She grips my biceps and wiggles beneath me to take me into her body.
“Wait, baby.” I lean over to the bedside table, but her legs wrap around my waist.
“No, don’t. I’m on the pill.” Her gaze falls to my neck and she blushes. “I’m clean, I promise. I know you have no reason to trust me, but—”
My mouth covers hers and she sucks my tongue so hard I almost explode. “I’m clean too.” I breathe before she takes my mouth again. “I trust you.”
I push up on my elbows and align our bodies, dizzy from my racing pulse. I groan and drop my forehead to hers at the wet warmth that envelops me. My chest throbs with all the things I’m feeling; all the conflicting emotions do battle within my head.
Whether I agree to her ridiculous plan or not, she’s going to move forward and I’ll have to live knowing she’s giving this to someone else. Sharing what I’ve claimed as my own with a man who’ll never love her as much as I do.
My blood fires with the unfairness of it all, and I thrust hard into her. She cries out and presses her head back into the pillow. If she loves me, really loves me, how can she expect this of me? I power into her again and her body lurches beneath me. No male in his right mind would knowingly allow his woman to be with someone else. My hips flex hard, fast, half loving and half hate-fucking. Her mouth drops open with the power of my thrusts. I want her to feel me between her legs every time she looks at another man, remember that I’m the only one who owns her heart, the only man she’s ever given every part of her body to.
I want her to hurt as bad as she’s hurting me.
I pull back and flip her to her belly then grip her hips to pull her ass up to take me again. A growl rips from my chest as I enter her from behind, deeper this time, and she moans into the sheets.
Over and over I slam into her body, punishing her and hating myself for it. Hating her for making me love her and then taking herself away. Fury and lust shred through my veins until my muscles tense. My thighs tighten as every plunge seems to bring me deeper. Fuck, this woman, I despise what she’s doing and love every square inch of her.
She’s loyal to a fault, honest, viciously protective, and fuck, but I love her fight.
Love her.
So balls deep in love with her.
Blinding white light flashes behind my eyelids. I drop to her back, crushing her beneath my weight as my orgasm overtakes me. My teeth sink softly into her shoulder and an almost inhuman sound vibrates in the back of my throat. Sweat covers my body as my release seems unending. I fight to catch my breath, the muscles in my back uncoil, and I drift in a post-orgasmic haze.
I roll to my back, my mind replaying what just happened in agonizing detail. It was too rough, too angry. I’d lost control. I throw my forearm over my eyes. I can’t look at her, can’t stand to see the disappointment in—
Her soft body curls up to my side.
What?
Her hand pushes my forearm off my face until my view is filled with her pinched expression. “What are you thinking about?”
I exhale hard and shake my head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . .” Fucked you like that. I’m an asshole.
She pushes a few strands of hair off my forehead. “I understand.” Her eyes drop to my chest. “I knew by telling you how I felt, giving you the only piece of me I had left to give, I was taking a chance. If you don’t feel the same w—”
I shove my fingers into her hair and fist hard enough to sting. Her eyes widen and dart to mine.
“Listen and listen fucking good, Beatriks Langley.”
She blinks, and I can see fear flicker behind her eyes.
I pull her face so close to mine that I can feel her breath. “I’m so in love with you I don’t know my own fuckin’ name anymore. There’s not a thing in the world I wouldn’t break my back to give you. If it meant making you happy, I’d give up everything I have, everything I’ve worked for. You name it; it’s yours.”
She attempts to shake her head, but my firm hold doesn’t allow her much movement. “Do you . . .? Are you saying you’ll—?”
“I’m pissed as hell. Madder than I’ve ever been in my entire life about what you’re asking me to do, but there’s no way I can say no to you. I’m angry, hell, I’m fucking furious at you, but I love you more.”
A single tear drips from her eye and lands on my lip. I lick it off, tasting the salt of her revenge, the bitterness of the hard decisions she’s had to make, the heat of her sacrifices. I’ll be damned if I’m capable of letting her go now.
She sniffs. “I love you.” Another tear threatens to fall, but before it can, I pull her to my lips and kiss it away, along with every one that comes after.
“Love you too, baby.” Even though loving her is probably going to kill me.
Twenty-eight
Trix
“Mmmm.” The sound of my own pleasure wakes me from a deep sleep. I blink open my eyes against the force of arousal that demands they slam shut.
I dip my chin, peering between my breasts and down my belly to see a mop of blond hair between my legs and two strong hands gripping my thighs.
Mason.
My eyes burn with unshed tears as I watch him devour me. Slow and deliberate swirls of his tongue and strong lips pull against my overheated flesh.
I should’ve known this would happen: that giving him this part of me would only open me up to falling even deeper in love with him.
I gasp as he buries his fingers inside me, growling against me in a way that vibrates my most sensitive parts. My fingers dig into the bed, searching for something to hold onto so this orgasm doesn’t launch me through the air. As hard as I try to stay grounded, the wave hits with a force that sends my head to the pillow and my back bowing. Stars explode in my vision as he continues to feed and not let up even after my pulsing orgasm fades.
It’s too much and not enough. I pull against his hair, rolling my hips in an attempt to get free or maybe get more. My head scrambles until it feels like it might combust.
“Mason.”
Drunk with need, I roll my hips. He climbs up my body, placing his very naked and aroused self between my legs.
“Good morning.”
“’Morning.” I suck in a long breath as he enters me slowly until he’s firmly seated inside me.
He offers his lips to me, and I greedily kiss him, tasting myself on his mouth. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s as if the gesture is meant to remind me whom I belong to. “I think I like waking you up.”
I nip at his bottom lip. “I think I like you waking me up.”
He pulls almost all the way out, before moving back in, each time circling his hips to rub against me. I’m already so close and we’ve barely begun. Again, he continues in torturously slow glides back and forth, around and back, until I’m moving beneath him to go faster.
“Last night, I was too rough with you.” His eyes never leave mine, and I don’t miss the flicker of pain that passes behind them.
“No, you weren’t. I want you to do it again.” My cheeks heat at my honesty. The truth is I loved his anger. It felt similar to my own, something I could relate to.
“There’ll be times for that”—he traces the line of my jaw to my lips with his own—“but now I want to make love to you.”
“I’ve never been made love to before.”
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
The corner of his mouth lifts, but only slightly. “You have, we just didn’t have a name for it then.”
I don’t know who kissed whom first, but our mouths came together in perfect time as he loved me with his body. He took his time, making sure to hit every single spot that sent sparks across my skin. Just like the roll of the waves while sitting on the long board, he works himself over me in a steady but constant rhythm. Not sex or fucking, but a combining of souls for the singular purpose of communicating a tender adoration. Unconditional love.
A forever kind of love.
His jaw hardens, and his neck
tenses as we slowly crawl towards release, together. Neither of us in a rush, we climb gradually, every deliberate stroke a step closer to what’s sure to be an earth-shattering orgasm. Tenderness shines through his eyes as he watches me, and my throat swells as I fight back the tears.
It doesn’t take a mind reader to know his thoughts are on us, on all that’s going to happen once we leave the safety of this bed. The protection of this moment. With a force unequal to any I’ve felt before, my body detonates. My nails bite into his biceps as I soundlessly cry out his name. My head swirls in a fog, and I grip him tighter through the aftershocks that wrack my limbs. He growls into my neck, his strokes still constant and controlled, but the sting of his teeth and heat that pours from his body, signal his release. He drops on top of me, not bothering to hold himself up and shield me from his weight.
I’m breathless, pressed deep into the mattress while he’s buried inside me, and I’ve never felt safer or more taken care of, more connected to another human being.
He rolls off me, and I’m instantly slapped in the face with the loss of his presence and the harsh reality of what’s to come.
This is good-bye. For now.
Fear grips me from within, and my muscles shake uncontrollably.
“Come here, baby. It’s okay.” He pulls me close, rolling to his side so that we’re face-to-face. His glare burns into mine. “One day at a time. One minute at a time if you have to.” He pulls my hands to his chest, holding them to his pounding heart. “No decision is permanent, except this one.”
I nod and focus on how clear and determined he looks now. Nothing like the man I saw last night who was filled with doubt and anger.
“Whatever happens, you keep in contact with me at all times, understand? If I don’t hear from you, I’m going after you.”
“But—”
He shakes his head. “Nope. No buts. You’re not in this alone. Not anymore.”
Warmth overtakes me and I suck in a deep breath. All I’ve ever been in this is alone. But not now.
“Stay public. As much as you can, try to stay public. If you’re forced to be alone with him, always have your phone.”
I nod. “Okay.”
He nods too. “Good.” His eyes slam shut, and he brings my bunched hands to his mouth, kisses my knuckles then drops them back to press against his chest. When he opens his eyes, I cringe against the worry and pain reflected in them. “And please, if you can get out of, you know, if you can avoid—fuck!” He groans and shakes his head.
Sex. I get it.
I won’t make him say it. “I will. I promise. Headache, period, whatever I have to do to get out of it, I promise I will.”
He shakes his head, mouth twisted in a disgusted frown.
“Mason.” I rest my forehead against his. “God, I’m going to hate every second of this. Being away from you will kill me. I’ll do this quickly. Knowing that Lana’s vindication and you, the two most important things to me in this entire world, are waiting for me on the other end, I’ll make the most of every second and see this through. I promise.”
He rolls his head back and forth against mine, growling. “I can’t fucking believe I’m letting this happen.”
“I can.”
He blinks open his eyes.
“You have a good heart, Mase.”
“Fuck, don’t say that. I’m allowing the woman I love to be in the arms of some sick fuck. I deserve to be castrated for that!”
“Stop it. No more looking back. It’s only forward for us. Forward and forever.” I grip his face, forcing him to look at me. “Promise me we’re never saying good-bye.”
I nods. “I promise.”
“Say it.” I need to hear it.
“I’ll never say good-bye.”
“And neither will I. Never. No good-byes. Forward and forever.”
A weak smile touches his lips. “The two effs.”
“Well, for us there will be three.” I wink with the hope of lightening his mood.
“You have a dirty mind, Miss Trixy.” He pulls at my lower lip with his thumb, and I suck it deep into my mouth, eliciting a growl from his chest.
“We have a few more hours before I need to head home. I’ll show you how dirty my mind is.”
His expression sobers, and he places a small kiss on my lips. “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“For you? Always.”
Twenty-nine
Mason
Three days feels like three months.
So far, Trix is no closer to finding her sister’s killer. She’s kept me informed through short phone calls and texts, even managed to come over for a few hours before she went to work yesterday, and for that I’m grateful. This guy she calls Hatchet has been MIA since the night Trix showed up drunk on my doorstep.
Although it would break her heart, I’m praying the fucker never shows his face again.
I flex my sore fists, reveling in the ache of my joints as I gear up for a session with the heavy bags. There’s something to be said for being hate-fueled and resentful. These last few days in the gym have been some of my best. Amazing what happens when I paint a faceless man who’ll have his hands all over my woman on every fucking thing I punch.
After five minutes of jump rope, I throw my first punch, feeling stronger than I did even yesterday. Blow after blow, I imagine the man who will be seduced into giving up information by my woman.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
NOFX’s “Stickin’ in my Eye” bleeds in my ears; the beat pushes me harder as I throw all my weight behind each hit. Sweat blurs my vision, but doesn’t slow my pace. With every strike, I throw up a silent prayer that Trix’s mission goes down in flames and we can return to where we were the night we got came back from San Jose. I throttle the bag with a series of jabs when NOFX fades to the pinging of my ringtone.
I rip my phone from the elastic case at my bicep. Drake’s name flashes on the screen.
Dammit.
I hit “accept,” panting into the speaker hanging from my earbuds. “Drake, man . . . what’s up?”
“Whoa . . .” He chuckles. “You fuckin’?”
I work to catch my breath. “Shut up, asshole.”
“Needta’ finish up? Call me back?” He laughs. “Hate to be the cause of a nasty case of blue balls, brother.”
Dumbass.
“I’m training.” I pull my bandana off my head and wipe my face. “You call for a reason?”
“I did. I’ll be in town this weekend. My dad’s putting us up at Caesars again.”
My pulse pounds in my ears and my muscles tense. “Business?”
He’s silent for a few seconds then clears his throat. “Yeah.”
I drop my chin and dig my fingers into my eyes. “Drake.”
“It’s not what you think.”
Like I don’t have enough shit to deal with right now, Trix and her renegade mission, and now my hard-headed brother.
“Not bailing you out again. I’m done. This last time could’ve totally fucked me.”
“I know. I know. Listen. I need you to come by Saturday night.”
“No. Wait. Scratch that. Fuck no.” I pace and run a hand through my sweaty hair.
“It’s not me, man; it’s my dad. He’s asking for you.”
“Yeah, well you can tell him to kiss my ass.” I’ve been more of a father to D than his biological father ever was. “He thinks he can snap and have me jumping, he’s out of his motherfucking mind.”
Drake blows out a long, frustrated-sounding breath. “Don’t make him come after you, Mase. Puts me in a shitty-ass position. Just come by, see what he has to say.”
“No, I told you—”
“He knows I want out.”
I freeze my pacing and stare blindly at the heavy bag. “You told him you’re done?”
“Yeah. Thing is . . . fuck . . . Jessica’s pregnant.”
I drop to the bench and lean back against the concrete wall. “Oh shit.”
“Exactly, oh sh
it.”
“Are you . . .? I mean, is it—”
“Mine?”
I didn’t want to just come out and ask, but after what I saw last weekend I have to wonder.
“She messes with me, but she’s a good girl. I don’t think she’d fuck anyone else.” He groans. “Hell, I don’t know what I know. No way I’m asking her now though. She hasn’t stopped crying in days.”
“So you’re pulling out of your dad’s shit to . . . what?”
“What do you mean to what? Take care of my kid, my woman, what the fuck you think?” It’s only natural for me to doubt his intentions. The guy fucks up things without even trying.
“Good to hear, D. Really. So, this Vegas thing, is it like a one last hurrah and then you’re out?”
“Something like that.” He mumbles something I can’t make out. “Shit. I gotta run. Saturday night. I’ll see you there.”
“I can’t guarantee—” The line goes dead.
Fuck.
I pop my phone back into my armband and take a swig of water. This is good. Drake’s moving towards cutting ties with his dad, and although getting his girl pregnant wasn’t in the plan, it’s helping him to man up. Can’t be angry about that.
I’ll go to Caesars Saturday night and see what his dickhead dad has to say; then hopefully Drake can put all this shit behind him for good.
Trix
Midnight.
Officially five days now since Hatch walked out of my life. Again.
Every day that comes and goes feels like fingernails slowly raking across my skin, digging deeper each pass they make, elevating my irritation. Hours, minutes, seconds tick by and all of it is wasted time. Time I could be spending with Mason.
A pathetic growl gurgles in my throat as I toss the contents of my dresser drawers onto my bed. Organizing has always managed to calm me when I’m angry. Sorting through my belongings, tossing the old shit, and arranging the still wearable.
I separate my shorts between casual and dress-up, throwing some of the worn pairs to the floor with more force than necessary.
How long will I wait before I give up and resume my life?
Fighting for Forever Page 24
