by A. J. Downey
I sucked in a breath when his fingers made contact with my skin, a wash of tingles spilling up my back and across my ribs. “Please,” I begged breathlessly and it was a frenzy of both of us to see who could get who undressed the fastest.
“Shit,” he muttered and left me, and I have to admit, I loved watching his ass walk away from me. He fished around in his jacket and came up with a gold foil wrapped condom and I blinked. I wasn’t exactly a size queen, but I hadn’t realized from our first time that he was big enough to require a Magnum.
He came back over to me, and the view from the front was even more impressive than the view from behind had been. He knelt next to me and reached for me, but I didn’t want to be on the bottom this time, so instead of going to my back, I knelt up as his mouth met mine, and smiling against my lips, he let me have my way, taking a seat and letting me straddle him again.
God, he was so hard and hot against me, and I confess, I dry-humped him, a bit like a horny teenager, but that was part of the effect he had on me. He made me feel young again. Like that teen-aged girl before I’d lost my innocence and had stopped believing there was good in the world.
Maybe that was it, though. Maybe he was, bit by bit, restoring some of the faith I’d lost in humanity. God, I could love him for that if it were true.
He pressed the condom into my hands and whispered, “I want to watch you put it on for me.”
It was my turn to smile against his lips and the thought that I could turn him on with something so simple made me all kinds of wet and wanting him inside me. I tore open the packet using one hand and my teeth, the other I used to stroke him. His eyes dark, heavy-lidded with passion, he watched my face and I was sure that the sentiment he showed me was echoed on my own in every way.
I rolled the latex down his length and he reached for me, hands on my hips to steady me as I guided the head of his cock to my entrance and sank down on it slowly. He captured my body, an arm around my back, supporting me, a hand on my chest, over my heart. He looked up at me, and I, down at him, as he slipped into me, impossibly deep at this angle. I sighed out, breath catching and he smiled and rocked his hips, the movement teasing at my walls, causing me to tighten around him.
“God, you feel good,” I breathed and he moved his hand so that he could press his lips over my heart.
I tangled my fingers in the wild mane of his dark hair and held him, even as I rolled my hips, the pleasure rolling through me with every slightest motion.
I loved being with him. Nothing rushed, everything drawn out for maximum enjoyment by the both of us. There was no rush, there was no frenzy to how we did things and I realized that I liked that. I liked it almost too much for words… except for one.
“Nik…” his name fell from my lips, breathy, and I was close. So very close. He was wonderful at getting me right along that razor’s edge of pleasure and keeping me there, in that state of blissful pleasure for as long as he liked. It was amazing. It was beautiful. It was everything that making love between a man and a woman should be and I couldn’t get enough.
Our breaths came in long, passionate gasps and moans. Our mouths tangled more often than not. I rode him gently, and no matter how I rocked or shifted, it just wasn’t quite enough, but it was. I couldn’t come, and it was a sweet torture that I couldn’t get enough of, and neither, apparently, could he.
We stayed like that for hours and hours, and I don’t think either of us wanted it to end. Still, my body craved release and I know his did too, and eventually, he sat up straighter, capturing me with his arms and laying me back on the bed.
“Harder,” I begged and he thrust deep. As deep as he could go, bottoming out in that sweet place between pleasure and pain. He gave it to me harder, but not faster, which is exactly what I wanted, that heavy glow beginning to overtake me, building higher and harder than before until I almost couldn’t take it anymore.
Just when I thought I might break, he helped me. Sitting up and looking down at me with kindness, even as he found that kernel of nerves at the top of my sex with the pad of his thumb. He teased it, slick with my own wetness, and the cauldron tipped and I spilled out, all over. Out from the edges of my body which couldn’t seem to hold me in anymore. I was formless, weightless, and completely, madly, and inescapably falling in love.
18
Zeb…
She leaned back as she rode me, her eyes hooded with that look every man craves from his woman. The one that says she looks up to you, that she trusts you, and yes, even that she loves you. It made me want to try harder with her, made me want to be a better man than I had ever been before. That look made me want to step up and be everything that she thought I was just so I would never disappoint her. She was my incentive for everything now, and it was pretty far out. I’d never had such a connection with a woman before and the look she gave me drove me absolutely wild.
I sat up and grabbed her, pressing her to me and got up, laying her on her back and pressing myself deep between her thighs. She wrapped her legs around my hips and begged, breathless with desire, “Harder.”
I pressed deep, thrusting harder like she’d asked me and she cried out in that way that said I was doing everything right. I drove into her, over and over, each thrust deliberate and precisely what she asked for but I couldn’t take much more. I wasn’t about to come before my lady, so I sat up and, gazing down at her, found that delicate little flower bud of nerve endings and teased it with my thumb.
She arched, a throaty moan escaping between her lips, swollen with my kiss. Her pussy gripped my shaft impossibly tight. I changed the motion of my thrusts, seating my cock as deep as it would go and making them shorter and tighter. She cried out, voice getting higher, choking off as she struggled to remember to breathe and for one split second I watched her lose all control as she crashed back to the bed and writhed uncontrollably beneath me.
Her pussy milked me, her cry deep and full to the brim with satisfaction as her whole body seemed to short-circuit underneath mine. I lay on top of her, pressing her to the bed as she shuddered beneath me and worked back and forth inside her, closing my eyes and taking my own pleasure.
I came, spilling deep inside the Frenchie on my cock, and reveled in the fact that I really came buried deeper still inside of her.
She was unreal. Unlike anyone I had ever been with before. Magnetic and electric, I had never gone as long with anyone as I had with her, and I loved that we could do this for hours, even though I was pretty sure my legs would pay for it in the morning.
She lay serene, eyes closed beneath me, chest rising and falling dramatically as she tried to catch her breath. I made to pull out and she shuddered and shook her head.
“Mm-mm, not yet,” she murmured and I smiled, stilling for the moment.
“Too much?” I asked and she nodded and shuddered with a little aftershock. I chuckled and leaned down, as much to keep her warm as it was so I could kiss her.
“Hmm, okay,” she whispered and I reached between us to hold the Frenchie on as I slipped out.
“Be right back,” I told her and went to her little bathroom. I flushed the used French letter and turned on the tap for hot, letting the water get warm while I rooted around the little cabinets she had in here, looking for a facecloth. I found a stack of them under the sink, and wet one, cleaning myself up while I listened for her out in the other room. She was quiet, and a quick glance out the door showed she was resting, basking in the afterglow.
I rinsed the facecloth good and made sure it was nice and warm before returning to the bed to clean her up. The best sex was messy sex, which we seemed to accomplish. She shivered as I took care of her and I tossed the facecloth from halfway across the room back into the bathroom sink. I got back into the bed behind her and picked up the remote, restarting the movie with her cuddled back against my chest. She chuckled lightly and asked, “Going to finish it?”
“Well, yeah. I have to see how it ends.”
“Hmm, do you want me to tell you? S
pare you the pain?”
“What pain?” I asked. “I like this, being here with you, watching something you enjoy. This ain’t a hardship, Wahine. You’re never that.”
She made a happy noise and turned over, kissing me soundly.
“Thank you,” she murmured and I smiled down at her.
“Hush,” I said with a smile. “You’re making me miss the movie.”
She grinned broadly and cuddled into my arms and closed her eyes. I could tell she was listening, but by the time the bloke Edward took Viviane to the opera, she was sound asleep. I liked that she could sleep so easy around me, so I made sure the blankets were up around her and she was warm, holding her close as the rest of the story played out on the screen, all the while what she’d said echoing in my mind.
“I don’t want to be taken care of as much as I want to be able to take care of myself…”
She really had no idea how strong she was for even thinking along those lines. Still, a person couldn’t do it all. Part of taking care of yourself was admitting when you needed help, but then again, she knew. That was how I ended up here in the first place, wasn’t it?
She was a marvel, that one; and I was honored to help her on this particular journey.
“So what did you think?” she mumbled and I smiled, laughing a little. Not asleep after all.
“I think you and Viv are two very different people, and I think I like your plan best.”
“What plan is that?”
“Teaching you to save yourself rather than doing any kind of saving.”
“Mm, it’s nice too, though.”
“What’s that?”
“You being around doing some saving. Not every danger is a physical threat.”
“Too right, Wahine. Too, right.”
19
Tiffany…
“He scares the shit out of me,” I confessed in a whisper and Nik glanced over my shoulder at Reaver who was striding through the door of the gym. He stopped by Mali and they bumped fists.
“Ah, yeah, he’s half-cracked, that one, but you don’t have anything to worry about. I promise you that. He keeps his crazy pretty well contained when it comes to it.”
“Good to know I’m not crazy,” I muttered.
“Nah, but I wouldn’t go trying to psychoanalyze him either. He’d pick up on it and probably wouldn’t be too happy.”
“Noted,” I said quickly under my breath as he and Mali came this way.
“Now is when this shit gets fun!” Mali declared and I straightened.
“You don’t like guns,” Reaver said, “So I’m here to show you a thing or two about knives.”
I shuddered inwardly at how his eyes lit up when he said the word ‘knives.’
“Okay,” I said cautiously, and Mali stepped in front of him.
“First we’re going to go through some of the drills we went through last week, though. Then, when Reaver has a grasp on how much you know, he’ll introduce the sharp shiny objects and how to deal with them in the same sort of scenarios. Sound good?”
No. It sounded really fucking overwhelming, actually. What I said out loud, however, was: “Sounds great.”
We went through everything we’d already been through and I was super glad that Nik and I had practiced an hour or so the day before after our sex and a movie date and a couple of days before that after work.
Mali seemed pleased we had too and I can’t tell you how grateful I was when the ‘sharp shiny objects’ that came into play weren’t, in fact, the real thing but rather were rubber variations for practice purposes.
“I think you’re right, Mali,” Reaver said, after the third or fourth go at a particular scenario. “Her dancing is helping her out by, like, a lot.”
“I can’t tell you how much I hate that I’m over here panting and dying while you’re standing there cool as a cucumber and haven’t even broken a sweat,” I said between gasping breaths.
“I’m used to these moves and cardio, cardio, cardio,” he said with a grin.
“I do cardio all night every night five nights a fucking week!” I cried and he laughed. “I’ma punch you,” I muttered flippantly and he laughed harder.
“So much for being a pacifist,” he teased, and I was beginning to like him.
I took a drink of water and shrugged, “I wouldn’t call myself a pacifist,” I said. “Granted I don’t like violence, especially when there are other options, but when you run out of those options and it’s the last resort…”
“You find yourself here, with us, busting your ass to make sure it’s covered,” Mali said and nodded. “Trust me, Sweetheart, I get you. I’m just a little more proactive than reactive, if you catch my drift.”
I nodded, I understood her. She probably would have handed Silas his ass before he ever got the chance to use a broken beer bottle on her face. I was young and dumb, though, and had thought that I could still change him. Trust me, all those stitches and the lesson on how stupid that viewpoint had been had been sewn into my very being with every single one of them.
“I really hope he just fucks off, but I just know it from the bottom of my soul that he’s out there looking for me and to cause trouble.” I scowled. Men like Silas didn’t quit. It hadn’t been in his nature when it came to riding bulls and with something that was so fundamentally a part of someone, well, it was likely something that hadn’t changed.
“Okay, explain that look,” Reaver demanded, scowling. I shifted from foot to foot.
“I still haven’t heard from Delia and she’s not answering her phone.”
“That the best friend?” Reaver asked, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking over my shoulder at Nik who was leaned up against the wall. Nik nodded.
“She ever did anything like this?” Mali asked.
“Gone off with a guy for a few days without so much as a text?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Reaver looked me over.
I nodded. “Not totally unusual for her,” I said. She would typically let me know she was off for a couple of days and that would be it. She always showed up to take me to work and I would always bitch her out for making me worry, but this time was different. This time there was like a one-hundred-percent chance there were ulterior motives at play. I said as much.
“Cops won’t listen,” Mali said with derision.
“Which is why we should,” Reaver said. “Pigs are good for nothing and once again, reaction versus pro-action.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is proactive,” Mali said dryly.
“Yeah, that,” he said with a cheesy grin. I laughed, and so did Nik.
“What? Out of all of y’all, I’m just a po’ dumb country boy. Y’all motherfuckers are much more well-read than me.”
“No one’s arguing that, Bro.”
“Yeah, fuck you,” Reaver said, grinning.
“Ah, yeah, nah!”
“I don’t know, Zeb, that sounded a little indecisive if I’ve got my Kiwi translation right,” Mali joked, tone sly.
I shifted slightly and wanted to scream, ‘What about Delia!? Can we get back to that, please?’
Reaver looked me over, “Try your friend now,” he suggested. “Shoot her a text, though. Don’t call.”
I did as he asked, and we all stood around waiting for something ‒ anything ‒ to come through in return, but after a couple of minutes went by with nothing, he frowned.
“Whereabout does she live?” he asked.
“Other side of town, in the Maple Green apartments,” I said.
He frowned, “I don’t know where that is, but at the same time, I probably know where that is.”
“As in been past it like a thousand times, but never really put the name to it?” Mali guessed with a raised eyebrow.
“That would be it, yes. You interpret my crazy so well, young Padawan.”
“Fuck you, who schooled who that one time?”
He rolled his eyes and I met Nik’s gaze as they bickered. He frowned and said, �
�Guys!” They stopped and looked over at me.
“Look, I may not be happy with Lia right now, but her heart is and always has been in the right place where I’m concerned. She did a lot for me after…” I pursed my lips and rolled them together. “After Silas.”
Mali snorted and said, “Like turned you into a stripper who’s a prostitute on the side?” she asked. It stung but her next words cut even deeper and made me want to stand up for my friend. “With friends like that who needs enemies?”
“Mali,” Reaver scolded, and she had the grace to look embarrassed.
“Look, I get how it looks to someone like you –“
Mali scowled, “Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just someone who hasn’t had to make any really hard decisions, I guess it what I meant.”
She laughed a bitter barking sound. “Oh, oh. That’s rich, but fair. Definitely fair, that was a shit thing for me to say.” She swallowed hard and looked me in the eyes. “I’m sorry, but please don’t think I haven’t had to make any tough decisions. I definitely shouldn’t be one to judge or poke holes. I’m sorry for being a dick.”
I wanted to give her the finger, I mean I was mad, but I really needed to keep learning from her, and she was teaching me and teaching me pretty well, and asking nothing in return. Plus, she had just apologized, even if it looked like she’d sucked on a lemon as she’d done it. So, I swallowed my anger for the time being and grated out, “It’s okay, I’m used to it.”
“Ouch, and now I feel like an even bigger asshole,” she declared and sighed, scrubbing her face with her hands.
“If you two were dudes, I’d tell you to beat the shit out of each other and go have a couple of brews already, but when it comes to bitches, I’m at a loss for how you all handle this kind of shit,” Reaver declared.
“Ask your wife,” Mali said darkly. “Because I’m too much of a dude on the inside to have a clue, either.”
“Good idea,” he answered, then added, “And yeah, you are.”
