But Sarah was different. She was his. She belonged to him in ways no other woman ever had or ever could. With Sarah, it was all about emotion.
He would never have his fill of her. He needed her with a need that was bone-deep. A need that would never diminish, no matter how long she remained with him. Loving Sarah had utterly destroyed the wall of ice enveloping his soul, freeing him to experience things he’d never even believed in before. But he could believe in them now, because here they were, right before his eyes. Here was joy. Here was love. Here was happily ever after.
Here was Sarah.
Chapter Seven
He tightened his arms around her, only to feel her stiffen against him. Turning her in his arms, he lifted one hand to brush the hair off her face.
“You’re thinkin’ again, sugar. What did I tell you about that?” He sighed. “What’s botherin’ you?”
“I—I—” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I just—” She shook her head, unable to put her inchoate feelings into words. At least, not words that made any sense.
“Sarah.” Crooking his index finger under her chin, he forced her to look at him. “What is it, baby? Please tell me what’s botherin’ you. There’s nothin’ we can’t fix as long as we’re honest with each other.”
She burrowed her head into the hollow where his shoulder met his body, her voice breaking. “I don’t want to become some spaced-out sex junkie, living only for the next orgasm.”
Jesse didn’t move, didn’t speak, just tightened his arms and held her as she sobbed quietly against him. This reaction was not unexpected. In fact, he’d been waiting for it.
When she resumed speaking, her voice was muffled against his chest. “You keep me naked, constantly aroused, thinking about nothing but sex. You have me licking my cum off of chairs, for God’s sake, like I’m some kind of—of”—she shook her head—“I don’t know, depraved animal or something. And I like it!” she wailed. “It excites me! How perverted is that?” She lifted her tear-stained face to glare at him accusingly. “You’re taking me over, Jesse, redefining who I am. I don’t recognize myself anymore.”
Cradling her head with one large hand, Jesse covered her mouth with a sweet, tender kiss, exploring her lips gently until he felt the rigidity leave her body and she melted against him with a groan. Then he pulled his head back slightly to rest his forehead against hers, holding her with his black gaze. “I’m not takin’ you over, sugar, I’m releasin’ you. Truth be told, you don’t recognize yourself since you’ve been with me, because you are different, although it’s happened so fast, you haven’t had time to adjust to it or accept it. And that’s entirely my fault for pushin’ you too fast.”
“It’s just that—I feel so helpless when I’m with you—like I’m losing myself…” Her voice trailed away to nothing. Anguish shadowed her features.
His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Not to belabor the point, but you’re a submissive, sugar, you’re supposed to feel helpless. And you’re not losin’ yourself, you’re findin’ yourself. Your true self. I’m not changin’ you, Sarah. All I’m doin’ is peelin’ away the layers of prudery that have been forced on you by parents, religion, society, you name it. The layers of reserve, inhibition and false modesty that have kept you from experiencin’ the joy of discoverin’ the self you’ve been all along deep down inside. Your sexual self. Your submissive self.”
He paused, giving her a chance to absorb what he’d just said, then he resumed in that deep, soft baritone that did such wicked things to her entire nervous system. “Until two days ago, you were like every other woman since the beginnin’ of time, brainwashed into believin’ that sex is somehow dirty. You’ve been indoctrinated all your life to suppress your sexual urges, to ignore them, to deny their very existence. You’re not supposed to want sex—you’re certainly not supposed to like it. And if, God forbid, you do happen to like it, you’re required to feel shame and guilt over it for the rest of your life.”
He loosened his arms and pushed her farther back from him so he could gauge her reaction to his next words. “Sarah, women are animals, just like men. They have the same primal, animalistic drives for sex that men have. And they have the same primal, animalistic need for sexual pleasure that men have. That’s what makes D/s and the people who live it so special. We recognize that these drives are a normal part of bein’ human. That there is nothin’ sinful or shameful about needin’ that deeper level of intimacy and commitment. We have created a unique way of life that meets all the needs of its followers, both the physical and psychological.”
“Submittin’ to me doesn’t make you weak or depraved or stupid or any other negative adjective. It takes a very strong, courageous person to be a true submissive. It doesn’t demean or degrade you. It makes you worthy of the utmost respect and admiration. It makes you the most precious thing on the face of the earth, a pearl without price.”
His lips compressed as he struggled to pull his thoughts together. “You’re not alone on this journey, Sarah, I’m right here with you. We’re in this together. All I’m askin’ is for you to trust me. Trust me to be your guide, your lover, your protector. Trust me with the deepest part of your soul, knowin’ that I will treasure it always. That I will use your submission as a key to unlock all of your hidden passions and desires. To free you from all your fears and inhibitions. To break down the barriers of shyness and modesty that you’ve erected around yourself just to fulfill the unrealistic expectations of others.”
He took a deep, ragged breath before continuing in hushed tones. “Your submission is the rarest, most priceless gift you could give me—the gift of yourself, heart, mind, body, and soul. The gift of your trust, honesty, and obedience. A gift I accept with humility and joy. A gift I treasure above all things. A gift I will return to you a thousandfold in the form of the most intense sexual and sensual pleasure you will ever know.”
At his last words, he pulled her back into his embrace and held her against him. Silence fell around them, wrapping them in a little chunk of time and space where everything beyond its boundaries ceased to exist. They simply lay there, arms around each other, taking comfort and reassurance from the tiniest of sighs, the gentlest of touches.
Finally, she lifted her head, smiling at him tentatively, and it stopped his heart. He held his breath as she cupped his cheek, leaned forward, and placed her lips gently against his over and over, light, sipping kisses, tasting, teasing, as if she were sampling a fine wine. His hands moved to stroke up and down her back, sending goose bumps racing up her arms. She could feel his cock beginning to stir against her belly. She lifted her head. “I love you, Jesse. I’m sorry I—”
He stopped her by placing his fingers over her lips. “Shh-h-h. Never apologize for feelin’ what you feel. Just promise me that from now on, if anythin’ is botherin’ you, you’ll trust me enough to tell me so we can discuss it and find a solution together.”
“I promise.”
“Good girl.”
She snuggled against him, stroking the satin-smooth skin of his right pec, absorbing his heat through her hand. “Jesse?” Her voice was muffled by the bedclothes. “When did you say we’d go pick up my clothes?”
“Well, originally I thought we’d go in the mornin’, but why don’t we go now instead? That way, we can play tonight and we won’t have to drag ourselves out of bed at the crack of dawn. You can shower here in the mornin’ and ride in to work with me.”
“Oh, God, that shower,” she groaned. “I love that shower. I could live in that shower! It’s like bathing in a carwash!”
“Isn’t it great? I got the idea after hunkerin’ down in a cave in Afghanistan for three days.” He omitted the painful details. She didn’t need to know he’d been wounded, close to death. “I had grit in crevices I never even knew existed. Took me a month to get rid of it all.” He patted her butt and swung his legs out of bed. “Come on, sugar, let’s go get your clothes.”
Sarah did a quick washup at the sink, t
ouched up her underarms with Jesse’s deodorant, brushed her teeth with Jesse’s toothbrush, did the best she could with her hair and put on the old, soft T-shirt he gave her—a gray one with the Naval insignia on the front. After two days of being naked, it felt a little strange to be covered up. But she did enjoy the way the fabric abraded her supersensitive nipples, puckering them into hard beads of aching pleasure.
He handed her up into the Humvee, pleased to see her lift the shirt to place her bare ass on the leather seat. Good. She was learning fast. By the time he got into the driver’s seat, her knees were wide apart and the shirt was pulled up to her waist, displaying her bare mound to his hungry eyes. “Put your hands behind your back,” he said, watching as she leaned forward and placed her palms flat against the back of the seat. When she leaned back, her breasts were thrust up and forward, her nipples poking into the soft cotton of the T-shirt.
His cock hardened so fast it stole his breath. “You please me, Sarah,” he said quietly. “Enormously.”
Basking in his praise, she was silent until they turned onto the main highway, then she sucked in her breath as if she were about to speak.
When no words followed, he shook his head, smiling indulgently. “There you go, thinkin’ again. That’s never good. C’mon, baby, just spit it out.”
“I—I know you’ve had lots of…um, women…” she began haltingly.
His throat tightened and he sighed. “Yes, I have. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.” He turned to look at her. “They meant nothin’ to me, sugar. They were just, pardon my French, a meanin’less succession of nameless, faceless holes for me to fuck.”
She winced at his crudeness and lowered her head.
His jaw clenched, grinding his teeth together. “You gotta understand, Sarah, for the past eight years I’ve been the property of the US Navy, either goin’ on missions or trainin’ to go on missions. I wasn’t lookin’ for, nor did I want, any kind of a relationship. But a guy has needs, you know? Especially comin’ down off the adrenaline rush of completin’ a successful op.
“The women I fucked were all regulars at several BDSM clubs Adam and I belong to. They were hardened, sophisticated, almost what you’d call professional submissives. They weren’t lookin’ for relationships either, they just needed their next fix, their next ‘scene.’ They just wanted to be bound, whipped and fucked, and if two Dominant Navy men were willin’ to do that to them, especially both at the same time, so much the better. That way, we all got what we wanted, nobody got hurt, and everyone came away happy.”
A sudden wave of sadness swept through Sarah, thickening her throat. Biting her lip, she turned her head to hide the tears suddenly brimming in her eyes.
“What? Does it bother you, sugar?” He struggled to beat down the suffocating panic that was suddenly coursing through him. Christ, is this gonna be a deal breaker for her?
She shook her head. “No, Jesse, I don’t care how many women you’ve had. It just sounds…”
“What?” he asked again, bracing himself for her response.
She was silent for a long time before finally saying in a quiet voice, “…Lonely.”
Sadness. Not the censure he’d been dreading. Relief flooded through him. His eyes stung as he nodded in agreement. “It was lonely, sugar. Empty, meanin’less, unfulfillin’, you name it, it was all of those things. That’s why I haven’t been to any of those clubs for over two years. I finally figured out what I was lookin’ for, and I knew I was never gonna find it there.” He turned his head to look at her, but she just kept staring off into the deepening twilight.
“Um…You-you mentioned you and Adam…sharing women?”
Here we go. “Often, yes.”
“Are you, um…?” She fell silent, unable to finish the sentence.
“Am I what?”
Damn the man! He was going to make her say it. Cheeks blazing, she turned to look at him. “Are you…going to share me?”
Fuck! His throat thickened. “Is that what you want?”
She squeezed her eyes shut as the carnal image took shape in her mind, her curvy, feminine body sandwiched between two hard male ones. Both of them fucking her. At the same time! It was going to happen. She’d known it before she even asked. Because Jesse wanted it. Adam wanted it. And, God help her, she wanted it, too. Desperately. “Yes.”
Overwhelmed by her easy acquiescence, Jesse let out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank you, Sarah. You won’t regret it, I promise.”
Neither spoke again until she unlocked the kitchen door and they entered the house. The sense of prickling unease hit her instantly and she stopped dead in her tracks.
“What?” Jesse asked, even as the hairs rose on the back of his neck. He knew exactly “what.” Someone had been there. Not that you could tell by looking. Nothing was out of place. There were no signs of a break-in. But the house had a strange, unpleasant odor about it. A sickly-sweet smell that coated the mucus membranes of the nose and mouth like a layer of grease. A smell with which Jesse was all too familiar.
The smell of blood.
The smell of death.
Fuck!
Instinctively, he reached behind him to pull his Sig out of his waistband, only to stop when he realized that it wasn’t there. Fuck! Fuck! He’d debated with himself for over half an hour before leaving the house without his weapons, finally deciding reluctantly that he didn’t want Sarah to be alarmed at how many he usually carried—three pistols and two K-bars. So he’d left them all behind. After all, they were just going over to Marshall’s Hill, right? What could possibly go wrong?
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
“What’s that awful smell, a dead animal?” she asked, her mind instantly going to Phillip Nugent and the dead rats he’d left on her doorstep for months after she’d broken off their engagement. Don’t be absurd, she scolded herself. Of course it isn’t Phillip! He’s over five hundred miles away. How paranoid must she be that, after all this time, her first thought would be of him?
Rattled, she looked up at Jesse for confirmation.
Struggling to keep his expression neutral, he bent to kiss her, cursing himself for his lack of foresight, knowing he would never again leave the house without his weapons, even if he was only going out to mow the lawn. “I don’t know, baby, I’ll check it out.” He walked behind her through the kitchen, down the hall, into the grand foyer. They stopped at the foot of the graceful, curving staircase. The odor was much stronger out here. “Wait right here, sugar.” He cupped her cheek. “I’m just gonna have a quick look around down here before we go upstairs, okay?”
He was barely through the parlor door before he’d unholstered his cell, speed-dialing Adam’s number.
“Hey, Jess, how’s it going?”
“How soon can you get to Marshall’s Hill?” Jesse asked without a greeting, keeping his voice low so Sarah couldn’t hear.
“Be there in ten.”
Jesse flipped the phone shut and made sure the room was empty before heading into the still, silent library. Nobody there, either. As soon as he entered the conservatory, he heard Sarah scream. Shit! He knew he shouldn’t have left her out there alone! Cursing himself again for not having packed at least his Makarov in his boot holster, he raced back through the adjoining rooms, only to stop dead at the foot of the stairs. “Sarah?” Shit, he’d told her to wait right here. Where the fuck is she?
“Sarah!” he yelled again, fighting panic.
He heard a tiny whimper, coming from the top of the stairs. Shit! Heart pounding, he took the stairs four at a time. “I’m comin’, Sarah! Stay right where you are! Don’t move!” By the time he reached the landing halfway up, he noticed all the tiny white feathers drifting across the carpet like powdery snowflakes. Gooseflesh rippled up and down his arms and back. A cold feeling of dread settled in the pit of his stomach as he raced to the top of the stairs.
Sarah was standing in the hallway, frozen in place, staring in horror into the first room on the right. Pra
ctically skidding to a stop, Jesse grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. All the color had leached from her face, leaving it white and stricken. She was trembling like a leaf. “Sarah, baby, what—”
Then he lifted his head and saw ‘“what.” The total chaos and vicious destruction that met his eyes stopped him cold. Son of a bitch! Pulling her into his arms, he shaped his fingers around the back of her head, pressing her face into the hollow of his shoulder. “Don’t look, baby, don’t look. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Swallowing hard, he blinked his eyes rapidly to clear his vision of the red rage that threatened to consume him. Unholstering his cell, he flipped it open and punched l.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Dispatch, Colter. I need backup and CSU at Marshall’s Hill, Code Three. There’s been a break-in.”
“On the way, Chief.”
He slipped his phone into his jeans pocket and held Sarah while he surveyed the wreckage of what had once been an elegantly appointed bed-sitting room. So great was the carnage, he couldn’t even step into the room without possibly destroying evidence.
All the drawers had been pulled out and thrown to the floor, their contents ripped to shreds and strewn over the carpet. The antique mirror above the dresser was shattered. Shards of broken glass lay everywhere. Stuffing erupted from the upholstered furniture like bloated intestines spilling from a corpse. Sarah’s down comforter had been cut to ribbons, creating a thick layer of feathers that drifted everywhere, floating and eddying restlessly in the disturbed currents of air created by the opening of the door.
Her closet had been emptied, every article of clothing slashed and scattered over the room. All the flowers in the wildflower bouquet had been beheaded, the shriveling petals sprinkled over the entire room like confetti shot from a cannon.
Loving Sarah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 21
