by CLIFF, J. C.
“You wanna fuck to forget, sweetheart? I can do that,” he says matter-of-factly, with a bit of arrogance lining his husky voice as he runs his nose along my neck. He whispers over my fevered skin, “I’m gonna fuck you sweet, though. I want you to feel our souls connect, and then I’m gonna make you remember for the next decade what it’s like when we become one.” I shiver as I run my hands over the thick muscles of his arms. He pulls his mouth away, and adds with a frown, “Then maybe you’ll never run from me again.”
My stomach plummets, and the look on his face tells me I’ve hurt him. “Travis, I’m so sorry.”
“Shh…I get it.” He kisses my lips. “You were scared,” he softly reassures me with another kiss, “but that was also a dangerous thing for you to do.” I know it was a dangerous move, and it could’ve been the wrong man waiting outside that restaurant door instead of Quinn, but I wasn’t thinking and I ran scared. He pulls back, regarding me with solemn eyes. “Promise me you won’t run again, not unless I tell you to, okay?”
“Okay,” I softly reply. I’m just glad he’s handling this subject in a calm manner. “I promise.”
Satisfied with my answer, his lips softly caress mine. “I couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to you.” He runs his tongue over my lips, and I open to him.
With the silky feel of his warm, wet tongue on mine, my lower belly flutters and a rush of wetness pools at my opening, the recent chaos already forgotten. Our tongues slide over and around each other’s in a fevered fury of passion. I thread my fingers through his short hair and tug at his roots. He breaks away, breathing heavily, and then sits back to unfasten his jeans. Never once removing his heated gaze from mine, he slides them off his toned body as his chest rises and falls silently with excitement.
He lays back down over me half-naked, his tight black t-shirt outlining and hugging all of his upper body’s muscles. He snakes his arm underneath my waist, pulling my body into his, my hands grasping onto his biceps. His tongue flicks back and forth over both breasts before he settles on a nipple, and then he takes it into the warmth of his mouth, sucking hard. I arch my back and hiss when he gently bites. My core clenches with need. My fingertips find the hem of his shirt, and I struggle to inch it up his body, but I can’t.
Filled with a dizzy lust, I whisper, “Travis, you forgot to take your shirt off.” I want to feel the warmth of his skin on mine. He lets go of my nipple and immediately moves to the other one, attacking it fast and hard. “Travis,” I breathed out.
He looks at me from underneath those long eyelashes of his while he runs his tongue around my erect nipple in a lazy circle. “No,” he says, and then before I know it, he’s fully on top of me, claiming my mouth in an all-consuming kiss.
Shirt forgotten, I’m too full of desire to care. I spread my legs open wider, my throbbing pussy screaming for a release. I suck in a sharp breath of air when he breaches the opening of my sex with one thrust of his hips. He settles himself balls-deep inside me, swallowing every last needy whimper from my lungs.
I run my fingers underneath the back of his shirt and graze his skin with my fingernails. His arms squeeze tight around me as he pumps himself into me using a slow, rhythmic pace. I meet his thrusts, and grind my hips into his with all my might as we taste each other with out-of-control, sloppy yet passionate kisses.
When I wrap my legs around his waist, I’m immediately forced to let go as he rolls our bodies over. I’m now sitting on top of him, still impaled on his hard length. He grabs my hips, digging his fingers into my flesh as I place my palms over his chiseled chest for stability. I look to him for direction, and he doesn’t hesitate to take over. His roped forearms flex with movement as he guides my hips up and down while he thrusts himself inside me, making for double the pleasure. We both groan together, filling the space of the bedroom with noises of our lust and heavy panting.
He spreads his legs open wide, and then guides my legs between his which forces my legs closed. The lips of my pussy are compressed tightly around his thick length. My hands fall to either sides of his shoulders, propping myself up on the soft mattress.
“Now you’re gonna feel what it’s like when I make love to you,” he promises on a whisper. With fire in his eyes, his fingers tighten around my hips. New sensations I’ve never felt before have me squeezing my inner muscles around him as he guides me back and forth over his slick cock. The sensualism is to die for.
“Oh, my God,” I breathe out shakily. It feels like I’m the one making love to him. It’s such an erotic feeling that my brows pinch together in ecstasy. My eyes burn, and they squeeze shut on their own accord, the exquisite intensity being too much.
“Look at me, Jules,” he hoarsely whispers. I force my eyes open and a heat flare goes off, spreading an inferno of fire through my body. The look on his face is one of love and adoration, and I lose my breath. A large part of me is hoping he’ll say those three words. “Do you feel my soul, Jules?”
Breathing heavily, sweat appears on his brows as his eyes beg me to feel the connection. “I do. I feel you, Travis,” I freely admit, gasping for air. The feelings that are passing through us are too overwhelming to deny. He narrows his eyes with determination and compresses my thighs even tighter as he thrusts himself up and into me, except it feels like I’m the one pumping into him.
“Don’t you dare ever forget that our souls belong together. We’re one, Jules. One.”
It’s indescribable how incredibly good this feels. My channel is squeezed tight as he fills me. He thrusts himself in and out of me, generating a heated friction within that special erogenous zone deep inside me. My clit is being simultaneously stimulated as I move over him. I’m thankful he’s guiding my movements with his strength, because right now, I feel myself becoming erratic in motion as I climb to the edge of a hellacious orgasm.
His beautiful eyes swirl with unspoken love, and then the silent soul connection becomes blurry as my eyes water, but I don’t dare close them. My orgasm rips through me, and my mouth gapes open as I let out a cry of intense pleasure. My body shakes and trembles as Travis keeps up the rhythm, thrusting himself in and out of my slick pussy.
“I’m gonna come, baby,” he groans as his forehead wrinkles and his lips twitch. “You’re so beautiful, inside and out,” he whispers in a pained voice. My inner walls are so compressed around his thickness that I can feel the second he releases his essence as his cock pulsates deep inside me. His thrusts become more inconsistent and shallow as our souls meld together as one. I squeeze my core muscles, heated fervor flows through my veins, and my oversensitive clit spurs me on and into another orgasm, keeping in tandem with Travis’.
Breathing heavily, I shake my head as I stare down at this beautiful man in wonder. Euphoria like I’ve never experienced before with him brings a tear of joy to my eye. I continue to thrust my hips slowly over his shaft, and then grind down to roll my hips over him despite the fact we’ve both taken our pleasure. This feeling is too good to ever stop.
“Baby, c’mere,” Travis whispers. My heart still pounds hard against my breastbone as I lay my overheated body on top of his. Coming to rest my cheek against his broad chest, I close my eyes as I breathe in his musky scent, savoring the moment. His strong arms wrap around me, making me feel loved, cherished, and adored. He softly strokes my hair lovingly, and I feel complete inside. His strong heartbeat thrums in my ear, and his deep voice rumbles through his chest. “Did you feel that, Jules?”
“Yeah,” I reply in a sated voice. He holds me tighter against his body, and then presses his lips to the top of my head.
“Don’t ever forget it.”
“I won't.” I breathe a soft sigh over his chest, agreeing with him, even though I’m left more confused than when we first started making love. I hate my inner thoughts sometimes, because I have to ask myself, What the hell am I doing? I’m taken back to the reason why we shouldn’t have had sex in the first place. This perplexing connection we have can only lead to no good
.
He knows what he’s been doing all along as he continually succeeds to manipulate every square inch of my body and mind. He had strung me along in the dark, taking full advantage of my memory loss, and then made me fall for him. I don’t even know what his plans are for me. We’ve been under so much pressure, and being constantly on the run, we haven’t had time to address the bigger picture. I don’t know what he wants from me.
“You’re being awfully quiet there, sweetheart,” Travis softly notes. “What’s going through that pretty little head of yours, hmm?”
Now that my lusty haze has cleared, reality has set back in. There’s too much going on in my brain, and I can’t make heads or tails of it all. My emotions are being pulled every which way, and I feel as if I’m ruthlessly being ripped in two. I go from feeling uncontrollable lust with one man, to feeling guilt over another, and it’s not right.
I am having consensual sex with a criminal, and isn’t that, like…oh, I don’t know…a mix of cheating on Adam and Stockholm Syndrome? What the hell am I’m doing? I’m not being true to Adam, Travis, or myself.
“Jules?” Travis prods.
“I’m okay.” I hide my shame by snuggling further into his neck.
“No, I don’t think you are.” He disengages our bodies and sits up to look at me. Immediately, I stretch to my feet and grab the blanket to pull it up around me. He then rolls me onto my back, forcing me to meet his gaze as he lifts a questioning brow. “Are you cold?” he asks in a concerned voice.
“Maybe a little bit,” I lie.
His lips thin in thought as he rubs the sides of my arms with his hands, heating my skin. “You don’t feel cold. In fact,” he adds with a little smirk, “I had you pretty heated up.” I feel even more shame with him voicing what we just did, so I avert my eyes from him. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asks, and then gently guides my chin with his fingers as I’m met with a set of narrowed, quizzical eyes.
I steal a deep breath and decide to clear the air. “I think I need to talk to Adam. I think I deserve that much,” I blurt out quickly before I lose my nerve. For some odd reason, a part of me feels as if the request is betraying Travis.
“What the fuck, Jules!” he exclaims, his body vibrating with immediate anger. “You think you need to talk to him?”
I shrink back into the pillows as he gets up off the bed in a rush. He finds his jeans on the floor and hastily puts them back on, and suddenly, I feel very cheap. Hostility is evident in his short, abrupt movements, making the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in alarm.
Zipping up his pants, he turns around with a snarl and shakes his head at me, waving his hand back and forth between us. “What we just did…my God, Jules…did it even remotely mean a damn thing to you?” he bellows, his tone full of incredulous disbelief. The muscles in his jaw visibly clench as he places his hands on his hips, and then his voice hardens to stone. “No, you can’t get in touch with him.”
My mouth drops open in surprise, and both of my brows lift high. “No?” My voice comes out high-pitched. “You decided just like that?” I shoot back as I snap my fingers together.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Let me rephrase that for you so you can better understand,” he says in a sardonic tone. “Not no, but fuck no!” he yells. “There. Is that better? Did I speak a language you could comprehend?”
My heart pounds loudly in my ears. I swallow hard and damn near choke on the lump in my throat. Nervously, I twist the sheets in my hands and pull them up to my chin. I can’t cope when he gets enraged like this. I remember this Travis from when he took my medallion at the facility.
I have a right to be upset, don’t I? “I don’t understand, Travis. It’s a simple request,” I softly plead. “Can’t you understand—”
He cuts me off mid-sentence, “He was in your life, once upon a time. It’s past tense, and your past is behind you now; that chapter is closed.”
“I don’t remember closing any chapters in my life,” I whisper, narrowing my eyes, “and my past just doesn’t go away because you tell it to. You said at the hotel that I could eventually call home. When will the right time be, Travis? You keep leading me on.”
“Calling home is a far cry from wanting to call Adam,” he bites back.
“Adam was my home too,” I whisper, defeated, and drop my chin to my chest. “You’re never going to let me go…are you?”
“Look, this discussion is over.” Exasperated, he grits out, “I don’t keep your past lover’s contact information, and even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.”
My head jerks up as I pin him down with a hateful glare. “Oh, bullshit,” I spit out, pissed off over the fact he can blatantly lie without blinking an eye. “Don’t you dare try to lie to me anymore with your bullshit lines, Travis Jackson.” I point my finger at him with renewed determination. “That’s a load of crap and you know it! You’ve got enough equipment and intel at your fingertips for an army.” I lean forward, my icy eyes drilling a hole into his as I become determined to win this one.
“At least he never lied to me. You seem to have a pathological habit of it. If you ever, and I emphasize the word ever, want me to start trusting in you, then stop. Lying. To. Me!” I shout, pointing at my chest. “I only trust you to protect me, but when it comes to my heart…” I pause to steal a breath while shaking my head. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. I want to talk to him.”
“Don’t make me be a bigger dick than I have to be,” he growls in a low timbre. “Don’t push me; you won’t win this one, not by a long shot.”
“You’re never going to let me talk to anyone from my past ever again.” My heart sinks and my hands begin to shake. One would think I’d get it through my thick skull that I’m going to be his prisoner until he decides to release me, if that day ever comes. “My past is all that I have,” I whisper as my voice trails off.
“No. No, it’s not. You have me now.”
“No, I have nothing right now.” I shake my head, my lips slipping into a solemn frown. “I have nothing except for secrets and lies.”
The bed dips as he sits down beside me, firmly grasping me by the shoulders, vexed I would even say such a thing. “You have me, dammit! I’m busting my balls here to keep you safe…keep us safe. After all this time, after everything we’ve been through together…and this…this is what you think of me?”
I scoff in his face. “Tell me, just what am I supposed to think of you? You’ve lied so much you probably wouldn’t even know the truth if it hit you in the face.” I grit my teeth. “I need some time to think things over, Travis. I haven’t had any time to process anything. It’s like the minute I got my memory back, all hell broke loose, literally.”
“Baby, there’s nothing to think over,” he says as if I’m being ridiculous.
“Maybe for you there isn’t. Don’t you get it? I don’t know who you are.”
“Yes. Yes, you do know me. You’ve seen the real me. You’ve had the real me, and I know you feel this powerful thing between us.”
“Whether I feel this thing between us or not is inconsequential.” My eyes widen, the emotional turmoil pouring out of my mouth. “My God! I killed a live human being just one day ago! I can’t process that. I’m not a killer!” My eyes narrow on his with stark realization. “But you are, aren’t you?” I whisper. My hand covers my mouth as I acknowledge the horror as it sinks in. “Your job is to drug women with Blyss, and then sell them,” I whisper the horrendous words behind my fingertips. I’ve become so familiar with him that I’ve justified my captivity for a relationship in order to cope. A strangled cry emits from the back of my throat and my stomach lurches.
My God, he’s a sex trafficker! His touch on my shoulders becomes too much. I jerk myself away from his hold and scoot back in the bed until my back hits the headboard. Terror stricken, I need to get away from him. Travis reaches out for me, and I hold my hands out to stop him. “Don’t…don’t touch me. I can’t…I can’t do
this right now.” My heart hammers in my chest. Pain…I feel so much pain.
“You’re not thinking straight right now, baby.” The look on his face turns worried, his voice tender and soft. “I think it’s time we discuss the big elephant in the room.”
“Which elephant, Travis? Are you referring to my state of captivity, or the fact I had to shoot and kill a human being in the last forty-eight hours?” I bite out.
His lips thin and he ignores the captive remark. He takes a deep breath before letting out a dramatic sigh, as if the world is weighing heavy on his shoulders. His eyes plead with mine. “I need you to trust me. There are things I want to tell you, but I can’t right now.” He waves his hand between our bodies as he continues his petition. “We need to get our relationship back on track.”
“Relationship? Are you delusional?” I bark. “All I’ve done is take leaps of faith with you, trust you, but each leap is lined with deception, and each lie is delivered with a stone wall face. I can never tell what’s real with you. What are you trying to say, Travis? Because there is no black or white with you. You only live in shades of grey.”
His eyes close briefly in defeat before he answers me. “I can’t expect you to understand any of this, Julianna.” He reaches out and gently places his hand over my chest, supporting the weight of my medallion in his hand. His green eyes bore into mine, piercing me deep within my soul. “I’m begging you to keep trusting in me, because the less you know, the more preserved your life will be. I swear to you, I have your best interests at heart. What we have, Jules, it’s real.”
I shake my head. “You’re trying to confuse me. You’re so good at manipulation I don’t know which end is up.”
