by Harlow Cole
For just a little while, I had to let her take the wheel.
I stepped forward, over the threshold, violating his personal space for a change. His breathing quickened as his eyes inventoried the rest of my body, checking for injury or pain.
My skin and bones remained fully intact.
My mind had just gone completely insane.
“This isn’t gonna be nice. I don’t want nice. I don’t want soft and sweet or slow and easy. I need to get this over with.” My palms pressed flat against his chest, gliding across the ridges of hard muscles I had captured on film and seared into my brain.
“Get what over with? What are you talking about?” Confused hands latched on to my wrists, seizing them before they could reach all the way up to his shoulders.
“I need to fuck you out of my system. Once and for all. I can’t stand the tension anymore. I can’t stand thinking about it one more second. We’re gonna do this. Right here, right now. I want you to fuck me hard and fast and dirty—down so deep it chases all this away. Then, you’re gonna leave me the hell alone. Pretend like I don’t exist. Go back to living your other life. Quit taking up so much space in mine.”
His hands loosened, palms pressed flat on top of my hands, melding them back against his hardened nipples. Hooded eyes stared into mine. His lips hung open, speechless.
“This isn’t me saying yes to any of your bullshit. Get that straight in your head right now. This is just about taking something from you. I’m taking this. You don’t get anything back from me in return.”
I pulled one hand free from its cage to poke three times at his hard chest. He took it without flinching, freely inheriting a little taste of my pain.
“I don’t owe you anything. Not a damn thing. Do you understand me?”
“We can play this however you want, baby girl.”
He kept staring at me with those intense blue eyes that always pierced too deep. I forced myself not to cower or to let them suck me entirely under his control.
I shrugged awkwardly out of my coat, letting it fall to the floor. He didn’t wait for me to say anything else. His hands tread roughly down the length of my body, over the sides of my breasts, over my waist, and down past my hips to the top of my thighs. Pushing my flimsy nightgown up, he palmed my ass, lifting me like a feather to smash against him. I wound my legs around his hips as he turned, forcing me back against the wall beside the door.
The hard bulge smashed against me left no doubt that he wanted this just as bad, but he halted suddenly. His eyes were affixed to my mouth as perfect white teeth worried his bottom lip.
“Ask me, Soot. I told you I wouldn’t do it again till you asked me.”
“Kiss me, Brayden. Right now.”
“Thank Christ.”
He ground his mouth down on mine. Nothing like the teasing kiss in the office. This was possessive and angry. Tongue and teeth and hot breath. As our mouths tangled, his fingers dug into my ass. He thrust involuntarily against me.
I could feel all of him.
Devouring me. Claiming me. Forcing broken pieces together. Those same jagged shards I’d held in bloodied hands, never able to fit back into place on my own.
It was more than I asked for.
More than I wanted.
The only thing separating us was the lace of my panties and the silky material of his athletic shorts. I scraped my nails across the back of his neck, trying to leave him permanently marked, the way he’d left me too many years ago.
He groaned and slid his mouth across my cheek, trailing wet and hot down onto my shoulder. He bit into the soft skin and then drew his tongue across my collarbone, dragging the scruff of his chin over that damn spot that always threw a switch inside me.
Fucker always knew right where to find it.
He kept swiveling his hips against me. Rocking back and forth against my clit, already too sensitive from all his suggestive words and our photographic foreplay.
“I need you inside me. Right now, Brayden. I want you to pound into me. I want it to hurt.”
Make it hurt.
Make it hurt, so I don’t feel anything else.
My rambling plea spurred him on. He eased his head back. In the space of a single breath, he tugged the little tie at the top of my nightgown, tearing it open so my naked breasts fell out, heavy and sensitive against the chilled air. My nipples pebbled, begging for his touch. One finger slid down over an upturned peak.
Gentle. Too gentle.
“Holy hell,” he groaned painfully. “This is the shade of pink I dream about every time I jack myself. Fuck, baby girl, I’ve missed these tits.”
His head bent. Warm breath danced across aching flesh. My fingers threaded through his hair, angrily demanding more. I called out his name again right before his mouth finally claimed me.
He sucked greedily, pulling my nipple so hard between his teeth, I thought I’d explode from that simple touch. My hands grabbed ahold of his waistband, urgent and needy.
“Now, Brayden.”
“Not yet,” he murmured. His lips returned to softly brush over my mouth, breathing his next words into me. “Not like this.”
In one quick motion, he bent down and slid an arm under the backs of my knees. He lifted me and turned to carry me up the stairs.
He didn’t stop at his old bedroom door. He continued down the hall and into one of the spare rooms that had some of his clothes scattered about. The lamp on the nightstand cast a glow of dark honey. The duvet sat rumpled. I must’ve interrupted the paperback book that lay unfolded on top.
I snickered at the title.
Of course.
“I’m tenth on the waitlist for that at the library. Is it any good?” I asked as he gently set me down next to the bed. The backs of my legs met the smooth cotton sheet.
“It’s amazing. You can have my copy.” He smiled with one half of his mouth and reached out to carelessly fling the book off the side of the bed. “Ash, I’ll give you anything you want,” he added huskily.
My fingers dropped to the lacy hem at the bottom of my nightgown, gradually drawing it up my thighs. Demanding hands moved to stop me.
“Let me,” he whispered gently, staring into my eyes.
Instead of lifting it over my head, he used one finger to coax the right strap off my shoulder. It slid down my arm, leaving goose bumps in its wake. The side of his finger followed its path, tracing lightly across the pebbled skin, warming it again. He repeated the motion on the other side until the whole garment cascaded down my body and pooled at my feet.
Something was changing in the room. The air felt too thick. My neediness too raw and exposed. He kept slowing down when I wanted to speed up. I needed to get this over with.
My hands grappled again for his waistband.
“Wait.” His quiet demand stilled my assault.
In slow motion, he sank to his knees in front of me. His arms wrapped gingerly around my hips, and fingertips dug into the top of my ass. A rough, stubbled cheek pressed against the sensitive skin of my belly. He was . . . hugging me. Fucking hugging me, like he needed it to breathe.
I stood, frozen. A knight with no armor. Fighting off his gravity.
“One thousand four hundred sixty-eight days.” His words fluttered across my skin.
“What?”
“It’s been one thousand four hundred sixty-eight days since I held you like this. Since I made love to you.”
My brows drew up in confusion. Brayden’s face tilted up to meet mine.
“How . . . how do you know?” I asked, stammering.
“I’ve counted them all.”
I needed to run. Far, far away. From his words and from the tears forming in his eyes. His fingers pressed into the sides of my hips, locking me in place, preventing my escape.
“No,” I said irritably, pressing against his shoulders, trying to force his emotion away from me. “No, Brayden. Don’t. You can’t do this. I told you how this has to be. Don’t make this into something it’s not. My terms. Or noth
ing at all. You said this could be simple.”
I pushed against him harder. Insisting. Begging. Praying he would let me go. I chanted ugly things at him. Ranting again about how this had to be. My anger flowed up like carbonated bubbles held too long beneath hard glass.
He knelt there and took it, his chest rising and falling rapidly, as he soaked in more of my pain. Absorbing all of it until, finally, a growl ripped from his throat. He stood at once, lifted me straight off my feet, and tossed me back onto the bed.
Yes.
Yes, that’s more like it.
That’s what I’d wanted. I had come here to tie things up, rough and dirty, with a nice, neat bow. Closure. They’d all been telling me to find it for years.
For one thousand four hundred sixty-eight days, apparently.
Well, this was my way of getting that. I’d fuck him right out of my system and then walk away from him the way he’d walked away from me.
“You sure you want it hard and fast? ’Cause I can do that, baby girl. You think this is what you want?”
Strong hands ripped my panties down the middle, tearing them away from my legs, as I struggled to exhale. He pushed his shorts down and tore the shirt over his head in one motion. He stood before me, magnificently naked and totally over-equipped for what I needed.
He harshly fisted himself as I shamelessly watched, studying the rigid head of his cock and the thick veins that swelled up around the side. I felt jealous of that strong hand pumping back and forth. He kept it moving over his skin as he walked to the dresser. He used his free hand to rifle through the top drawer.
“What are you doing?” I pushed up onto my elbows.
“I assume your idea of a hard, fast fuck still includes protection.”
“I’m on the pill.”
Both his hands stilled. Anger drained out of the wide eyes that shot back to mine.
“Stress messed up my cycle. I got sick of it,” I explained.
“You’re sure you . . .” He stopped short of asking if I trusted him. Smart move, considering we both already knew the answer.
He strode back to the bed, sat on the edge, and cupped my cheek. “I swear, baby girl, I’ve never . . . other than that one time in your car, I’ve never not used protection. I’m clean. I would never put you in any danger like that.”
My eyes narrowed. I batted his hand away. “Don’t twist this into me giving you something special. That’s not what this is about. I’m taking this. For me. This isn’t about you. I need this over and done with and you out of my life. As fast as possible.”
His gaze sharpened, nostrils flared. Anyone else in my position would have been scared.
He leaned toward me, placing his hands on the mattress next to my hips. His face hovered inches from mine with eyes still rimmed by liquid emotion. “If that’s how you want to play this, fine. You want to fuck me out of your system? Super. ’Cause I’m more than ready to fuck you so hard you forget every guy who’s followed after me. I’m gonna make you come till you only remember my name. Till you only want me.”
He pulled back and fisted himself again, pulling ferociously. I moved up farther onto the bed, spreading my legs wider. My hand slid down over my stomach, and then my middle finger drew circles over my clit.
“Fucking hell,” he said, groaning as he climbed onto the bed. “You know what that does to me.”
His weight pressed down on me. His forearms rested on either side of my head, caging me in. The tip of his cock lined up with my entrance, pushing just against the outside.
“I’m gonna fuck your pussy till you finally remember, Soot. I was your first, and I damn well plan on being your last.”
I wound my legs around his hips, digging my heels into his ass to shut him up.
“Shit. I knew you’d do that, too,” he hissed into my ear, his cheek pressing against mine.
With one swift motion, he plunged into me, so vicious and deep that my back arched up off the mattress. His head reared back as his mouth spewed a string of dirty expletives.
So fucking good indeed.
Our mouths sealed together as his hips started circling bitterly against me. My lungs begged for air.
Dear Lord, I’d forgotten how thick and perfect he was, how he filled places no one else had ever come close to finding. I moaned as he hit my favorite spot in three quick thrusts. He took me right to the edge too fast, pumping into me until skin slapped together. Bruising fingertips dug into my hips, forcing my body back and forth as he slammed forward.
“Oh God. Dallas.” I said it once. One lousy time, I cried out that name. A stupid reflex, I couldn’t hold in.
His mouth responded, softly meeting mine in a kiss that no longer matched the hostility of his strokes. It was sweet. Gentle and giving and calm. My tongue lashed out, trying to amp it back into something different. I didn’t want sweet. I wanted simple and dirty. Biting teeth and hard pressure.
He wouldn’t let me get my way.
His cock kept fucking me, but his mouth started making love.
I banged against his chest, beating him back away from me, begging for sanity and space. I immediately wished I hadn’t. His thrusts slowed. His hips began circling in a quiet, steady rhythm. They were still maddeningly deep but no longer gifted the hard, raunchy thrusts he’d treated me to before.
I knew what he was doing. Trying to suck me in. Trying to add emotions to something I couldn’t let be more than purely physical. He pulled on strings I’d only ever allowed him to hold.
“Stop.”
“I can’t help it,” he whispered, his voice laden with an emotion I wouldn’t allow myself to name.
My heels dug angrily into the backs of his thighs.
“Stop, Brayden. This isn’t right.”
I balled my hand into a fist and punched against his chest, just above his heart. He levered himself onto one hand and used the other to grab on to my wrist, pressing it over my head to stop my assault. He stared down into my eyes.
“This is abso-fucking-lutely right. Everything about it. Don’t you feel that? The way we fit.” He pulled back, withdrawing till he was almost gone. Then, just as slowly, he plunged back into me, full hilt. We both panted in unison. “Did you honestly think we could do this and not feel it? Not feel one another all the way down through our fucking souls?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out his words.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head.
“Look at me, Soot.”
My traitorous eyes fluttered open. His hands grasped my cheeks. Smooth lips brushed across mine. He withdrew and then drove brutally deep again. I gasped involuntarily at the contrast, the emotional battle of body and will.
“This. Is. Home, Soot.” He punctuated every word between thrusts. “We’re finally home,” he repeated, softer this time as he rotated his hips.
That did it. Something inside me snapped. A strobe light flashed over happier times. Our first night under the Christmas lights in the boathouse. Our last time—a rushed little quickie in the back of his Jeep before he’d had to get to practice. Never knowing that those hastened moments would become some I’d try so hard to forget.
His hand cupped my breast. The sensation shot through me, triggering too much. In my mind, I could hear our laughter, feel his hands cupping my breasts under my white bikini as I stood at the kitchen counter making sandwiches.
I’d suppressed that image for so long, never letting it out of the carefully sealed box. I couldn’t let real life damage the snapshot of the very last day I remembered being happy.
Turning away from his hold on my face, I pressed my cheek against the sheet, trying to hide the feelings that were coming now whether I fought them or not. Tears spilled over the bridge of my nose and across my other eyelid to pool on the crisp white cotton. Lips immediately skimmed over my shoulder. I turned to face him, opening my eyes to see his sad smile and tears of his own cascading, unashamed, down both his cheeks.
“Please . .
. please, I can’t . . .” I was cracking. Hurtling toward all the pain I’d locked up deep, deep down. It would all bubble up if I let it. It would swallow me whole again.
I couldn’t let it all tumble down off the shelf all at once.
“Shh . . .” He kissed my eyelids and then trailed his lips across my wet cheekbones. “Don’t cry. You know I hate it when you cry. It breaks things inside me, and I don’t want to be broken anymore. I want to feel whole again, baby girl. We’ve both been living half a life for too long. Let me do this. Let me give you this. Give it back to me. Give me back the piece of myself I left behind.”
My hips met his in answer, tentatively pressing up to meet him halfway.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, thrusting a little harder with deeper, smoother circles that curled against that very best spot.
His hand slid down between us. Callused fingertips pressed into my clit, forcing me to cry out his name.
“That’s it,” he repeated. “Let go of all of it. Just feel me. Feel us. Crawl over the edge with me. I want to pump myself into you so bad, baby girl. I’ve never . . . I want to feel you pulse around me, and then I wanna watch my come slide back out of you. I wanna mark you in a way I never have before.”
A series of deep, unhurried thrusts shoved me down against the mattress and had me gripping on to the sheet with both fists.
God, I’d spent years assuring myself I’d romanticized Brayden’s sexual prowess.
Maybe he wasn’t that good?
Maybe the others were just skill-less duds?
Yeah, I’d been lying.
“So close. So . . . it’s so good.”
“Always was. The best. We’re the best together, Ash. ’Cause this is where we both belong.”
He sped up the pace again, so deep tingles and sparks and blue stars lit behind my eyelids. I couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t fight his words or their meaning or my own tears. Couldn’t fight the things inside me that soaked up all the emotion he was pouring into me.
We drove together, clinging to one another like we had to hold on. It kept building. Higher and higher until everything suddenly tensed and snapped. Over and over, I pulsed against him as he grew impossibly harder.
“Fuck yeah. Jesus, Ashley. It’s so good. God. It’s never . . .” His breath skittered out. He couldn’t finish his words. They stuck in his throat as sensation took over.
