Innocence Defied (New York)

by Lainey Reese

  He took her hands in his and spread her arms wide so he could make a show of looking her over from head to toe. “You ever look in a mirror, Zo?”

  She laughed again and stepped back. “Of course.”

  “Then you must not look too close if you can say that to me.”

  When she was about to retort, Gage stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle to pull her to his chest. “Let the boy pay you a compliment, darlin’. It proves he’s not blind.” With a light kiss on her cheek, he led her by the hand to the waiting table.

  As Tanner held the chair out for her, she was shocked to realize that he was their waiter when he picked up the champagne and began to pour.

  “Tanner?” She looked at him first and then Gage, ready to send him away, and a little shocked that Gage would have him there as “the help”.

  “Oops, darlin’,” Gage said before she could continue, “while speaking with your boy here, I learned that he’s in town on a partial scholarship and tryin’ to work his way through school. Being a starvin’ student and all, I thought you might appreciate it if I offered him a job.”

  “And being the ‘starvin’ student’ in question, I would like to say I sure appreciate five hundred bucks to play waiter for one night.”

  “Oh,” Zoe said as relief and gratitude swirled through her head. “In that case, here’s to your good fortune.” She lifted her glass in a mock salute and added, “May you find a desperate female with connections to deep pockets every time the rent is due.”

  The rest of the evening flew by in a haze of fairy dust as far as Zoe was concerned. The dinner was course after course of delicacies. Tanner was more than the waiter—he spoke with them and teased her constantly. She was sure her cheeks were pink the entire time. Gage was attentive and charming. He spoke to her and focused on her more intently than she could ever remember him being before.

  They talked about everything. She discovered he liked it when she spoke her mind about things, so she gave him her full opinion on every subject even when it clashed with his. They got kind of heated when it came to the conflict in Iraq. She thought the fighting should stop and that America should pull out, where as he—being a Texan through and through—wanted to fight ‘til America won and that was that. The passionate debate only stirred them both up to where all she could think about was getting him naked. She knew he was thinking the same thing because in the middle of one of her finer points, he slammed his fork down onto the table, shoved from his seat and reached out to drag her into his arms for one of the most intense kisses he’d ever given her.

  By the time the evening was over and he was closing the bedroom door behind them, she was mindless with desire. He’d petted and kissed and caressed her throughout the entire evening. After dinner they’d meandered through the park along the water, hand in hand, and she’d lost count of the number of times he’d pulled her into his arms. Then he’d taken her to a piano bar where the music was smooth and classic. Old jazzy numbers by Frank Sinatra, as well as newer ones by Harry Connick, Jr. were played by a live band, and he’d swept her along on the dance floor until she felt drenched in music and romance. He moved too fluidly for such a large man, but fluid he was. Dancing with him was like being in a Fred Astaire movie, and Zoe honestly couldn’t feel her feet touch the floor.

  “Zoe, darlin’,” Gage said from behind her as his lips kissed that spot on her neck that turned her knees to water. “It’s after midnight. Happy birthday.”

  Then he spun her around and kissed her. His mouth moved with as much skill on hers as his feet moved on a dance floor, and all Zoe could do was melt in surrender. Several blissful moments passed with no sound other than their increasingly ragged breaths as the kisses grew frantic before what Gage said registered.

  She broke away with a gasp and looked up into his face as she panted. Her arms were still wrapped around his neck and his were tight around her waist. They stood that way for a frozen moment as their gazes locked while understanding bloomed in her heart.

  “This is it,” she whispered. “My birthday present. It’s happening tonight.”

  “No, darlin’.” He leaned in and kissed along her neck. “It’s happening right now.” Then she heard the sound of her zipper as he loosened it and her dress pooled at her feet, leaving her naked since she’d been denied undergarments this evening.

  She didn’t even try to stop the needy sounds coming from deep inside her as she kissed him again and tried to loosen the buttons on his shirt. It was an impossible task, because her brain couldn’t remember how to work a button. Just when she was ready to rip the offending material from him, he took her hands and clasped them together behind her back in one of his. When she tried to bring them back around, she earned a warning growl and he gave a sharp tug on her manacled wrists.

  “What’s your safe word, sub?”

  The question caused a chain reaction of fireworks to explode inside her, from her mind to her heart to her already drenched center. “Alamo, Sir.”

  Then he was kissing her again. With his free hand, he lifted one breast in his palm and hummed into her mouth as he squeezed and massaged the tender mound. His blunt fingers tightly clasped the aching nipple and Zoe could have screamed if she’d had the breath. The intense pleasure that shot like an arrow from that point to her throbbing core nearly brought her to her knees. She arched back with a gasp and rocketed onto her toes, thrusting her breast deeper into his grip, ready to beg any second.

  “Get on the bed, darlin’.” His voice was like hot gravel and caused a quiver low in her belly as she turned and crawled onto the mattress. “God, you are so damn beautiful. Lie back and spread your legs for me.”

  When she did, she saw the effect it had on him in the tightening of the skin around his eyes, as well as how his breathing increased. Gage removed his clothes with rough efficiency and before she knew it, he was as naked as she and heading toward the bed. He stopped at his dresser and grabbed something from a drawer. When he dropped the box of condoms on the bedside table, Zoe gulped and looked at him with wide, anxious eyes.

  “Gage?” She was almost afraid to speak and possibly ruin the mood but she felt she needed to be honest with him. “Um, maybe I should have mentioned this before, but um…I’ve been on the Pill since I was sixteen.”

  “What?” He sounded perplexed and more than a little suspicious. How he could put that much inflection in one little word was one of the many mysteries of Gage Hollister.

  “My periods were all over the place and outta whack, so when Mom took me to the doctor about it, he put me on the Pill to regulate me.” She looked at the box on the bedside table then back at him. “So, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have one of those between us. At least this first time.”

  He sat on the side of the bed and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “Why, baby? Tell me why that’s important to you.”

  She shrugged one shoulder up and rubbed her cheek on it, finding it hard to put her feelings into words. “It’s just, just that, I don’t know…it’s just that they seem so clinical, you know?” She met his look head-on and continued, “Condoms are for casual sex. Sex with people you don’t know, or for relationships that are just getting started. I’ve known you my whole life and there is nothing casual about us or this.” When his hand came back and cupped the side of her face, she nuzzled in and said, “It’s important to me. Please, Sir.”

  He didn’t answer her with words, just picked up the box and dropped it into the waste basket on the other side of the table without taking his eyes off her. Then, with a deep savoring breath, he came over her and kneed her legs wider apart.

  Zoe’s breath backed up as she forgot how to work her lungs and her heartbeat started a frantic imitation of a humming bird. Gage seemed oblivious to her panic and just tucked her deeper in his embrace, then bent his head to kiss her like it was the first time he ever had.

  When he lifted his head, Zoe looked up at him and the world narrowed down
to the spread of his shoulders and the look of desire blazing in his eyes.

  “I’m goin’ to take this slow and easy to start,” he told her in that deep, honeyed drawl of his. “You remember your safe word and use it if you get overwhelmed.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good girl.” He kissed her lightly on the lips. “My beautiful girl.”

  His lips coaxed and seduced hers in kisses that left her feeling drugged for long endless moments. An eternity later, he kissed a path down her neck to her breasts, massaging and squeezing the mounds as his tongue, lips and teeth did amazing things to her nipples.

  “God, darlin’.” He breathed against her. “Your hands feel so good on me but if you keep touching me like that, I’m goin’ to lose it and rush this. Put your hands on the headboard for now.”

  Her hands had been sweeping over his shoulders and up to tangle in the silk he had for hair. She reluctantly loosened her grip and reached for the slats above her head.

  He slipped a hand between them and groaned. “So wet and ready for me. God, Zoe. Look at me.” She managed to open her eyes enough to meet his intense stare. “This is it. No going back from here.” She felt the blunt heat of his shaft as he used his hand to rub it over her dripping sheath. She felt adrift in a cloud and thought she were going to dissolve in pleasure when he circled the pulsing throb of her clit with his swollen head.

  Gage never broke eye contact as he placed himself at the entrance of her slit then nudged in. She felt pressure and then a strange sort of filling as he slid deeper and deeper into her. The skin tightened around his eyes again and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of passion, just when that pressure morphed into discomfort and still he kept coming.

  “What should you be telling me right now, Oops?” His voice was lower and more strained than she’d ever heard it before.

  “No.” She gasped, struggling to hang on to the pleasure and not ruin this moment. “No. I’m okay. Please don’t stop. Oh, ow. Please, Gage, don’t—”

  His kiss stopped her words mid-sentence. “Aw, baby,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’m not stopping. But you need to tell me when you are getting over”—he groaned when her walls clamped down hard and she felt his body jolt in reaction—”fuck, whelmed. When you get overwhelmed.”

  He nudged a little deeper and Zoe felt impaled by him. “Alamo,” she cried breathlessly. “Alamo.”

  “There now, that was just fine.” He praised as he stopped and leaned down to kiss and nuzzle at her neck. “Trust goes two ways, darlin’.” He hummed against her when her walls clamped again and it took a moment before he could go on speaking. “You have to trust me not to push you beyond where you are ready to go and I have to trust that you are going to let me know when I’m getting too close to that edge.”

  Gage settled more of his weight on her and reached beneath her to cup one of her butt cheeks; he used that grip to adjust her to his liking and then tilted her hips up. His kiss consumed her and brought the desire rushing back. He pulled out until only the tip of him remained inside her then, with a throaty groan, slid back in to just the edge of what she could take. He went on like that for what seemed like hours. In and out, back and forth, on top of and inside of her until she was mindless and begging.

  He murmured to her again but she was beyond understanding, lost to the passion. All she knew was the pull and surge of his body into hers. His grip tightened on her ass and then he thrust hard, filling her the rest of the way with one forceful plunge that shocked her into an arch under him with a feral scream of mindless pleasure.

  “Oh God,” she said in a voice she couldn’t recognize. “Oh, Gage. Oh my. Yes. Yes. Oh God, please. Don’t stop, don’t stop.” He was immense and Zoe felt completely overtaken by him. Her body no longer her own, but joined with his irrevocably, and it was an ecstasy she could never have imagined.

  Gage froze for a heartbeat, buried in her to the hilt and she felt the chains he had on himself snap as, with a deep reverberating groan, he lowered more firmly onto her and went wild. His hands gripped her with bruising force and his hips slammed against hers with the speed and velocity of a jackhammer. Beat after rapid beat he pounded into her to the hilt and Zoe lasted mere seconds before the first orgasm blew through her like a hurricane.

  It seemed to fuel his fire, because he only went faster and harder as the hungry, desperate sounds of animal lust tore from his throat. Zoe lost her ability to hang on or even remember she was supposed to and her arms fastened and clung to Gage, leaving fiery trails of welts from her desperate attempt to find purchase.

  With a harsh rasping curse, Gage shifted back until he was kneeling between her legs with his hands on her hips grinding her into his thrusts. “Look at that, Zoe.” He shuddered and let out another rough curse as he watched where they were joined. “Looks so fucking hot. Mmmm, feels so good to finally take you, baby. So fucking good. Look.”

  Zoe looked down her body and gasped. He had her hips tilted in his grasp so she could clearly see his shaft as it emerged wet and glistening from her, then slammed back in. The walls of her sheath tightened on him as the sight brought another orgasm barreling down on her.

  Her head fell back with a series of oh gods and yeses that streamed from her lips in a litany of delirium. Gage came over her again and pumped deep and hard into her for five mind-blowing thrusts. Zoe screamed as the impending climax seemed to balloon inside her and consumed every inch of her body. It hovered there, filling her more and more, bigger and deeper until she thought she’d go mad if it didn’t burst now.

  Gage did something then that blazed across her consciousness in erotic slow motion. One hand slid from her ass to her thigh and higher until he cradled her knee in the crook of his arm, then he lifted that leg up and toward her head. Next his other hand reached out and he grabbed hold of the headboard, she watched as his knuckles whitened from his grip.

  “Brace yourself, darlin’,” was all he said, then he slammed home. Deeper and harder than he’d gone yet, and Zoe screamed and kept screaming as that balloon burst and she exploded into the most intense climax he’d ever given her. Shockwaves rippled over her from deep in her center to the very tips of her fingers and toes—over and over again.

  As if from far away, Zoe heard the growling shouts that Gage made as he thundered into her and lost himself in his own climax. His massive body quaked and shuddered above her, while he filled her with pump after pump of his searing hot release.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gage collapsed and could only thank God it was next to Zoe and not on top of her, because he had serious doubts that he could’ve moved if he had landed on her. His lungs worked like a bellows and he wondered briefly if it was possible for his heart to literally burst from his chest. After a moment he realized that Zoe hadn’t plastered herself to his side like she always did and he turned to look at her. Maybe it made him a pig, but the sight of her right at that moment made him feel like a strutting rooster and he wanted to beat on his chest like a caveman.

  She was wrecked. Her body was flushed and covered in his love bites and handprints. Those mouthwatering breasts were rosy and the tips were obviously swollen and tender from his attentions. Her hair was a cloud of ebony around her head and shoulders, and he didn’t envy her the job of brushing it out. It was her face though—that stunning face—that puffed him up the most. She was looking at him like he hung the moon and those beautiful blue eyes of hers glowed so clear and bright he’d swear they were lit from the inside.

  “You doin’ okay there, darlin’?” he asked in a husky whisper.

  “Yeah, Sir. I am definitely doing better than okay.” Her whisper was almost as husky as his and there went his chest again.

  “Then why aren’t you over here like you’re glued to me?” he asked with a knowing smirk.

  “I wish I was,” she answered dreamily. “But I think I’m paralyzed.” When he chuckled, she added, “I’m not kidding. I keep telling my arms and legs to move me ove
r there but they aren’t listening to me.”

  It took a lot more effort to move than he would ever admit but he pulled her in close where she belonged. His body was still vibrating with aftershocks.

  Gage had been with more women than he could count, had experienced sexual situations that would make a satyr blush, but what he’d just shared with Zoe obliterated them all. In his mind’s eye, he flashed back to that moment of penetration. She’d been so hot and tight, he felt like he was forcing his dick through the eye of a needle—one that’d been held over an open fire until it glowed. Her muscles had clamped on to him with such strong contractions, just remembering it caused another wave of tremors to roll over him.

  Zoe shifted closer to him and as her soft breasts pressed more fully into his side, he thought of how they’d looked while he’d been pounding so furiously into her. They’d trembled and bounced on her small frame with the tips tight and dark and Gage had had a hard time tearing his eyes away from them so he could watch for signs she was in distress. But those signs had never showed. She’d been completely enthralled and responsive to everything every step of the way. Not once did she show any indication she wasn’t loving what he did her. In fact, the only signs she gave off were signs that she wanted more. Harder, faster and deeper, and if this hadn’t been her first time, he would be giving her just that. Over and over again. With the knowledge that there was nothing standing in the way of him doing that as soon as she had time to recover, Gage ordered his mind to rest and focus on trying to let himself as well as her get some sleep.

  With a sigh that came all the way from his toes, he closed his eyes and drifted off after he heard the rhythmic breathing that told him she was out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Up to her nose in the frothing bubbles of the hot tub, Zoe closed her eyes and basked in glorious decadence. She was in the reclining seat and a dozen pulsing jets were pounding her sore muscles into submission.