by Angel Payne
But after I dare shove in deeper, she finally cries out.
“Holy…shit.”
I respond with a savoring snarl. “Holy is right, gorgeous girl.” I kiss the valley between her shoulder blades while dipping my head to steal one glance at the place where I’m penetrating her. “I worship you, Emmalina. Holy fuck.”
“Mmmm,” she replies in a dazed, faraway tone. “Mmmm…hmmm…”
“Is it tight, baby?”
She nods, again with misty languor. “Yes.”
“But is it good?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then let me make it better.”
“Yes. Yes. Yessss.”
Her scream fills the room as soon as I pull out far enough to free my thumb and pinky—though I leave my other three digits in her pussy and use them to keep her open as I plunge my dick in with one thorough thrust. As my cockhead throbs against her cervix, I flick my thumb around, stroking her clit—and setting her off into an orgasm I’ve never seen her experience before.
Holy. God.
The tremors radiate from some hidden part of her, ageless and boundless, like a seed of comprehension passed through the ages from Eve herself. By the time the shivers take over her pussy, I’m well on my way to the white-hot eruption seeking to satisfy even that part of her. I don’t just want Emma’s orgasm. I want to hear the ones she inherited from Eve too. The cries of her very truth. The celebration of her deepest womanhood.
And I get them.
“Reece! Fuck! Reece!”
The last note of my name becomes multisyllabic, gasped in chopping sections as I slam harder and harder, chasing my own lightning…
Then capturing it.
And I’m gone.
Lost.
Done.
Bursting. Blazing.
Fucking.
Coming.
I rear back, repositioning my hands at her hips to keep her body locked around mine as long as possible. Like a hose without a shutoff valve, I keep drenching her with my come as ecstasy consumes my blood and amazement takes over my senses.
Yeah. Amazement.
That I’m here. That she’s here. That we made it, defying the odds again, to hit back at the Consortium harder than they ever imagined—and though they’re probably hardly dented for it, at least we’re not either.
A thought even crazier than that slams in.
Not only have we emerged unscathed—aside from enduring a joyride from hell that should be in a Vin Diesel flick and the most memorable shower of my whole life—but the two of us might actually be…yeah…better for all of it.
I’m so deep into that consideration that I don’t even think to mask its effect across my face when I finally slide out from her and roll onto my back. Naturally, despite the fact that she’s entitled to drop into a full sex coma right now, Emma catches every nuance of the expression. “Okay, mister,” she prompts, quickly snuggling against my side and parking her chin atop my left pec. “Spill.”
I curl my hand in to scrape stray strands of hair from her face. “I thought I just did.”
She bats my chest. “You know what I mean. Don’t try to hide when your eyes are like that. You’ve got that Mach-speed thinking thing going on. And don’t get me wrong”—with a flare of her own gaze, she runs her fingertips through my stubble—“it’s the best damn thing I’ve seen all day. Now I just want in on whatever brilliance is going on in that gray matter of yours now. Or whatever color it is.”
The way her face pinches in, as if she’s really trying to figure out what color my brain is, incites my new laugh. Still, she keeps up the persistence, which I return without a blink. From here on, everything about me is an open book for this woman.
“Hate to disappoint, but I think mine’s just gray, baby.” I pull an extra pillow under my head to raise the angle of my gaze. “All the same, it’s filled with wondering about you.”
“Me?” Her face crunches in new and adorable ways. “Why?”
Gruff snort. “Why, she asks,” I mutter. “After she dresses up like the hottest Cinderella on the planet for her ball, only to end the night being held at gunpoint and nearly thrown into a jet turbine. And what does her date do for a grand finish? Oh, that’s right. Makes her get into a lightning shower with him. You know, for giggles.”
“And, if I remember correctly, a couple of orgasms that the folks at Guinness would never believe.”
The impish arcs of her brows tempt me to kiss her forehead. “And then there’s what happened after that.”
I’m not sure if I’m troubled or relieved by her ensuing chuckle. “You mean the part where you fisted me?”
I clear my throat. “Well, if you have to get technical about it…”
“Oh, my God.” Her eyebrows jump higher. “Reece Richards, are you turning Puritan on me?”
“I’m turning concerned partner on you,” I snap, though the new stiffness in her form confirms the mistake of letting my nerves do my talking. “You know what I mean,” I qualify. “I love you, Velvet.”
“You love me as a ‘partner.’” Her tone implies the air quotes as she pushes back and leans on an elbow.
“And as a lover.” I don’t let her get far, turning so we’re facing each other. “As your lover only. As the man who attends the church of you every time I take a breath.” With my leg now thrown over hers and my hand skimming her back, I sweep my lips down her nose. “But also as the jerk who’s recognized I might have let my lust—and my experience—carry me too far.”
She tilts her head up to the point our mouths quickly meet, though her side of the kiss is a reprimand. “Mr. Richards,” she charges. “We’ve already been here, remember? After the electric Ben Wa balls?” She pauses, looking even more mischievous. “Hmmm. Where did you put those? That was kind of fun…”
My rumble cuts her off. “Christ,” I utter, with her giggle as my underline. “Fun, hmmm? So is that where you’re filing all this? Under fun?”
“No.” Her fingers, tracing my jaw again, match her softening tone. “You defy every file invented, Reece Richards. You color outside every single one of my lines, and I adore you for it.” Her gaze turns a gorgeous shade of turquoise. “And I know you didn’t start out just now with that as the plan, if that’s what you mean.” She laughs once more. “We just got carried away. Imagine that.”
I take half a breath of relief and repeat with a wry grunt, “Carried away. Hmmpf. Was more like your pussy hired a mob of savages, tied me up, and hauled me off to a pyre of lust. But we’ll go with carried away if you’re happy with it.”
She burrows against me, making the world okay again in an instant. “I am happy,” she rasps into the center of my chest. “And fulfilled. And free.” She adds a tender kiss to her whisper. “Free enough to let go for you like that. To trust you and to open up my pleasure to you like that.”
Deep gulp, ending between the ribs she’s warming with more of her warm breaths. And her precious words. Happy. Pleasure. Trust. Fulfillment. So many of the things I want her to have with me and because of me. “I want to fulfill you every time, Emma.”
“And you do.”
“Yeah?” I finish it with a serrated hiss as the warmth of her lips works its way through my whole body. What this woman can do to me with just one brush of her magical mouth…fuck…
“Oh, yeah.”
And even what her mouth does with simple words…
Compelling me to sweep down, taking over every delectable curve of it with my own. Then to plunge in, penetrating her with my tongue, stealing her air with my command, sucking in her heat until I can’t breathe…
Consumed by her.
Connected to her.
Many minutes later, when we finally drag apart, I cup her cheek while stroking the sleek line of her eyebrow with my thumb. “You’re so beautiful, Emmalina. So perfect.”
Her gaze swirls, a teal and turquoise lagoon, as she leans her cheek into my hold. After a long sigh, she whispers, “I wouldn’t be anyth
ing but dead right now if it weren’t for you.” She presses her fingers, tapered and graceful, atop mine. “And because of what you did, you almost died…”
“Which wasn’t your fault,” I rumble, filling in her tearful silence. I curl my fingertips in her hair, tugging just hard enough that she understands my vehemence. “You understand, Velvet? It wasn’t your fault.”
She closes her eyes now. Compresses her lips. “If I’d only been thinking faster…”
“In the second and a half Faline gave you to make that call?” I scoff. “And yeah, I know it was only that long. There was footage from a delivery camera mounted over the kitchen entrance. I know exactly how things went down with you and Faline—probably better than you do.” I hate that my explanation surges fresh tears to her eyes. I rejoice that I’m able to ease them with a firm grip on her nape. “Every decision you made was the right one, Emma. Those fuckers would’ve raped or even maimed your sister to keep you in line as the good little bait for me.” I get a fun whirl with the rigid grimace now. “God knows, I’ve seen the Consortium do worse.”
In the space of two blinks, she’s stuffed the tears away. She lifts her hand, forming it over the fresh timpani of my heart as memories—nightmares—claim me again. “But known a lot of that ‘worse’ for yourself too.”
There’s nothing close to vacillation in her murmur. The woman has woken me from too many of the flashbacks that keep stalking my sleep to question its truth. But her forehead furrows, causing me to watch her closer. To see the unanswered query in her eyes now…
“What?” I finally prompt. “Spill.” I hope that brings at least a smile but fail. She’s tense, licking her lips…searching for the right words.
“Back…in the hangar,” she finally mutters. “During your high noon with Faline…” She sits up but maintains her clasp on the center of my chest. “She called you Alpha Two.”
Ah.
There it is.
I rise up—so she can see all the admiration in my regard. “I’m surprised you remember that.”
She blushes, but only a little. So damn stunning. “Hard to forget,” she explains. “That’s not a typical endearment.”
For a second, my jaw tightens. “Faline was never dear to me.”
“Then what was she?” Before her fingers turn to cold sticks on my chest, I know the question isn’t easy for her. Hell, it’s not easy for me, but easy was Reece Richards version one point oh. The update on my app includes lots of not-so-fun moments filled with not-so-fantastic memories…
“The queen bee of the mad scientist hive.” I wish I could write off the comparison as a creative twist, but it leans more toward reality than I want to admit—and now have to. As my mind’s eye fills with images of the Source’s hexagon-shaped rooms, as well as what was done to me in them, heartless insects and their honey-sucking proclivities are an eerily perfect analogy.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I never knew her name until tonight, though—or even had more than fuzzy impressions of her face. But her voice…” I keep Emma’s hand locked atop my chest with a brutal squeeze around her fingers. “When you wake me up from my nightmares, that’s the voice that keeps echoing in my head.”
In an instant, Emma is next to me again. No. More. With a sweep of creamy skin and white sheets, she wraps herself around me, legs around my waist and arms wrapping my neck. “She can batter your head, but she can’t have your heart and your spirit.”
“Damn right.” My whisper is full of love and gratitude. “Those belong to you now.” I savor the kisses she trails from my nape to my face, letting her conclude the journey with a long, lush meld of our lips and teeth and tongues.
When we part slightly, I fill my lungs with determined air and stare back at her with the same intent. “You asked a question,” I finally state. “And…I haven’t answered it yet.”
She shakes her head, her face crunching with agony. “It’s okay, Reece. I— I don’t need to—”
“You do need to.” I grip the back of her neck to keep her gaze locked on the mandate in mine. “You need to because I need you to.” I kiss her softly. “Because if we’re going to keep trusting each other, that means telling each other even the shitty stuff.”
Her features purse again, though I sense it’s for a different reason now. The watery wobble beneath her reply attests to that truth. “Okay,” she rasps. “Okay.” She bobs a fast nod. “Even the shitty stuff.”
She’s right—yet even though she is and this is going to be agonizing as hell, the moment isn’t as disgusting as I’d expected it would be. Well, hell. Maybe the memes are right. Even the tough parts of the road are better when walked with someone you love.
Still, I have to haul in another long breath, giving me time to shut down a bunch of circuits in my psyche. Only the strongest connections can stay online for this disclosure.
One more breath.
Here I go.
“We…were rarely called by our real names there.” Knowing she realizes the “there” to which I refer, I just keep going. “Not in our bedrooms, and not in the labs. Makes sense, I guess. If you want to keep a prisoner in line, dehumanize them. It also helps if you don’t want anyone to know who their true neighbor is. Not that talking was ever a thing, since Faline was fond of those rubber mouth bits…” Weirdly—but maybe not—I break into a sharp laugh. “Above all else, the policy probably helped keep the paperwork more organized. There’s a plus for someone, I guess.”
Emma is quiet—on the outside. In the darkest eddies of her gaze, I can see the ink of rage and revulsion. I’m nauseated, having to be the bearer of her horror like this, but there’s no easy way to put all this. It’s my baggage, and it’s not fucking Louis Vuitton.
“So yeah, I was Alpha Two.” That part comes out softer, almost like a fond reminiscence. In a sick way, it is. Alpha Two. He was me, for all those months that completely altered my life. If I don’t accept the memory of him, then I’m rejecting everything about him…everything about his experience that changed me in so many ways.
He was me.
He still is me.
Just not all of me.
I can’t get a better summons back from those reflections than the gentle combs of my woman’s fingers, taming the hair back from my face.
“So you never spoke to Alpha One?” she ventures. “Or Three?”
I shrug, trying to throw off some of my tension, but the memories have taken over me like hawks on a field mouse. “Neither of them,” I mutter. “Though I know there weren’t just alphas at the complex. I heard the docs referring to prisoners from an omega unit too.”
“Omega.” Her features crunch, giving away her deeper thoughts. “What do you think that means?”
“Probably the same thing you do.”
“Males and females?”
“It makes the most sense, especially with Angelique confirming they strung her along with promises of getting her into the program someday.”
Her whole face lights up with a triumphant smile. While I could spend hours reveling in that magnificence alone, she sweetens the moment by sitting up and pumping a victory fist—while the sheet stays exactly where it is.
Ding, ding, ding.
Me for the win.
I don’t waste time reaching for my championship rings, either. Yes, both of them—in the form of the taut, puckered circles of glory at the centers of her firm, gorgeous breasts. Fuck me, she’s so perfect.
“Reece.”
She punctuates that with a sharp gasp as soon as I twist and tug at her erect tips.
“Hmmm?” I drawl, easing my touch into languid strokes.
“Are…are you even listening to m—” A new breath, hotter and heavier, as I gently scrape my thumbnails across her stiff nipples. “Mmmmm,” she moans instead. “Oh. Mmmmm.”
“I’m listening to every word, Velvet.” I pull harder, savoring the louder shriek that bursts from her. “Men. And women. Got it.”
A shiver courses through
her. “And now…you’ve got me…”
“No, baby. You’ve got me.” I pull her closer so I can coast my tongue over her bottom lip and then bite in at the small curve at the corner. I love these little parentheses of her mouth, as well as all the unique things I discover about her each and every day. The tiny mole beneath her left breast. The way she likes being bitten at the crest of her hip bones. Even how she has to rewet her toothbrush in the middle of her morning scrub.
I love every damn thing about this incredible woman. And I want to spend the rest of my life proving it to her. Learning every idiosyncrasy about her…
Before the RRO gala went to hell in a massive basket, I was prepared to tell her that too—and not just with words. But right now, I can’t fathom leaving this bed to go hunting for what’s left of my tux, including the velvet box I’d stashed into one of its pockets. If the ring is gone, it’s gone. It’s just material shit that can easily be replaced.
I can’t replace Emmalina.
I don’t ever want to think about trying.
Just as I can’t deal with thoughts of being anywhere but right here, right now. Not past the few inches I allow in order to whisk the sheet off the rest of her body or the few seconds it takes me to gather her even tighter…lowering her molten, wet core over my erect, ready cock.
At once, my world is right again.
Complete again.
Connected again.
“God. Reece!” Emma sets a pace of rolling, rutting intent, scoring my shoulders with her nails and filling my face with her she-beast breaths. “Need…this. Need…you.”
I lift my head, blazing the heat of my desire up at her. “This? Right here? This cock blazing into you? Fucking deep into your pretty cunt?”
Because I’ve never needed anything worse than this. Than her body. Her trust. Her passion. Our unity.
Those fascinating lips of hers quirk into a joyous smile of her own. “You’re a bad, bad man, Mr. Richards.”
“So I’ve been told, Miss Crist.” I seize her by the waist and flip her onto her back in one caveman move. My dick never leaves the torrid sleeve of her pussy. “But maybe I’d better show you, just to be sure.”
