Reese: A Safe Haven Novella

by Terri Anne Browning

  “I…Love…It!” I gasped out, caught up in the sensations he was tormenting me with.

  “Tell me you forgive me.” He commanded, his middle finger sinking slowly into me. “Tell me you believe that I care about you, and only ever you.”

  “I…” I couldn’t think with his finger deep inside of me.

  “Tell me.” His finger stopped, his thumb pressed down roughly on my clit, making me moan. “Please Reese. I need the words.”

  I swallowed my next whimper and nodded. “I forgive you. I believe you…I care about you, too.”

  “God!” He kissed me, deep and hard. His lips feasting on mine while he continued to stroke between my legs.

  A new tension was building, my body began to shake, my breathing growing ragged. And just as I thought I was going to fall he stopped, turned off the water and lifted me out of the shower as if I weighed no more than a feather. He dried me just as tenderly as he had washed me, combed his fingers through my hair and then lifted me into his arms once more.

  “Do you want me, Reese?” He asked in that deep voice of his and I shivered. “Do you want this?”

  “So much.” I moaned as he placed me in the middle of the bed. I didn’t have time to feel self-conscious about being naked because he carefully covered me with his still damp body. “I need you, Kieran.”

  His hands cupped each of my breasts, pinching each rosy pink nipple with thumb and forefinger. “So beautiful.” He murmured. “Tell me that you are mine, Reese.”

  “Yours.” I whispered, loving the attention he was showing my aching nipples. “Only yours.”

  “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby.” His words were a promise. One hand left my breast to trail down my stomach. He teased my naval, playing with the little skull charm that hung there. “Cute.”

  “You like it?” He nodded, seeming fascinated by the difference between his golden fingers against my peaches and cream stomach. “I really like your tats.” I traced one on his bicep, causing him to shiver as little goose flesh rose on his arms.

  He kept stroking my stomach, making me squirm. The sensations he was awaking inside of me were crying out for him to finish what he was starting. And soon! I didn’t know if I could handle much more. “Kieran, please.” I caught his hands. “What are you thinking about?” I asked, frowning at the look in those incredible eyes of his. He looked tormented and I hated to see such a look on his face.

  “I’m nervous. More than I have ever been before or since I became sexually active. This is your first time and I want to make it special.” He brushed a soft kiss across my lips. “But I want you to the point of madness.”

  The fact that he was nervous, that it was because he wanted to please me, pushed any linger doubts about his feelings for me out of my mind. I opened up my heart to him then and there and pulled him into my arms. “Make love to me, Kieran.” I commanded against his ear. “Make me yours right now.”

  Chapter 9

  I trembled from the sheer power of desire emitting from those beautiful steel gray eyes as he gazed down at me. I wanted him, desperately. My body ached to have his possession. My mind screamed that nothing could be more right. While my heart whispered to me over and over again that I was his.

  That knowledge didn’t terrify me as it probably should have. Didn’t make me want to scream, throw things, or let all my buried anger take me over. If anything loving Kieran Stone made me want to let it all go. When he didn’t speak, didn’t move, I leaned forward and brushed a kiss across his open mouth. “Don’t be nervous. I trust you with every ounce of my being. In this moment I am yours. And I want you to be mine.”

  “I am.” His voice was husky, full of desire and other emotions that I couldn’t decipher at that moment. I hoped that one of those emotions was love, the same gut wrenching, heart aching love that I was feeling. “You are everything I didn’t even know that I wanted, Reese.”

  I gave him a smile, full of everything I was feeling. “Will you make love to me, Kieran?”

  “Are you sure?” He was shaking now. With the force of holding back? With his emotions? All I knew was that he was making sure that I knew what I was doing, and I loved him for it.

  Instead of answering him I reached between us and grasped that part of him I knew could not hide how much he wanted me. He was long, thick and heavy in my hands. His heat scalded me, made me yearn for that heat somewhere deeper. The thick head was damp and stick with his pre-cum and I was captivated as I spread it over his impressive length. With the first stroke of my fingers he jerked in my hand, pulsing with a need only I could fulfill.

  The dark blue veins seemed to come more to the surface as I continued to stroke, pulsing with the rushing blood that was making him harder. The heavy sac beneath tightened and I reached out to give them a gentle tug. I was going on pure instinct here and hoped that I was doing everything right. The groan that escaped him told me he enjoyed it and I raised my blue eyes to clash with the steel gray of his. “I want you, Kieran.”

  He didn’t need another word of encouragement. He pressed me back against the pillows and kissed me until I was breathless. His lips traveled. I don’t think there was a part of my body that he did not kiss, did not worship with his talented lips. Kieran avoided my breasts, my pulsing clit, the sensitive part of my neck that we had discovered made me cry with pleasure. So by the time he was done exploring my body with his lips I was begging for him.

  He sat back on his heels and urged my thighs apart. I watched, unable to form words I was so deep into my desire filled fog. He ran one finger down the center of me, spreading my folds apart so that he could see everything that no one else would ever be witness to. Those steel gray eyes turned to liquid as he took me all in for the first time. “So beautiful.” He rasped and rubbed his thumb against the pulsing ball of nerves that was my hardened clit.

  “Ahhh!” I sobbed. The pleasure was so strong, so intense, that I couldn’t hold back my cry.

  He grinned knowingly as he continued to investigate what gave me the most pleasure. His thick middle finger teased my opening as it had in the shower, making the inner walls clench. As he slowly slid that digit inside I nearly fell apart. “So tight. So wet.”

  My hips lifted, wanting him to travel deeper. But he would not be rushed. With his free hand against my abdomen he pressed me into the mattress. “Just enjoy this, baby.”

  “I can’t handle much more.” I whimpered as he extracted his finger and rubbed it’s wetness along my throbbing clit. “It’s too much!”

  “Not even close.” He muttered and thrust his finger in once more.

  The force of the thrust, the sweet wetness against my aching clit, that fiery look in those incredible eyes…I was lost. My body took over and arched against the pleasure; stiffening, pulsing, clenching around his finger. He continued to thrust as my walls squeezed his finger. I heard his choppy breathing, knew that I was turning him on painfully with each convulsion from my orgasm…

  My first orgasm!

  Slowly I came down from the high that Kieran had taken me too. But instead of satisfying my desperate need for him, he had only made me ache more. I reached for him and pulled him down beside of me. My lips found his and I let instinct take over as I pushed him back against my pillows and climbed onto his chest.

  “Reese…” He trailed off as I took his vast length into my hands. He was so thick that one hand could not completely close around him. The pre-cum coated the pink head, and I spread it down his entire length before I moved to position myself over it. “Reese, slow down. Oh, God!” He cursed and thrashed his head from side to side as I slid down his length until I could go no further.

  He stretched me in an almost painful way. My inner walls squeezed him, locking him in place while I adjusted to his size. Kieran’s hands balled into fists at his sides, but he didn’t reach for me. Through my desire fogged mind I realized that he was letting me have this control, knew that I needed it. My heart expanded with so much emotion, so much love
, that I couldn’t keep it bottled inside.

  “I love you, Kieran.” I whispered.

  But he didn’t hear me he was so lost in his own need for fulfillment. His hips bucked, his body finally taking over where his mind had refused to earlier. I held onto his shoulders as he flipped me onto my back and thrust deeper, but still not all the way to the hilt. “So good.” He groaned against my neck as he nibbled along my jaw. “Want you so bad.”

  He pulled out and thrust in. Even in his driving need he was still tender, still considerate of my size and lack of experience. But he needn’t have been. I met him with each thrust. My nails scrapped down his back, taking skin with it, drawing blood. He cried out in pleasure, urging me to do it again with pleading little whispers at my ear.

  I was so close, tense as a bow. But I didn’t want the pleasure to end. Wanted nothing more than for it to go on and on until we expired from it. Sweat coated his back and chest, his mixed with mine and caused us to slide against each other with each thrust. It was so good, so good, so damn good..!

  “Reese!” He roared my name and with the first gush of molten hot semen against my womb I fell apart in his arms. My nails dug deep into his shoulders as my inner muscles milked him until he was spent.

  Exhausted, out of breath, but completely content for what had to be the first time in my existence, I curled up against him as he moved so that his weight was not crushing me. He didn’t pull out of me, was still half aroused, but he didn’t move beyond kissing the top of my head and pulling me closer. “Love you.” He muttered as he drifted off into a deep, satisfied sleep.

  I grinned happily against his chest. “Love you.”

  ()

  I was woken twice more to Kieran’s lovemaking before it was time for me to get ready for work. For the first time I was tempted to call Mel and ask her to cover for me that night. But we couldn’t hide under my covers making love indefinitely. Surely we would die from all that pleasure.

  So I reluctantly crawled off of the man I loved, who groaned his protests, and took a quick shower. I was making a larger than normal pot of coffee, munching on some granola and frowning down at my phone which held a text from Mel, when a freshly showered Kieran wrapped his arms around my waist from behind. He kissed the side of my neck just under my left ear, causing me to shiver deliciously.

  “Sleep well?” He asked with a smile in that sexy voice of his.

  “For the most part.” I leaned back against him and met his gaze over my shoulder. “You?”

  There was a wicked look in those mesmerizing eyes of his. “Best rest I have ever had.” He dropped a kiss on the end of my nose. “Can I come back when you get off of work?”

  I had been dreading coming home to an empty apartment that night. His words warmed me. But I knew that he needed to stay on his strict schedule or it could mess him up for his match. I reached for my key ring and handed over the one to my apartment’s front door. “You can stay all night if you want. I know that you need to be in bed early…And I’m sorry that I cost you a day of training.”

  His eyes darkened and he turned me around to face him. “One day is not going to change anything. And I would have willingly missed a week of training if that was what it took to get through to you how much you mean to me.” He took my key and pocketed it.

  I kissed him long and hard, and then—because I was tempted to blow off work—I pushed away and grabbed my bag. “I have to go. See you when I get home?”

  “Before then.” He promised as he walked me to the door. With one last lingering kiss he pushed me out of my apartment and I walked the few blocks to work.

  I walked on air the entire way. As I got Safe Haven ready to open I floated. The bouncers kept sending me knowing grins and I couldn’t help the smile that continued to sneak up on me every time I thought of the man who had invaded my heart and soul in less than a week.

  Mel arrived just before it was time to open and some of my happy bubble evaporated.

  She had sent me a cryptic text saying that she had had a nice time with Greg Daventry, but that she doubted she would ever go out with him again. I hadn’t sent her a return message, wanting to talk to her face to face about it. But now that I had the opportunity to do just that I didn’t want to know anything except that she was alright.

  There was a kind of darkness in her green eyes that told me that she wasn’t. One look at the woman who had pretty much adopted me and I pulled her into the office. As soon as the door closed behind us I wrapped her up in a tight hug and a sob escaped her. I let her cry it out, knowing that it helped to get it all out of the way as soon as possible.

  I held her for a good five minutes until the body shuddering sobs became less gut wrenching. Mel raised her head and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand; her nose was running and her lips trembling and even though I had yet to hear what my grandfather had done to cause Mel to hurt like this I wanted to punch him in the face.

  “What happened?” I murmured, urging her to sit.

  “I don’t know.” She muttered, taking the napkins I handed her and blowing her nose loudly. “One minute we were having a good time. Laughing, getting to know each other…And then the next I…I went off on him. I guess I was angrier with him than I realized because I let him know exactly what I thought of him.” She grimaced. “Then, after I was done yelling at him, telling him what a poor excuse for a human being I thought he was…I just left.”

  Her story made me smile. “So he didn’t do anything?”

  She shrugged. “No. I just couldn’t hold in how I felt about the way he had treated you all those years ago. Sure, he wasn’t the one who…who…” She sucked in a deep breath. “But he just ignored you when you needed him the most. Ignored you to make money he didn’t fucking need!”

  I crouched down in front of her and hugged her again. “I love you, Mel.”

  Her arms tightened around me convulsively. “I love you too…That’s the first time you ever told me that…”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll tell you more often from now on.” I promised.

  Chapter 10

  Thursdays were our warm ups to the busy weekends. More often than not people would come in, knowing that they were going to call in sick to work the next day if they had a hangover or not, in order to get a long weekend. Mostly it was business types that we had tonight, but there were some blue collars and of course the usual biker, Emo and Goth.

  Yes it was an odd assortment of people under the same roof. But that was one of the reasons why we were called Safe Haven. We didn’t discriminate. All we asked was that you didn’t cause trouble, of course.

  The bar stools were all taken, as were most of the tables. In the back, where the bouncers mostly kept a close eye on things, the four pool tables were all taken. At one of the tables stood Kieran’s crew and Maddox. They were pretty good and I had already given them a pitcher of beer on the house, which had basically caused any tension between us to disappear.

  Jake had apologized which had been an almost surreal experience for me. He had explained that he kind of liked me, especially when I was in my Goth paint. And he had thought maybe he could push me away from Kieran if he had told me I was like the others. He hadn’t realized that things were moving so fast between me and his fighter. But he had wanted me to know that he had been wrong and would I please forgive him?

  Of course I had told him he stood no chance in hell, with or without Kieran. Then told him if he ever did anything like that again I would show him a thing or two that I had shown the spar twins a few days ago. He had thrown his head back and roared with laughter, then proclaimed that we were going to be the best of friends.

  I was skeptical on that and let him know so with the roll of my eyes. Jake had returned to his friends, and then quickly started chatting up the college girls that came in not long afterwards.

  While the crew and Maddox played a mean game of pool and drank their beer I had still not seen the only man I wanted. But he had promised to stop by tonight a
nd I knew he wouldn’t let me down. So I focused on mixing drinks and keeping the two obvious lovers seated at what I had come to think of as Bubba’s end of the bar from getting R rated with their kissing and occasional groping.

  Of course that wasn’t as easy as it seemed. I turned around from setting a few whisky sours in front of two older business men to find the lovers going at it nearly Porn Star style. Fed up with the two I grabbed both men by their hair and dragged them to the front door. “Until you get it out of your systems don’t bother coming back!” I yelled after them.

  They hadn’t put up much of a struggle, but still I turned to find the crew less than a foot away when I started back to the bar. Gage and Simon just grinned and shook their head. Mason seemed a little concerned, but still smiled at me; while Jake moved forward. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I assured him as I moved behind the bar and went back to filling drink orders. The crew went back to playing pool. Within minutes they were laughing and shoving each other good naturedly.

  Around nine-thirty I started to get really hungry. I hadn’t stopped for my usual grilled salmon salad on the walk over because I had been too much in a love induced haze to remember. The granola that I had snacked on before leaving my apartment had not exactly been filling. My stomach started grumbling just as a sack was dropped down in front of me behind the bar.

  The smells coming from inside made my stomach clench with hunger and I glanced up to find Kieran standing just a few inches away. He had come behind the bar to greet me, and he had brought food. I threw my arms around him and kissed him.

  His big, strong hands gripped my hips, holding me closer.

  “Hey! Hey!” Jake’s voice called from the pool tables. “You just kicked some guys out for doing just that.”