Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three)

by Dunning, Rachel

  “That I am.” And I’m undressing you with my eyes...

  I looked away from her, faced the TVs in front of me.

  After an endless silence—endless!—she rasped out quietly, “I’m afraid as well, Deck. It’s why I ran yesterday. I...”

  “You know we can’t be with each other because we’ll destroy each other, and yet you can’t keep away?”

  Her eyes sparkled briefly, as if I’d spelled out the very secrets to the Universe. “Exactly like that.”

  More silence, but this one was comfortable, like we’d laid it out finally, looked at it for what it was, and now were comfortable with it. She stretched her legs out and her stripey socks touched my thigh. “Nice socks,” I said. My heart thumped a little as I looked at them and dreamed of sliding them off, putting her toe in my mouth and licking it, then kissing down the arch of her foot—

  She inhaled deeply, as if she was getting herself under control as well. Blaze and I are fire to kindling, to fuel. It’s always been like this with us. We can’t get within thirty feet of each other and not turn each other on insanely.

  It’s been good that I’ve been travelling. And that she’s been away...

  I slid my hand over her foot, rubbed it. She stretched it. I looked up again, away from her, kept rubbing that foot...

  ...and I’m getting hard while doing it, scenting her feminine smell wafting up to me from under sweatpants that are so large I could just slide my hand up the bottom and to her bare leg...

  She gave an almost silent moan.

  I looked up at her, and her eyes were wide with fear, wide with need. She’d gotten her bottom lip under her teeth and I decided to move my hand away—

  She fired her hand up! “No! No... I mean, no.” She whispered it now. “Keep...keep doing it, Deck.”

  I put my hand back on her foot, rubbed it. My heart rushed, thumped, raced inside me as the hormones started to give me tunnel vision, making me forget how she and I almost killed each other, how we were almost the end of each other. And thinking only of her, here, now...

  ...naked, glistening under the moonlight while I unclasp her bra...

  That was it. I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  My hand tightened on her foot, my eyes locked on hers. She still had that fearful look, that look of uncertainty in her eyes, like how I feel right now. I swallowed. She swallowed. My body inched just slightly toward her. She tensed!

  I stopped.

  “Wait—” she said. Her tense body eased back, and then I caught the slightest, gentlest easing of her legs apart, perhaps an eighth of an inch wider than what they had been. Her chest dropped, her head lolled gently to the side. I heard that sigh again...

  And then I swear I saw her nod, ever so slightly, as if giving me the OK, and then she started closing her eyes.

  Oh, Blaze, how I’ve missed you...

  -3-

  Blaze Ryleigh

  He extended his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me toward him. My ass lifted off the seat and I pressed my feet against his hard thigh. He kept pulling, and my body levered up until I was rising, still leaning back, held aloft only by his grip. I bent my knees, he pulled, and I fell on him, fell on his lap! He put a burly arm around me, held me to him.

  I melted.

  Bees buzzed in my chest.

  I wanted him, wanted to kiss him, wanted to feel his tongue on mine—

  And then I did. He pressed his lips against me and I parted my own and let his tongue inside me.

  I gushed instantly. Warmth poured out of me with such speed that it tingled. My stomach swallowed itself and my chest went hot and claustrophobic.

  Only Declan ever turned me on like this. No one else ever did. That Other Guy Who Will Be in New York After Christmas didn’t even come close to this.

  Deck tightened his hold against me, squeezed me impossibly close to his chest, cupped another arm around my ass...and I can feel his cock now, oh my god it’s hard and pulsing and...

  He moaned, rumbled and turned. His tongue twisted and danced against mine. His right hand rode up my back and tugged at my bra from above the cashmere sweater. I put my left hand on his massive bicep and watched as the tattooed color in it glowed and writhed and flexed with his need.

  He tugged at my bra-strap, then slid his hand down, down, down, under the seam of the sweater, under the seam of the tee underneath—

  He’s on my skin. His fingers are on my skin and rising, walking up my spine while his tongue licks and turns and plays.

  Smack smack smack was the sound.

  And, outside, the storm, gusting and wailing.

  I was engorged, teeming over, desperate and so goddamned fuckin horny it’s making my eyes wanna burst while he—

  Snap! My bra was open. Cool wind slid under my shirt and onto my breasts and hot air from his mouth blew against my lips...

  ...I need you, Declan Cox. And I know this is eighty-percent hormonal and that I’m not thinking with my head anymore but only you get my body feeling like this, wet and moist and drenched for want of you inside me and...

  I grappled with his shirt, half fighting him, half tugging against him. His arm tightened around me and I felt my ass rubbing against his shaft and oh god he’s so hard and I can’t believe I’m going to do this again. I’m so scared, so scared and so hot for him it’s driving me insane...

  The sounds: breaths, rasping, out of control. The feeling was moisture, viscous need down below and above and on my skin and on his skin and he slid both hands now under my sweater and—

  It was off me. So was the tee.

  I ripped his off him as well—

  ...I’m scared. But it’s too far now. It’s gone too far. I can’t stop it now because...

  —and his muscles gleamed with hard tightness and now what I felt was pure womanly lust for a man so hard, so rock-hard that I could quickly understand why he’s America’s Bad Boy and why every woman under the sun wants to do him (and probably has done him...)—

  Damnit.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait!” Instinctively I covered my breasts. “Wait. No. Wait. I—”

  “Ah, Jesus, Blaze! What now! I— FUCK!”

  I clenched my fists on his hair and said, “Baby, wait, look at me, look at me, sweetie. Please.”

  His searching eyes, now filled with frustration, looked at me. Our noses were touching, our foreheads were touching. I had locks of his hair in my hands and I was pulling. “Baby, I...you’re so different. You’re...”

  A pain so deep filled his eyes that I must call it anguish. His voice was rusty metal scraping on a wall, “Baby, it’s me, OK? It’s always been me. It’s still me. And you’re the only one who knows me. Please, Blaze. I need you. Need you.”

  Foreheads still touching, fistfuls of hair still in my hand, I pulled him. “I’m not just another girl, Deck.”

  His chin trembled. I saw him fight the tears but his eyes started to swim and soon, despite all his efforts, despite all his protests, one of them shattered through. It trickled down the left of his perfect nose, slowly, going down. Oh my God, Deck, baby, what is it, honey?

  With trembling chin, he said, “You’ll never be just ‘another girl’ to me, Blaze. Never!” Another tear. And a third. But then that was it. He planted his eyes in the hollow of my neck, and I felt their wetness. Maybe he cried more, maybe he didn’t. What he did do is hold me so tightly I thought my ribs might crack, and then he swayed me, back and forth. And I tightened my grip around his neck.

  I could see his naked back from here. The beauty of the red and orange and yellow blazing fire on it. BLAZE! He rocked me back and forth and I started tracing my name, and the glorious flames that consumed him now. Yeah, damn right it’s poetic.

  We rocked. My breasts to his chest, his hands on my back. And we rocked some more.

  For what felt like hours.

  But that’s all the fire there was...

  -4-

  Declan Cox

  And then she fell asleep.

&
nbsp; And while she slept I put her shirt and sweater back on, laid her down on the couch.

  I couldn’t do it, can’t do it. I don’t want us to implode. I don’t want us to destroy each other. And if we make love, Blaze, it’s gonna be for good, baby. I’m sorry to break it to you, but it is.

  I know that’s strange coming from a guy, but it’s a fact. And so we gotta figure out how we can be together, how we can harness this lightning that rocks between us and not let it consume is.

  We must!

  “You wanna spend the night?” I ask her now, three A.M, after she’s slept and after that brief moment of hotness is long gone. “I mean, you practically have already, seeing as it’s already after three, but spend the night in my bed.” I realize the nuances. “Sleeping in my bed, Blaze. Sleeping.”

  She leans over and kisses me. The sparks start shooting again, I’m hardening faster than a thunderstorm; her groans start forming in her chest.

  I push her away, clutch her sweater—

  Fuck it. I kiss her again, more deeply now. I push her onto her back and then I’m on top of her, in between her, pushing against her center with my mad and howling-for-orgasm shaft and Oh damn I’m gonna come I’m gonna come I’m gonna—

  I lift! She lifts her crotch up and presses against me—

  I start telling her, “Baby, I’m gonna—!”

  “I know.”

  She thrusts her crotch up at me, presses, rubs and slides and rocks up and down my cock. She wraps her legs around my ass and rubs and pulls and—

  “Oh Deck, baby, oh I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna—!”

  She shakes her head, breathes deeper. I feel it in myself as well, forming, bubbling, a champagne bottle that’s been shaken and shaken and now that thumb’s on the cork and pressing and pushing and it’s almost there, almost there, almost...

  She squeezes her legs around me.

  “Oh, Deck, Deck, Deck...”

  She squeezes harder and rubs and gasps and “Ha, ho, ha, oh yeah, oh my God, my Deck, my baby...”

  I crush her waist between my hands, watch her skin redden, hear her delicate words replay in my mind over and over...

  ...thumb on the cork...

  I push against her, hold her.

  I love you Blaze, love you eternally...

  Snap.

  -5-

  Blaze, overcome by need and chemical pleasure: “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God Yes. Oh God. Oh Yes. Oh YES YES OH— OH YEAH.” And that call, low and primeval, guttural and moaning to the earth, like a rip of flesh and rapturous power, short syllables taking on the sounds of several: “O-AH-YEEEEEE-AH!” It’s a roar. It’s power. It’s an earthquake.

  Then Declan, crushing her almost with his massiveness, squeezing her shoulders so tight that he feels like they might snap. But he can’t stop himself. This is what he’s sought for four years. Four years he’s needed this.

  In this moment—although he’s not aware of it yet—he’s actually realizing it’s why he was with that other woman so many times. He’d needed it—needed this—and that other woman couldn’t give it to him, never came close to it, and he tried for it, tried for it, tried over and over and again and again for it, but never got it.

  This, the thing that is happening now, the sensation at the base of his shaft, an irritant sizzle that’s about to turn into a gusher of a satisfying orgasm, is what he wanted. And it’s more, so much more.

  It’s her scent, her aroma, her feel goddamnit, it’s that flavor of your skin, baby. It’s that essence, that color, that pie-in-the-sky feeling every time I’m with you, Blaze.

  It’s fucken heaven on earth, man. Heaven on goddamned earth.

  Declan’s throat sinks back and his entire body convulses. The thrust at his pelvis is so hard and primordial that Blaze has a second orgasm the moment his hits him. And he can’t stop convulsing. His whole body splatters, muscles clench and twist and rock and slither and crawl around his body like they’re ALIVE, my man!

  I’m alive, GODDAMN!

  It’s a drug.

  And they both know it.

  And they’ve just gotten their first fix.

  -6-

  They don’t have sex, but they hold each other. All Declan can think of is putting his tongue on her center, licking her, tasting her, smelling her, inhaling her...

  He picks her up off the couch, carries her to his room, lays her on his bed.

  She’s smiling, the satisfied smile of someone who’s had a burden taken off which she’s been carrying for all too long. On his bed, he sits next to her. She waits for him, waits for him to touch her because all she wants now is to be touched by him, to have his bare hands slide and caress and feel her; feel her breasts, her naval, her butt. Her entrance.

  But Declan doesn’t. He just looks at her, a smile of his own on his face, one of having found what he’s lost, like a friend who’d been dead but is now alive. Or, better, infinitely better: A long-lost Lover.

  The light in his room is diffused, coming only from one lamp at the side of his bed. He bends down to kiss her, and Blaze, still cringing with need, comes up to meet him. Her lips touch his with a fury he doesn’t expect. They’re hungry, needful, confident.

  It doesn’t even occur to Blaze that, once upon a time, she’d been afraid, she had known a certain Ole Man Fear and stared at his black face and smelled his foul, rotten breath. This is farthest from her mind right now, and won’t be for another few days.

  Right now, in front of her, is the man she loves, the man she’s always loved, the man she will always love.

  He loves her too. She knows it, knows it like she knows that the sun rises and sets each day.

  She guides him onto her, widening her legs welcomingly, letting him know that I want you inside me, baby. I know it like I know my own name now. That’s all I want, is to feel you, feel you fill me, ride into me. And maybe I’ll feel differently tomorrow, but tonight, now, I want you in me.

  He wants it too, but there’s another thing Deck hasn’t realized yet. And that Blaze hasn’t realized about him either: He’s more afraid than she is, and has been so ever since he first saw her on December fifteenth.

  Infinitely more afraid...

  Blaze is stronger than he is, and he knows it. She doesn’t know it yet.

  Oh, sure, he can lift a freaking house. But that’s not what we’re talking about here, son. No no no no no. Not physical strength.

  She’s stronger than him. Much stronger. She’s been through more than he has. In a way, she is his inner strength, and when she left him, that strength left him as well.

  So, right now, him above her, pressing against her erect nub and stimulating himself and her at the same time, clothed, she’s needing him, needing him to enter her, because she can deal with whatever might go wrong after this night. Better to love and lose, is her attitude.

  Because she can lose. She has lost. And she’s survived it. She’ll survive it again, she knows this.

  But Declan won’t. He’s also lost things and also survived them, but inside he senses that he won’t survive it again. He’s used up his nine lives, he believes. So when the time comes—if it comes!—that he does enter her again, he needs a guarantee, a security deposit if you will, that all’s gonna be OK.

  He rides her, clothed, stimulates her, comes again and makes her orgasm a third time, then a fourth. Sweetly.

  But not deliciously. She’s left wanting, just a little, feeling just slightly yearnful still.

  Because she wanted him in her. The fear had left her fully and completely.

  But Ole Man Fear never leaves a host without finding another.

  And Ole Man Fear has found that host in Declan Cox.

  While Blaze falls asleep on Declan’s bed, looking up at the ceiling and dreaming of white clouds and things that might once again be, Declan puts his hand to his chest, looks up at that same ceiling.

  And begins to sweat.

  The nightmares hit him instantly the moment he closes his eyes.
/>   He dreams of Blaze.

  He dreams of Gina.

  Worst of all, he dreams of Tatiana.

  PART II

  TEN

  HEAD ON A PLATTER

  -1-

  On the other side of the river...

  She hated him, hated Declan Cox. He’d destroyed her life, fucked her in her very own bedroom and smiled his glistening blue eyes at her while they’d roared and towered and convulsed into each other and over each other. They’d licked and kissed and she’d tasted him and felt him and pulled him and tugged at him, jerked him off and bent over for him...

  Tatiana Watkins née Evans absolutely despised who they now called “America’s Bad Boy.” “Bad Boy Declan.” “Deck-Man.” “Deck The Lone Ranger.” “Wet-Your-Panties-And-Drool-Over-Me Deckster.”

  But, worst of all, now she was back—that hussy, that good-for-nothing tramp was back. Blaze Ryleigh. And who the fuck knew that her name was freaking Ryleigh anyway! Last time Tatiana had googled the bitch she’d found her under Błażej Kieliszewski. What a freakin idiotic goddamned name! Czech or Baltic or Polish or whatever. Yugoslavian. (No, wait, wasn’t that place destroyed or something? She didn’t care, they were all the same to her... Those Eastern states. Those Slavic states. Slavic meaning slave. Yes, yes. Good-for-nothings is what they are!)

  Tatiana Watkins (she liked Watkins better than Evans so she used it where she could) worked in the city now as a paralegal in a powerful law firm. Her ex had gotten her the job. Throw a dog a bone, willya?

  Mister Watkins might have thrown that bone, but when it came to bones, Tatiana Watkins was the expert. More than an expert: An artiste, a maestro, a hotshot guru, a veritable maven, a virtuoso, a goddamned doyen! Doyen: Noun. Someone with “intimate” knowledge and experience of a subject, no puns intended. And whereas Tatiana might’ve had a dirty bone thrown her way, the fact that she grabbed it between her teeth (no pun intended) and worked her way up that motherfucker (no pun intended!) until she got to the righteous top of that ladder (or the bone)—these actions were all her own doing. Of course they were, because she was a go-getter, a trend-setter, a fuck-em-and-leave-em type. Tatiana Watkins never stayed down very long (except when we mean down as a pun) and whereas she might have started out as a lowly (ahem) secretary, she was so far ahead of that now that even from that lowly position, she could, these days, be seen driving into her job in her fancy Superclass BMW (“The Beamer”), wearing her 3.1 Phillip Lim or Chloé dresses and her not-too-damned-shabby Tiffany gold or diamond necklaces.