by Shayla Black
He bent to press his mouth fully onto hers, sinking in for a slow melding of lips, an unhurried stroke of her tongue, and a shared breath. Liam anchored himself in the moment, never rushing, always simply letting her feel how much he wanted and adored her.
Her response began cautiously, as if she wasn’t sure whether to believe all the affection in the kiss. With every sweep, he met her, giving her a bit more, always there to guide her, catch her, encourage her.
The hesitation left her gradually, an inch of starch at a time softening, until she opened completely and whimpered, giving him all her passion in that one kiss. Desperation poured from her. And need. With every moan and glide of her tongue, she told him that he mattered to her. She loved him. Liam felt waves of it from her. This was part of what addicted him to her, not just her beauty or sexuality, but the way he could feel her vulnerability, need, and caring when he held her.
With one fist in her hair to keep her close and the other clamped onto her hip, he broke away. “Where are you?”
“Very green,” she breathed.
“What did that kiss make you feel?”
Raine shrank back a bit. A little furrow appeared between her brows. He tried not to grit his teeth in frustration.
“There’s no right or wrong answer, love. I only ask because I care.”
She relaxed. “Languid. Connected to you.”
“I’d hoped you would say that.” For starters, anyway. He ran a hand up her soft, smooth torso to her breast, brushing his knuckles across the swell. “What did that kiss tell you about my feelings?”
“That you were there for me.” She had a harder time getting the next words out. Liam watched her struggle and urged her to fight. “That you care.”
That shouldn’t be news to her. “Of course I do. But I always want you to feel it.”
She nodded. She didn’t speak, but her stare never wavered. Hope and need and a silent pleading for his affection all lay there. She wanted more and wanted to share herself.
Anticipation charged his blood. “Something you want to say, love?”
Raine blinked, bit her lip, then shook her head and lowered her gaze. She was so bloody bottled up. Liam forced down more disappointment. He refused to give up.
Lowering himself to his elbows, he settled his face closer, brushing his lips over hers. “You can tell me anything.”
“I know.”
No, she didn’t. He sighed.
Shimmying down her body, he knelt to kiss the insteps of her little feet and nip at her toes. The ticklish girl giggled, then watched him with wide eyes, her expression somewhere between awestruck and afraid. Bloody hell, there was a wealth of information on her face. She’d been fucked—by the bastard who had taken her virginity, by Hammer, even by him—but no one had truly taken the time to show her his caring through touch. It made him doubly determined to reveal his heart without words now.
He kissed his way up her smooth legs, lingered at the soft caps of her knees, laving his way up her thighs, until he breathed over her pussy. The lass was wetter than he’d ever seen her. The closer his lips came, the more ragged and uneven her breath turned. She thrust her hips at him. He pinned her gently to the mattress.
“No, love. Where are you?”
“Green.” She couldn’t get the word out fast enough.
He smiled, then blew a hot breath on her slick folds and rubbed the pad of his thumb right above the plump flesh. “What does my touch make you feel now? Tell me.”
“More than wanted. Like…no one else matters more to you. It sounds crazy, but—”
“No. You’re exactly right. I’m proud of you.”
With both thumbs, he opened her cunt to his gaze, his tongue. Liam lifted her hips high, his hands banded about her thighs, as he buried his face in her folds, eating her slick flesh like a man starved. He kissed the most feminine part of her with his whole body, giving her all the thoroughness he’d bestowed on her mouth. Even though his cock wept, hard as steel and pounding with need to be inside her, he lingered, aroused, encouraged, brought her higher.
Intoxicated by her slippery musk sliding across his tongue, he hummed his approval against her softness. “Does that make you feel cared for?”
“My head is swimming,” she panted. “My blood is rushing. My pussy aches.”
Easy responses to confess, and probably ones that had stroked his masculine pride in the past. Now he wanted more. “Good. What about your heart?”
“I…can’t imagine you giving that intensity, in that way, unless it meant something to you.”
A better response, but still not what he sought. “Yes. But what do you feel in your heart when I do this?”
He bent to give her another loving, longing lick deep in her furrow, delighting when she tensed under him and softly moaned, writhing.
“It makes me feel like…you want me to know that you care.”
“I do.” She danced around the words he really wanted to hear. Her insecurities and needs all glimmered in those blue eyes. She’d nearly drowned him at first glance; nothing had changed, especially the fact that she was too afraid to tell him how she felt.
But he still had more ways in order to help her try.
Crawling up her body, he rested his weight on one elbow, his face level with her breasts. After a quick tug on the chain, he released one nipple, sucking it directly into his mouth, soothing it even as he drew more blood to the tip.
“Raine?”
“I tingle. I ache. I…need. Liam…”
“What does my touch say to you?”
“That you know how to play my body so well.”
“Look at me.” He waited until she complied. “Why would I have paid so much attention to you, love?”
“I matter.” She whispered the words, and he almost didn’t hear. Almost as if she was afraid to voice the guess or jinx herself.
Liam grabbed her shoulders, his stare penetrating her, reaching for her soul. “You always have.”
He rewarded her by removing the other clamp and treating the nipple to a thorough coaxing with his tongue. He filtered his fingers through her hair, loving the little groans and whimpers that slipped from her throat.
Liam couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to be closer to her.
Covering her body with his own, he sank into her mouth and simply lost himself. No woman he’d ever fucked in a club, taken in a casual hook-up, shared with another, or even married had ever awakened this fever in his heart. Just Raine. He stopped trying to give her messages and simply let everything he felt pour all over her.
As he did, Liam pressed himself against her, his cock burrowing ceaselessly back and forth at her cunt, bumping her clit and avoiding the tantalizing well that coated his cock with her cream, promising nirvana if he’d only plunge inside.
Raine moaned, thrusting her hips up at him.
Reaching around her, he fisted her hair and clamped her delicate skull with his fingers. “You’ll hold fast to me. You’ll not come until I tell you. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Sir.” Her voice was breathy.
As she often did when he commanded her, Raine softened, turning pliant. Submissive. Anticipation zipped through him.
“Good. And you will not look away from me. Not once.” He tugged again at the thick strands of her hair to let her know he meant that. He could—and would—keep her stare exactly where he wanted it.
“I won’t,” she vowed, her stare clinging to his.
“Where are you?”
“Green.” Her face showed tinges of apprehension, but she still sounded steady. Strong.
“Good to hear.”
He leaned across the bed and grabbed a condom, wishing she’d already been protected with birth control as he sheathed his hungry, waiting shaft. Lifting Raine, he settled her delicate curves against him. Aligning himself against her silky body, his nerve endings ignited in a heated rush. He wanted to be tender with her, but when he parted her slick, wet heat with his ready cock, he plung
ed home in an endless stroke that sent him deep.
“I’m completely inside you,” he groaned. “How does that make you feel?”
Her head fell back, her dark mane spreading across the pale sheets. She rocked beneath him. Her soft kitten moans made his inner Dom howl.
“Look at me,” he growled.
Raine did with a gasp, and a jolt of electricity rattled his spine.
“I feel taken,” she moaned. “Possessed.”
“Do you like feeling owned?” Using the fist in her hair, he cocked her head to one side, exposing her neck. He feathered kisses up the milky column, feeling her pulse flutter under his lips.
“Yes. Every time you touch me, I melt. Every time we’re apart, I can’t wait for you again. Please, Liam...” She writhed against him with a soft moan, trying to encourage him to thrust.
“Patience. I enjoy your body. Touching you. Commanding you. Making you come when I will it. You intoxicate me. I love to watch you unravel.”
A rosy hue crept over her fair skin, and he loved that he could still make her blush.
“I’m not just going to fuck you, Raine.” If he showed her how much he loved her, maybe it would take the sting out of all he needed to say.
He pressed a ravenous kiss to her throat, sucking and nipping the heated skin. He burned alive as her cunt consumed him. Her legs wrapped as tightly around his hips as the chains allowed.
“Oh, Raine. You slay me.”
“Liam,” she whimpered. “More.”
“Why?”
“It feels amazing.”
It did, and that barely scratched the surface of sensations jetting through his veins. “And?”
“I feel needed.” Her body bucked. Her eyes teared up. “I need that. From you.”
Clutching her, he stroked her torturously slow, a deep slide into forever. Again. And again. One blurred into the next, her cries filling his ears. She pleaded and begged. Her flesh squeezed him as he plundered her pussy with each thrust. With every retreat, her slick folds tightened, trying to suck him back in.
Baring his teeth with a grunt, he drove up into her tight, velvety passage. Her little feminine sounds boiled his blood and urged him to take her harder, higher, deeper. God, he loved this woman.
He could ask himself why. He could ask himself what tomorrow would bring. But the answers to those questions came back to Raine, as did the biggest question of all: What was it going to take to finally make her understand that peace and happiness lay within her own grasp? All he could do was shower her with his love and be the catalyst.
Gripping Raine tighter, he captured her lips, sliding inside her mouth to take everything—her flavor, her passion, her softness—all the way to her deepest recesses. Everything about her inflamed him. He’d come to crave her, need her like he needed food or water or air.
He pinched her nipples again. Yes, he needed those little cries, too. He needed her to beg. So he slowed his strokes to a torturous drag over every sensitive spot inside her cunt. “Tell me how you feel, Raine.”
She writhed all over him. “Burning, aching. I’m dying.”
He groaned and nipped the swollen tips of her breasts bouncing in front of him. She bit into his shoulder. With her, nothing was easy, nor would it ever be. He understood that, just as he understood that her love and commitment to them was worth fighting for. He was steeled for the battle of his life, but by god, if she wanted him, she’d have to fight, too. If she did…by the time this was over, she’d feel him beneath her skin and wonder how she’d ever done without everything he offered.
“Give me more,” he snarled. “Give me everything.”
She cried out at his rough invasion, the sounds of her pleasure only firing him up more as he filled his palms with her swollen breasts and pistoned his hips, thrusting wildly between the wettest, sweetest folds he could imagine on a woman’s pussy. Even while his heart bled.
“I feel like…” She panted, struggling, trying to hold the words back.
Liam stared into her eyes, so wide and pleading.
“Tell me!”
“Like you love me.” It rushed out almost like a single word, then she drew in a shaky breath, coursing with emotion. “I don’t know why. I don’t deserve it, but—”
“You feel like I love you because I do.”
He grabbed her hips until he felt sure they’d bruise and drove into her using every bit of his breath, every ounce of his strength, shuttling deep with every drop of determination. He’d put his stamp on her the best way he knew how. And prayed that something he’d done had reached her bloody stubborn heart.
“Liam!”
“Take me, lass. All the way inside you, to the places you don’t give anyone else. Take everything I’ve got to give you. Pleasure, pain, joy, sorrow. They’re all mine, just like you.”
Under him, she whimpered. Her body surged and rolled, swelled and arched. He slid even farther inside of her, her flesh grasping and clutching him.
“Yes!” she cried out. “I’m so close. Please...”
“I love you, Raine. No matter what, I love you today, tomorrow, always. Promise me you’ll not forget...”
But her keening cry of impending orgasm was her only answer. He reached between them and stroked her clit to launch her ecstasy. He relished in her trembling beneath him. “That’s it, love. Come for me.”
Liam closed his eyes and felt her release sweep through him like a shockwave as she wailed out her climax. He tried to hold his own for as long as he could, but his body would not be denied as he pulled free of her, tore the condom from his pulsating cock, and felt the surge of semen burst upward and out, covering her milky white belly and breasts. Liam marked her, roaring as he held on for dear life.
He rubbed his seed into her porcelain skin, determined to have his scent upon her, hoping it meant to her all that it did to him.
Liam had given her everything—mentally, physically, emotionally. He felt spent in every sense of the word as he sprawled on his back with Raine tangled in his arms. The fan above them lazily spun.
“Do you love me at all?” he asked, unable to stop himself.
Beside him, she tensed. He heard her swallow.
Rolling to his side, Liam pinned her with a stare. Her heart was in her eyes. She wanted to say yes, damn it. He’d felt it in her touch. He could bloody well feel it now.
“I—” Her mouth hung open, but she said nothing else.
Raine sucked in harsh breaths. She paled.
“Be brave.”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she sobbed and tried to roll from the bed.
As he grabbed her arm to stay her, agony gutted Liam. Weariness and crushing regret dashed the satisfaction spiraling through him just moments ago. He felt hollow. Destroyed. He gripped her tightly, willing her to look at him. Her whole body trembled. He felt her yearning, damn it. But she wouldn’t face him.
Maybe he wanted more than she was capable of giving. Maybe he wasn’t enough for her. He swallowed. Maybe she just didn’t love him enough.
“Wait,” he rasped.
The truth was, she was too afraid to tell him how she felt. Because of her father? No, she’d had no trouble telling Hammer. But his old pal had shoved her love back in her face over and over, bruising her ego. Breaking her heart? Yeah, probably.
His hopes of saving her dissolved. He’d been kidding himself that he could. It seemed he was years too late for that.
How ironic that he’d taken up with Raine to build her confidence a bit and prod Hammer with jealousy. But Macen was having the last laugh. Liam knew he’d never be the same.
With a heavy sigh, he lifted a finger and tilted her chin. The collar at her throat looked so lovely in the light. His heart clutched as he brought her mouth to his for a soft kiss.
As he brushed her lips with his own, he reached behind her neck and slipped the latch on the collar. The precious metal with its dangling ruby was warm from her skin. The catch fell open, and the piece slid into his w
aiting hand.
She froze—her kiss, her stare, her breath. Raine pulled back slowly, then looked at the collar in his palm, blinking with shock and confusion. Questions clouded her eyes. Anxiety tightened her face. He dragged in a sawing draught of air. He fucking hated hurting her.
“What are you doing?”
He set the collar on the nightstand. “I told you we needed to talk, Raine.”
She tried to jerk away. “You used me before you decided to tell me to kiss off.”
He held tight, not letting her move an inch. “I made love to you, hoping you’d understand. But you don’t.” He sighed. “So I’m going to explain myself, and I want you to listen carefully. For this to work, I need you to communicate—”
“If this is about the migraine, I swear that I wasn’t keeping it from you on purpose. I just had so much else on my mind that I forgot to mention it.”
“If you were thinking of me at all, you’d automatically share something like that with me. It would be second nature. You want my affection. You want my sexual domination. You don’t want to do the work necessary to truly submit. Hell, to have a real relationship.”
“That’s not true.” Her blue eyes pleaded, frantic. “I’m working on it. I’m not perfect, but I’m—”
“Still hiding big chunks of your heart and soul to yourself. You’re not ready to be collared.”
“That’s not fair!”
“What’s not fair is that I’m your Dom in name only. I won’t fight you if you don’t want to give yourself freely. Only you can decide how important I am to you—if at all. But I can’t keep submitting to you while I try to give you what I know you need. I’m not oblivious to your fears, but you either trust me and love me…or you don’t. I’m done trying to pry everything out of you, only to discover you’ve not been bloody honest. I get half-truths and subtle lies designed to make me feel better. Is it because you think I’m too stupid to understand or too weak to handle them?”
Horror crossed Raine’s face. “Neither! I told you before; I just don’t want to upset or trouble you.”
“Or have to risk my wrath, admit you’ve fucked up, and truly give yourself to me. I know the game, Raine. I’ve seen it played many times. And I won’t play it with you anymore. I want you back…but not until you learn to communicate. Be honest with me. Trust me. And surrender your control to me. I see the real you, no matter how much you try to hide. And I still want you, still love you. I always will.”
