by Karen Ferry
Have I told her too much? Can she hear how much in love with her I am?
She lets out a shuddering breath and puts the photograph down to the others lying on top of the printer, smoothing it flat as if afraid she’s accidentally creased it.
“Thank you.”
She glances over her shoulder, beaming at me, and I can’t resist taking her mouth. So that’s what I do – I plunge my tongue through her lips, teasing her and giving her everything as well as take my fill of her. Her low moan sends my blood simmering, but before I lose myself in her, I pull back.
“Come,” I huff, “let me feed you.”
She nods and puts her hand in my outstretched one, entangling our fingers.
“You know me so well already,” she laughs.
Her good mood is infectious, and I grin at her because it’s true: she’s always hungry when we meet up, usually having come straight from the dance studio. I’m not much of a cook, but I make a mean lasagne.
“Can I help?”
I shake my head and pull out a chair at my bar.
“Nope. Just sit down and relax, sweetheart. Talk to me.”
She shrugs but does as I ask.
“What should we talk about?”
I consider my words carefully as I get the food out of the stainless-steel refrigerator.
“I want to know more about you,” I start and rest my arms on the counter opposite her.
Her eyes shine with mirth as she takes a sip of water.
“Ever the journalist, eh?”
I give her a crooked smile.
“Partly, but I’m also a selfish bastard. Tell me something that you’ve never told anyone else.” I wink exaggerated at her, loving the sound of her snort-giggling. “Make me feel special.”
“Okay…let me think.” Her eyes turn thoughtful, and I set about cooking the meat and giving her some time. The truth is I am being selfish. I want her to trust me completely, to know that she can confide in me and whatever she tells me won’t be repeated elsewhere.
The article hangs over our heads, but we don’t talk about it much. The contract was finally approved by her solicitors and she signed it and sent it to the legal department, and I know she feels more secure now in the knowledge that she’ll have the final say in it before it goes to print.
But I want her to trust me.
“I was adopted when I was three days old.”
My head snaps back in her direction.
“What?”
She gives me a lopsided smile.
“You heard me, Fin.”
The revelation throws me for a loop.
“My parents told me when I was fifteen,” she continues and crosses her legs on the barstool. She draws circles on the glass with her thumb and avoids my probing eyes. “It was a complete surprise to me, of course, but no drama ensued after I learned the truth. It just…made sense?” She tilts her head at me, her brows furled together. “I didn’t look like my parents at all, for one thing, and even though Maman adores the ballet, my talent didn’t come from her.” She shrugs as if it’s not important, but I know she’s only playing it cool for show.
“I’m sure it meant a great deal at the time.”
She nibbles on her lower lip, and I instantly want to tug it between my teeth, but I shake my head of the lust coursing through my veins. Now isn’t the time.
“It did, you’re right.”
“Did your parents know your biological parents?”
She nods as she purses her lips.
“Yes. And I want to tell you who it is, but if I do, I’m afraid it’ll wreak havoc with us, and I’m scared.”
Immediately, I turn off the stove and go to her and put my hand on her cheek, tipping up her chin with my thumb.
“Don’t be scared. Nothing you say will ever diminish the way I feel about you. I’m so fucking in love with you, Amelie, you’ll never lose me. I swear it.”
Her eyes turn round, and her mouth pops open in shock.
“Really?”
I nod, emotions clogging up my throat. I shuffle between her legs and press into her, silently telling her I need to be close to her.
“Say it again, please.”
“I love you. I think I fell for you the first time we met, only I didn’t want to admit it. I want you so fucking much to belong to me, because I’m yours, sweetheart.”
I don’t get out another word because her mouth is on mine, prying it open with her tongue. I groan and push my dick into her belly and tilt my head as I frame her face, ravaging her lips. I suck her tongue deeply, earning me a gasp as I feel her hands dig into my biceps. I ache for her, rock hard and burning up.
I wrench my mouth from hers and lift her up, and she wraps her legs around my waist as I turn to take her to my bedroom. Her moans fill my ears, my eyes rolling to the back of my head as her mouth attacks my neck, sucking and kissing my feverish skin.
My bed is too far away for what I want to do and instead, I turn to the dining room and put her on the table. We’re groaning, panting with lust and love as we undress each other, and I’m gasping for breath when her fingers free my cock from my jeans, her hand closing around it. I thrust into her hand as I move my mouth down her neck and close them around her rosy nipple still covered by her bra.
“Fin, oh,” she sighs, her thighs clinging to me. “I need you inside me. Show me how much you love me. Je t’aime, mon cœur.”
I turn wild as the words I’ve been craving to hear fall from her sweet mouth, and I release her nipple with a loud pop and lick at the swell of them, needing one more taste, before I yank the cups down to reveal the hard buds. I look deeply into her eyes, needing to see her desire shining back at me as I pull and rub at the tight peaks, and I’m not disappointed. The darkness of her dilated pupils spurs me on, and I look down to where her hand works at my cock.
“Harder,” I pant, groaning when she immediately does as I say. I won’t last long, but before I spill into her slick heat, I need more. “Put your feet on the table and spread your legs for me, sweetheart.”
I shuffle closer, her hand still trapped between us, and bend to take her mouth. I reach for her pussy, swallowing her whimpers as I press my finger against her wet clit. I move down to her opening and put two of my digits inside, stretching her as I twist them, before I fuck her. The louder she moans, the harder I stroke her clit until the softness of it alerts me that she’s so close to coming.
Our coupling is rough around the edges, wild, and animalistic, and as wetness bursts from her, I can’t keep back any longer.
“Can I come inside?” I pant. “Fuck, I want to feel you bare.”
“Yes,” she presses her lips against my pulse point and removes her hand from my cock. “It’s safe.”
I don’t stop to think. I move on instincts alone as I put my hands on her hips and pull her to the edge of the table. Bending at the knees, I line up my cock at her entrance and keep our gazes locked as I push inside, and I almost spill my seed at once as her warmth engulfs my cock.
“Fuck. Me,” I groan. “You’re so fucking tight, and warm, and drenched.”
“Fuck me, Fin,” she pants as she leans back, resting her upper body on her elbows. The sight of her tits bouncing, her nipples a dark rosy colour, sets me off, and I do as she wants.
I fuck her and spread her legs wider, needing to see us joined as I do. I know I set a gruelling pace, rutting against her like a beast, but as her moans grow wild and loud, she never looks away, and I know she wants this as much as I do.
That she craves it.
She welcomes my fire as hers roars inside her veins. Our sweat mingles as the sounds of our skin slapping in perfect unison fills the room, and I’m so fucking deep, my balls slap against her pussy. Her mouth is open, and her skin is flushed from head to toe.
She’s never looked more beautiful as she does when she becomes lost in our lovemaking.
“Fin!”
Her inner walls tighten seconds before her orgasm tears through he
r, and that’s all I need to let go of my own. On a loud groan I snap my head back and spill my seed inside her pussy, my mouth open. I bury myself to the hilt, needing to taste her while I’m still wrapped up in her embrace, and I lean down, pushing her back with my weight as I take her lips. Trembling, I rest my weight on her, moaning as her tits rub against my chest.
“I love you,” I whisper. “Fuck, I adore you.”
“I love you, too.” The words pierce me as much as they delight me. “But, Fin, I never told you…”
I silence her words with another long, wet kiss. I don’t need her secrets today. We have all the time in the world for that.
“Shh…” I glide deeper inside her, my cock still hard, and she gasps against me. “I forgot to feed you.”
There’s a moment of silence but then it’s interrupted by the rumblings coming from her tummy, and she laughs.
“Come on.” I smile down at her and carefully pull out. “Let me take care of you. We’ll talk later.”
Much, much later, I think as I pull her inviting nipple deep into my mouth, licking the bud, before I walk away to fetch her a cloth to wipe my seed from her pussy.
But later turns to days, then weeks. As I look back on what happened, I’d have stopped and listened to her, because it turns out she was right when she said her secret would wreak havoc with us. That I would destroy us before we even began.
I was a fool not to pay attention to her.
11
Amelie
The dance studio is empty and quiet, exactly where I need to be right now. It’s the place where I can escape my thoughts and focus on my craft.
Tonight, I dance barefoot, something I rarely do, but I need to feel the firm floor beneath me…to feel it anchoring me as I move through the air and lose myself in the story I have to show with my dancing in only a matter of a couple of months.
I push Fin from my mind, compartmentalising him and what he’s come to mean to me the past month. My secret slashes at my insides, but the longer I stay silent about my heritage, the more it grows and fester in my soul. He’s not asked me about my biological parents again, seeming to let the subject rest until I’m ready to reveal more, and I love him for not pushing me, but at the same time, I know I must tell him.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back, my arms hanging loosely down my side.
I’m a mess, plain and simple. I haven’t thought about my birth mother for a long time even though her family is always on the front pages of the tabloids, but the truth is, I don’t know her and rarely even think of her as my mother.
I have the most amazing parents I could ever ask for, after all, and have never longed to learn more about my heritage. I’m grateful for having had a fairly normal upbringing despite the occasional journalist turning up at the doors, sniffing at our heels and no doubt hoping they could get the scoop of the century.
“You look so serious, Miss Winters.”
I jerk in fright, my head swimming as Aidan’s voice enters my sanctuary. I turn, twisting my body around as I look for him in the darkness, but I can’t find him.
“Why are you hiding?” I call out softly.
His laugh reaches my ears, and it makes my skin crawl. There’s something about this man that has me on guard, and the fact he’s lurking in the dark, watching me when I thought I was alone, gives me the creeps.
“I’m not hiding. I’m merely observing you.”
My head snaps to my left, and I take a few steps in the direction of the door to turn the switch, but as his form finally comes into view from behind one of the props, I fist my hands at my sides.
“Why are you watching me, Sir?”
He shrugs and doesn’t answer me. Instead, he starts to circle me the same way he did that day I got the part, and it unnerves me. I want to laugh at the paranoia, but I’ve always been able to trust my instincts, and right this second, they’re screaming at me to go.
“It’s my job to watch you, Miss Winters.”
He stops and licks his lips as he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt.
“Not while I’m training in private.”
I try to sound firm, annoyed at his intrusion even, but my nerves must be showing, and I sound broken…alone.
His lips pull back in a sardonic smile, and alarm bells ring loudly in my ears as my adrenaline spikes, because there’s some foreign emotion in his eyes that, despite its strangeness, doesn’t sit well with me.
“I think you forget who I am.”
“Pardon me?”
He sneers at me, and I suppress the trembling shutters battling to make me freeze to my spot.
“Ah, there she is…the innocent, untouched young woman who likes to tease men twice her age.”
I gasp as the insult rains over me. He walks closer to me again, the smirk back on his hard mouth, and I swallow the thickness in my throat.
“You’re trembling,” he chuckles darkly, making me retreat the further he closes the distance between us. “Good. I like that.”
Bile rises up in my mouth, and I move to the side to escape him, only he mirrors my moves all the while he slithers closer.
“But you’re no longer untouched, are you?” His mouth twists into a scowl, scaring me. “You have a boyfriend now, don’t you? He’s taken you from me. He’s taken what was rightfully mine.”
He’s mad! Completely and utterly crazy. I keep my eyes riveted on his, watching his every move as my back hits the wall behind me with a low thud, and I widen my steps. My fight or flight instincts kick in and I push to the balls of my feet.
“Step back,” I grit out through my clenched teeth. I refuse to be weak. “I won’t be insulted like this, Aidan. Leave me alone.”
He tuts, the maniacal glint in his eyes screaming at me to run.
“There’s nowhere to run, little girl. I’ll still take you, and you’ll bloody well like it.”
He lunges, but I’m prepared for him. An otherworldly scream tears its way through my mouth as I go for his eyes, and my nails rake down his face. He howls but still manages to grab on to my arms, pushing them away, and I huff in pain as his nails dig deep. The blood that drips down his cheeks and through his beard almost make me believe he’s not human but the fury in his eyes …
“Fight me,” he growls. “I like that, too.”
I gag as I ram my knee into his groan, now truly scared at what he might do because his arms around me are like a cage, never ceasing its violent grip on me. For once, I hate how small I am. I hate that I don’t have the strength to fight him off. Little by little, and second by second, what little strength I have left wanes, and I start to crumble to the floor by him. Triumph flashes through his gaze, spurring me on to keep fighting him. I can’t give up. I refuse to give him what he wants.
Silently, I send up a prayer that someone – anyone – will come to my rescue.
But I’m alone.
Just as I’m about to fall, I hear the most beloved voice shout my name and seconds later, I’m free. Gasping, I collapse on my knees and watch as my Fin fights off my would-be attacker, and I hug my middle as silent tears flow freely down my cheeks. I can’t take my eyes off Fin as he wrestles Aidan to the ground, plummeting his fist into his face, but when doesn’t stop, I push to my feet and run to him.
“Stop, Fin!” I yell and pull at his shoulders. “You’ll kill him! Please, stop!”
Fin’s breathing hard, sweat streaming into his eyes as he looks down at Aidan whose face and clothes are covered in blood. He’s astride him, keeping him down, and the murderous way he looks down at him makes me frantic. I wonder if he can’t hear me, but I can’t lose him. I can’t let him destroy his future over me.
“Ring the police,” Fin puffs.
I can’t take my eyes off Aidan as he lies there, arms raised to ward off any more blows, but then I feel Fin’s gentle fingers on my chin, pressing to turn my head, and so I do.
“Now, sweetheart,” he says, his voice hard but his touch is gentle.
Wi
thout another word spoken between us, I nod and get up from the floor. On wobbly legs, I run to my bag and fetch my mobile, before I jog back to the two men lying on the floor.
“You fucking cunt,” Aidan seethes. “You’ll pay for this!”
“Shut your fucking mouth!”” Fin shouts, before he punches Aidan out cold. Breathing even harder, Fin scrambles to his feet and rushes to my side. He doesn’t say anything when I bore into his arms, burying my face against his chest and wordlessly hands him my phone.
While I pray for calm, he does what I’m unable to do, and he rings the police. All the while he talks with the operator, he keeps me close, and as the shock of the attack settles in my bones, I hiccup and burst into tears.
“Are you okay?”
I sigh and nod as I sit on Fin’s lap.
“For the hundredth time, yes.”
He rubs soothing circles over my back, my bum firmly settled on his lap, and my legs resting on the mattress as we stay close, the TV in his bedroom turned on low.
“Are you sure?”
I snuggle closer and breathe in his clean scent. The minute the police let us go, Fin took me straight home and as we took a shower, I had a long, hard cry again over what had almost happened to me. After that, I borrowed an old pair of grey sweats and a T-shirt from him – he watched me the entre time as we got dressed in his bedroom as if he needed to reassure himself that I was okay. Then he took my hand and took me to his bed, pulled me into his arms, and we’ve stayed like this ever since.
It could be minutes, or it could be hours…I don’t know.
All I know is that I’ve never felt safer.
“He won’t go free,” I murmur softly. The words are as much for his sake as for my own. I should phone my parents, but before I let mayhem loose, I need to tell Fin my secret. I can’t prolong it anymore, nor do I want to.
Instantly, Fin tenses underneath me and I reach up to place a soft kiss on his neck.
“I never thanked you properly for coming to my rescue.”
His arms squeeze me tightly against his chest, and I hum as his strength pours into me.
