, crossing his arms and ankles. “And then there’s the hickey on your neck. But maybe that damn driver hit a pothole and your hit the gurney wrong. Or you got a little kinky with one of your tools?” He arches a brow.
I return the gesture.
And for the British, the one action can say a lot. For instance, his is current asking, What do you have to say for yourself, mate?
And mine is saying, Go fuck yourself.
&nb
sp; We’re quite multipurpose in our language, us British.
Simon sighs. “Christ, Axel, have you thought this through?”
He pushes off the wall and paces across the room.
“What am I asking?” he barks out a laugh. “You’ve been thinking with your dick, and yet last time we talked on the phone, you assured me you weren’t letting the little head take charge. But maybe if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here in the fucking ER.” He pulls my inhaler out of his pocket. “Zero, mate. Zero. And you told me to mind my business last time we talked. What the hell? If Zenobia hadn’t been there tonight, would you even have come to the hospital?”
I don’t reply again. And not because of the nebulizer. An answer isn’t needed because we both know it.
“Shit.” He thrusts his hand over his hair, leaving grooves in it that might as well be titled Axel is My Pain in the Arse. “Before I forget.” He rubs a hand over his face, glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes.
Unease creeps through me. This is different from his previous browbeating. He’s hesitating, and whatever this is, he doesn’t want to deliver this news.
“I called your mum to let her know what happened. I wanted to let you know just in case she calls you later.”
He doesn’t continue—but he doesn’t need to. That silence tells me everything he won’t. I can just imagine how that phone call went.
I don’t know what to do about him, Simon. What is wrong with him?
He’s nothing like Blake, is he?
Why can’t he be more like you? Like Blake? I just don’t understand him.
It’s nothing she hasn’t said to me before in another version or fashion.
“No worries. She won’t call,” I croak. The nebulizer hisses as the last of the Albuterol passes through the tubing. Simon crosses over, takes the nozzle from me and switches off the machine.
Going into doctor mode, he removes his stethoscope from around his neck and orders me to take deeps breaths while he listens to my lungs. “Better. But I think you could do with one more.”
