Redemption

by Rebecca Sharp

My eyes jerked to his. His gaze was consuming and under it, I couldn’t breathe.

  He looked like a man not about to have sex for sex’s sake, not for desire’s sake, but for forever. He looked like a man who wasn’t just going to make love to me, he was going to mark my soul, stamp it with his name, and never let it go.

  Like the reverse of Adam’s rib being taken to make Eve.

  Ash was going to take something from me, something that would make us one.

  I had a feeling that something was going to be whatever was left of my heart that I hadn’t already given.

  In another world, another Taylor would’ve been ashamed the way I wanted him—the way my body responded in desperation to his.

  My mind called out, searching for the old Taylor and her rules to come charging in. But here… with him… the old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone; she was gone.

  There was a moment of stillness, the moment that always comes when that word is spoken the first time. So heavy, so full of everything, it drags time to a stop to make sure it’s given deference.

  His lips gently touched mine, a kiss that was meant to seal in his words, before he trailed down my neck in search of other parts of me desperate for his mouth.

  My heart raced as he fulfilled his promise, his teeth marking a trail down my throat and onto my chest, heading for my breasts that rose and fell unsteadily along with my breath.

  I gasped and arched off the bed when one hand closed over the weight, kneading and rolling it possessively in his grasp as though he weighed and measured each change in my body between last time and this.

  His hands on my sensitive and swollen breasts were big and hot and rough, and I couldn’t stop the way my body trembled and whimpered for more.

  “I love your tits like this,” he murmured, kissing along the side of the other swell. “So needy, so responsive. Fuck, I know I could make you come just from touching them.”

  I gasped as my hips jerked up, bumping my belly against his solid stomach.

  It hurt. The needing him hurt with how much it filled me. With how much it burrowed out from my cells as though in hibernation all these years.

  “Careful, sweetheart.”

  My breath stitched when his mouth detoured from its path to kiss the top of my stomach while his hands continued to drive my breasts insane.

  But then it returned to close over my nipple, and as the pleasure made breathing altogether hard, he brought his jean-clad knee up between my thighs and gave my sex something to rub on.

  I lost a little of my sense of time and my sense of control, my other senses stealing from them to work overtime. One hand curled into the sheets alongside me, trying to find some tether to make sure my body didn’t completely break from gravity, the other held onto the back of his head, making sure his mouth didn’t let go of me.

  He feasted on me like he’d never been given food in his entire life. Each pull of his lips, every nip of his teeth, sending hot, demanding sparks of need right down to my center. He licked and sucked and devoured my breasts until they were varying shades of pink and red—a masterpiece made from his mouth.

  “You’re soaking, Tay, and fuck, it’s driving me insane.”

  My sense of comprehension was delayed, taking a second to realize that all this time I’d been grinding against his leg had shoved my panties to the side, so my core was rocking directly against the rough denim. And there was a distinct dark, wet spot to mark my presence—and evidence my need.

  My eyes fluttered as his hand slid down along my stomach toward where I needed him most.

  But then he stopped, I almost lost it. I’d never come so close to cursing in my whole life as I did in that moment.

  I let out a soft, ragged noise, my eyes burning with unshed tears as I looked at him staring down at my stomach. Invariably, this moment came every time he touched me. Like the miracle inside my body deserved a moment to be worshipped, too. But this time, it was almost too much for me not to tell him as he slowly bent and gave an open-mouthed kiss just above my belly button.

  It was almost too much, seeing the way he looked at me, touched me, like the baby was his.

  He looked at me like the baby was his.

  It was that moment that almost made my heart burst because it was then I knew with my whole heart, it didn’t matter that the baby actually was his, in Ash’s eyes, it was his baby no matter who its genes were from.

  “Mine,” he whispered, holding my tear-filled gaze as he stood.

  The possession in his voice soothed the deepest part inside of me—a part that’s always been his. Waiting. Questioning. Wanting. But now, with all the self-righteous shields and crippling commandments stripped away, I was left bare with nothing but the most basic foundation of faith, to love and be loved, brought to the surface.

  I want to love him.

  I want to be loved by him.

  My lip quivered, my own voice about to betray me when he reached for the waist of his jeans and my mouth went dry. Instantly, the primal demand of my orgasm began to knit together, tight and tighter as I watched him strip away the rest of his clothes.

  My thighs rubbed together seeing the way his jaw clenched when he pulled his jeans down over his erection. Long and impossibly thick, it bobbed free from its confines, the prominent vein pulsing urgently all the way to its purple tip.

  I licked my lips. I wanted to taste him. I loved having him in my mouth when he lost control. It made me feel so powerful, so desirable. I loved how he made me feel that way.

  Ash bit off a curse. “Not tonight, sweetheart,” he warned huskily, his grin saying he knew where my thoughts had gone. “I won’t survive your pretty little mouth tonight, Tay.”

  Growling, he tugged my scrap of soaked underwear from me. My legs parted instinctively for him as he climbed back on the bed. I saw the moment his best laid plans ended up with a detour as his shoulders caved and his head dropped between my thighs.

  “Ash!”

  I jerked against his mouth as it clamped over my sex. Covering… devouring me. His tongue moved angrily through my slick core, greedily lapping and sucking in the spots he knew by now would drive me insane.

  “Please, Ash… Please…” I choked out the words, knowing what I wanted, hearing myself say what I wanted, but not being able to get the words out.

  “I love tasting you like this,” he growled as his tongue savagely speared against my clit. “You’re like my own personal forbidden fruit, Pixie, and fuck if I wouldn’t fall from grace every single day if it meant I got to spend it tasting you.”

  I shuddered and bucked against him.

  My knee worked under his chest and pushed up. His lust-glazed eyes pinned me, demanding to know why I’d pulled him away.

  “Please,” I panted breathlessly. “I want… I need you inside me.”

  He slid up my body, pushing my hair back from my face.

  “You sure, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice pulled tight.

  I was too needy and he was too nice. My teeth clamped down onto his lower lip and I pulled it hard into my mouth. Ash let out a hiss and I felt his arousal jerk against my leg.

  “Anything for you.”

  And the sweetest, most intoxicating truth was that he didn’t just mean that in bed.

  He pushed up from me. I wanted to feel him against me, inside me, but I knew my belly made that impossible right now. Firm hands gripped my thighs and spread them wide as he stared down.

  “Tell me what you want, Tay,” he rasped as he began to slide his hard length against my core, coating himself with my wetness, before wedging just his tip against the entrance to my core.

  “I-I want you,” I whimpered out as he rubbed over the one spot that threatened to make me explode.

  “Tell me more,” he demanded harshly. “Tell me what your body wants you to say… what your body wants…”

  I moaned, hesitant to say the words until he stopped moving, cutting off the path to my release.

  My gaze locked with his. �
�I want… your cock.” I shuddered. The word felt thick and foreign and full of promise on my tongue as I set it free into the space between us. I’d never be able to describe how he made my body feel when he lost his composure and whispered naughty things against my skin. For days, the truth wasn’t the only thing that had been desperate to escape my lips. I hadn’t grown up with these words. I hadn’t said them. I’d tried not to hear them. And now, I craved them. They burned to come off my tongue for him.

  For him, they didn’t feel shameful. For him, they felt essential. For me, they felt powerful.

  I didn’t know how to explain it. Tonight. His touch. Our desire. My freedom. All I knew was that it was truer than anything I’d ever felt.

  Ash threw his head back with a strangled grunt and I saw the tip of his cock begin to glisten.

  Just like when looking at my body—in whatever state it was in—made him grow impossibly hard, watching what I could do with just my voice empowered me.

  “Please, Ash,” I moaned, rubbing myself along his length until I felt him slip just inside me once more, taunting me with his tip. “I need to feel you inside my pussy.”

  “Fuck,” he swore as his hips jerked back and he slammed inside me.

  Oh, God.

  I cried out at the invasion. Pleasure and pain ripped through me as my sex desperately tried to make room for something so large. Stretched and burning, my body reverberated from the shock of having him inside me again, of being opened like this for only the second time.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cursed and pulled all the way out.

  My body reeled just as harshly as I tried to gasp in air—unsure which hasty motion was worse. My sex clenched, knowing it had gotten what it wanted only to have it ripped away. Like a chair pulled out from underneath you, I tried to find my balance as my body continued to fall.

  “Shit. I’m sorry, Tay,” he rasped painfully as he bent over my face. His hand cupped my cheek. “Are you okay? I wasn’t thinking… I needed to be inside you… I fucking lost it. Please tell me you’re okay. Please tell me I didn’t hurt the baby.”

  I whimpered because I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh or smack him.

  “Look at me,” I demanded, watching as his eyes fell and his brow scrunched. “The baby is fine. I, however, am not fine.” Tortured horror marred his features just as I continued, “I’m not fine because I told you I needed you. I’ve needed you for weeks, Ash. You’ve been gentle and generous, but I don’t think you understand how much I need you inside me right now. You want me to tell you?” With each word, my confidence and my desire grew. “I’m telling you that I’ve dreamt of your cock filling me, finally. I’m telling you I want you buried so deep inside me I feel you against my stomach. So, no, I’m not fine because I’m not getting what I want.”

  His response was in his eyes as he moved back and pushed two fingers inside me, curling right into that spot that had my pussy squeezing on the edge of release in a second.

  I was sore and throbbing from his brief and violent entrance, but the soreness made the pleasure he now followed it with even sweeter.

  The air around us seemed to disappear, like we’d finally gone off the deep end into something we were never coming back from. And then I felt him, the blunt head of his cock where his fingers had just been, pushing back inside.

  “You feel so good, baby,” he growled. “So tight and fucking hot.”

  The resistance was impossible, my muscles clamped tight against another intrusion. But then his fingers found my clit and began rubbing over the swollen nub, and all the fractured pieces of my orgasm began to pull back together and re-form itself toward a whole.

  Ash looked like a man strangled—like a man dangling on the tips of his toes, trying to stop the noose around his neck from doing its job. He was teetering, balancing on determined restraint as he filled me inch by swollen inch.

  His hands on my knees tightened as he sunk completely inside me, bumping against my womb. I shivered for a long second, absorbing the feel of him buried inside me once more, heat rolling through my body in waves as the burning length of him pulses violently against my inner muscles, stretching and tugging on him even as he tried to remain still.

  I see you, Ash. My words from that night echoed in the cavern of my chest.

  I hadn’t known all of what I’d meant until this moment. Like being in this town had peeled back the layers of guilt, unshackled me from my upbringing, to let me finally see the truth.

  The truth what would make me free.

  And the truth was I’d always seen him.

  It had always been Ash for me.

  ‘Ashes to ashes.’ I’d heard the phrase a million times, but it was mine now.

  Ash to Ash, I would always be his.

  And then he began to slide in and out, pulling moans from my chest like incoherent prayers. His hands gripped my knees, widening them so he could fill me completely with each thrust as he picked up his demanding pace. Like a caged lion, it was both controlled yet wild at the same time.

  I felt the damp fabric of the sheets in my hands from where they’d gripped them so tightly as my body began to coil tighter. I knew I was moaning his name. I knew I was panting and writhing up to meet each thrust. But all I heard was the slap of his hips against mine each time he shoved all the way inside me, rubbing against the neediest part of me.

  I tried to focus on him, to watch as he stared down at where his cock disappeared inside my body, but each stab of pleasure made more and more of that vision go black.

  “I dreamt of this too, you know,” he growled angrily, his voice losing its composure as his hips began to buck involuntarily into me. “For months, I’ve dreamt of fucking you.”

  I cried out as his fingers began to work magic on my clit. The drag of their rough pads over my nerves made me feel like I was on the verge of either the most beautiful desire or the most exquisite death.

  Now, I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel the sheets or the bed or even the air that entered my lungs. I only felt him—on me, inside me. And I heard nothing but his voice, like it was the only thing that could lead me through the darkness to the light my body desperately craved.

  “Fuck, Taylor,” he grunted as his thrusts lost all semblance of control.

  Every muscle on his carved chest pulled tight like a rubber band on the brink of snapping as he lifted and angled me, my body nothing but a small toy compared to how big and strong his arms and hands were.

  I knew nothing except the way he slammed into me now as his fingers rubbed on my clit. His other hand slid down to pin my hip to the mattress, no longer allowing me to do anything except take all of him. I knew nothing except that this was both the end of something and the beginning of another.

  “Look at me,” he croaked in a way that was both a demand and a plea.

  My eyes trembled as they rose to his and my teeth sunk into my lower lip, giving my body some semblance of sharp pain to cling to as the pleasure became overwhelming.

  And when I couldn’t take it any longer, I looked at him, lost in his adoring and ravenous gaze, and breathed, “I see you, Ash.”

  His gaze swallowed mine in a whirlpool of need as he pulled roughly on my clit and I shattered, screaming his name.

  My orgasm felt like nothing short of holy as it flooded me with wave after hot wave of shuddering release. My legs tensed and every muscle felt like it curled and clamped over on itself as my climax gave my body a new heartbeat to pulse with.

  It felt like my body was broken and then reformed just for him.

  Ash groaned, his hips releasing into me with rough thrusts. My pussy squeezed, grabbing and pushing all around him, urging him on. In the distance, I heard Ash’s animalistic roar just before his warmth flooded inside me.

  His.

  Only his.

  The only thing I could think as he continued to push into me until the pulsing of his cock finally slowed.

  If I thought I remembered the first time, I thought
wrong.

  They say that you forget the pain of childbirth otherwise you’d never do it again. As the particles of my body floated back down, putting me back together like an image coming back into focus, I thought the same must go for this. Because, if you could remember this pleasure so perfectly, you’d never do anything else.

  “You okay, Pixie?” It sounded like his orgasm had broken him, too.

  “Am I still in one piece?” I asked softly.

  The gravelly rumble of his laugh sent shivers down my limp and lifeless spine. The remains of my orgasm still lolling over my arms and legs in heavy waves.

  “One perfect,” he paused as he slid out of me, “piece.”

  My eyes squeezed shut for a moment, my body registering his loss.

  “Don’t move, gorgeous.”

  Like I even could.

  I felt like I was floating. My body and my mind. Every so often the clouds would clear and I would remember the promise I made to myself to tell him or I would feel the way he cleaned me with a warm cloth. Time passed in moments in reality stuck between spans of feeling.

  The drugged feeling of complete release interrupted by the moment he helped me to my feet to get ready for bed. The warmth of pure happiness punctuated by the way he pulled me into his arms when we made it back underneath the covers. The bone-deep comfort of safety when he bent and pressed his lips to my forehead.

  “I dreamt of you, Tay,” he whispered against my hair as his hand ran up and down my arm. “So many nights, I dreamt of this night—of making you mine. And my God, if I hadn’t woken up, I would have sworn the dreams were so real that they must have been memories.”

  My heart stopped.

  I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

  They were memories.

  “Until tonight.” His fingers tugged my chin up so I couldn’t hide. “Now I know that no dream would compare the this,” he murmured. “I know that even Heaven couldn’t compare to you.”

  He pressed his lips to mine, silencing any and all further thought.

  Ash

  It had taken me a long time to be able to wake up in the morning and look forward to the day ahead of me. A long fucking time.