by Selena Kitt
He was like a god, kneeling over her, gazing down on her, and she basked under the heat of his regard. Her hands moved over him, exploring the hot, rough, dry terrain of his skin, a desert of flesh, nothing for miles but smooth, bronze landscape to explore. He let her fingers and hands roam a while, let her trace the lines of his tattoos, while he took in his fill of the sight of her, open and ready for him.
Then he grabbed her hands, taking control of them, careful of her sore wrists as he pinned them to her sides. He bent over to kiss her, trapping her with his body, and she loved how strong he was, how impossible it was to resist him. She couldn’t move, was completely his, and he kissed her to prove it. He owned her mouth, he fucked it with his tongue, he explored every small recess, even the ridges of her molars, before letting her breathe again.
“I’m so yours,” she whimpered, her pussy weeping for him, too, aching for release.
A ghost of a smile flickered over his features, a knowing look in his eyes. He knew she belonged to him. She didn’t have to say it. But he liked hearing it, even so. She could tell. He kept her arms pinned, his forearms tight against her biceps, as he kissed and licked her nipples. That drove her crazy, the aching wetness between her legs—she was so ready for him—driving her to distraction.
Tilly moaned and arched and rocked and begging him with every inch of her body, please, please, fuck me, take me, make me yours. But he kissed and licked lower, down to her navel, his hands keeping hers still, wrists pressed against her bucking hips. He smothered her belly with kisses, licked the soft, shiny striations of the stretch marks Miles had given her between pubis and navel. She could have cried at the time he spent, the attention he gave each one, like he was acknowledging the scars she bore.
He laced his fingers with hers as his tongue moved between her legs once more, and oh my God, did he really expect her to still be able to resist orgasm? She moaned, called his name, rocking with him. He fastened his mouth over her mound, focusing solely on her clit, with a tenacity she knew meant he wanted her to come.
She looked down at him, questioning, squeezing her hands in his, palm to palm.
“Oh fuck,” she whispered, seeing his dark gaze, the heat rising between them. “Oh baby, please, I have to come. Make me come!”
He nodded, no words, just his mouth and tongue coaxing her, finally, over the edge. Tilly screamed. The release was so sudden, it jerked her hips upward, toward the ceiling, and he followed her, tongue flicking again and again over her clit. Slowly, as she began to come down, his tongue-lashings slowed, until he finally pressed it flat against her fluttering clit, as if he was pinning that in place, too.
Slowly, he unlaced their fingers, and unfastened his mouth, and then he knelt up, grabbing her knees and parting them. When he rose above her, she got a sense of deja-vu and reached for him, eager to explore his body with her hands once more, but Beast shook his head. He leaned back, rocking her knees toward the bed, tilting her hips up, and aimed his cock at her wetness.
Then he shifted his weight, entering her slowly as he leaned in to capture her mouth. Tilly moaned, tasting herself, sucking her juices off his tongue as he propped himself above her, easing in a little further. As ever, he was big, and she was not, and it took some maneuvering as they looked into each other’s eyes, a give and take, push and pull, as he pressed his pelvis closer and closer to hers.
Finally, he was buried inside her, his cock tightly and fully embraced, the incredible weight of his body crushing her pubic bone, and she writhed beneath him, struggling, gasping, breathing hard already. It was as if he was more than she could contain, and yet somehow she could accommodate him, to her utter delight.
Beast began to move.
As ever, he was a quiet man, and a quiet lover. He communicated with his body, not his words. Tilly gripped his shoulders, feeling the muscles ripple under her hands as he thrust into her, his breath hot, growing faster. His tongue teased the shell of her ear, his teeth grazing her earlobe. Then he buried his face in her hair, only half-dry after her shower, breathing in her scent as he really began to fuck her.
Tilly moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands moving through the short, close-cropped softness of his hair, fingernails lightly grazing the back of his neck. Beast began to grind his hips into hers, propping himself above her so he could look down, into her eyes. Tilly’s hands moved down the meat of his biceps, his forearms roped with muscle, seeing him poised above her.
Then he captured her mouth, tongue probing, plunging, thrusting along with the pounding of his cock between her legs. He reached down with one hand, then both, gripping her ass as he drove himself deeply into her. Tilly clung to him, her hands small on the wide, tawny vista of his back, clawing at the muscles bulging there.
Her pussy fluttered, pre-release, readying itself to clamp down on his heated length like a vise, and he groaned. Straining into her now, he arched his back, pushing deep with all his intensity as Tilly threw her legs around him and squeezed as hard as she could.
They came together. Tilly’s whole body shuddered beneath him as an incredible feeling of release rolled through her. Beast grunted as her pussy clenched him, and she was sure her cries could be heard in the apartment next door—not that she cared. She welcomed every tremor and quake of his body on hers, feeling the rise of his semen as it traveled from balls to tip before flooding her womb with his seed.
Afterwards, he rolled to his back and pulled her onto him, wrapping them up in the sheet. Beast laced their fingers again—his hand threatened to swallow hers—and she saw his brow droop and the corners of his mouth turn down every time he saw the marks on her wrists. These hadn’t come from any consensual play, the two of them closeted away in a private room together. These marks were the remnants of a violent sort of evil that she knew he wanted nothing more than to protect her from.
She was exhausted, and she could tell he was, too, although his hands didn’t stop moving over her. The events of the day were beginning to catch up to both of them, but still, she didn’t want to let him go yet. She wanted to be with him, awake, aware, in his arms, just a little longer before she let herself drift off. Part of her was still afraid she’d wake up and find it was all a dream.
“We’re never going to get to sleep, if you keep touching me like that,” she whispered, feeling him cupping her mound. His cum was seeping slowly out, and he pushed it back in with his fingers, making her gasp and wiggle on top of him.
“Even when my hands aren’t on you, I’m trying to find ways to get them on you,” he murmured against the top of her head. “Or keep them off you.”
That confession made her smile. She liked knowing he wanted her. His other hand slipped down to grip her ass cheek, squeezing, fitting it into his hand.
“I swear to God, Tilly, if you ever disobey me like that again…” He opened one eye to glare at her, so he knew she was getting his message, before closing it again. “I’ll spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”
“Mm hmm.” Tilly rubbed her finger over the bristly, short hair just above Beast’s ear. “Speaking of spankings… what happens now, with the club? I mean… the BDSM thing? Is that over, too?”
“The Block and The Bottom Floor will be seized, along with the rest of Erich’s assets,” he told her. “I imagine someone will open another one, to fill the void.”
“Oh.” Tilly frowned, and couldn’t help being disappointed by this news. Somehow, she’d thought that, maybe, she and Beast could continue with their little afternoon sexually deviant oasis. Where else were they going to be together? She glanced around his room—as perfectly ordered as his room at home—and thoughts of moving in here with him, making a life, filling her thoughts. They were impossible dreams, of course.
“What?” He cocked one open at her again. “I can hear your wheels turning.”
“Oh, nothing.” She wasn’t going to push, or confess how much she wanted from him, how thoughts of them together, forever, were begi
nning to roll around in her. Her head knew better—there was a nagging voice in her mind that told her it was never going to happen, the man was her stepbrother and everyone they knew would find it both appalling and sick—but apparently, the message hadn’t reached her heart. And she didn’t think it ever would. She was going to have to go around with a Beast-shaped hole in her for the rest of her life.
But I’m here now. He’s here. We’re together.
It wasn’t forever, but it was for now, and she didn’t want to spend time lamenting what she knew would inevitably happen in the future. But she had hoped that, maybe, they could continue to use The Bottom Floor as a secret refuge, at least for a little while.
“Nothing?” Beast shook his head, lifting her chin and tilting her face to his. “Don’t give me that. Tell me.”
“I just… I didn’t realize it would be over.” She didn’t like saying those words. “The whole BDSM thing. I… liked it.”
Her confession made her blush and his mouth quirked with a half-smile.
“So did I.”
“I bet.” She laughed, trying to make it sound light. “Frankie said all the girls wanted you to be their dom.”
“Occupational hazard.” He shrugged. “Erich promised them all the moon, but the truth is… no one got me, Tilly, except you.”
“What are you saying?”
“Oh hell … I spent all my time on The Bottom Floor locked in a private room with you, girl. I’m surprised I got anything else done at all.” He slipped a hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his, tilting so he could gain deeper access. Tilly kissed him back, wanting so much to believe him, to think he hadn’t been with any other women at the club. They’d all wanted him, but he had chosen her.
“Just me? Really?” she breathed as they parted, cocking a skeptical head at him. He nodded slowly. “Because all the girls asked for you.”
“I know.” He smirked. “To be honest, I wasn’t really an acting dom. Erich used me to lure them in. “
“Bees to honey.” Tilly gritted her teeth, thinking of all the women who had visited The Bottom Floor and had seen Beast and suddenly decided they had far more than a passing interest in BDSM—especially if it involved one particularly big, sexy, tattooed dom.
“It was a bait and switch,” Beast confessed. “Erich would promise them me, but then they’d end up with Mark or one of the other doms.”
“So Mark was for real?” She wasn’t surprised. Mark had seemed very into it.
“Yeah, he’s the one who got me into the whole scene.”
Tilly didn’t answer that. She didn’t want to know just how “into” it Beast had been, before he’d come home or after, didn’t like to think of him doing to other women what they’d just done together. Or what had happened when they were alone on The Bottom Floor.
“So you don’t want to stop?” he asked, cocking his head at her.
“No.” She smiled. God, that was true, in so many ways. “I don’t.”
“I didn’t think so.” He smiled too, closing his eyes again. “So I guess threatening you with a spanking isn’t the most effective way to control your behavior, huh?”
Tilly giggled at that, tucking her head under his chin. She fit perfectly, curled like a comma on his torso, not one part of her touching the mattress. He wrapped his arms around her and she was completely enfolded. She never wanted this to end. If this moment could have lasted forever, she would have been perfectly content.
But the real world threatened to intrude, and she couldn’t help thinking about it.
“Now what?” He chuckled, pulling the sheet up to her chin. “Damn girl, if you don’t cover all that gorgeous, I’m never going to get any sleep.”
“Look who’s talking?” She rolled her eyes and snorted a little laugh.
“Nah.” His arms tightened around her. “I think the Bible got it backwards. I think God made women first. Then he made man, because he thought, ‘Someone’s gotta see this!’”
She giggled, settling happily on his chest. It was good to be here with him, laughing, a state of being they hadn’t managed to recapture, not since that summer. They’d spent a lot of time laughing that summer, she remembered fondly.
“Now, you’re not getting out of it,” he said. “Tell me.”
“I was just thinking about us…” She shrugged one shoulder, trying not to let it bother her. “About the future, I guess. What happens now?”
“Now we sleep.” He kissed the top of her head.
“I’m just scared.” She closed her eyes, feeling tears threatening.
“I’m here, baby.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she choked. “You’re here now, but what about tomorrow, or the day after that? Or next month? Or next year?”
“One day at a time.”
“Are you going back in?” she asked softly. “Are you going back to Afghanistan?”
“No.” His hand moved over her shoulder, fingertips lightly stroking her skin. “Actually, I’ve been offered a job here.”
“Where?” Her head came up at that, surprised. “Doing what?”
“Just being a cop.” He shrugged. “They want me at the State Department, too, I guess. Sex trafficking is big business, and they’re doing more to crack down.”
“You’d be traveling?”
“I won’t go overseas.” Beast wiped at a tear that slipped down her cheek with his thumb. “I’ll stay close to home. Close to you.”
Those words made her heart feel like it was going to burst.
“I don’t want to lose you again.”
He nodded, mouth pressed into a thin line for a moment, contemplating.
“When I enlisted, it felt like something I had to do,” he told her softly. “I didn’t want to live his life. And Liv was already trying to force me into that mold. She had my life all mapped out until the end of time. I felt… trapped.”
Tilly nodded. She understood. More than anyone, probably.
“I’ve always been alone, Tills,” he confessed. “My dad did what he could, after my mom died, but he put everything into that business. Even after he remarried, all he could focus on was work. I was never important to him. And I know he loved Liv… but it was still never enough. It was like he always had something to prove. And in the end, it killed him.”
Beast’s father had been the only father she’d ever known, and she remembered him fondly. He’d worked hard, Beast was right about that, sometimes eighty hours a week, but when he was home, he smiled a lot and he was affectionate in a way her mother never had been. He tickled her or ruffled her hair whenever he went by, and he made Liv smile like no one Tilly had ever known, and for that, alone, he was worth the price of admission, as far as Tilly had been concerned.
Part of that price had been Beast—the new stepbrother in her life. They’d never really been close when she was younger, considering they were four years apart, although if she were confessing, she would have to admit to having a crush on him from the very beginning. What ten-year-old girl wouldn’t admire a fourteen-year-old boy who suddenly lived in her house, with a physique like a Greek god, who was already built like a tank, and had girls calling him day and night?
He’d been a quiet teen, almost to the point of brooding—Liv said he’d lost his mother to breast cancer when he was just a toddler—just like he was a quiet man. But that part of Beast was deceptive, because even if he didn’t say anything about it, he did what he wanted, when he wanted. She had overheard her stepfather lamenting this fact to Liv, who had laughed it off and said something to the effect of, “Boys will be boys.” Of course, boys were allowed to be boys, according to Liv. Girls, on the other hand…
“I think Liv saw me as an extension of him, after he was gone.” Beast’s words interrupted her reverie. “Still does. She wanted me to be the man of the house. She wanted… way more than I was willing to give. It’s one of the reasons I hate it when people call me by his name. He spent his whole life trying to live up to that name,
trying to redeem his own father’s mistakes. And he ended up in the same damned place. I wasn’t going to let that be me.”
“What do you mean, the same place?” She lifted her head to look at him.
“My grandfather was murdered when my dad was just a kid.”
She gaped at him. It was the first time she’d ever heard of this.
“The Beeston men seem to be destined to find women they can’t have and they die long before their time.” Beast snorted. “He was killed by his mistress. A woman he was supposedly going to leave my grandmother for.”
