A look she couldn’t quite interpret colored his gaze. His jaw flexed. “Well, not everything is always fair.”
With that he pulled away, leaving her cold and confused. He’d been doing that a little more than she liked the past couple of days. She had yet to figure out what set him off, but there was something bothering him. Her stomach squirmed.
“Listen.” With a hand on his arm, she tried to tug him back around. “Maybe we can get away for a day or something. Soon.” The idea of leaving Evan alone made her uneasy, but . . . “There are nurses here for a reason, and he’s so much more stable now. He’d probably be fine . . .”
Dane didn’t look her in the eyes, but he did lean in to press his lips to her brow. “It’s not a big deal.”
Maybe not. But she couldn’t fight the sense that something was.
At the first rattle of the meal cart coming down the hall, Lexie sucked in a deep breath. After the tension at lunch, she’d finally slunk back into Evan’s room, this time with Dane by her side, and they’d had a perfectly pleasant afternoon. Evan had flipped channels on the TV and been quietly miserable and in pain, and Lexie and Dane had worked. They’d interacted when it had made sense to and left one another alone when it hadn’t, and it had been fine, goddammit all.
With a heaviness in her heart, she closed her laptop and put on her best smile.
Only to be met with an even stiffer, faker one from Evan.
“Don’t,” he said, stopping her before she could so much as get a word out.
“Excuse me?”
“You think I don’t recognize your business face?”
She didn’t have a business face. Frowning, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know—”
“Look.” Evan’s features softened by a fraction. “You’re tired, I’m exhausted. You know they already cut my steak up for me.” He wiggled the fingers poking out of his cast, as if she’d forgotten in the last few hours why they would have had to. “Just—why don’t you guys go back to the hotel? Get some rest.”
That sounded . . . amazing, actually. But guilt made her stomach do flip-flops. “I’m not going to abandon you.”
“Of course you’re not. But I think I can manage to eat on my own.”
She bit her lip. That was debatable, honestly. If he dropped his fork without her here, he could be waiting ages before someone happened to come round. She should stay. She loved her brother, and she should stay.
But there was this pleading to his gaze, the exhaustion he’d just mentioned written so plainly across his face. The Bellamy children . . . they cared for one another. For years, they’d each been all the others had.
But at their hearts, they were proud, stubborn, self-reliant sorts. And Evan had always enjoyed his alone time to brood.
In the chair in the other corner, Dane closed the lid on his laptop, drawing her attention. She met narrowed, serious eyes, his head tilted in invitation. He was ready to let her handle this on her own, and he was also prepared to step in and make the decision for her.
When had she ever adored him more?
She rose and took a step closer to her brother. “I was planning to stay right here until you get out.”
“I know you were.” Evan gave her a faint smile, smaller but realer. “But I’m asking you to go.” His throat bobbed. “Take tomorrow, too, why don’t you?”
That made her pause. “But—”
“I do have other friends in town, you know.”
Of course he did. He had a whole life here. A handful of his classmates had stopped by over the course of the past few days. She’d cleared out every time they had, not wanting to intrude.
She chewed at her lip. “You’re sure someone would come and stay with you?” She paused, hesitating. “Marina, maybe?”
It was a wild stab. Evan had been dating the girl for a year or so. He’d even brought her home with him for Christmas once. But he’d stopped talking about her at some point in the past couple of months, and all her attempts to wheedle information out of him had come to nothing. But she’d never been so bald-faced about it before.
A darkness passed across his gaze, there and then gone in an instant. “Maybe,” he allowed. He raked his good hand through his hair. “Maybe just a couple of the guys. Seriously, though. You two should take a day off.” He gave her a one-armed shrug. “You could use one. Go tour around an art museum or something.”
And there was the brother she knew. “Ha-ha.”
“There are some really good ones. I can give you recommendations.”
Dane stepped forward now. “Thanks. But no thanks.”
“Suit yourselves.” Serious again, Evan darted his gaze between them. His voice dropped. “I heard you out in the hallway earlier. You need a break. And I’m telling you. Take it.”
She stood there for a long moment deliberating. The whole idea still made her feel like shit, but Evan wasn’t lying. Family was family, but he had friends he could rely on, too. Complicated as it might be, maybe even a girlfriend. He didn’t need her hovering.
And she had to admit. A day outside these walls sounded like a dream.
Well. Apparently she’d made her decision.
“I’m going to call and check in on you,” she warned. “And if you need anything—anything—you have to promise to call me, too. There’s nothing more important.”
Clearly sensing he’d won, Evan leaned farther back against his pillows and smirked. “Just go, will you? Before I make you feed me—airplane noises and all.”
She shuddered at the thought. Walking toward the bed, she shook her head. She took care not to jostle him too much or get tangled in any of his tubes or cords as she leaned in for a ginger hug. “Feel better, you hear?”
“You, too.”
She gave him a funny look. She felt fine.
But she also felt tired. A day away from here—a day with Dane—would do her good.
She cast a glance over at him as she packed up her things. He didn’t have quite so much family drama weighing him down, but there was a heaviness to him all the same. He’d been cooped up too much, supporting her emotionally and professionally. Living out of suitcases in a hotel, nearly two weeks now away from home.
A whole different kind of guilt gnawed at her. Injured as he was, her brother didn’t need her every minute of the day, and clearly, Dane didn’t, either. But he deserved more of her than he’d been getting. He deserved the world.
She was going to have to find a way to give it to him.
chapter TWENTY-FOUR
Fuck, it felt good to sleep in.
Blinking his eyes open, Dane rolled over onto his back and yawned. Instinct told him to get up and hit the ground running, but for once he didn’t have to. Evan had all but forbade them from visiting, and work could wait. Lifting his arms over his head, he stretched out long, wincing at the stiffness in his muscles. Whatever the hell they decided to do today, he hoped it at least involved moving. The handful of miles he’d managed to sneak in on the treadmill in the hotel’s fitness room hadn’t begun to scratch the itch.
And there were other itches desperately in need of scratching, too. He ran a lazy palm along his morning erection, wrapping his fingers around the base through his boxers and giving himself a quick tug. Leaving his hand there, he glanced over at Lexie. She was still asleep, her face soft in a way it so rarely was during waking hours. Not unless he’d worked her over good.
His cock gave a little kick against his palm. God, it had been forever. And that was something that was taking some getting used to. His arrangements with subs, even when they had been long-term, had never really included just existing in each other’s spaces. Living life in the days between their scenes.
He swallowed hard. That night they’d gone to the flamenco, he’d told Lexie she would find the beauty of her submission in the spaces between. When she was waiting and serving.
But who knew. Maybe he’d find the beauty of whatever they were building in a different kind of in b
etween. In the pieces of their lives that happened out of bed as well as in it.
Right now, his interest was definitely in it, though.
With one last, lingering stroke, he let go of himself and shifted, snugging up against her side. Her skin was all sleep-warm and soft, like silk beneath his fingertips. Parting his lips against the bare point of her shoulder, he swept his hand down her arm.
They’d both been too exhausted last night to get into it. There was a part of him that wasn’t 100 percent sure she’d be receptive now, but he was so hard for her, and it had been days. Turning his palm over, he brushed the curve of her breast through her tank top. She stirred but didn’t wake, eyelids fluttering, and the sigh she let out went straight to his cock.
He kissed his way up her throat to her ear and scraped his teeth across the lobe, willing her to wake, but she just shifted again. Her legs got into the action this time, too, though, thighs parting, one knee lifting. He groaned, the sweet scent of her hitting him. Aching with it, he said a silent little prayer for forgiveness before sliding his lips down her body.
All along the way, he kept checking in, sneaking glances at her face—at her closed eyes and red, wet, parted mouth. When he sucked her nipple between his lips through the fabric of her top, her forehead scrunched, and she let out the softest moan.
He had to stifle one of his own. Poor girl probably thought she was having one hell of a dream. He bit down harder on her peak, giving it a tug with his teeth before releasing, and then he was a man on a goddamn mission.
Slipping himself between her legs, he buried his nose into the sweet crease at the top of her thigh, then nuzzled at her mound, sliding his lips over her clit through the satin. She tasted ripe and perfect, all damp musk and need, and he ground himself against the mattress as he swept forward with his tongue. Too greedy, he drew his fingers up her thigh and tugged her underwear aside. When his knuckles brushed against her, she sucked in a breath. He pressed his lips right there and waited.
The second her eyelids fluttered open, he got his mouth on her clit and sucked.
It might as well have been a live wire, electricity zipping through her body as her spine arched. Her legs kicked higher and then spread.
Any reservations he might have had about his welcome disappeared.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” he said against her cunt.
With a laughing moan, she brought her hand to his head, running sleepy fingers through his hair. “You talking to me or . . .” She gestured vaguely at her pussy.
“It’s a toss-up.” He dug back in without another word, fitting his mouth over her opening and plunging forward with his tongue. She tasted so good, everything about her soft and sweet, and he could lose himself like this.
“Jesus.” Her hand in his hair tightened, her hips tilting up.
He shook his head and clasped her by the thigh. Pinning her to the mattress, he met her gaze. “Don’t move.” After another moment’s thought, he added, “And don’t come, either.”
“But—” The word left her mouth on a whine.
He pinched the tender flesh on the inside of her thigh. The way she melted beneath that tiny rebuke made his blood go hotter, the perfect focus settling in. Fuck, he’d needed this.
“Is that a safe word I hear?”
Shaking her head violently, she dropped her hand from his hair, her whole body seemingly slack and pliant, but just beneath the surface, a humming zing of tension and need still ran through her.
Perfect.
Closing his eyes, he pursed his lips around her clit and slipped two fingers just inside. If she was anything like him, she’d be on a hair trigger, ready to explode, and the sadist in him crowed. Crooking his fingers, he fucked her nice and steady, rubbing hard against her inner wall while taking rough, quick strokes with his tongue. She barely moved at all, only little flinches of her legs around his ears as he ate her out.
“Good girl,” he rumbled, parting from her to thrum at her clit with his thumb. “You’d let me do whatever I wanted with you, wouldn’t you?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Because that’s your job. Just to lie there. Just to take it.”
Her eyes clenched closed, chin minutely tipping back. Oh, she liked that.
“It’s what you were made for. A body for me to play with. Let me take you apart. Fuck you within an inch of your life, and if I told you not to come? Not even then? When I’m filling you up, and you’re so fucking close, ready to lose it all over my cock, you wouldn’t, would you?”
“Nooo . . .”
He was almost light-headed, his veins golden. “Who does this pussy belong to?”
“You—”
“That’s right.” He took a particularly vicious swipe at her G-spot, digging his fingers in. “And I’m gonna use it so good.”
He pulled his hand away, and she screamed, but shit, fuck, she was so good. She didn’t move at all. Not until he rolled her over, and even then, she let herself be moved.
Manhandling her, he got her exactly how he wanted her, face pressed into the mattress and ass in the air, supported on her knees with her pretty legs spread.
“That’s right,” he murmured. “That’s how you belong. Just leave you like this all day someday. Come along and play with your pussy when I’m bored.” For emphasis, he swiped his thumb down the slick length of her slit, barely a glance before pulling away. “Fuck you for a while and then go back to watching TV. Or to a meeting.”
“Oh God.”
“You’d love it, wouldn’t you?”
She sobbed. “Yes.”
He slapped his palm against her ass just to watch it turn pink, and he could actually see her pussy throb. Fuck, she’d love it even more if she were tied up, but he wouldn’t let himself think about that. Wouldn’t give in to the thought of how that creamy skin would look all bound with rope . . .
Somehow he managed to part from her long enough to dive over the side of the bed and get a condom. He rolled it on and settled himself between her spread knees. He let her feel him, pressing the hot, hard length of him against her rear and soaking in her moan.
“Yeah, that’s right. You want my cock?”
“Want whatever you want to give me.”
He almost came right then and there. How dare she? The most untrained sub he’d ever had, and how did she know?
Drawing away, he lined himself up, letting the tip of him rest just against her opening.
“Remember, you don’t come. Not until I tell you to.”
She nodded fiercely, lip between her teeth, and he loved her. He loved her so fucking much.
His whole body sang with the first, slow slide in. She was molten velvet all around him, so slick and hot. “Fuck.” He groaned as he bottomed out. “Your pussy is perfect. Best goddamn fuck I’ve ever had.”
He cut himself off before he could say any more. With her hips in his hands, he drew back only to plunge forward again, and how did it still feel so fucking good?
Time went sideways as he fucked her, his rhythm steady and her body shaking, spasming all around him. They were both on a knife’s edge, both in free fall. He wanted to stay there in that perfect place, the safest place, deep inside her and glowing with how much she wanted it, how much she gave him.
Free to be who he was. In control of his life and her and his destiny . . .
Maybe with her, he could be.
Before he could follow that thought too far down its rabbit hole, she clenched even tighter around him. The tension in her frame had reached a fever pitch. He didn’t know how he’d held back this long. She had to be dying. Releasing his grip on one side of her hips, he snaked a hand around. When he slipped his fingers over her clit, she let loose a cry that had his balls, already tight, squeezing like a vise.
He closed his eyes. “When I say, princess, all right?”
Shaking even harder, she nodded.
Like that, he gave up the reins on his control. He fucked her hard and fast, the wet slapping noises of th
eir bodies slamming together the only thing louder than their breath, than his heart.
All at once it crested over. He barely had the time to gasp, “Now, come for me now,” before it swept him away. His body and mind went blank as a wall of pleasure slammed into him, and it was to the sound of her wail, her pussy going nuclear around him. He emptied himself to the point of turning inside out, everything pouring free from him. He dropped his head to her spine and whispered this tumbling litany of her name.
Because there was her. Only her.
She was everything.
It took him a minute, but when he could see again, he patted her side, pulling out despite the urge to stay right there forever. Sighing, he tumbled to the side. His entire body hummed with satisfaction, but he reached a hand out, needing to touch her skin. She’d collapsed into a puddle against the sheets, her face blissful and her limbs all soft.
“You good, beautiful?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Glassy and warm, her gaze met his. “That was a nice surprise.”
He leaned in to take her mouth. Slipping his tongue inside, he tangled his lips with hers, then released her with a smile. “Fuck yeah, it was.”
“You like surprises?”
Her coherence was coming back to her entirely too quickly, while he still felt like taffy left out too long in the sun. “Of course.”
She had been the very best surprise of all.
“Good.” She stole another peck before sitting up. She combed her hands through her hair before letting it fall around her shoulders. A mischievous twist curled her lips. “Because today I’ve got one for you.”
chapter TWENTY-FIVE
“So what are the chances of you clueing me in to where we’re going before we get there?”
Gazing out the window of the car, Lexie grinned to herself. “Slim to none.” She spied the sign she’d been looking for and double-checked her GPS. “Take the left at the top of the hill.”
Dane didn’t reply, just tapped his thumb against the steering wheel of their rental car. For a second, she got distracted, staring at the line of his jaw. Damn, he looked good. They’d lucked out with a beautiful day today, and the sun on his golden skin made him seem to glow. The look of him in a fitted black tee and a pair of aviators didn’t hurt anything. God knew she loved him in a suit, but casual Dane was growing on her with every minute.
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