Undefeated

by Melissa Cutler

  She peeled her black leggings down, then scooted them away from her body with her foot and stood just inside the apartment without a stitch of clothing on as though awaiting his judgment—or his next command.

  He’d always wondered if she was a redhead down there, and she’d left just enough ornamental hair for him to confirm it, but not enough to hide a single millimeter of her pink pussy lips or the hint of clit peeking out from them. So fucking hot.

  This was the girl he’d had his first wet dream about when he was thirteen. The girl he’d almost kissed when they were seventeen, alone together for the first time in his car one night when he’d had to drive her home because she and Olivia had had too much to drink. This was the girl who’d transformed into the sexiest, most intriguing woman he’d ever laid eyes on while he was away at war.

  He felt his pulse in his tight fists, in his throat, in his dick. Still, he held himself back, calculating his next move so he wouldn’t screw up and ruin everything, as he had the night of his massage appointment. Every move he made, every word he said had to be predicated on what he knew about her fears and triggers. It wasn’t ideal, and definitely not what he’d fantasized about, but it might still get him laid by the woman he’d wanted for too many years to count.

  “Back up. Go stand next to your couch,” he said.

  He was taller and bigger than she, and every time he got too close, she started to panic, so commanding her to back up first to create a cushion of space while he reentered her apartment seemed like the smartest move. Once she was away from the door, he walked in at a deliberately slow pace, then locked the door. Holding her gaze, he sidestepped to her kitchen, pulled a chair out from the table and took a cue from the animal kingdom by striking a universally submissive position—he sat down, making himself lower than her, thereby proving that there was a first time for everything, because Liam was no submissive.

  Probably, when he thought back on this moment tomorrow, he’d be stunned at the lengths he was taking to have this experience with Marlena, but for now, he had no interest whatsoever in walking away from the naked, nervous woman across the room whose brazen strip show had turned him so hard, so drunk with the idea of getting his hands and mouth and body on hers, that he knew he’d never be satisfied until he did.

  “Put your hands on your breasts,” he said, barely recognizing his voice for the strain in it.

  She followed his command and slid her hands up her stomach, plumping her breasts upward as her fingers closed around her nipples. His swollen dick pushed against the belted waist of his jeans at a painful angle. Rather than adjust, he embraced the discomfort, because already he was finding it a challenge to keep from stroking himself while he watched her show. If he touched himself now, he was a goner.

  “Pinch them harder. As hard as you can stand.”

  She stretched her nipples out and up until her breath caught and a deep pink color stained her cheeks. Her legs spread a little, her hips titling forward to show off a few more millimeters of dark pink flesh between her thighs.

  How he was keeping himself from striding across the room, throwing her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then tossing her on her bed was a mystery to him. He gripped his quads and watched her tug on her nipples and the subconscious grinding of her hips as she gave in to the pleasure.

  “You like that?” he said.

  “Yeah,” she breathed, holding his gaze.

  “It’s nothing compared to how it’s going to feel when I touch you. That’s a fucking promise.”

  Her hands paused. “When are you going to touch me?” She said it like an invitation, but he wasn’t taking any kind of chance by approaching her.

  “I don’t know. That’s up to you. When you’re ready for it, you walk over here and feed me your nipple.”

  “How about I issue my own command first?”

  He rolled his neck. Goddamn. He was not the kind of man who took commands, especially when it came to sex. He hated that shit, but if it meant she was feeling more secure about sleeping with him, then who was he to argue? “What do you want me to do?”

  “Take off your shirt.”

  That, he could handle. He stripped it off over his head and tossed it aside. “Anything else, boss?”

  He set a hand on his belt in suggestion. The slight pressure of his hand brushing his shaft made it twitch. He indulged his impulse and stroked his hand over it through his jeans, clamping his molars against the flash of pleasure.

  “Go ahead.” She nodded to his crotch. “Take them off. Let’s level the playing field.”

  The sound of the metal belt latch echoed in the silence, then the sound of his zipper. He hadn’t planned to stand again so soon, but if she wanted a full view of his body, then he was going to give it to her. Back on his feet, he kicked his boots off, pushed his jeans and boxers to his ankles, and swept them to the side with his foot.

  Squaring up to her, he palmed his erection and slid the foreskin back from the head, a move that felt so good he pulled the skin up again, then back down in a slow-motion jerk-off. “That better?”

  “Keep that up.”

  All right. He could deal with that kind of command, too. With his eyes locked on her, he stroked himself all the way up until his thumb and forefinger touched on the crown of his head in a way that that evoked a hiss on his exhale as pleasure coursed up his body. Then he brought his hand all the way down, rocking his hips forward, jutting his dick out and giving her a show of his own.

  Sweat broke out on his back and his forehead from the extreme effort to keep his feet planted where they were. His nostrils flared with the effort to suck in enough air, even as his face dropped until he was holding her gaze from beneath a heavy brow.

  He knew his face morphed into a mean scowl when he was experiencing intense pleasure because he’d seen himself in mirrors on occasion, but he didn’t attempt to mask the ferocity he felt as he stroked himself for her benefit, even if he risked her reading in his body language how desperately he wanted to throw her on the bed on all fours and fuck her like an animal—like the chained-up junkyard dog he still felt like.

  Marlena stared at his hand and his dick, her breathing shallow, her hands absentmindedly smoothing over her breasts. He couldn’t tell if she was on the verge of panicking from watching him transform into some kind of primal beast before her eyes, or if it turned her on. Then her hand slid down her belly. Her fingers tangled in her thatch of hair, then lower, until her middle and index fingers curled into her folds and disappeared, giving him his answer.

  An intense wave of arousal crashed through him as he watched her fingers stroke her clit in a slow, tight circle. He let go of his dick before he tipped completely over the edge of control, then he dropped back into his chair. “Forget your nipple. Get over here and feed me those fingers. Right the fuck now.”

  She froze, her eyes widening. Damn it. He’d gone and spooked her. But there was no backtracking on what he’d said, and if he’d frightened her too much, she had the power to deny his command. With a conscious effort, he smoothed out his scowl. “Get over here, Marlena. Don’t lose your nerve. We’re just getting started.”

  After an inhale through her nose as though she was fortifying her resolve, she walked his way. With every step, her lost-in-lust expression faded. He wasn’t worried, though. As long as she kept walking until she made it to him, he’d bring that look back to her face in no time.

  When she reached him, she held her two fingers out in offering. He nearly took her wrist and guided her hand toward his lips, but stopped himself because a thought surfaced through his haze of desire that she might interpret his hand clamping around her wrist as too aggressive. Instead, he gripped the sides of his chair, then leaned forward and drew her fingers into his mouth.

  Besides the sweet taste of her skin, he tasted the tang of her arousal—a preview of what was in store for him in abundance when he ate her out. He suckled her fingers, curling his tongue around them. Then he took a calculated ris
k and wrapped his arm around her hip to cup her ass.

  She didn’t protest or stiffen up, which only made him bolder. He moved his mouth from her fingers to her breast. She had huge, gorgeous breasts, more than a handful. He licked his way to her nipple and sucked it into his mouth. She’d seemed to enjoy it when he’d commanded her to pinch her nipples hard, so he sucked it hard. She made a quiet noise of pleasure and leaned forward, her hand bracing on his shoulder. When he grazed her nipple with his teeth, she threw her head back, but still, she was unnervingly quiet.

  He repeated the attention on her other breast. She remained leaning into him, one hand on his shoulder and her other one on his dick, though her movement seemed to be more exploratory than an attempt to bring him pleasure.

  “I’ve fantasized about your cock for a long time.”

  He backed off from her breast and looked up at her, her confession bringing a victorious smile to his lips. He loved knowing that she’d had dirty thoughts about him. “Hope it’s living up to expectation.”

  Her hand tightened around his shaft and slid toward the head, dragging skin over steel with enough friction to bring back his scowl along with a low growl deep in his throat that he hoped she didn’t hear.

  “I think you already know it does,” she said.

  He absolutely did. He loved his dick and was proud of how hung he was. And as soon as he got her all the way relaxed and aroused, he was going to show her exactly what he and his big dick were capable of. But first things first.

  He touched the back of her hand, extricating his shaft from her hold, then slid down from the chair to the floor on his knees. “Prop your foot on the chair.”

  The moment she did, he caught her scent in the air and started salivating. Her pussy lips were swollen, with a hint of moisture glistening at their edges. If he could’ve found the words, he would have told her that the same way she’d fantasized about his goods, he’d been imagining this moment—the way she looked, the way she smelled, how she tasted—but all he could manage to spit out was, “You are so fucking hot.”

  She answered with a shaky breath. Her hands plunged into his hair.

  He flattened his tongue against her outer lips and tipped his head up, dragging his tongue up her folds as though unzipping her, until the tip of his tongue hit the rounded flesh of her clit. Her body arched as her fingers tightened in his hair. She released the faintest of whimpers. Closing his eyes, he focused his mind on the way she tasted, the sharp contrast of sharply sweet flesh and thick, heady wetness.

  He worked her clit and her lips and every other bit of her hot, wet flesh until he sensed her getting out of her own head and giving herself over to the pleasure. Her hips arched, her breathing went shallow, and one of her hands slipped down to hold his ear. Then he concentrated his attention on her clit, suckling on the one spot that seemed to be the most sensitive as he dropped a hand onto his dick and got himself fully hard again.

  When he was, he gave her one last decisive swirl of the tongue, then licked his lips clean. He felt her gaze on him and looked up, into the green eyes that had haunted him for so long. One side of her lips kicked up into a languid, searching smile. He was afraid to say anything, not wanting to break the spell, so instead he kissed her belly, tenderly, letting her know that she had nothing to worry about because he had everything under control for both of them.

  In his discarded jeans, he found the condom he’d stashed there that night before yoga class, just in case, then he sat in the chair again and rolled the condom on. He was so hard and ready, so red and angry, he was surprised he didn’t bust through the latex. She watched him, breathing heavy, her hands roving over his chest and shoulders.

  He reached between her legs, gathering her juices, and coated the condom with them. “Sit on me.” His voice was ragged, hoarse.

  He guided her hips as she straddled him, then pressed his dick to her entrance and savored the view of the tip of his head slipping inside her dark pink, shimmering flesh. She stroked his cheek, reclaiming his attention. With their gazes locked, she sank onto him, her movement so gradual that the bead of sweat trickling down his abs hit the base of his shaft before her body did.

  The patience was killing him. He’d never experienced anything quite like this sacrifice of his base instincts, or the nuances of pleasure it was wringing from him. His awareness of her was so heightened and intense in order to read her shifting feelings that he also noticed her inner muscles squeezing him, the appearance of faint freckles on her forehead as her skin flushed, the rhythm of her shallow breaths, the strength of her hand bracing against his shoulder. Because he was looking into her eyes, he watched them dilate, then grow distant when she seated herself fully onto him.

  For the span of several breaths, she sat still, pulsing her inner muscles in a way that absolutely tortured his self-control. He broke their locked gazes and rolled his neck, feeling the sweat on his back pricking his skin. Then she rocked her hips. Pleasure sizzled through him. He took her ass in both hands and made her movements bigger, moving his hips in opposite time with her to lengthen the rolling thrusts.

  While they moved, he kissed a path from her chest to her neck, sampling the salty sweetness of her skin all the way up to and along her jaw. When he reached her lips, she folded forward, rubbing her cheek along his.

  He hadn’t realized until that moment how fervently he wanted to kiss her, to taste and explore her mouth, and mostly to connect with her in that fundamental way. She’d thwarted him at every opportunity. Even two weeks ago, in her studio, she hadn’t kissed him back.

  He stopped thrusting and took her face in his hands, then waited until the fog of her half-lidded, blissful gaze cleared enough for her to look him in the eye. “I have to kiss you. Can we do that, or is that part of the control you need to keep tonight?”

  The look she afforded him was one of shock, as though kissing had never occurred to her. “You’re right. We’ve never kissed.”

  “Is that some bullshit tantric sex rule?”

  Her fingertips fluttered over his neck. “No. Kissing is one of the cornerstones of intimacy in tantric sex. I’ve never had sex without kissing before. It’s just that . . .”

  With a breathy, sardonic laugh borne of infinite frustration and fraying patience, he tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “It’s just that you can’t get over the warning I gave you about men and our violence, right? Now you can’t relax.”

  “I never could relax around you.”

  When he was thirteen, that wet dream had stunned him into idiocy around her. It’d transformed him into yet another bully in their neighborhood school that took every opportunity to remind her that her clothes were outdated, her hair was frizzy, and she wasn’t pencil-thin. Then, at seventeen, after he’d almost kissed her in the car that night he’d driven her home, he’d ramped up his sadistic efforts. He’d believed out of desperation that being the king of the school was more important than her feelings and had humiliated her with a public, staged prom invitation after his friends dared him to.

  He’d never forgive himself for what he put her through all those years, but for reasons he didn’t understand, she was giving him chance after chance to prove that he’d changed into a far better man than the boy he’d once been. Even if he was a broken mess of a person.

  “That’s fair,” he said. “I never made you feel like you could relax around me. Now, what I have to figure out tonight is how I’m going to get you off if you can’t even let go enough to let me kiss you.”

  Unbelievably, he was still hard inside her, hard and huge and eager to work. He took hold of her hips again and rolled her, creating a light friction to remind her that their bodies were locked together and he was ready, willing, and able to bring her all the pleasure she could stand.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never had this happen before.”

  “I believe that.” Judging from what he knew about her, any other guy she’d choose to sleep with wouldn’t be a bit li
ke him. They’d be into mystical sex, or whatever she called it. They’d be nonthreatening, and they wouldn’t have the shameful past of bullying that Liam had. “I bet you even come quietly. I bet you don’t cry out or lose your shit.”

  “I like to keep it serene, inward and outward. I keep my focus on my breath and body connection.”

  New age baloney that, to be honest, made him feel kind of rageful. She was too young and too alive to keep herself bound up like that. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad I got to see you freak out and go nuts at your studio. That was the raw, real Marlena Brodie.”

  She looked at him as though he’d said something ridiculous. Then she lifted off of his dick, though she remained straddling him, and he knew he should have kept his friggin’ mouth shut.

  “That wasn’t the real me,” she said. “You bring out something in me that’s not my true self. I can’t stay serene around you. You’re messing up everything in my world.”

  “You said that before, and I should probably be sorry about that. But my question is, why do you have to stay serene? You can lose your shit with me. Stop worrying and let go. Let me kiss you. Please.”

  There was another first in his life. Him, begging.

  She looked away, torment in her eyes.

  He smoothed his hands up her stomach and around her tits, his thumbs flicking her nipples—not letting her forget where she was or what it felt like to be with him. “Do it like you ripped your shirt off, because you know you’re stronger than the fear that wants to hold you back. Just say ‘fuck it’ and put your lips on mine.”

  She swung her focus back to him and the second he looked into her eyes, he knew he’d broken through her defenses. She leaned forward, her lips parted, and he was already reaching for her. Gathering her in his arms, he angled his lips over hers and kissed her. She opened her mouth and kissed him back, letting him in, letting him take her.