Broken Shadow: A Shadow Series Novella (The Shadow Series Book 1)

by Hazel Jacobs

A thumb brushes over my slit and my hands grip at nothing. The roof is too smooth for me to hold onto, and I don’t want to lean forward too much, or else people might realize something’s not quite right at the moment. Even if no one can see what’s happening, I know, and I’m too paranoid not to think about it.

  Blake’s thumb runs over me a few times before breaching my clit to rub against my pussy in slow circles. Although it is amazing to think that Blake is doing this, it’s not getting me off any faster than just the thought of him would. But then I feel something firm and wet press against my clit, and I gasp.

  He’s … oh, holy shit.

  Blake’s tongue laps slowly at my clit while his thumb keeps rubbing gently but constantly, as though he’s worried he might hurt me by going too hard.

  I try to grind down on him—not enough to push it, but enough so he can tell I need more. It’s tough to do when I’m standing up, and I can’t see what’s happening below the sunroof, but by spreading my legs a little and thrusting enticingly against his exploring tongue, Blake seems to take the hint and press harder.

  He’s circling my clit, his thumb is replaced by two fingers, and now he’s slowly fucking me with them. The street lights of New York City create a surreal landscape that passes me in a series of blurred half-noticed images. I keep my face straight while my entire bottom half is worked to within an inch of my ability to handle it.

  It’s good. I sense the slow burn creeping up my legs, and I can feel my orgasm building steadily. Even so, the entire time he’s doing this, just the thought of climbing down into the cabin and feeling his strong arms wrap around me, his body heat pressing against me, his lips, so pink and sweet-looking that most likely taste like the popcorn we just had, gets me off.

  He keeps pushing his fingers into me, pressing his tongue more earnestly against me, and the pressure in my lower half steadily builds until a shuddering orgasm envelopes me. It’s not a crashing wave, more of a gentle, invigorating shock of pleasure that takes over my entire body.

  Blake must be able to feel it when I climax. He pumps his fingers into me a few more times, gives me one more lick that makes me jerk enough to make my arms slip on the roof. The limo pulls up to a set of lights, and Blake pulls my panties back up. I slide back into the cabin.

  I land in his lap and pull him into a kiss.

  Blake’s tongue is immediately in my mouth, and I can taste myself on him. That, and popcorn. It’s weird, but the feeling of his arms wrapping around me and pulling me close enough to press his entire body against mine excites me. I feel the bulge in his pants, and I reach for it.

  He pulls away.

  “Sorry… wait, no. I… I shouldn’t have done that.”

  What the fuck.

  “What?” I say, keeping the ‘fuck’ to myself.

  “That was… out of line. I’m so fucking sorry,” he says.

  That’s an understatement, but wasn’t that the point?

  “I don’t mind,” I say, trying to pull him back into a kiss.

  He picks me up as easily as if I were a paper doll and puts me in the seat next to him. He adjusts himself in his pants—the bulge is impressive, and all I want is to address the issue, but he’s already crossing his ankle over his knee and scooting over, so his entire side is pressed against the window.

  “I should know better,” he mutters, looking out the window and avoiding my eyes.

  I stare at him. I’m still warm and tender from the orgasm, but my high is already gone, fizzled out thanks to the cold shoulder he’s now sending my way.

  “Blake…”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “Why did it happen in the first place?” I demand. I try to get closer, but he has closed himself off, and he looks like he’s willing to move across to one of the facing seats if it means getting away from me. “Why? Blake, you can’t do that and then pull away like this.”

  “It was a lapse in judgment. I won’t do it again.”

  “Blake…”

  His lips are thin, and he shakes his head at me. “Just drop it, please.”

  A lapse in judgment.

  That’s what he calls it, as though he hadn’t just gone down on me while we drove through the streets of New York City. If he’d thought it would be a lapse in judgment, why start in the first place? He’d clearly enjoyed it. Wanted it.

  I cross my legs and cross my arms over my chest, and I’m horrified to realize there are tears rising in my eyes. But I will not cry. I refuse to cry just because some guy won’t fuck me.

  I am not that girl.

  I tell myself that even though I know the sex thing isn’t even half of the reason. It’s the fact I’d felt him running his hands over me, and he’d never even asked permission or tried to check in to see whether it was okay to touch me, but I’d felt completely safe. I was more concerned with the thought someone might see than I was with the thought I hadn’t consented to anything, because Blake makes me feel safe. And he’d made me feel great for a few minutes, only to throw a cold bucket of water over the whole thing.

  I’d thought…I’d hoped…

  We don’t speak for the rest of the ride to my dorm.

  I don’t sleep well that night. I get into my dorm, and find Shane strewn across my bed, drooling on my pillow. Instead of waking him up and explaining why I’m in such a foul mood, I go to the bathroom and scrub my makeup off, hang the Givenchy dress on its hanger, and climb into bed next to him wearing nothing but a bra and panties.

  “Hrum hrum,” he says, rolling over and squeezing himself against the wall without opening his eyes.

  Curling up against Shane’s back, I try to get my head around my thoughts. When I was a teenager, my mom would sit me down whenever I had boy troubles and make me write down my feelings. She said it was the best way to work through things and get it straight, so I wouldn’t end up acting super emotional.

  In the end, writing down my thoughts turned into songwriting. That was my angsty, emotional phase.

  Blake’s hands and tongue remain in my memory throbbing like a tattoo on my skin. I rub my back up against Shane’s, but he’s not muscular enough for me to pretend I was sleeping next to my bodyguard.

  There are so many things I need to think about, but in the end, my mind boils this situation down to a few main points. One… Blake is damn good with his tongue. Two… he wants me as much as I want him—because no man goes down on a woman unless he wants her. And three… he seems to think he crossed some line.

  That final point excites me a little bit. I let myself imagine he was so desperate to touch me, he forgot we work together. I let myself believe Blake’s desire for me squashed his better judgment. It’s the only way I can make myself feel better after he promised it wouldn’t happen again.

  Shane snuffles a little and rolls over, so he’s spooning me from behind, pulling me close. He’s a cuddler, and that’s usually okay unless he dreams of hot men. In that case, I wake up with a boner in my back and a smirking best friend telling me how lucky I am I don’t have a Y chromosome. At the moment, I’ll take the boost to my self-esteem.

  Finally, I fall asleep, only to wake up at my usual time the next morning when my alarm goes off.

  “I will kill everything you love,” Shane mutters into my neck as he rolls over on top of me, groping for the bedside table to trying and get hold of the alarm clock. He shuts it off and rolls back off of my prone body.

  Eventually, I sigh and pull myself out of bed, reaching for my workout clothes.

  “Seriously?” Shane asks.

  “I need a run.”

  “Tell me about the red carpet,” he says, even as his eyes droop and he flops back onto the bed.

  “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

  “Did you meet any celebrities?”

  “Mmm… yeah. I’ll tell you later.”

  “Good girl,” he says.

  I throw my workout gear on, put my hair up into a ponytail, and grab my iPod. It isn’t until I get to the bo
ttom of the driveway and realize I’ve forgotten one very important thing—Blake joins me on my runs.

  Crap, I think as I walk down to the street to find him waiting there, the sun rising behind his back and pouring through his blond hair.

  He looks good enough to eat, as usual. Standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and his black T-shirt tight on his biceps, it makes me want to run up and leap at him, wrap my legs around his waist and kiss him. Last night, I’d been orgasm-drunk and hardly appreciated the way his tongue and lips had felt. If I could kiss him now, I’d memorize every moment.

  But when I try to smile at him and test the waters, his face is impassive.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asks.

  Business as usual, then.

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak even though I feel like screaming. I even go as far as to stuff my iPod in my ears, so I won’t hear his breathing. I try to convince myself that the look on his face—half-confused, half-hurt—is just my imagination.

  As we run together, my ears filling with the sounds of songs I can’t even bring myself to pay attention to, I am hyper-aware of him. My brain is swirling with everything I want to say to him and everything I wish he would say to me.

  I wish I could grab him and pull him off the road, and tell him I don’t care that we work together because I’ve never been so attracted to anyone in my life. I wish I could ask him why he’s so damn uptight about this. Is it because of Sadie? I feel my heart clench, and it’s got nothing to do with the exercise. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe he’s convinced himself that because Sadie lost herself to fame that I will, too. And if he lets himself date me—I can barely think the word because I haven’t given it much thought either as I’ve spent more time thinking about fucking him than I have actually getting to know him—that I’ll turn out the way she did?

  I stop in the middle of the road. We’re about ten minutes into the run, right near a copse of trees that sends a long shadow over the path.

  Blake runs a little way further before stopping and turning to look at me.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. He looks confused, and I push on, “Do you think I’ll end up like Sadie?”

  Blake’s face immediately closes up. There’s tension all around his eyes and mouth, his fingers curl up into loose balls, and his chest, easily visible beneath his tight shirt, freezes as though he’s forgotten to breathe.

  “I’m not, I was just curious.” I go on, “Because I think you’re probably worried about that. Are you?”

  “I’m not sure,” he says, still frowning.

  “Do you think I’m anything like her right now?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  That makes me feel better, but it doesn’t help the situation between us. It doesn’t help the fact I can still taste him as a memory on my lips, and I can still remember what he did to me, and what he said afterward.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  Blake looks almost like he wants to ask, but after a moment his eyes clear, and I can see he understands what I’m getting at.

  “I already apologized for that.”

  “I don’t remember asking for an apology.”

  “You should have,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down to his left at the clump of trees at the side of the path. “What I did was stupid and immature. I should know better.”

  “I didn’t want you to stop,” I say while taking a step forward, and I’m relieved when he doesn’t step away. His arms are still crossed over his chest, but his eyes are hooded, and his tongue creeps out to lick his lips. “I still don’t.”

  His legs twitch, but he doesn’t move away.

  “I made the mistake of mixing business with pleasure once,” he says.

  “You just said you don’t think I’m like her,” I remind him. I take another step closer. “And that sure as hell didn’t stop you before. Why did you do it, Blake? Why?”

  The next words that come out of his mouth are barely a whisper. “Because I wanted you.”

  His words make me want to sigh, to stretch like a cat in the sunlight, to jump and wrap my legs around him, but he’s still too far away for me to do that. “You can have me,” I say instead.

  “I’m not interested in a relationship.”

  I almost want to laugh. I’m so desperate for his touch that the thought of a relationship hadn’t even crossed my mind. I want him against me and inside me, but dating me? It hadn’t even registered.

  “Who said anything about a relationship?” I ask.

  Blake doesn’t move. The air between us is so tight with tension I almost want to pull away, but I can feel him wavering, I can feel him tearing through my shirt with his eyes. The muscles in his forearms are taut with the effort he’s taking to hold himself.

  “I shouldn’t,” he says.

  “I want you to.”

  And then I take a chance. I step close so quickly he only has time to drop his hands to his sides before I’m throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him.

  His skin is warm, not sweaty, because we’ve barely had the chance to get breathless before we stopped. His whole body tenses, and I think he’s going to pull away and tell me I’m being unprofessional. He’d be right, but I’m starting to think I might go crazy with only the memory of his touch to keep me going.

  Then he wraps his arms around me, crushes me to his chest, and kisses me so hard all I can do is hang on for dear life.

  Somehow, I find myself with my back pressed up against a tree. I don’t know when he pulled us into the copse of trees next to the path. I was so high on his kisses I didn’t even realize we were moving until I felt the rough bark against my back contrasting sharply with the feeling of his hot, firm chest against my own.

  Blake’s kisses are hungry and demanding. I have to keep up with him, to match him move for move, because there’s a dull part of my mind that thinks this might be the only chance I have to convince him this is a good idea. I have to make it good for him.

  But after a few moments, I’m hopelessly outmatched. He takes my attempts to kiss him with equal fervor and seems to triple them until I can do nothing but pant and scratch my fingers down his back while he has his way with my lips and tongue.

  Yes, yes, yes, is all I can think while he’s kissing me. It feels like I’ve been wanting this for years even though it’s only been a few weeks.

  “I want you, so fucking bad,” he whispers into my lips, though he doesn’t let up on the bruising pressure even for a moment. His hands trail hot lines down my waist to cup my ass. “Can’t wait.”

  “I’m done waiting,” I say. I press down on the bulge in his shorts, the bulge that had been pressing against my belly while we were kissing. It’s harder than it had been in the limo last night.

  While I apply pressure, he groans and pulls out of the kiss long enough to latch himself onto my neck pressing open-mouthed kisses to the sensitive skin there. He runs his hands over my stomach and down to slide his fingers into the front of my running shorts. I want to do the same for him, but when my fingers creep to his waistband, he swats them away.

  “Blake…”

  “Yes, Natalie. Wait,” he says.

  I feel his hot breath on my neck, and I want to melt against the tree.

  It occurs to me, dimly, that anyone could run past at any moment and catch us. The sun has risen in the sky, and the trees cast a very dull shadow that gives the illusion of privacy, but it’s not nearly enough to keep our identities secret if someone were to pass by. I’m not naïve enough to think I’m being completely silent right now either. Blake’s mouth on my neck and his fingers digging in under the waistband of my panties is enough to get me panting, gasping, and moaning in short intervals. Even if a stranger passes and doesn’t see us, they’ll be able to hear us.

  One photo from a camera phone and they’ll probably have magazines lining up to shower them with money.

  Thought
s of what damage that could do to my career—or maybe it would even give it a boost, Kim Kardashian’s career hadn’t hurt from her sex tape leaking—are violently thrown out of my mind when Blake’s fingers finally get into my panties and rub at my clit, practically attacking it as he keeps kissing my neck. If anything, the fact that someone could come past at any moment, only makes this more exciting.

  I grip Blake’s shoulders so tightly I think my nails might break while my breathing starts to quicken. Heat is already pooling in my veins, and I know I’m not going to last long. With the way he’s touching me—impatient, desperate—I think it’s only going to be moments.

  “Oh, God,” I whisper, leaning up to bite Blake’s ear, desperate for some sort of revenge for the way he’s making me feel.

  His fingers jerk and he gasps against my neck before leaning a little to the side and changing the angle of his fingers. I lean back a little bit to give him more room, and I’m rewarded by the feeling of two fingers filling me while his thumb aggressively rubs my clit in hard, even strokes.

  My orgasm rips through me so quickly and thoroughly, I all but collapse against the tree.

  My arms are still around his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin with a force that surprises me. I feel my hips moving of their own accord, humping his arm and riding out the waves of bliss he sent shooting through me. I don’t want this feeling to end, and my body seems to be acting as though it, too, wants to stay like this forever.

  But before the last shockwaves of my orgasm have passed, Blake is pulling away. He pulls his hand out of my waistband and grips my hips. I barely have time to look at his face—red cheeks, pupils blown out so black that he looks almost demonic—before he’s turning me roughly around and shoving me against the tree trunk face first.

  “Oof.” The breath is knocked out of me, and I was already breathless, so that’s quite an achievement, as Blake pushes on my back until my chest is pressed against the bark. One hand on my back, one on my hip.

  “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

  “Never.”

  “It’s gonna get rough.”