by K. M. Scott
“When you wrote that scene about Kate standing outside the house of the man she loves. She was stalking him, and I thought you wrote that because you did that to me. I know you would never hurt me, but it scared me. So I ran away.”
Backing up, I release her, now angry with her too. “I did do that. Just like the character, I stood outside your apartment one night and watched just to see you. But that you think me doing that would harm you makes me wonder if you know me at all, Kristina.”
She reaches out to touch me, but I won’t let her. The frustration and fear of losing me again registers in her expression. When she speaks, it’s even clearer. “Ian, don’t say that. I know you. Don’t say I don’t.”
“You say you know me, but you think I’d hurt you? You think missing you so much that I stand out on the sidewalk across the street from your building praying for just a glimpse of you is me wanting to hurt you?”
I back up even further from her and watch the tears well in her eyes. This reunion isn’t turning out how I’d hoped it would, but I can’t change who I am and she deserves to know that.
Kristina grabs my hand and holds it tight. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent so much time worrying about stalkers. I didn’t mean that I was afraid you’d hurt me, though. Tell me you know that. Please tell me you know that.”
I try to pull my hand away, but she refuses to let go and I pull her into me. For a long moment, we stare at each other afraid of what the next words may be from the other’s mouth. I can’t do anything but admit who I am again and remind her of the kind of man she’s with.
“I’m addicted to you. I have been since the first time I saw you, days before meeting you that first night. It’s who I am. I became addicted to how you make me feel, and that night I stood outside looking up at your windows, I wanted to feel that. I can’t change this, Kristina.”
“You’re addicted to me like a drug?” she asks in a confused voice.
I nod. “Just like a drug. When I’m with you, I feel like the man I want to be but most times can’t be. But with you, I can. When I’m not with you, I crave your touch, the taste of your lips, the sound of your voice, your smile when I read what I’ve written to you. Most of the time, I’m okay just knowing I’ll see you again, but other times…”
My voice trails off as I remember how I felt standing outside her apartment staring up at her windows. “Other times, like that night, I want so much to see you that I’d willingly hide in the shadows just for a glimpse of you from the street below.”
My confession doesn’t frighten her, but I see in her eyes her confusion. Her therapist was wrong. She doesn’t get addicted to people. If she did, she’d know exactly what this feels like.
“I missed you so much. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything. I’m sorry I got scared. I was being stupid.”
I kiss her lips and cradle her face. “You weren’t stupid. I never thought that would frighten you, but you weren’t stupid.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and then the question she asks me makes me more jealous than I ever thought possible. “What if I slept with someone else too?”
All at once, I want to push her away and hold her to me. I bite out, “Did you?”
“No, but I can tell it bothers you. Now you know how I feel.”
I drop my hands from her face and walk away from her. “Feelings aren’t like that. I can’t know what you feel any more than you can know what I feel, other than if we tell each other.”
“Then let me tell you how I feel. Like my heart was being ripped from my chest. I heard you in here with her. Heard her making the same sounds I make when you make love to me. I wanted to run away but all I could do was stand there and listen to you with her. That’s how I feel, Ian!”
I turn around to face her. “You said you forgave me.”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt to think about it. Maybe I should go out and fuck another man. I could have tonight. I met someone at a bar and he gave me a ride here. I could call him and then maybe you’d know how I feel.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Make you understand what it feels like when you know the person you care about is with someone else? Imagine yourself outside my apartment door hearing me moan another man’s name as he fucks me. I’m on his lap straddling his hips riding his cock and I make that noise you love—the one like a whimper right before I come. Imagine hearing that, Ian. And then I want you to just forgive me.”
Her anger isn’t just at me. I know that. But it doesn’t change how much her words fucking hurt. I hate the man she met tonight. I don’t care that she didn’t do anything with him. I hate him.
And I love her.
I walk to her and can’t hold back. I want her. I need her. “Not another fucking word, Kristina. You’re mine. No one else. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t,” she sobs. “I don’t understand how to forget you with her, Ian. Make me understand.”
Stuffing my hands into her hair, I pull her head back and kiss her hard. Her mouth surrenders to mine and as I snake my tongue past her lips to tease hers, an ache in my hard cock spreads throughout my body.
“I need you so fucking bad,” I whisper against her lips. “I never needed her like you. I never wanted her like you.”
Kristina’s hands slide down my chest to unbutton my pants, her fingers fumbling with the zipper as we kiss. Finally, she slides her hand beneath my boxer briefs and palms my cock, and it stiffens even more. “Tell me what you did with her.”
“No,” I groan as she slowly strokes my cock.
“Then I’ll assume you did the same things with her and won’t do them again. Tell me.”
I tug her hair harder and close my eyes as she rubs the head of my cock. “I took her from behind. I could pretend it was you if I didn’t see her face.”
Kristina kisses me as she plays with my cock and then says, “Then you can’t do that with me just like you won’t let me use my fingers with you.”
I want her so bad at that moment, I agree. “Deal. Now get those clothes off unless you want them to end up ripped off your body.”
She slides her skirt down her legs to reveal nothing underneath. Her pussy, clean shaven and bare, makes me want to bury my face in her, and as she strips off her sweater, I drop to my knees to taste her. With my thumbs, I open her folds so no part of her is hidden to me and gently flick my tongue up her gorgeous wet slit, loving her taste on my tongue. Musky and sweet, she’s all I want in my mouth.
Her hands tighten in my hair when my tongue reaches her clit, and I suck it into my mouth, knowing what it will do to her. Above me, she moans my name and my cock twitches its need to be inside her.
I stand and kiss her, letting her taste her own juices. “That’s what I crave when you’re not here. The taste of that pretty cunt on my tongue.”
Biting her lip, she leads me toward the windows. I know what she wants. She wants to show the world as much as she’s mine, I’m hers. I step out of the rest of my clothes and pull her body to me. “Not feeling so shy anymore?”
She shakes her head and smiles not-so-innocently. “Not tonight. I want everyone to see us.”
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her to me. “Come here. I want you on your knees sucking my cock.”
Slowly, she lowers herself to the floor and opens her mouth. I guide my cock between her lips and thrust hard so the head butts up against the back of her throat. I want to fuck her face like I want to fuck her cunt.
Hard and deep.
Her hand wraps around the base, giving her some control, but I push my hands into her hair and grip tightly to direct her as she sucks me. I love the feel of her mouth and tongue gliding over my skin while she looks up at me with those gentle eyes as I ram my cock into her.
I want to claim her. I want anyone who sees her to know that mouth is only for me. I want my cum to mark her as mine.
It doesn’t take long for just the sight of her
sucking me off to get me there, and I gently slide my fingertips over her jaw as a sign that I’m about to come. She knows and doesn’t stop, taking all of me into her mouth as I shoot down her throat. Eyes closed, she continues to suck as I empty my balls into her.
Sitting back on her heels, she licks her lips and smiles up at me. “I’m getting better at that, don’t you think?”
I tilt her chin up toward me. “What does my Kristina want?”
“You. I want you inside me.”
I lower myself to the floor and pushing her hair off her face, kiss her long and deep. I love her. I want her. But even more than that, I need her. Only she can make me happy. I trace the outline of her beautiful lower lip with the pad of my thumb, and she takes it into her mouth, sucking the tip so erotically my cock strains against my body in need.
As she looks up at me with those blue eyes so sweet, I say in a low voice, “I want you from behind.” I know what I said before, but I can’t allow anything to come between us.
“Ian…” she says, pleading for me to do as she asked earlier.
“I want us to share everything. Nothing can stand between us.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Kristina
“But you did that—”
“We’ll never get past that if it’s always between us. Give me this, and I’ll give you anything your heart desires, Kristina.”
I close my eyes and think about how I felt as I stood outside his door listening to him with her. He’s right. I’ll never be able to forget that if it remains between us.
But my stomach turns at the idea of being with him like that now.
Slowly, I shake my head. I can’t do it.
“Open your eyes and look at me, Kristina.”
His words aren’t a request, but I don’t want to look at him. He’s pushing too hard, and a tiny part inside me wants to run away again. “No.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out. Give me what I asked and everything I am is yours.”
His words sound strained, as if my refusal hurts him. Slowly, I open my eyes and see the pain in his gaze as he watches me. “I’m scared, Ian. Scared you’re going to ask for this tonight and then leave me tomorrow. Scared I don’t mean as much to you as you do to me.”
“You’re everything to me, Kristina. Every fucking thing. I spent every day here missing you so much it hurt. My body ached without you. I couldn’t think about anything else. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t do anything without you. Baby, I need you so much I’m lost.”
I hang my head to hide my tears I can’t hold back anymore. “It hurts so much to know that you were with her. But like you said, you can’t know how that feels because you aren’t feeling it. Maybe I should go.”
“And do what? Run away again?”
His words edge with sharpness, and I look up to see anger in his face. I don’t deserve that anger, but if he wanted to feel it, then I’d hurt him too.
“No. If I leave, I’m going to find someone else to fuck tonight. Then you’ll know how much it hurts, Ian.”
“I told you don’t say that,” he whispers, his voice bristling with rage.
“Don’t say I want you to understand how much you hurt me?”
He slides his hands into my hair and tugs roughly before he whispers against my lips, “Don’t talk about you with someone else.”
“Not just with someone else, Ian. Imagine knowing I was going down on another man, sucking his cock dry like I do with you. Imagine knowing what you thought was so special is nothing but something so common I could find it with someone I meet in a bar.”
His fingers tremble with anger against my head, but I know I’m getting through to him. I want him to feel what I felt, so I say the words I know will seal the pain into him. “Imagine another man getting me off and feeling like I’m his, Ian.”
The hurt radiates off him. His eyes narrow and he winces as the meaning of my words sink into his mind. I don’t know if I should be afraid, but I’m governed by pain so much that I can’t stop.
“Does that hurt?”
When he finally speaks, his words are carefully measured but I know I’ve succeeded. “Kristina, I want to put this behind us. You left me. What I did with that woman meant nothing to me, but you with someone else would mean a great deal to me.”
“How much?”
“How much what?” he asks as he presses his body tightly to mine.
“How much would me fucking another man mean to you, Ian?” When he doesn’t answer, I ask the question again, louder this time. “How much would it mean to you if I fucked another man, Ian?”
I see something flash in his eyes, and he stands me up and spins me around to face the window and the outside world I so wanted to see me claim him just a few minutes ago. With his palm pressed against my throat, he whispers low and deep in my ear, “You want to hear me say I hate the idea of you with someone else, Kristina? That I’d want to kill him if I knew you’d been with him? That just the thought of it makes my fucking chest hurt like someone’s carving into me? Is that what you want?”
Staring at the reflection of him standing behind me, I see the agony in his eyes as he speaks those words, and I answer truthfully. “Yes.”
He slides his hand between my legs and thrusts two fingers inside me, making my legs go weak when he adds the pad of his thumb to press on my clit. “Then hear me now. You’re mine. Only I get to be inside you. Only I get to taste your body. And yes, I would kill him if I found out you’d been with another man.”
I can’t help but moan as he speaks and his fingers fuck me. But can I let him be with me like he was with her?
“I don’t want to hear another thing about anyone else, Kristina. Do you understand? There is no one else for me, and there is no one else for you. Now put your hands against the window and brace yourself.”
The thought of protesting—of saying no—passes through my mind, but before I have the chance to say anything, he’s so deep inside me I feel like I can’t breathe. I push my damp palms against the glass, feeling its smooth surface slide under my touch, but his hands on my hips hold me fast to him, making sure I don’t fall.
Each thrust into me pushes my body forward, and each time he leaves me I fall back, my body searching for what only he can give me. His fingers press hard into the flesh covering my hipbones, but whatever pain I feel is masked by the pleasure his cock sliding in and out of me provides.
His lips skim my neck and he says low in my ear, “I missed you so fucking much, Kristina. I couldn’t do anything but think of you and hope the pain of being without you went away someday soon. But without you, it would never have left me.”
Balancing with one hand against the glass, I cradle his cheek with my free hand as he begins to slow his movement into my body. “I missed you so much, Ian.”
“Promise me you’ll never leave again,” he says in a hoarse voice as he buries himself inside me and I feel his release flood my insides.
The sensation of him filling me sends me tumbling over the edge. Clinging to him as his cock pulses inside me, I swear to never leave him again. “I promise. Never.”
His hips slow their thrusting, and in a whisper I barely hear, he says, “I love you, Kristina. Please don’t leave me.”
Ian slides out of my body and wraps his arms around me as he gently places kisses on my cheek. Leaning back, I rest my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat as it gradually returns to normal after our lovemaking.
“I love you, Ian,” I say quietly as he strokes my hair. “And I’m sorry. I should have never run away like I did.”
“I told you we’d see one another again. I never doubted it.”
As he continues to gently caress me, I think back to that message he sent the night I left him. Had he truly never doubted that we’d see each other again? For all my belief that I’d loved him before, it wasn’t until I missed him that I realized how deeply I needed him. Had he felt that before I left?
* * *
; We lie in his bed silently holding one another as the last remnants of the pain and sadness of the past week slip away. I think about how much I missed him—his touch, his voice, his eyes when he looks at me like he can’t go on without me. I don’t want to lose him again. We’re both messed up. I know that. But can’t messed up people be happy too?
I want that so much—to be happy just like we are at this moment. With my head rested on his chest, I trace my fingertip down over his lean stomach to the thin, dark line of hair that leads to his cock. Touching the soft down, I feel his skin tremble beneath my fingers and look up at him to see a smile on his face.
“Were you sleeping?”
“Not exactly, but all it takes is one touch of your hand on me and I’m wide awake.”
“Is it early?” I ask, unsure if I’ve even slept this night.
Ian leans over toward the night table to see his alarm clock and groans. “Not even six yet. Go back to sleep.”
“You don’t want me to…?” I leave my question incomplete, but he pulls me up to kiss me on the lips.
“Later. Now I just want to feel you in my arms.”
His disinterest in sex strangely makes me happy. I’d worried more than once that everything we are revolves around our physical connection, but with his refusal of me going down on him I feel like our emotional connection is at least as meaningful to him as it is to me.
“Unless you really want to twist my arm.”
I hear the teasing in his voice and smile. “Just so I’m clear on this, we aren’t just sex, are we?”
My attempt at being lighthearted falls flat. His expression hardens, and he asks, “Do you think all I care about is fucking you?”
“No, no,” I protest, but it’s too late. I’ve ruined everything. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like that.”
Taking my face in his hands, he cradles my cheeks and kisses me on the tip of my nose. “I don’t want you to ever think that. Tell me you know that.”
I nod. “I do. I didn’t mean to ruin our nice time together. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Kristina. You didn’t ruin anything. I guess it’s natural to wonder if all we are is sex since it’s so incredible between us.”
