She curled up next to him, molded to him, an arm thrown across his bare torso. This was where she was most content. This was as perfect as a moment could get.
“This last mission was very hard on you, wasn’t it?” she finally asked, keeping her voice soft.
He took a gulp of the beer. She listened to the thunderous beating of his heart beneath her ear. Ren wasn’t certain he was going to answer her. He always said so little about his trips.
“Have you family, Ren? I’ve never asked. And you never speak of them.”
She hesitated before answering him. Her past was not something she liked discussing. She tried not to move backward, only forward. But Creed was an important part of her life and maybe it was time they each shared something of themselves.
“I was raised in a long line of foster homes,” she finally answered.
“Your parents are both dead?” His arm tightened around her. “Mine died in a plane crash when I was fifteen. It was their first vacation. I went to live with my older brother and his wife after that.”
“My story isn’t pretty,” she said. “As far as I know I don’t have any relatives. I was taken away from my mother, so they told me, when I was about five. I don’t remember very much about her.”
“I’m sorry. So you’ve never had a real sense of family then.” He stroked his fingers along her bare arm. She cuddled closer.
“You’re my family now. I don’t need anyone else,” she said. The foster families didn’t count. She’d gone out on her own when she was seventeen and had found a way to survive. She’d gotten her G.E.D., gone on to college, and become a CPA because she’d found she had a certain knack with numbers.
“I never had time for relationships,” she said.
“But you weren’t a virgin when you met Ariyel.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have time for sex. Ariyel took me into a whole other world—one I’d never allowed time for. I had never allowed myself to experience sensations in the way he made me experience them. He fascinated me. My responses to him fascinated me. And then I couldn’t get enough.”
“But you didn’t stay with him,” Creed pointed out.
Ren pressed a hand to Creed’s warm chest, right over his beating heart. “There was always something inside me—something I didn’t dare let out. Even with Ariyel I didn’t quite lose complete control. You were the one to crack me open, to peel away the layers. I don’t know all the answers of why or how. But it’s you I need—you who I truly respond to—you who I want as my family. Nobody else.”
Creed was silent for a long time and she lay in his arms, content.
“I lost one of my men on this last mission. He was a good man. One of my best.”
She tried not to react, but it wasn’t easy. Her heart flip-flopped inside her chest.
“I’m sorry. That must have been very hard for you. He was like family to you?” Ren had never let anyone at work get that close. Maybe it was a sort of self-preservation, but she’d never taken the time to try to figure it out. She felt Creed’s pain and yet she wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.
His arm curled around her to cup her breast, kneading it lightly. He played with the ring piercing her nipple.
“He was. But it’s going to be harder for his wife and children.”
“So he wasn’t quite as much a loner as you?” Something about that made her heart hurt. She considered him her family, but what did he consider her? What did she really know about being part of a family when it came down to it. She was his submissive, yes. He’d said she was important to him, but he kept his life so compartmentalized. Except for now. Suddenly the lines seemed to be blurring.
“He has two children. So young. He was always talking about them, and how much he loved his wife.”
She curled closer, somehow wanting to find a way to ease the pain of such a loss.
“I’m sure you did everything you possibly could.” Something niggled at her, some deeper emotion.
“Did I? It doesn’t matter because it wasn’t good enough.”
She lifted her head, then cupped his roughened jaw, forcing him to look at her. “You did everything you could. He had to have known it was dangerous. You never tell me explicitly what you’re doing, but I know your life is on the line every time you leave me. You would have done your best to protect him.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. For a long time he didn’t say more. But she did know. He may have told her nothing about his life over these last months, he may have kept that part of his world segregated from his relationship with her, but still she knew.
And then there was his manner with her. He liked control, but he was never cruel. Whatever happened between them was because she wanted it as much as he did. And sometimes he even protected her from herself and her own dangerous needs. She trusted him with her life, her love, her soul.
“I love you, Creed,” she said softly.
“Things I love have a way of getting destroyed. I’m a dangerous man to be around. I should let you go. I should have left you with Ariyel. You would have been safer.”
“I don’t want to be safe. That was never what it was about, and I think you know that. Ariyel was good to me, but he wasn’t you. You’re my other half. You know me as well as I know myself. Maybe better. It’s you I love.”
The lager bottle clattered as it dropped onto the stone floor. It rolled away. Creed twisted around until she was beneath him on the lounger. He slid down her body, spread her legs, then lapped at her pussy, swirling his tongue over her clit and finally thrusting inside. She arched. Her body still ached from their earlier session, but the soothing bath had helped. She reached down to stroke her fingers through his thick black hair. She closed her eyes and the climax that rippled through her was like a pleasant rocking wave that flowed over her.
“Creed.” She breathed his name; she didn’t scream it as she’d done earlier. Something in their relationship was changing. It was subtle, but it was there. She sensed a deeper connection.
He lapped at her juices, then pulled away and rose to his feet. He gathered her up in his arms and carried her inside. She relaxed and cuddled close, willingly handing the control over to him.
He may not have said it directly, but she felt it. Creed loved her and she would stake her life on that. A dangerous man, a complex man, a passionate man.
He laid her gently upon the bed.
She reached up for him. “Love me, Creed.”
“It’s too soon.”
She spread her legs. “Love me.”
He came over her and slowly eased his hard cock into her.
“Love me harder, my darling. Love me harder.”
It was their way—he was her passion, her rapture. Ren thrust up to take him deep.
Not one bit of regret edged the searing fire in her body as she urged him on—harder, faster, deeper.
“Ren!” He stiffened and cried out as his seed spilled into her and she held him close. She arched upward to lock him deep inside her.
There was no end, there was no beginning, there were no boundaries Ren would not yield for this man. There was only here and now…with Creed, her lover, her mate, her loving master. His pain was hers and she’d do anything to give him peace from the demands and sacrifices of his dangerous profession.
Love me harder, my darling Sir. Love me harder.
~ 0 ~
Author Bio
Adrianna Dane has been putting pen to paper since the age of ten. She currently
resides in the state of Washington. She has a great fondness for using a fountain pen when writing her first drafts. Hobby interests are varied, including photography and traveling.
The first defining love story Adrianna read back in junior high school was “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, and that set her on the road to her long-standing love affair with books of all genres. Her inspiration in writing often can be found by listening to song lyrics, from hard rock to classical, and reading poetry by such p
oets as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edgar Allen Poe, and Ranier Maria Rilke. But finding inspiration for her stories truly has no boundaries for Adrianna.
In 2006, her dark fantasy GLBT story, Body Parts, won its category in the Dream Realm Awards. Adrianna has written more than 100 stories, short, novella, and novel length, delving into many facets of the human condition - contemporary, futuristic, and fantasy, and all the flavors therein and in between. In other words, wherever the story and the characters, as well as their intricate stories, take her imagination, then her pen and/or computer keyboard, are sure to follow.
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Black Leather and New Boundaries Page 5
