by Melody Anne
“Kiss me,” she demanded as she leaned forward and gently bit my bottom lip. I groaned, letting her know exactly how turned on I was. I didn’t want to hold anything back.
I grabbed her, kissing her hard as we fell to the bed, her on top of me. My tongue traced the outline of her lips before retreating. I took my time, teasing her, before trailing my mouth down her jaw and the side of her neck, my teeth scraping her skin, making her squirm.
She’d demanded the first kiss but now I was taking over — and it was exactly what she needed. I knew how to make Miranda’s body sing. I’d perfected it over the years we’d been together. Sometimes it scared me how much I wanted her — how much power she wielded over me.
I continued teasing her and she began moving her hips, rubbing up against me, making the ache inside me grow.
I pulled back, my fingers twisting in her hair so she had to look at me. The fire in her eyes made my arousal twitch painfully. All the anger, frustration, and confusion of the day disappeared as if it had never happened. In its place was nothing but unadulterated desire.
My fingers whispered down her sides before I grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it off. Our clothes needed to be gone. I lifted her off me and laid her on the bed, then hovered over her as I unhooked her bra and tossed it away.
In seconds both of us were naked, and I finally covered her body with mine; the feel of her hot skin sliding against mine was exactly what I needed. I was addicted to this woman.
“I always want you,” I told her as I pushed against her, not sliding inside, but letting her feel the power of my desire. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone, this need to make you mine, this need for us to be one. Pleasure comes and goes, but I want to possess you, own you, pleasure you. You are mine, Miranda, mine for always.”
I watched wonder flash in her eyes, and I knew I’d made the right decision. She was mine. And I was hers. No one would come between us.
As I lay against her, I forgot the rest of the world. I forgot everyone and everything but this woman. We gazed at each other for several moments, both of us lost in each other. It was a good place to be.
Finally I took her lips again, devouring her mouth, all teasing forgotten as I tugged on her hair, consuming her. We were closer than we’d ever been and still it wasn’t close enough. I couldn’t get enough of her. I needed more, I wanted more, I had to have it all.
I flexed my hips, letting my thick length rub against her wet folds, making her whimper into my mouth as I teased her, bringing her higher and higher without giving her the final push toward release.
I shifted as I kissed my way down her jaw before sucking the skin of her neck. She wiggled beneath me. My hands slid down the sides of her body, her skin pure velvet beneath my touch.
“More,” she demanded, her voice unrecognizable.
“I’ll give you everything,” I replied before my lips closed over one of her sensitive nipples, causing a guttural groan to escape her as she cried out my name.
I held the weight of her breasts in my palms as my tongue circled her nipples, wetting them before sucking and nibbling their textured peaks. I did this over and over again until her body was one big mass of pleasure.
“I want you inside me,” she begged. She needed to come, needed to do it with our bodies entwined, with my lips on hers. I needed the same.
I crawled up her body, my fingers once again winding into her hair as I looked into her eyes. I gripped her hip and she wrapped her legs around me, sighing against my mouth. I leaned down and sank my tongue into her mouth at the same time as I thrust forward, burying myself deep inside her.
She cried out, fully opening to me as I pulled out and slid back in. My tongue mimicked the movements of my hips, and she held on as I built her pleasure, my movements growing faster as I began losing control.
She tightened around me as I thrust in and out of her, taking her body, owning it. She broke our kiss as her head fell back, her body exploding as she squeezed me hard.
Her thighs pressed against my hips, her core tightening around my thrusting erection, and she cried out, the orgasm seeming to never end. I let myself go, calling out her name as I shared a release with her, my own body shaking with the force of my pleasure.
My hand tightened on her hip, squeezing as I buried my face in her neck. It took a very long time for us to float back to reality. We were covered in sweat, and I was home, buried deep within her.
“This felt different being married. It was spectacular,” she said. “In the beginning I wasn’t sure I liked sex, but now I get it. I get why wars have started over it. I get why so many people are obsessed to have it. I don’t ever want to leave this bed.”
“Hmm, I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told her with a chuckle. And then all humor faded as I leaned back to really see her. I cupped her cheek. I adored her.
“It’s rarely like this, Miranda. What we have is special,” I said, making sure she could see how serious I was.
“Let’s always make sure it stays like this,” she begged.
“I can do that,” I told her, not realizing at the time I was promising something I couldn’t guarantee. But this was our wedding night. This night was full of magic and dreams.
She looked at me, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I rose, making her whimper at the loss of me buried deep within her. But I didn’t leave her long. I lifted her, kissing her hard on the lips as I moved through our house. I stepped into our bathroom and moved to the shower, turned both jets on, then stepped beneath the spray as soon as it was the right temperature.
“Let’s see what we can do in here,” I said before turning her body around, placing her hands on the wall, grabbing her hips, and pressing against her. I reached up and aimed one of the lower jet nozzles at her core and Miranda cried out as I slammed inside her. She came fast, her breath exploding from her, leaving her shaking in front of me.
“We have all night, all week, and all of the rest of our lives,” I said. “I don’t ever want to stop feeling this.”
She looked delirious as she nodded, seemingly willing to agree with anything I said just as long as we didn’t stop making love. For now, that’s all that mattered. For now, that was enough for both of us.
Chapter Nine
The first year of marriage to Miranda was nearly perfect. My worries and sins faded away to nothing. We made our home into a place of comfort and peace. We made love in every single room. I couldn’t get enough of her. I didn’t care about the outside world. I had made the right decision to marry her.
She could barely come near me without me ripping away her clothes, without me taking her in every position in every single way. I wanted her, needed her, was obsessed with her.
She was no longer a young girl. She was a woman, her body changing in all the best ways. She was breathtaking. We were growing together, and it was where we both wanted to be.
When Miranda and I weren’t together I was in my brand new studio, the biggest room in our house. It was my life. It truly was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be remembered by my works of art, not my bank account.
I was having a hard time finding my passion in my art, though. I struggled with this in the first years of our marriage. I wanted to find that niche, that thing that made me stand out. But I wasn’t sure what it was. I wasn’t sure where my passions lay.
Sex.
Of course my passions lay in sex. But how could I incorporate that into my art work? If I could mix those two things, I’d probably be the happiest man on earth. In the beginning my art was colors and angles. It was puppies and flowers.
It changed.
I changed.
I didn’t even see it coming. But again, I’ll say I don’t have regrets. I might have doubts about the path I chose to take, but every decision I’ve ever made has shaped me into the person I am.
I can’t regret that pe
rson because I’d be saying my life hasn’t mattered, and there’s no greater misery than that. We all need to matter. We all need to have a purpose in this life.
I had always assumed I’d want children. And I thought there’d be nothing better than having a baby with Miranda. We were so happy together. A baby would add to our family. There’d be a miniature version of her and me running through the house. Maybe two or three miniatures.
We never used protection. We both figured it would be in the hands of fate when we had a child. When she became pregnant I was filled with pride. My painting became even more colorful. Joy ran through me.
And then she lost the baby.
We were both devastated, but I wasn’t worried. We’d try again.
And we did.
And we lost the baby again.
Something shifted in Miranda with each loss. Then something shifted in me. My idea of perfection was getting blurred. I wanted something and I wasn’t getting it. I wasn’t mature enough to handle the disappointment, and I know I failed at comforting my wife. That was the beginning of the end for us.
Our foundation wasn’t strong enough to stand up to the realities of life. We hadn’t talked about this sort of thing before. We didn’t talk about it as it was happening. I failed her.
I tried not to blame her for our failures, but I think I did. I think we blamed each other. We stopped trying to make a baby. We stopped making love so often. We began pulling away from one another.
Either one of us could’ve stopped it, but we slowly let each other go. I spent more and more time in my studio. She stayed away at work and with friends. We stopped becoming the center of each other’s lives. We stopped seeing each other.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took months and years. And again, at any point we could’ve stopped it . . . but we didn’t.
I don’t know if it was because we were growing up and realizing we weren’t the same people we’d been as teenagers. I’m not really sure of the answer. I only know we could’ve stopped it, but we chose not to.
Sometimes that makes me a little sad. But then I push that away. I can’t have regrets. I can’t change who I’ve become. I can’t fix what we broke. We did it together. But for some reason we never severed the tie. We lived as strangers. We stopped seeing each other.
And then we began seeing other people . . .
Chapter Ten
It was the night of my first gala, my first art show where I was the star. It was all my work. My name was growing, and more people were seeking me out. I was still unhappy. I still hadn’t found exactly where I wanted to be as an artist.
I began to wonder if I ever would. Maybe the life I’d chosen guaranteed I’d never find true happiness. I wasn’t sure. I knew a lot of artists committed suicide. That wasn’t something that had ever crossed my mind, but it was something I was aware of. I had an idea of perfection, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to reach the ideal.
I was ready to leave for the gala, waiting for Miranda. She walked into the room looking stunning. There was a time I wouldn’t have been able to leave the house with the way she looked. I would have ravished her against the back of the couch instead, and I would have regretted nothing.
But as she joined me I could appreciate her beauty, but I couldn’t find the passion that had once consumed me. I told her she was beautiful. I kissed her. I simply couldn’t find the sparks that had once nearly lit us on fire.
I could see disappointment in her eyes. I hated doing that to her. But I didn’t seem to hate it enough to stop. I was becoming a monster. I didn’t like who I was. I didn’t like who we were.
I grew colder.
We no longer talked for hours into the night. We no longer shared our lives with each other. We grew more and more distant the longer we remained in a marriage we should have ended.
I wasn’t sure if I stayed because I’d committed to her or because I didn’t care enough to walk away. I was consumed with my work. She found happiness outside our home. We were stagnant.
And we stayed that way for a very long time — for too long.
We arrived at the gallery an hour early and were quickly separated. That was normal with us. She’d been so giddy to go to a show. But I think she would’ve rather been there with someone else. I was numb to it myself. I didn’t care if I was there alone.
But I wasn’t.
It didn’t take long for the lights to dim, for people to flood the gallery with servers passing out food and drinks. I chatted with patron after patron, putting a false smile on my face, accepting their praise.
I didn’t care.
It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate them buying my work. It was just that I didn’t like what I’d done. I didn’t feel a connection with the art. It was difficult for me to sell something I didn’t believe in. What did that mean? Was I going to have to quit being an artist? Maybe.
I snuck off to a back room. I needed a break from the noise, the constant conversation, the food, even the drink. I was ready to leave.
But I wasn’t alone for long.
Her scent hit me before I saw her. She’d only ever worn one. I had no idea what it was, but the rare times I’d smelled it on another woman, it felt wrong. There was a slight difference when someone else wore it, but not enough to make me wonder what they were doing with her scent on their body.
This time I knew it was her.
“Hello, Mason,” she said, her voice slightly deeper than I remembered. It had been years since I’d last seen her.
I turned.
She was my past, but I should’ve known she wasn’t a woman to give up. I stood near the wall, looking out the open doorway, wondering if Miranda would walk in.
Did I care?
I wasn’t sure.
“Hello, Bella,” I said.
She smiled, not at all offended by the coldness of my voice. She could turn and walk away right now and I wouldn’t care. She was my past. Miranda was my present, but I wasn’t at all sure what my future would bring.
“I can see you’ve missed me,” Bella said with a fake laugh.
“I haven’t once thought about you,” I told her. I wondered if that was wholly true. I honestly didn’t know at the moment. She didn’t flinch. She was hard to offend.
“We’re going to be in each others lives again,” she assured me.
I smiled, a cold, unfeeling turning of my lips.
“How many times do you need to be rejected?” I asked.
She laughed again. “If you recall, I turned you away first. Maybe you still hold a grudge because of that.”
“I don’t hold grudges. That gives people far too much power,” I told her.
“You always did like to have power, Mason. I was very surprised you became an artist since so much of your life is out of control in this line of work.”
“I think this was one area of my life where I didn’t have much choice,” I admitted. I was softening as we talked. I realized that was a bad idea, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“I’m a dealer now. And I’m going to make you a star,” she told me.
I gazed at her. I was surprised — and not much surprised me.
“You’re more manipulative than I ever realized,” I told her. It wasn’t necessarily an insult. I was slightly impressed.
“I like to get my way,” she assured me. I smiled.
“And what makes you think I’ll ever do business with you?” I asked. I was intrigued though. My past and my present were colliding, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep them apart anymore.
“Because you know I get what I want. You know all your dreams will come true if you take me up on my offer.”
“And what makes you think you know me well enough to have any clue what my dreams are?”
“We’ve known each other from birth, Mason. I know you far bet
ter than any other person on this earth,” she assured me.
She might be right.
“You know the old me. You know nothing of the man I’ve become.”
“We might evolve as people, but we don’t change that much,” she said.
She moved closer. She didn’t hesitate as she leaned into me, her thumb rubbing against my lip just as she’d done on my wedding day. My body stirred, and I hated myself a little for feeling the remotest hint of desire at her touch.
“Stop,” I told her.
She laughed again, the sound confident and sultry at the same time. She was a woman who knew who she was and what she wanted. She wasn’t afraid to go after it. That was a quality I admired.
“I’ll have you, Mason, unless I decide I don’t want you,” she told me.
I wanted to dim some of that confidence, wanted to knock her down a few pegs.
My arm snaked out and I pulled her against me. Her eyes widened. She hadn’t been expecting that. She would soon know she wasn’t in control around me. I leaned close, my lips centimeters from hers. She panted against me, her eyes dilating.
“No one has me unless I want them to,” I told her. My lips brushed hers as I spoke. A slight whimper escaped her. She wasn’t as sure of herself as she was projecting.
Before this got out of hand I pushed her away and moved over to the empty wall in the darkened room. She followed me.
“You can play all the games you want, but I felt you right then,” she said. She didn’t hesitate as she reached between us and fluttered her fingers across my arousal. I didn’t respond. I didn’t run.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Bella. I’m a guy. Just because you turn me on doesn’t mean I respect you in any way.”
Her head tilted back as she laughed in a calculated way, showing me the creamy curve of her neck. She reached for me again, her manicured nails resting on my arm. I was dangerously close to taking what she was offering.
And she knew it.
