Of Blind Fate (Operation: Middle of the Garden Book 5)

by Micah Persell

  His pants hit the floor with a jingle, and he quickly made sure his boxer briefs were properly covering every wayward part of him before sliding into bed beside his Impulse Mate for the first time in his life.

  Oh, God, this was heaven.

  Every primal part of Oliver’s soul shouted in celebration, and Oliver gritted his teeth against the almost inhuman need to crawl atop his woman and settle between her thighs. His boxer briefs were no longer sufficiently covering anything, and the head of his erection was inconveniently protruding from the leg of the briefs and trapped against his thigh.

  Well, better that than up or out, he mused. At least this way, it was somewhat hidden. He spread his arm out to the side. “Come here, baby,” he rumbled.

  Farrah hesitated, her eyes wide and blinking, but after a moment, she turned to her side and followed the line of his arm until she was curled against him.

  Curled stiffly against him.

  Her hands were intertwined and tucked beneath her chin. Her temple rested against his shoulder, and her legs were tightly clenched together and straight, barely grazing his own at the knee.

  He couldn’t help it; he chuckled. “I’m not going to eat you.” Not tonight anyway.

  She relaxed a little and a small laugh escaped her lips. “All right.” Her posture unwound the slightest bit, and Oliver wrapped his arm around her and snuggled his cheek against her hair. Thirty seconds in, and he already knew he was not going to sleep well tonight, if at all. His body was way too juiced being this close to her.

  He absently ran his palm up and down Farrah’s arm and tried to keep his breathing regulated. Bit by bit, Farrah relaxed into him, and after what felt like hours, her breathing deepened, and he knew she was asleep.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled. He nearly jumped out of his skin when, in her sleep, Farrah edged her leg over the tops of his thighs, nestling against him with a contented sigh.

  Her knee was just centimeters away from his hard cock.

  It was going to be a very long night.

  19

  Day Two of the Cycle

  Farrah blinked to wakefulness, slowly emerging from what felt like a fevered fog. She dimly remembered being so incredibly hot throughout the night, but that feeling was long gone. Now, she was blessedly warm. Cozy. A feeling of safety and security wrapping around her.

  It was this final feeling that got her attention. She couldn’t recall feeling safe and secure many times in her life, and sleep vanished in its wake.

  She frowned. She couldn’t figure out where she was, and that was always disconcerting, but for some reason she wasn’t worried. She was lying on her stomach across something that was neither flat nor soft, and yet, she had never been more comfortable.

  Her hands were pressed against whatever it was on either side of her head, and she curled her fingers a bit, trying to determine by touch what she was draped over.

  Velvety smoothness spread over rock-hard slabs.

  Farrah’s eyes widened. Good God. She was draped over Oliver! She sucked in a breath and pushed up slightly, but then froze.

  “Oh, no,” she muttered.

  The mystery as to why she was no longer burning hotter than the desert was solved. At some point during the night, she had shed her clothes. She was naked and covering Oliver like a blanket.

  She could feel the heat in her cheeks, and she squeezed her eyes shut. How was she going to get out of this? If she panicked, she would wake Oliver. He could see! Would see her naked.

  “Oh, no,” she repeated, resignedly lowering herself to Oliver’s wide chest once more. She needed a plan, and it couldn’t consist of her screaming and launching from the bed.

  As soon as her cheek nestled between Oliver’s pectorals, he sighed. Farrah stiffened and nearly squeaked as Oliver wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly against his body.

  His breath brushed against her temple, and he mumbled something into her hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. His breathing then deepened, and he simply held her.

  He is still asleep.

  Farrah’s stiffened muscles relaxed. A stroke of luck. In fact—she smiled—she may not even have to move at all. This was…pleasant.

  She let herself sink into Oliver’s warmth. She drew in a slow breath, and wiggled her toes, finding that her feet were nestled between Oliver’s calves. Her breasts were pressed into his belly, and her lower body covered his hips and sank down between his thighs. She was very much stretched out on top of him, and she had no idea how she had gotten here, but it was incredible.

  She held her breath and listened with all of her might to Oliver’s steady breathing. He sounded as though he were deeply asleep. Farrah tapped her fingertips lightly against Oliver’s chest. He didn’t move.

  She had learned his facial features through touch, and she was so tempted to do the same with his body. She would be too embarrassed to do so while he was awake. Was it cowardly to do so while he slept? Would he object?

  She thought hard, and she could not imagine a scenario in which Oliver would scold her for touching him. They did have a carnal deal after all.

  She hesitated for only a moment more before dragging her fingertips down the muscles of Oliver’s chest. She became immediately fascinated by the way his body was so different from hers. His chest was so wide that as she followed a delicious curve of muscle to where his bicep touched his body, she was nearly embracing him.

  She traced up in the crevice between his bicep and chest, and his breathing hitched for a moment.

  Farrah’s lungs seized. Had she awoken him? After a moment, however, his breathing returned to normal, and Farrah brought her hand back to Oliver’s chest, memorizing where her fingers had just been and telling herself to remember that he was most likely ticklish there—a thought that made her smile.

  She continued her exploration, dragging her pointer finger down the center of his chest until she reached a new dip right below his sternum. When she followed it, she discovered a grid of muscle indentations that spread over his abdomen wherever she could reach and wherever she was not covering with her own body.

  She was distracted by the places her body touched his. They created such a delicious heat together, and the way her breasts pressed against him was no less than life-altering. She traced his stomach around the globe of one breast, and the light contact between their skin raised gooseflesh all over her. She shivered and paused, knowing she was becoming more affected by this than she should. She was only supposed to be learning his body, not becoming aroused. She took her fingers away before she could trace her breasts even more, and shifted her hips so that she could have more access to him.

  But then she paused, her fingers over his ribcage. What was— she shifted her hips again, and her eyes widened.

  Something was different, and, as ignorant as she was, she knew exactly what had happened. She’d made Oliver grow hard while he slept.

  She closed her eyes and a foreign sound escaped her lips. Myriad instinctual responses flooded her. She wanted to spread her legs. To rub the place between her thighs along the length that prodded her belly. She wanted to touch him. To wrap her fingers around his length and explore it. Find out how long he was. How big around he was. If he was as soft to touch there as he was on his abdomen.

  Her hand was moving in search of those answers before she realized it, and her fingers came to an abrupt stop right at the waistband of his undergarment.

  What am I doing? Was she truly thinking of touching him? In his sleep? She would kill a man who tried to do the same to her.

  She would not be a hypocrite.

  Farrah sighed. No, she would not slip her fingers beneath the elastic cloth. No matter how much she regretted the missed opportunity.

  She flattened her hand on his hip instead, gripping him slightly to keep from betraying her word.

  “Don’t stop there,” Oliver mumbled into her hair.

  Farrah gasped. Caught red-handed! Horror flooded her, and she push
ed up with her hands, ready to run away.

  Oliver’s arms did not loosen their hold, however. In fact, he seemed to pull her closer again, effectively eliminating any progress she had made toward escape. “No, Farrah,” he said, desperation coloring his morning voice.

  His words cut off, and he stiffened. “Farrah,” he began, his voice low and dangerous. “Where are your clothes?”

  Farrah closed her eyes with a groan. “I know,” she whispered. “I am not wearing them.”

  “But—” His chest rose and fell rapidly. “Why aren’t you wearing them?”

  “I think—I think I got too hot in the night and took them off in my sleep,” Farrah said, barely resisting the urge to bury her face in his chest.

  “You strip in your sleep?” Oliver chuckled. “You may be the perfect woman.”

  “I will go get dressed now.” Farrah tried again to extract herself from his arms. “Do not look at me.”

  Oliver’s arms held fast. “Wait, don’t look at you? Are you serious?”

  “Yes!”

  “Farrah, that is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Oliver, please,” Farrah said, wiggling sideways.

  “Okay, I won’t look at you.”

  Farrah froze, and suddenly irrational disappointment skated through her. “You won’t?”

  “As long as you promise you’re not asking out of some sort of embarrassment.”

  Farrah said nothing. She was embarrassed.

  “So, are you? Are you for some reason embarrassed of your flawless body?”

  Flawless?

  “Of this skin that glitters in the light and makes me want to taste it?” Oliver trailed his fingers down her back, over her ribs, and to the underside of her breast where it was trapped between them. “Of these, that I can tell from feel are the most perfect things I’ll ever see?” He continued to drag one finger back and forth along her sensitive skin, and Farrah’s breathing betrayed her. “I want to get on my knees and worship them. Suck on them so hard and so long that you come from that alone.”

  His words made her gasp. They were…dirty. Were men supposed to talk to women this way? Were women supposed to like it?

  Because I most definitely like it.

  Come. He meant orgasm. From merely sucking on her breasts? “You could…do that?”

  “Please let me fucking do that.”

  Farrah hid her face in Oliver’s sternum, not wanting him to see what was, no doubt, a vibrant smile on her lips.

  Oliver shifted a bit, and suddenly, he was cupping Farrah’s breast with the palm of his hand. Farrah’s smile vanished, and the chills that swept her head to foot removed any remaining doubt that Oliver could bring her to orgasm through simply manipulating her nipples, which were currently painfully taut.

  Conflict warred between the desire to flee and avoid a potentially embarrassing situation and the desire to see what else Oliver could teach her about her own body. She tensed and relaxed in turn as she contemplated each instinct.

  “Have you been with anyone since you…?” Oliver’s words drifted off.

  This distracted Farrah. Her brow furrowed. “Since I…?” Her lips parted. Oh. Since she lost her sight. He thought she was nervous because she had not experienced a man without her vision. “No,” she whispered. It was the truth, after all.

  “Is that why you were touching me, beautiful?” he asked, his voice going even huskier. “To see me?”

  She nodded her head against his chest, her cheeks heating once again. Was she going to be in trouble for doing something so forward without his permission?

  “Well, don’t let me stop you.” He shifted beneath her, turning a bit and sliding her to the bed.

  As her hips skated over his hard erection, she made an involuntary noise of loss, wanting to keep feeling his hardness against her.

  Oliver squeezed her into his side, one arm around her back. With his other hand, he placed her palm over the thudding of his heart. The hair at her temple stirred a moment before he whispered in her ear, “That noise you keep making is going to drive all good intentions straight out of my head, woman.”

  The words were a growl. Primitive and possessive. Farrah’s fingers spasmed over his heart.

  He traced a design over her wrist. “You wanted to touch. So, touch me.” His breathing hitched slightly. “In whatever way you want. For as long as you want.”

  “You would just…let me do that?” Without asking anything in return? Did he want something in return?

  “I would let you do anything to me.” The words were barely spoken, and Farrah wondered if her mind imagined them. It was likely because a list of things she wanted to do to him immediately formulated.

  She blinked rapidly, trying to displace it. He was acting honorably; she needed to as well. She had permission to “see” him, and she would take it.

  “Thank you,” she muttered.

  An odd laugh sounded above her head. “You really shouldn’t thank me.”

  “All right,” Farrah said slowly.

  That laugh again. “Just touch me, baby.”

  When he said it like that, it did not sound like she was doing this to learn what he looked like at all. Farrah’s chest hurt. Was it simply a flimsy excuse to run her hands all over his body?

  Yes.

  It was not going to stop her from doing it, however.

  He removed his hand from her wrist, and she was free to move. She had already explored one side of his body, but now, with her on the bed beside him instead of on top of him, she could explore him fully. She started down the middle, trailing her fingers all the way down to his belly button. The muscles of his abdomen flexed beneath her touch, more so than just from mere breathing.

  Ticklish here as well? It was a possibility, but her instincts were telling her the touch was making his muscles jump for a different reason.

  Just below his belly button, a line of hair began, and as she discovered it, she froze. It led downward, and the logical thing to do would be to follow it, but she could not do so in her current frame of mind and honor the spirit of this experiment, so, holding her breath, she moved her fingers to safer ground.

  Oliver uttered a noise in his chest that sounded almost like disappointment. Farrah followed the elastic of his undergarments to the outline of his hip bone and skated downward along the smooth fabric until she found the top of his thigh. She lay her head on his chest and reached down as far as she could, only getting down to about mid-thigh, before tracing back up. Over his hip, up his abdomen, over his ribcage, up to his chest.

  He was so big. No matter how far she reached, she could not touch all of him without moving herself.

  Without even thinking, Farrah rose to one elbow and began touching down his other side. Oliver sucked in a breath sharply.

  Her breasts! Farrah gasped and collapsed to the bed again, covering herself with her arms.

  Oliver groaned as if he was in pain, and the arm that was wrapped around her back vanished. She tilted her head up, her cheek coming to rest on his bicep, and discovered bulging muscle, almost as though his arm was gripping something over his head, and he was squeezing with all of his might.

  “Did you touch everything you needed to?” Oliver asked, his voice strained.

  Everything she needed to? Farrah nodded, albeit sadly. Yes, she had. There was no reason for her to touch the place between his thighs. That was not a touch meant for learning. That would be one purely for her gratification.

  “Did you touch everything you wanted to?” he asked in a low rumble.

  Farrah closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into his arm. Was she that transparent? Gathering her courage, she shook her head.

  For a horrific moment, Oliver said nothing, and Farrah wondered if she had ruined everything.

  His body shifted, and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, dragging an arm away from covering her breasts to place her hand in the middle of his stomach. Again, those muscles leapt at her touch.
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  He began pushing her hand downward, and Farrah was breathing so quickly, she worried she was hyperventilating. She started to move her hand on her own, and Oliver released her, letting her continue.

  She found his belly button again. The trail of hair just beneath, and then, immediately, her fingers bumped against something hard and warm.

  It was through sheer luck that she had not touched him before. He was…she was having trouble visualizing things. Was not the belly button far above a man’s groin? And yet, right beneath it and far above the elastic of his underwear, here was Oliver’s….

  She blushed. What should she even call it? Penis felt too impersonal, but she was not sure she felt comfortable applying some of the bawdier terms she’d heard through her life on the street to any part of Oliver’s body.

  She tentatively traced her finger in a circle at the very tip. Oliver’s entire body stiffened.

  “What do you…what do you call this?” She wanted to die of embarrassment as soon as the question left her. Truly, Farrah? You ask him this? Why not just announce her inexperience on the spot? Then he would never want her.

  “My dick.” His voice was deeper than she’d ever heard. “Or cock.”

  His breathing was speeding up, coming close to matching hers. Farrah nodded, taking note of the terms but not quite feeling bold enough to use them yet.

  She continued to draw the circle around the crown, but paused when she encountered a change. She followed this new discovery with her pointer finger: a slit near the head of his…dick. As she touched it, a droplet of moisture appeared. She was fascinated, and spread it with her finger.

  Oliver groaned so loudly, Farrah jumped. There was a creaking noise above their heads. “It’s nothing.” The words were clipped and harsh. “Just… don’t feel like you have to stop. Or anything.”

  Farrah’s smile started off small, but quickly spread. She tilted her head up to him. “You like this.”

  “Like is a weak word,” he said, his final word cutting off with a groan as she traced his slit again. “Oh, hell, you’re a vixen, aren’t you? You’re trying to kill me.”