Leave Me Breathless

by Cherrie Lynn

  Who was she kidding? At the moment, she might not care if someone walked up to the door and watched. His cock, in all its fully erect glory, slid along her damp panties, abrading her clit through the lace. Her grip on him tightened in desperation. One tiny shift in position and he’d be able to…

  “Condom,” she gasped. Holy crap, they couldn’t forget. He’d already impregnated one girl, for God’s sake.

  “Fuck.” Whirling her around, he deposited her on a nearby couch while she tried to get her bearings in the pitch-black room. He was nothing but his darker shadow looming over her, but she could see him swiftly pluck his wallet and pull the little packet out. As soon as he had it over the tip, she reached up with both hands and unrolled it down his swollen length. He released a shuddering breath, barely seeming to hold himself in check long enough for her to accomplish the task. She expected him to fall on her when she finished, but he hauled her up by her wrists and put her back in her former position, against the wall.

  She laughed, and he chuckled against her throat. “I really wanted to do it like this,” he said.

  “I really wanted you to.”

  “Naughty girl.” His fingers, gripping her cheeks, crept inward to pull her panties aside. She groaned and panted as he tested her wetness and then positioned himself with a growl that sounded more animal than human. Without wearing a stitch less clothing than she’d had on two minutes ago, she was about to have sex against a wall. In front of an open door. That was a first.

  “Oh!” The blunt intrusion whipped all thought out of her head, had her climbing him in an initial effort to escape the burning stretch as their breath mingled. His grip on her tightened, not letting her get away. She whimpered as he went deeper than her overly greedy body was ready for.

  “Jesus,” he muttered and kissed her, slow and melting. All at once, her muscles seemed to respond in kind, relaxing around him, going liquid. He slid inside until she was held tight to his groin. An exhale of relief escaped her. When he began to move, it wasn’t with the urgency she expected given their rushed beginnings. It was with a slow deliberation that would destroy her.

  “Seth, oh God…”

  It was a good thing he was strong enough to hold her; she had no strength. She constricted around him, tighter and tighter, and she knew he felt it from the sounds he made. Sharp pleasure sparked in the front of her belly and glowed outward until nothing existed but the feel of him inside of her and the taste of him in her mouth. Heat. She turned her head toward the breeze coming in from the open door, hoping to find some relief for her flaming cheeks. Another car eased by out on the street. Seth sucked on the side of her neck, and she smiled at nothing in particular.

  The fear, the need to run that had gripped her out in the car…it was still there, somewhat. And it was too late. If she’d wanted to flee from Seth Warren and everything he made her feel, she should have done it from the first moment she’d met him. She shouldn’t have let him anywhere near her. Every time they were together, he chipped away at her resolve. That very first night last year, she hadn’t been able to not run away from it afterward. Now, she didn’t think she could do it if she tried.

  He shifted his hold on her then, hoisting her up, moving first one arm and then the other until he was holding her with his forearms under her thighs…and something happened. Was it his piercing? Or his adjusted angle… Her breath caught, mouth falling open as her head fell back. That spark of pleasure, he was stoking it into a full roaring inferno, higher and higher with every thrust. A cry wrenched from her throat, and she prayed the neighbors couldn’t hear, though a second later, she was beyond caring.

  “Oh, baby, if you get any tighter on me I’m going to fucking die,” he said.

  “Seth, you’re… What is… God!” Pure molten ecstasy radiated from her sex; the back of her head met the wall with a thud as he pushed deeper into it. Her muscles began to jerk. Her nails dug hard into the leather of his jacket. She had no control now; it was all his, and he liked it that way, didn’t he? She couldn’t resist trying to squirm away from the intensity even as she strained toward it.

  “Where you trying to go, huh? Come on me, Macy. Come on me, or I’ll take you outside and make you scream right there on the front lawn for the whole fuckin’ neighborhood to hear.”

  The surge of panic and excitement at his words flung her over, even as she knew if every orgasm before had been mind-blowing, this one would surely seal her fate. There was no help for it. She wrapped him in a death grip, biting the leather on his shoulder to keep from shrieking as pleasure ripped so hard down her middle it was almost painful.

  He rasped something her pleasure-saturated brain couldn’t decipher, churning harder against her. His new exuberance brushed her clit, catching her at the peak and flinging her higher. She cried out and sobbed and scratched at him, might have even slapped at him, before exhaustion pulled her under and she went boneless between him and the wall.

  Slipping free and then scooping her up in his arms, he kicked the door closed and managed to hit a nearby light switch. She only knew because the blackness behind her closed eyelids was suddenly…less black. Her mind hadn’t rebooted yet. By the time she finally managed to pry her eyes open, she was lying on a bed in a dimly lit room.

  “Still with me?” he asked, smoothing the hair back from her forehead.

  “What the hell was that?”

  He laughed, propping his head up on his elbow. “The hottest fuck I think I’ve ever had.”

  Macy’s brows drew together. Would he ever think of what they did as more than that? Was she insane that she wanted him to?

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Am I…wet?” Something was definitely going on; her thighs were damp. Oh, God, the condom hadn’t broken, had it?

  “Is that the first time that’s ever happened to you?”

  “What?”

  “Baby, that’s all you.” He trailed one fingertip up her leg. “The G-spot is a thing of wonder.”

  Seriously? She’d never believed in all that female ejaculation stuff. Candace and Sam had debated it once, she thought, but she’d tuned them out…like much of what Candace had said about sex with genital piercings involved. She still felt wretched about the way she’d treated her friend despite all her apologies. “Are you sure?”

  He gave a wry laugh. “Oh yeah. You can bet I’m fucking sure when I make a woman do that.” In one fluid motion, he stood from the bed. “Let me get you a towel.”

  Embarrassment roared high in her face, and when she covered her face with her hands, she realized her legs weren’t the only things wet. Tears covered her cheeks. She sat up, staring at her damp palms in dismay. What the hell did he think of her now? That she was a broken, emotional, sexually repressed nightmare? Cruelly enough, the thought only made more tears drip from her eyes faster than she could frantically wipe them with the sleeves of her sweater.

  “Macy, baby, what’s wrong?”

  At the sound of his voice, she leaped up, panicked, thanking all that was holy her legs were able to hold her. She couldn’t suffer another indignity tonight. “Nothing. Can…can you take me home?”

  “Wait, no. Shit, did I do something?”

  This wasn’t how things were supposed to go, not at all. This was supposed to be fun. Where was the fun? Where was all this emotional crap coming from?

  “Talk to me, dammit. I can’t fix it if you don’t talk to me.”

  “I don’t need you to fix me,” she snapped and immediately wished she could’ve caught those words before they escaped. He froze midstep, a furrow appearing between his brows.

  “I didn’t say I was fucking going to fix you. You’re not broken. But something’s got you all fucked up, and maybe I can fix that. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there? I just…” She exhaled deeply, then took slow, measured breaths, struggling to send the tears back where they belonged even as she scrubbed at them. “I’m sorry. Typically, I’m not a crier.”

  He
raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Okay.”

  Great. He’d already suffered one psycho ex. She hoped he didn’t think he was standing in front of the next one. She chuckled without humor, giving up her battle with her own emotions and looking down to toy with her fingers. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anything you did.”

  “I think I’d rather hear that it is. At least then I might be able to do something.” He came closer and handed her the towel he’d brought. Thankfully, he didn’t watch as she swiped at the remnants of her earlier pleasure and the emotional pain that chased it. He ambled away, shoving his hands in his pockets and sightlessly staring at some pictures on the dresser. She had to strip off her panties—she’d have to get the other ones out of her purse.

  “Don’t you think it’s pretty obvious how this will end?” she blurted.

  He looked at her then. The bitterness in his reply wrenched something inside her. As if the words dredged up old hurts she couldn’t possibly imagine. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “I don’t know, Macy. Why are you? I don’t feel like I have to explain what you’re doing here, after what I said to you in the car.”

  “You don’t believe these things ever work out. I’m surprised you would even want to try.”

  “Maybe at last I see something worth the risk.”

  She didn’t want to resist the smile teasing at her lips, but she couldn’t trust it yet. “Really?”

  “Well, not so much when you’re a sobbing mess or a mopey drunk, but—” He ducked to avoid the pillow she snatched up and tossed at him. “Just kidding. I even like you then.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “Jesus. I don’t know how someone as beautiful and accomplished and awesome as you ever took such a hit to your self-esteem. Can you explain that, please?”

  “My accident—”

  “That’s all it was. An accident. It could’ve happened to anyone. It happened to me, every little kid’s nightmare. It’s hard; I know it is. But you don’t let it defeat you.”

  She nodded, still sniffling. “I did let it. It…I feel like it took away my identity. It made me afraid. I even became afraid of my friends when they started changing around me. I felt like my world was snatched from under me once, and I got it back, but…what if I’m not so lucky next time?”

  He crossed to her, tipping her chin up so she was forced to look at him…not that she thought she wanted to look anywhere else at that moment, or ever. Some unnamable emotion shuddered through her chest as his warm, gentle hands cupped both her cheeks. “Stop. Being. Afraid.”

  Was she so afraid because she’d found the one person with the tools to put her back together again? He’d suffered a loss so profound she felt like an idiot little child complaining about the boo-boo she got when she fell off her horse.

  Those eyes. She often thought they could swallow her up. Now she was sure of it. His thumbs gently smoothed the last of her tear tracks away. “And don’t be embarrassed with me.”

  She bit her lip, watching him watch her, wondering what he was looking for in her eyes. He should know if she had the answers to all the many mysteries of her soul, she would have damn sure given them to him for present and future reference.

  “When we’re together, I want to take you places you’ve never been before,” he said. “That’s what I signed on for, remember? Don’t freak out on me when I do it, unless you’re ready to walk away from this whole thing.”

  “I’m not walking away,” she whispered. He lowered his face to hers, and she leaned up to kiss him before he could make it. Echoes of pleasure rippled through her belly at the touch of his lips. He pulled her closer, and she realized how brutally hard he was against her. That couldn’t have happened in the past few minutes. “Wait, Seth…you didn’t?”

  He shook his head, brushing noses with her. “No. You kind of collapsed on me. Thought I’d get you in bed and recovered first. Don’t worry about it.”

  She grinned, reaching up to stroke his dark eyebrow. “You know, I do think I’m all recovered now.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, then, in that case…” She squealed happily as he toppled her back on the bed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was three a.m. He was so exhausted he could barely move his arm, but the utterly relaxed and tranquil woman beside him made all the effort worth it. It would’ve been worth it regardless, but…damn.

  She lay on her stomach with her arms tucked under her and a peaceful little smile on her face, her nude body long, lean and shimmering in the dim glow of the lamp. He traced light trails across her back with his fingertips.

  Who the fuck was smiling down on him for this to have happened?

  “Mmm,” she said, the first utterance either of them had managed since collapsing in a heap of tangled limbs, sweat and euphoria twenty minutes ago.

  He echoed the sound, leaning over to kiss her shoulder and smell the dark, vanilla-scented hair spilling over it. No matter how tired he was, he couldn’t stop touching her.

  He was so screwed. In the very best way.

  “Are you thirsty?” he asked.

  “Mm-hmm. But don’t get up yet. This feels good.” She sounded so drowsy and so fuckin’ cute. Her skin was a delight, smooth and soft and, except for the scar up her spine, otherwise unblemished. He moved until his head lay on her upper back so he could watch his fingers trace the line. A little tension crept into her muscles but flowed easily out as he kept caressing her.

  Its presence obviously bothered her. And it wasn’t a keloid, which he was never inclined to fuck around with. If only she weren’t so damn anti-ink, he could create a masterpiece for her. Before he realized it, he was tracing outward from it, a design unfurling in his head that encompassed the straight line and extended outward into meandering patterns. Maybe something with vibrant green ivy, or…

  “What are you doing?” she murmured.

  He kept right on drawing. Damn, it would be gorgeous on her. “Designing the tattoo you would never let me give you.”

  To his surprise, he wasn’t met with sudden, harsh rejection. She shifted under him, and he slid his head back to the pillow to look into her face. “Over my scar?”

  “Check it.” He pulled his left arm up for her to see, pointing at one thick black swath of ink in his design. “Right here. Feel? That’s where a bone was sticking through my skin after the wreck. The scar is ugly as hell.”

  She drew her fingers lightly across it. “Wow. I’d never thought of that before. Covering a scar with a tattoo, I mean.”

  “It’s not for everyone. Some might take several sessions. Some might hurt worse, if that’s a factor. I think you’d be a good candidate, though. It’s thin, and even if I didn’t cover it, I could make it less noticeable. I mean,” he smirked, “people would only be looking at how awesome your ink is.”

  She lay quietly for several seconds. “Something to think about, I guess. I don’t know if I could ever do it, though.”

  “Well, you know,” he said, turning onto his back and tucking an arm behind his head. “Do it for the right reasons, or don’t do it.”

  “It’s not about vanity, really. It’s the reminder. I don’t know if changing it or covering it would help.”

  “It would at least be a reminder of something else. Turn it into something beautiful.”

  Macy’s hand slid over his chest, and she rose over him, her breasts and her long hair brushing him as she leaned down to give him a kiss. “Thank you.”

  At that moment, the way her hazel eyes drank him in, he didn’t want to change one damn thing about her. “I think you’re beautiful the way you are. I just want you to feel better.”

  Her lips curled upward. “It’s all a front, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You are nothing like the image you project.”

  “So I’m a fake now?”

  “No, not a fake. Jeez.”

  He laughed, and she leaned down and bit
him. “Naw, I get you. There is some show, I can’t lie. But it’s still who I am. It’s an outlet. My music and my job, it’s how I get out all the crazy shit that goes on in my head. Stuff I can’t let out in polite society, ya know. Only…I’m so rarely in polite society, I don’t know how to behave in it anyway, so there.”

  Macy’s half-smile began to tremble, and then she broke into a full-fledged fit of laughter. It was infectious, and he couldn’t help but join in as he sat up to face her. “What’s so funny there, killjoy?”

  “I’m just… I don’t know if I should even say this. Might freak you out or make you mad or something.”

  “If it doesn’t involve you putting your clothes on right now, it won’t.”

  She trailed her finger along one of his tats, not looking him in the eye. “I’m thinking of what it would be like to take you home to meet my parents.”

  Mad, hell. He experienced a joy eruption that the thought had even crossed her mind. “Oh yeah? What would they think?”

  “They’re good people, you understand, but you aren’t exactly what they would expect. They’re very outdoorsy, very down-to-earth. My dad can be really loud and funny, though, and he doesn’t care about pissing people off. I think it’d be hilarious to see you two go head-to-head, that’s all.”

  “Your dad sounds like my kinda guy.”

  “Then maybe we’ll get to see how that goes,” she said shyly. “I have to warn you, he’ll probably have you camping and fishing and hunting with him before you know it.”

  He’d never had his own dad around to do that kind of stuff with. At least not that he could remember. “I’d be down for that. As long as I ain’t gotta get on no fuckin’ horse.”

  The hand drawing tantalizing lines along his skin suddenly shoved at him. “Oh no! Tell me you don’t hate horses.”

  He caught her wrist and shoved her down on the bed, rising over her. “No, no hate. I simply don’t feel the need to get on top of one. You, on the other hand…” God, would he ever inhale enough of her scent? She sighed as he trailed his lips down her neck.