by Lynda Aicher
Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t back away. Not even an inch. And in her expression was the compassion he’d failed to give her.
Oh, God. He stepped back, appalled by his actions. I am an ass. Disgust clenched at his chest with its sick bite of truth. Misery sucked the strength from his legs and he sank to the bed to bury his face in his hands. Those were his ghosts, his crosses to bear. Not hers or anyone else’s. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice coarse from the grit in his throat. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“I get it,” she responded just as softly. “We’re all hurting.”
“That’s an excuse,” he bit out, rubbing at his temples. “It doesn’t justify me yelling at you.”
There was a touch to his shoulder, and he squeezed his eyes closed against the tide of warmth that rushed through him. She ran her hand down his arm, a trail of goose bumps following it. Every nerve ending was aware of her again. Of her standing before him, kneeling, grasping his wrists.
He swallowed, afraid to look. He could admit that to himself. His muscles ached under the strain to hold still. No one had kneeled at his feet since Beth. Not even at The Den, where he avoided the dungeon or any submissive who tried to get his attention.
Now Liv was here, unintentionally doing the one thing that would break him. If he lifted his head, would he see Beth’s face? Remember how she’d been? How much she’d needed him? How he’d failed her?
“You can cry,” she said, her voice cracking on the words, her hands trailing down from his wrists to stop at his thighs. “Then I can, too.”
Shit. He clenched his teeth against the need to let go. To let the dam burst free on everything he’d been holding back, but he didn’t know if he’d survive if he did. His jaw throbbed, his teeth protested and it was all for nothing when her soft sniff reached him.
He couldn’t deny her. Not the comfort she sought or the refuge she offered. He forced himself to open his eyes, lift his head and see the woman before him. It wasn’t Beth at all. Not the warm brown eyes or the vulnerability stuffed behind the indomitable will or the red lip that quivered between the teeth that held it. This was Liv.
Strong, giving Liv.
With a trembling hand, he guided her head to his lap and let the dam shatter with everything else in his life.
*
Liv clung to Noah as her tears fell. The ones she’d tried to suppress and control all day pooled from her eyes to roll down her cheeks. Instead of the gush of remorse she’d expected, there was only a silent slide of grief. It drained from her in a slow siphon that bled the wretched day from her bones.
Noah’s hold on her nape was warm and solid, like the leg beneath her cheek and the press of his other hand on her back. He was alive. Here. He’d been there for her all day, like she’d been for him. An unlikely pairing, but he’d become her anchor. Did he know that? He was everyone’s anchor.
The stoic man had carried them through the day with his logic and forethought. He’d been a step ahead on everything from the hospital, to the police, to the media and then the club. His supposed detachment hadn’t fooled her though. That was just one of the reasons she’d agreed when he’d offered his guest room to her.
He needed to let the pain out. If not in tears, then in anger or passion or simple comfort. His angry outburst had confirmed that and now, finally, he was letting it out. She told herself that, meaning it, while soaking up the relief of being surrounded by him.
They sat like that until her tears stopped. She wanted to protest when he straightened, but she bit her tongue and let him go. He kept his hand on her neck, his thumb caressing the sensitive spot below her ear. It was her cue to move.
With reluctance, she lifted her head and met his gaze. The locked-up pain that had maintained the distance in his eyes was gone, replaced by a heated wonder.
He wet his lips, his tongue pausing a second before it disappeared again. “Do you know what you’ve done?” There was a mystery in his inquiry that turned the deep rasp intimate. It raced through her in a rush of desire.
He wiped the tears from her face, his touch gentle and lingering. She moistened her own dry lips, sucking in air that seemed to have disappeared from her lungs.
“Offered you comfort,” she finally answered because that was what she’d intended. “Gave you a place to let go.”
“If only you understood,” he whispered before closing the distance between them. His lips were on hers before she could process his words or actions.
Soft and searching, she opened on instinct. The kiss was tender nips and soft licks that had her head spinning with the slow assault when she’d expected aggression. There was nothing hesitant about it though, just like him.
He cupped her face and brought her up until she was kneeling between his legs, and she willingly followed. She leaned into him, circling her arms around his waist to hold him closer. But it wasn’t enough.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth, tangling with hers before he eased back to nibble on her lip. Her moan came from deep in her chest. It rumbled between them before he caught it with a press of his mouth on hers once again.
Heat ran liquid and scorching down her neck to peak her nipples before settling in her sex. She clutched at his back, scrambling to get closer, to hang on as he demolished her thoughts with nothing more than his lips and tongue.
She followed him when he tried to lean back.
“We should—”
She closed her mouth over his before he could say more. What they should do was finish this. They both needed it.
He didn’t protest when she cupped his face and deepened the kiss. Everything was focused on him. His firm lips, the rough stubble under her palms, the gentle press of his hands as one slid down her neck, the other into her hair.
She was gasping for air when he finally yanked free to trail a line of kisses down her jaw. Her chest heaved in time with her racing heart and she didn’t want it to slow. Not one bit. She dug at the hem of his sweater, tugged his shirt free from his pants to skim her palms over his back. His hiss rang in her ear and encouraged her to explore.
“We should—”
She shook her head and nipped his earlobe. He grunted then tugged her up, her knees leaving the floor so fast she could only gasp when her back hit the bed. He rolled on top of her, his weight holding her down with its welcomed confirmation of life. This was real. Here. Right.
He buried his face in her neck, his teeth grazing over the flesh in a hot line of teasing torture.
“Noah,” she panted, her legs locking around his hips. There were too many clothes between them. Too much distance. She wanted nothing but skin on skin, hot breaths and urgent cries.
“Liv.”
Her name was a throaty plea that only encouraged her to grind her hips into his. The hard outline of his arousal met the juncture of her hip and leg, and she shifted so it ran between her legs the next time. The shot of pleasure sang through her to flush her hot with abandon.
“We should—”
“Finish this,” she snarled. She yanked on his hair, his head jerking up to show his startled anger under a hard frown and curled lip. It didn’t deter her. If anything, it fueled her determination. “We both want it. Need it. So don’t you dare stop over some misplaced sense of guilt.”
Their breaths panted between them, faces inches apart in a moment of indecision that seemed to go on forever. His nostrils flared with each harsh inhale that pumped his chest. She tightened her grip around the silky strands of his hair and silently dared him to deny her.
“Damn it.” His curse sliced through the tension with a cutting edge before he claimed her mouth with a forcefulness that had her silently begging for more.
He jerked her hands from their hold on his hair to slam them over her head. He drove his hips down, his erection marking a solid line up her pubic bone. She arched into him, helped by the position of her arms and the raging drive to get more.
His eyes were dark as midnight when he lifted hi
s head to stare down at her. Everything in her quaked with hunger for the promise in that one look. He switched his grip to hold her wrists in one hand. His other drifted down her arm to cup her throat.
“I want this,” he ground out. The cold words were countered by the fire in his voice.
She gasped, her chin lifting at the slight pressure of his hand. Images cycled rapid-fire through her mind of floggers, bonds, being held down, then skidded on to the terror she’d always envisioned if she was forced to submit.
But he wasn’t forcing her.
And she wanted it. It was reckless and stupid and everything she wasn’t, but she craved it right then, which was why she wet her lips and said, “Please.”
Chapter Ten
The soft plea almost gutted Noah. There was no fear in her dark eyes. No hesitancy or nerves either. He was ten times the fool to follow through, yet the option to stop was ripped away by her single word. “This is—”
“Right,” she broke in, her insistence snapping out to bite at the dominance he was battling to control.
Fuck. It wasn’t, but he was done with logic. Done analyzing and resisting and denying. His kiss was hard, a way to declare what he was taking. She made him lose control, almost demanded that he did, and for once he let go.
The blood roared in his ears to compound the thump of his heart. But he caught every sigh and whimper and breathy moan that came from her. Each sound was an exclamation of her passion. He wanted to hear her scream in pleasure. To give her everything she needed.
He could do that for her.
He released her wrists to shove her sweatshirt and bra over her head. He had to touch her everywhere. Absorb her heat until it singed the hair on his arms. Burned away the darkness that edged his life.
His breath stuck in his lungs, and her clothing was tossed aside without thought as his gaze ran down the sight of her. Wrists crossed over her head, lips parted, swollen and red with invitation. Her full breasts forced up, nipples peaked on dark tips that begged to be sucked. Savored. Bit. So he did.
The bud was a tease on his tongue, and he rolled it over and under before sucking it between his lips. Her cry was soft and timed with a short thrust of her breast toward him. He tried to hold back, to slow it down, but it was impossible. He devoured the tip, a final hard suckle ending with a firm grip of his teeth that had her curling in with a hiss.
He glanced up, his hold still solid on her tender flesh to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were wide, mouth open in a silent exclamation. He narrowed his eyes, his challenge leveled in the heartbeat it took her to inhale and flop back to the bed.
A surge of satisfaction shot right to his hard-as-nails dick with a dose of desire that forced him to release his prize for fear of hurting her too badly. That wasn’t his intent. He balanced the freed beast of his dominant nature with his equally strong drive to nurture.
“God, Noah.” Her voice had deepened, bleeding with the desire he’d created in her. It was so fucking sexy. “That was…intense.”
He cupped her other breast and dove in to lavish it with the same attention. She tasted sweet and salty with a hint of spice, just like her.
She bucked, her hips rotating in a seeking circle that he answered. He got her jeans undone, his mouth still working her nipple, and drove his hand under the thin material of her panties to find her heat.
Her strangled whimper matched his. She was wet and so hot he almost came simply from touching her. Patience shot, he sat up and yanked the rest of her clothes from her body. The intoxicating scent of her arousal slammed into him, upping the urgency that already clawed at him. Her jeans and underwear were barely over her feet before he spread her legs and ran his tongue through the heady track of her sex. The musky flavor burst to life in his mouth, urging him to find more. Suck harder, open her wider so he could get at every inch of her.
“I’m gonna—” Her muscles clenched around him, and he drew the swollen bud of her clit into his mouth while penetrating her tight channel with his fingers. She exploded around him, a high cry ringing through the room. She curled up, gasped, twisted beneath him as her arousal coated his fingers. And still he didn’t relent.
He drove her harder. Kept the pressure on her oversensitive clit and teased the sensitive bud of her anus. She flinched, cheeks clenching at the touch before he thrust his fingers back into her channel. She flew into another orgasm on a silent contraction of muscles.
Damn. He lapped up her juices, driven to make this the best for her. She huffed a tortured moan that was both pleasure and pain, and it slicked over him in a tide of satisfaction.
He lifted his head, his face wet from her release, her scent filling him on every inhale to take in the full vision of her. Stunning was his first thought. Her arms were spread wide, eyes closed, breasts heaving with each rapid inhale. She was floating, exactly how he wanted her.
How he loved his submissives to be. Drowning in that satisfied state that let them drift in a plane of simply being.
He wiped his sleeve over his mouth then yanked his sweater off. The rest of his clothes followed in an urgent need to bury himself deep within her. He had the condom out of the bedside drawer and on his dick before he crawled back over her.
Her eyes cracked open when the mattress jiggled, a smile curving over her red lips. Her lazy, sated perusal of him left his skin burning. He tracked her tongue when it peeked out, wanting to dive in and grab it with his teeth.
“Now I know what’s in that drawer.”
The husky grate of her voice and teasing light in her eyes stole the last of his thinly held control. He tapped her hip. “Roll over.”
Her brows drew together, but she didn’t resist when he helped her along. The line of her back was long and pristine. Not a freckle or mole to mar the creamy surface that brought the two tiny dents at the arch of her ass into full relief. He groaned, the sound rumbling from deep in his throat.
He fucking loved back dimples. They were secret little teasers usually hidden to everyone, and that made them even more attractive.
He pressed a kiss to each one. The divots were worth worshiping, yet it would have to wait.
Her skin glided under his in the softest of caresses under his palms. He wanted to touch every inch of her until all of her secrets were revealed, but the demand to lose himself in her was too strong for that now.
Her arms were limp in his hands when he moved them over her head to cuff her wrists in his hand. He nuzzled her nape, her scent laden with the musky tinge of sex. She gasped when he nipped her earlobe then sighed as he sucked it into his mouth to sooth the sting.
Bracing himself between her legs, he lowered his chest to her back. He savored the sweetness of first contact before she arched up, her ass rolling into his pelvis in an undeniable invitation.
His erection throbbed with the necessity to be sheathed within her. But even more, his heart pounded with the need to be fully connected with her. She was warmth and light and hope unspoken in his arms.
He closed his eyes, his hold contracting on her waist as he eased in. She tilted her hips just enough for him to slide into her heat on a glide of pure ecstasy. Her walls gripped him, stoked the edges of the sensitive head and seemed to bring him home. Waves of tingling pleasure rippled up his spine and down his limbs.
It was…too much. Not enough. Everything he’d been avoiding for years. It was more than simple sex and release.
“You feel so good,” she whispered, her breath kissing his lips.
Sweat beaded down his back, his restraint tested, but to move was to lose it.
“I’m going to take you,” he rasped into her ear. “I won’t be easy on you.” He added the last to prepare her.
Her eyes fluttered open and she appraised him over her shoulder. There was a smile or maybe it was a dare on her lips when she said, “Good.”
Fuck. A full-blown growl tore from his chest, and the animal within him burst free. He sunk his teeth into the juncture of her neck and grabbed her hips to lift
her on to her knees. He was back in her before her cry ended.
Her hot channel clamped around him, and he withdrew to sink deeper into her.
“God, yes,” she whimpered, pushing back. “Harder.”
The bed creaked when he slammed his hips forward, skin slapping as he upped the pace. His fingers dug into the flesh on her hips, but her spine arched and dipped when she met every one of his thrusts.
She drove him insane. There was no other word for the mad clash that raged inside him. She was a wild goddess spread out before him, hands fisted in the covers, biceps flexing with every push back to meet him.
He snaked an arm around her waist to hug her close, slowing his hips just enough to drag out their building climaxes. Their skin was slick where it met, her hair damp at her nape when he nuzzled it.
“You’re…” He couldn’t finish his thought. There were so many things she was, none of which he could voice.
“Close,” she finished. “Just…” She tilted her hips, rocked them to his slower rhythm that was the best dance he’d ever had. “Yeah…” Her sigh was one of pure satisfaction and borderline rapture.
That was his final undoing. He lifted up and drove into her with crazed thrusts that were far from the tender moments of seconds before. He had enough presence of mind to find her clit. The nub rolled beneath his finger for only a breath before she was thrashing, clamping down on his dick in spasmed grasps that yanked his orgasm from him.
He ground into her, tried to get closer as his world went black then exploded with light. His muscles went tense, strained to breaking before it all crashed. Pleasure screamed over him. Skittering lines of joy radiated from his groin to bathe him in the sensation.
His arms and legs shook. Liv heaved a last sob and collapsed to the bed. He followed her down, unwilling to lose the connection, but he had enough brain particles working to catch himself on his elbows to keep from squashing her.
