The Stage (Phoenix Rising #1)

by Shelby Rebecca

  “You were made for me.” He runs his finger up my arm, causing more yearning than he could ever extinguish in our lifetimes. His whispered oath reaches inside me and ties me to him. It’s like a rope from my soul to his, one that will never, ever, be broken. Tears form in my eyes; one falls down my face and onto his arm.

  “Mmmmm,” is all I can muster.

  I roll over and face him. I’m hot, sticky. My eyes are burning with emotions for this man. His chest is scented with me and him mixed together. He moves my hair off my wet forehead and tilts my chin, taking my mouth, and circles his tongue around mine, gently giving as much pleasure as he can. His hand moves down, just as some of him starts to trickle down my thigh.

  He takes it, the evidence of our love making, and rubs in into me like an aphrodisiac, pushing himself back inside of me. Just as I thought I was too tired to keep my eyes open, he flips me to my back and kneels between my legs. He splays his hand on his thighs the way he’d done in the car. The movement makes me crazy. And now his length is rising up like a monument between his hips.

  This is the first time I’ve seen him. Now I understand why he’d made me turn around and face the headboard. I might have been too intimidated by his size to go through with it. It all makes sense—he was making sure I wouldn’t be afraid of him.

  “You like when I do this?” he asks, splaying his fingers out on his thighs and rubbing his skin slightly. I nod. “It makes you want to touch me,” he decides, grabbing my palms and wrapping them both around his substantial width and length. “This is what you’ve been wanting to do to me, Mia,” he says, his voice needy and awakening. “I need you again, with my cum inside you.” His eyes dilate, igniting a yearning need inside me again.

  My eyes shoot open. It’s so primal like we’re animals, like there’s no world out there—just him and me. I’m nodding yes, and pumping him with both fists. He’s so hot, he’s nearly burning the insides of my hands.

  He pulls away from my touch and stares down at me. I’m wiggling in anticipation as he moves over me, his arms on either side of my face—just like I’d imagined our first time would be.

  “Look in my eyes, Mia. Don’t even blink too long or I’ll go fucking crazy. Don’t deny me this.”

  His voice is scary, needy. I nod and keep my eyes glued to his. “What does my cum feel like inside you?” he asks, as he rubs his head against my wetness, still sore from what we’ve just done, but aching for him to fill me again. My mouth is open to make words, but only incoherent sounds are escaping. “Tell me!” he demands.

  “Hot. It was so fucking hot.”

  He pushes himself just inside my opening. “Oh! I feel it,” he groans like an animal. “Wrap your legs around me. Now!” and, as I do, he scoops me up in his arms, like he can’t get close enough to me. Like he needs to be everywhere around me, and me him. As he looks deep into my wounded part, until I’m hurting and raw, he slams himself all the way inside me. I can’t even catch my breath.

  This time is different. He’s not slow. He’s not gentle. He’s grunting and biting me, his arms squeezing me tight. His movements are not timed or rhythmic. His whole body is shaking as he pumps into me. I love it. I’m feeling something with him that no one ever has. Kolton at his most real, stripped down, prime.

  The sounds he’s making, my sounds. The scent of us, like sex, and sweat, and need.

  I can’t even move. He’s pinned me down with all of him. I’m completely under his control. All I can do is hold onto his arms for dear life.

  He’s pressing his hips into the center of me, and I realize I’m screaming words that don’t even make sense. I’m scratching his back because I can’t help it.

  “You’re mine,” he says. “Mine.” He pumps his hips. “Mine.” And bites my neck, pull my lips into his hot mouth. I feel myself clamping down on him and then the shaking starts again.

  “Don’t close your fucking eyes!”

  I obey. He stares through me as the sensation bubbles up from deep inside me. Then it’s like a flash of pain and pleasure. I’m coming so hard around him I can’t even think. He picks my legs up and angles me so he can use my weight to get himself deeper. He’s moving slow, pressing into me, so deep. Then faster, in control. He stiffens up as his face contorts and he bites his lip.

  He spurts his heat inside me again, his face scrunched up in the agony of pleasure. I’m still shaking as he pumps his hips twice more. Full and deep, causing me to shake again and again. Then he stills completely, rooting himself all the way inside me.

  “Look at me,” he croons.

  I feel everything all at once. His heartbeat against my breast, his breath against my face. The shivers from deep within my body as I clench my insides around his pulsing heat. Our breaths are loud. He’s shaking, too. We are quivering like we’re cold, but we’re not. Anything but.

  The tears come, because they can’t help themselves. They sting their way down my face as he kisses my lips. “I can still feel you coming,” he says, his voice raspy. “You’re not done.”

  “I’m done,” I say, because I don’t think I can take another one this strong again.

  “This one will be different,” he says soothingly as he gradually lies down on the bed and pulls me to my side, careful to keep himself inside me, and wraps my leg around his hips. He pulses again, and I convulse.

  “Yes,” he says. “Like this.” He circles his hips slowly and takes his tongue to my ear, moving it in the same movement he’s doing down below. It’s my undoing. I didn’t even know an orgasm could feel like this. It’s not frantic like the one just before. It’s a deep, cosmic, metaphysical joining. It’s like music, or love. My back arches, and my ears go silent. I feel like I am floating, like I’ve left my body; like I am open and free.

  Like I am no longer the saint.

  Like he is no longer the sinner.

  Like we are love—personified.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  The “L” word

  The steam surrounds us as he pulls my knees up under his arms, pressing my back against the tile. He takes me to places I’ve never been, emotionally and physically. I didn’t know it could feel this way. His mouth slow, deep, just like the way his hips circle as he thrusts inside me. I feel somewhat like a butterfly with my wings pressed out, pinned in place. I let out a breathy moan.

  “I love the sounds you make,” he says, pulsing inside me again. “You’re so loud. You like this? Hmm?”

  And when he talks to me like this, it springs up from deep within, making me arch my back and meet his thrusts. “Yes!” I exclaim, breathing heavily with sounds of pleasure on my tongue.

  “Yes, that’s good,” he says. “Mmmm.” He speeds up. Faster, then slow. He circles his hips. Again and again until my eyes are rolling backward and I squeeze his arms, tensing up all around him. “You’re so beautiful.”

  He thrusts twice more. Slow and deep before he stops and he tenses up, releasing himself inside me again.

  I grind out a breathy appreciation as I feel his warmth inside me like a salve. He’s breathing heavy in my ear. My legs are starting to hurt but he doesn’t let me go. Instead he turns my face to his.

  “Feel me inside you.” His voice edgy.

  “Kole,” I try, because he seems panicked, like he’s going to lose me any moment. Like I’ll just disappear.

  “This is mine,” he says, his voice hitching. He pulses, making me nod my head. “Tell me.”

  “Yours.”

  “I’m still going to be inside you. Me,” he says as he almost angrily separates his body from mine and sets my legs down onto the hot tiles. His green eyes, with the red fleck, stare into mine with this primal need to claim. It’s like he’s marked his territory with his scent. “For days. Weeks. I’m still there. Do you understand?”

  “Kolton. I know about sex-ed and how long semen stays inside a woman’s body.” His jaw tenses and he pushes his hand through his wet hair. He closes his eyes, leans into the shower’s stream, and
rinses off. I feel bad for saying it like that. It just seemed over the top for him to remind me that I’m his. But, then again, what promise have I given him?

  I reach out and put my hand around the curve of his hip. When he opens his eyes, he looks angry, but like he’s masking vulnerability with it, because his eyes soften as I come closer and put my feet right next to his.

  I take the soap and rub some of it into my hands, run them along his shoulders. “This isn’t the end, right?” I ask.

  “Not if it doesn’t have to be.” I run my hands down over his chest, his tattoo, onto his tight abs.

  “You mean more to me than I can really say.” Okay. That doesn’t sound right either and his body language still says that’s not enough. “This is right, us. I want a future with you. If you want one with me, and with Riley.” He takes a deep breath and smiles, looking up at the ceiling. He pulls me into his chest and holds me. As our naked bodies press into one another, with the steamy air surrounding us and the light just starting to come in through the window, I feel closer than I did when we were actually being intimate.

  “I want a future with you.” He laughs, but not as if it’s funny, but more like he’s relieved. “Come on,” he says, turning off the water and pulling a towel off the top of the shower curtain. He rubs me dry first as I watch water drip down his chest and into the V of his hips. It’s still embarrassing to look at his naked body. Although, he doesn’t seem self-conscious. It’s amazing after everything we’ve just done that I’d still be a little prudish.

  After we’re semi-dressed, him in his boxer briefs, me in the shirt he was wearing yesterday, we lie down on the bed. He runs his fingers through my wet hair until my eyes feel heavy and I can’t keep them open anymore. It’s like we’ve finally gotten to a point where we can be still and calm. This, after a full night of finally expressing our feelings. Still, I think he took it easy on me.

  There’s still this nagging feeling. Will I ever be enough?

  I hear a wimpy knock on the door, but my limbs are too heavy to respond. The door opens and I hear noises that sound like whispering. I open my eyes and watch Kolton place a tray of food on the small table near my leftover cake. My stomach rumbles and I sit upright.

  “Come eat with me,” he says. I stand up, wobble a little like a tired drunk, yawn and stretch my tired muscles. I feel it everywhere as I sit down and start devouring food into my hungry stomach. We’ve worked off the fattening dinner from last night. I’m famished.

  “You didn’t want me to see, did you?” I ask, taking a bite of toast and a sip of orange juice, peeking at him from under my lashes. He looks confused for a second and then a knowing look crosses his face. He nods.

  “I knew you would’ve been—intimidated.”

  “It didn’t seem to stop all the—others,” I add, instantly feeling bad. It’s my defense to feeling like I’m less than the sum of all of them.

  “Those were different kinds of women than you. Those women were using me, Mia.”

  “You mean, like your panther song?”

  “You and Riley keep calling it a panther. It’s a tiger. A tiger,” he repeats, looking amused. I laugh a little, my mouth full.

  “I would’ve been shocked. I mean, I was, but then it was too late.”

  “I wanted you sore,” he tells me, his jaw clenching. “I want to erase any other guy from your mind.”

  “There was just one guy, Kolton. His name was Dean. And we never did anything like—”

  “How old were you?” he asks.

  “Seventeen. You?”

  “I was really young the first time. Uncle Tedd had a housekeeper—”

  “How old were you?”

  “Twelve.” Holy shit.

  “She was a grown up?” I ask. He nods and crosses his arm across his naked chest.

  “She walked in on me getting dressed. She saw me and something changed in her eyes. She was really pretty.”

  “Kolton—I—”

  “I got hard just from her looking at me like that.”

  “You were just a little boy.”

  “She went down on me. I came quick, but she came back the next day with condoms.” Tears start forming in my eyes. He’s like a raging fire of memories, his eyes distant, sad. “She came into my room when I was on the computer. I mean, I wanted to and she was beautiful. She got on top.”

  “Please. Stop telling me this.”

  “But I learned then how I could get affection. Sex is different that the comfort a parent gives a child. But it met that need for affection I didn’t have any more because they were gone.” He stops then and his voice hitches slightly. I realize he’s telling me something so important that I’d better let him talk, even though it’s hard for me to listen to.

  “Sex, it felt good, and I got addicted to it,” he says. “After several times with her, I was good at it. And then all these years, it was the only way to feel close to anyone.” I close my eyes and take his hand; it’s shaking a little. “But it never felt, in all these years, like it felt like with you. It was empty before. That’s why I kept having to do more—more women, anytime I wanted. With my career, girls were throwing themselves at my dick, basically. They used me just like I used them. But it’s nothing like you. Please understand that, okay?”

  I stand up and sit on his lap, burying my face in his neck. Sharing this with me, being so candid and willing to open up. I can’t even process it.

  I take a piece of toast and feed him like a mother feeds a child. He smiles and takes a bite.

  “You’d better get up or this breakfast is gonna get cold, while the bed gets warm again,” he says.

  * * *

  I keep trying to show him I don’t look at him differently since he’s told me about his abuse. It’s hard to wrap my mind around it and he looks at me with this worried face when I start to drift into my thoughts. It all makes sense, though, as we fly toward the Wilshire Thayer, that he would become a sex addict because he was abused as a child.

  When we land, he gets my bag for me and holds my hand as we walk toward the elevator. “Do you have a therapist?” I ask.

  “Not what I thought you’d say to me right now. I was thinking more like, when can I see you again?” he says, winking.

  “But, unless you get help—you know—about the abuse. I mean. I can’t heal you, Kolton. You have to get support,” I say, as we walk down the stairs together.

  When we get to the elevator door, he leans into me until my back presses against the corner of the elevator door. “I’ve been seeing a therapist since the week I saw you outside the studio.”

  “Why since that week?” I ask, resting my hand on his hip.

  “I wanted to stop—I already wanted to but then I saw you. I wanted to be good enough for you, someday.” He looks down.

  “I feel the same way about you, like I’ll never be enough.” He takes the tip of his finger and runs it along my jaw line.

  “You have no idea how ironic that statement is, because it’s the exact opposite of the actual truth.”

  “You know, that is the definition of irony.”

  “Of course. I paid attention in English class.”

  “Everybody always thinks it’s when something’s unfortunate or really unfair.”

  “I know. Drives me nuts.”

  “Me, too.” I say, and it’s funny just how much we have in common. But then he pushes the elevator button. The door opens and he steps inside with me.

  “We don’t have long until we need to get to the studio, separately.” I nod, as the elevator takes the short trip down one floor. When the doors open, we’re inside the foyer. I think he’s going to come in with me. Besides, Riley and Deloris might not even be up yet. He shakes his head ‘no,’ leans forward, and tilts my chin up with his thumbs. His kiss is soft and hard at the same time.

  It means that we’re lovers now, but I can tell there’s desperation in it, too. Like what we have together is sand that’s hard to scoop into the future with just
our hands. We move apart, one finger letting go at a time, and I step out. I blink and watch the door close on him.

  I stand here, stunned. I know I’m going to see him in just about an hour, but it will be harder than ever to hide what we are, what we’ve shared not only physically, but what he shared about his past.

  I have so many questions about her, though. Does she still work at his uncle’s house? How long did it go on? Does he still see her? Those uncertainties make me anxious. I want her punished. It’s heartbreaking, but I don’t want to just move on from it.

  That he opened up with me makes what we’ve shared worth so much more. It makes our connection deeper, knowing we give each other something the other needs. Not sex. Sex didn’t come into play until just now. It’s something more than that. It’s a connection, going into our histories and forward into our futures. It’s like a lifeline between he and I. Is it? It’s too early for the “L” word but pretty damn close. It’s like a whole bunch of tiny music notes written on the page, just wishing to have lyrics added. Just waiting to be sung.

  As I walk up the stairs to my room to change my clothes I’m thinking about what stands in our way. Just a few more weeks. What could possibly go wrong?

  * * *

  Manny takes me to the studio. We don’t have to pretend to go to the hotel anymore and take the shuttle. The secret’s out. Well, not the new secret. That’s still right on the tip of my tongue. It’s a little difficult to turn down the volume on my body. Being in that constant state of arousal for so many hours can’t be shut off like a switch.

  It doesn’t help that I can still smell him on me, in me. It’s more than erotic to think he’s marked me with his scent. It really is an animalistic need to be claimed and possessed by the one that’s yours and that you belong to.

  When I walk onto the set, a few people start whispering behind my back. My phone buzzes and I check it for the first time since yesterday.