Only Heaven Knows

by Sable Hunter

  Denver was helpless to resist her. He bucked his hips, aching to seat himself deeper into her mouth. Bryn accepted him, opening her lips wider, her fingers massaging the strength of his thighs.

  “God, Bryn, you’re killing me.”

  Her answer was a hum of excitement. She pulled away only long enough to gaze up at him and give him a dazzling smile. “I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  “Vixen,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Suck me again…please.”

  Hearing him beg did something to her. She took him back into her mouth and let her fingers roam to the intriguing sack between his legs.

  “Oh, yea,” he moaned as she suckled and licked, swallowing against the intrusion, lapping at him while he massaged her scalp, tugging her hair, and chanting her name. “Bryn, Bryn, my Bryn.”

  Hearing her name on his lips made Bryn tingle all over. She wanted to make him feel so good that he’d never think of another woman as long as he lived. As she sucked, she massaged his balls with one hand and used the other to wrap around the base of his cock, working them back and forth in tandem with her mouth.

  “Oh, fuck baby. You’d better stop. I’m gonna come…”

  Stop? She didn’t want to stop. Instead, she increased her efforts – sucking, licking, rubbing, pumping – until he gripped her hair so hard it hurt, stiffened his body, and rocked on his toes. “Bryn!”

  Bryn accepted him, refusing to pull away, swallowing his essence as it jetted down her throat. Once he was through, she laid her head against his thigh to get her breath. “Did you like it?”

  Denver could barely speak, he hooked the chair she’d first offered him and sank down into it. “I loved it.” He took her by the arm and pulled her close, rubbing his face into her hair.

  Bryn couldn’t help but smile, satisfied. “I guess that proves I can be a naughty girl, like you said. Can’t I?”

  Weak from pleasure, Denver didn’t have a filter on his thoughts or his words. Before he could think twice, he just said what he was thinking. “Yea, I’m pleasantly surprised… considering you’re a nun.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  …Considering you’re a nun.

  Bryn rose to her feet, crossing her arms over her breasts. She turned her back on Denver and pulled on her top. “So, you know. I guess Lance told you. I let it slip to him one day.”

  “Yea, he told me.” Denver stood and straightened his underwear and jeans. “The question is, why didn’t you tell me? Why keep it a secret?”

  Bryn felt a flush of embarrassment glide over her body. Mechanically, she moved to the muffin tins and began to remove the cupcakes to cool and ice. “I’m not a nun, Denver. Not anymore.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me.”

  Glancing at him, standing there, dominating the small space of her kitchen, she sought for the right words to explain herself to him. “I understand why you’re angry. I misrepresented myself.”

  “I didn’t say I was angry, Bryn.” He came to stand beside her, leaning on the counter. “I’m not. Far from it. What I am is confused. I knew you were innocent, I knew you were raised in a convent school. Why not tell me the rest? Why would you keep something so important from me? Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

  The knife Bryn was holding clattered into the sink as she dropped it, whirling to face him. “I was embarrassed! I didn’t want you to know, I didn’t want anyone to know. There’s a huge difference between someone raised in a Catholic school and someone who took…vows!” Her voice broke and she grabbed up a dishtowel to cover her face.

  Denver dry-scrubbed his face, letting out a harsh breath. “Oh, hell.” He pulled her to him. “Don’t cry.” As he pressed Bryn to his chest, the tenseness in his body dissipated. “I just want to understand.”

  Bryn sobbed in his arms, her tears wetting the shirt he wore. If she owed anyone the truth, it was Denver. As he held her, rubbing her back, Bryn gradually calmed. “All right. I’ll tell you everything.” She eased out of his arms and stepped back. “As you know, up until a couple of months ago, the church is all I knew. I was left there as a baby, raised in the orphanage, and educated in the Catholic school.” Her speech slowed as she wiped her eyes. “When I came of age, I began to take the steps to enter the order. This seemed natural to me, I knew nothing else.”

  “So, why did you leave? Was it because you grew curious about life outside the convent?”

  Bryn studied his face, a face that had become so beloved to her. Right now, there was no judgment in his eyes. She could see curiosity and frustration, but no condemnation. If she were truly honest with him, that would probably change. “No, it wasn’t my decision. I was asked to leave. I was excommunicated.”

  Denver was shocked. “Excommunicated?” He’d expected to hear how she’d regretted giving up a chance at romance or the freedom to live a life she chose. He hadn’t anticipated anything like this. “What the hell for?”

  Bryn smiled sadly. “I’m finding that your speech can be very colorful.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Don’t you dare call me Sister,” she told him with a glare. “I’m not a Sister. I’ve started over. I’m building a life here. I gave myself to you!”

  “That wasn’t what I was about to say.” He shook his head, but his denial was hollow. The religious title had almost slipped from his lips.

  “Don’t erect some false barrier between us, Denver. I’ve put that life behind me!”

  “Why would they ask you to leave, Bryn?” he pressed. Remembering all the sad stories he’d heard in the news; his mind began to race. “Did someone hurt you? Did you threaten to reveal some type of abuse?”

  Bryn shook her head sadly. “No, nothing like that.” She let out a huge sigh of defeat. “I was different.”

  “Different?” Denver scoffed. “Beautiful. Sexy. Sweet.” Despite their loss being his gain, he found himself angry at them for hurting her, for depriving her of something she wanted.

  “No. No. Stop it.” She covered her eyes as if to hide from the world. “I can do things.”

  “Do things?” Denver didn’t understand.

  Bryn hugged herself, knowing this could be the moment that he’d push her away too. No one had ever accepted her as she was, other than Sister Mary Estelle.

  “Tell me.” He insisted.

  She bowed her head in shame. “Tonight, the woman’s money…”

  “What about the woman’s money?” Light dawned in his eyes. “You did that. You made money appear in her wallet.” His words were as much questions as comments.

  “Yes. And the board in the back of your truck, the one that was too short...”

  Denver was stunned. “I thought I was going crazy! I knew that damn board was a foot too short – and then…it wasn’t.”

  Bryn spoke softly, as if in defeat. “And the stone, the one in the well shaft, the one blocking the path to rescue Lance…”

  Denver grabbed onto the counter, his jaw slack. “Oh, my God. I saw it glow blue…and then it just vanished!”

  “Yes,” she said meekly.

  Denver shook his head. “So, Freddy wasn’t kidding. You healed that bird.”

  Bryn shrugged. “No, I didn’t heal the bird. I resurrected it.”

  Her tone was too even. Too modulated.

  “How?” he asked. “How can you do any of these things?”

  Bryn laughed – a humorless, desperate sound. “I don’t know. Isn’t that funny? I have no idea. I’ve always been able to do things. I don’t know if my real parents could or not. Maybe that’s why they gave me up, because they knew I was…different. Broken. Tainted.”

  “Stop.” Denver said the word softly. “Don’t say that. You may be different, but you’re not broken, and you certainly aren’t tainted.”

  Bryn ignored him. Now, that she was speaking, telling the truth, she couldn’t stop. “My adopted parents brought me back because I made birds from Playdoh, then caused them to fly. I healed a playmate of a
burn. I…” She stopped and began to cry again. Denver moved to take her in his arms, but she evaded him, putting distance between them.

  A distance he could feel growing by the second. “Bryn, stop.”

  She couldn’t. The words just kept pouring out. Cathartic. A purging.

  “Sister Mary Estelle protected me for years. She taught me to be careful. She taught me that I was good.”

  “You are.”

  Bryn ignored him, she ignored his pleading hands. “The convent was my home. All I knew. I never even dreamed of leaving.”

  “What happened, honey?”

  “I guess I grew complacent. I was happy. I would see something that needed fixing and I would fix it. This nun’s beloved kitten was killed…I couldn’t bear to see her cry. I brought it back to life.” She turned away from him, so he couldn’t see her face. “Once, during a storm, the electricity went out and so did the heat, it was cold. We had no electricity, but we had power. My power. Another time, we ran out of flour at a pancake supper.” She hugged herself tightly. “I made it so every time they went to the bin for flour, there was just enough. All innocent things. Or so I thought.”

  “Sounds innocent to me.” Denver was past trying to make sense of what she’d told him. He just didn’t want her to be hurt.

  A soft giggle escaped Bryn’s lips. “Mother Superior didn’t think so. She told me I had to leave.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Denver said, moving a few inches closer to her. Slowly. Like he would a frightened fawn. “The nuns asked you to leave because you could perform miracles. I thought God and the church were big on miracles. Hell, they ought to consider you saint material!”

  Bryn couldn’t help but laugh at his absurd suggestion. “What I do can’t be classified as miracles.”

  “How can you say that?” He didn’t understand how he’d gone from skeptic to advocate, but the journey hadn’t been a hard one. Not where Bryn was concerned. “Are they magic? Isn’t magic a miracle?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Bryn was tired of it all. She’d held onto this burden all her life and she was just tired. “It doesn’t really matter. Like my adopted parents and my real parents before them, when the church realized what I was, they didn’t want me either.”

  Just like you won’t want me, she silently accused him, sure of what his reaction would be.

  “Does this scare you?” Bryn asked, waiting for his reaction.

  Denver didn’t even have to think about his answer. Her revelation was nothing like he’d been expecting. He couldn’t explain any of what she’d told him, but there was one thing he knew for certain, Bryn was blameless. She was good. “Do I look scared to you?” He gave her a grin and a wink. “Hell, like I told you at the carnival, I’m dating I Dream of Jeannie and Samantha from Bewitched, all rolled into one delectable package.”

  Bryn didn’t get time to say anything more, Denver swept her up into his arms and strode through the house until he found her bedroom. As always, the radio was playing softly. When he placed her on the bed, he pushed her back on the mattress, coming to cover her body, his lips seeking hers. Just before they touched, she placed her fingers over his mouth. “Didn’t anything I told you matter?”

  He moved her hand, his breath hot against her face. “Of course, it matters. It matters to me that you’ve been hurt. Mistreated. I want to go to that convent and rail at those nuns. Shake my fist in their faces and tell them that they should be ashamed of themselves for being mean to you.”

  The image of him standing up to the nuns made her laugh. “I would sorta like to see that.”

  “But I’m not going to do it,” Denver continued. “Not because I don’t think I’m right, but because I’m glad you’re here with me and not there with them.”

  “Really?” She licked her lips nervously as he tilted his head, his mouth coming close to gently brush her mouth, then pull away, only to return again. “You shouldn’t kiss me.”

  “Why? You’ve never objected before,” he whispered, just as his mouth crashed hot over hers.

  Actually, Bryn had no objection now. She clutched at his shoulders as his lips plundered hers. She moaned her agreement as he took her. There was no better way to explain it. Denver kissed her as if he was staking a claim of ownership, establishing rights to her mouth that allowed no trespassing.

  As their mouths were joined, they tore at their own clothes, at each other’s clothes, until they were naked and unashamed. Bryn’s body melted into his, and she reveled in the hardness of his chest and his thighs as they pressed her into the bed. She trembled as his hands soothed over her skin. One hand came to clasp the nape of her neck, as if to keep her still. Little did he know that she had no inclination to leave him. Ever.

  Bryn was right where she wanted to be, with someone who’d learned the worst about her and wanted her anyway. This was exactly what she’d dreamed of, fantasized about. Total and complete acceptance.

  “I want to make love to you, Miss Bryn. Will you let me?” he asked, his lips still hovering so near to hers.

  “Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Please. I want you so much.”

  “Good,” he breathed, his hands beginning to move over her heated skin. She moaned and shivered as he touched her, her muscles losing all their strength. “You’re so beautiful. So soft. Your skin is like velvet,” he whispered words of praise to her as his hands ran over her body, moving up to cup her breasts.

  “I want to touch you too,” she said, but he didn’t pause in his quest, his lips moving from her mouth to trail down her cheek to her throat. All she could do was rub his arms and shoulders, then run her fingers into his hair, clutching him close. She moaned as he sucked on her neck, the idea that he was marking her skin made her shiver.

  When he rose to his knees, he surveyed her, as if trying to decide what treat to sample next. A wicked smile hovered on his lips as he zeroed in on her breasts. Just the caress of his gaze caused her nipples to bead and tighten. “That’s right, react to me.” Lowering his head, he covered one stiff peak with his mouth, rolling his tongue gently over the tip. As Bryn moaned, he suckled at her breast, long hard pulls that made her toes curl and her clitoris tingle. She held his head to her, loving the image of this big, strong man taking pleasure at her breast.

  “Denver, please, I need more,” she panted.

  “I know,” he whispered as he moved over her. She could feel him hard against her thigh. Bryn spread her legs wide, waiting, inviting him inside. He came closer, fitting his body to hers, settling between her thighs, resting his weight on his forearms on either side of her shoulders. As his body touched hers, Bryn gasped, loving the way she felt as his skin rubbed over hers.

  “I love this,” she whimpered. He didn’t answer, but he kissed her again. She wrapped her arms around his neck, letting her tongue mate with his, inviting him to continue the erotic dance with the rest of his body. Just when she thought he would join himself to her, his lips skated down her neck and over the slope of her shoulder to find her breast once more. If his mouth didn’t feel so good at her breast, she would’ve protested. Her body was on fire for him, the emptiness between her thighs was becoming an ache that she was desperate to fill. “Denver, oh Denver, you’re teasing me.”

  He just chuckled as he moved even lower. She went tense when his mouth traveled between her legs, to the very place she needed him most. Helplessly, she bowed and writhed, lifting her hips to beg for all he could give.

  “Patience. Patience.”

  “I didn’t know you planned on torturing me,” she whispered.

  “This isn’t torture, Miss Bryn, this is a reward for you being so good.” He pressed one more kiss to her quivering femininity. “So sweet.” He slid up her body, spreading her thighs wide once more. “Perfect.” Taking himself in hand, he probed her tender opening, then slid deep inside of her. “God, yes,” he groaned.

  She closed her eyes as bliss washed over her. “This. This is what I needed.” She raised her hands to his
shoulders, letting them glide over his back and neck. She wanted to memorize every inch of him. Ecstasy bloomed within her, spreading like fire through her veins.

  His lips sought hers again, kissing her gently. “Hold me,” was his request. “Wrap your legs around me. Squeeze me.”

  She did as he asked with her lithe limbs, holding him in a lover’s embrace. “Like this?”

  “Yes. Now squeeze my cock.”

  “What?”

  With a chuckle, he nipped at the lobe of her ear. “Use your pussy. Tighten around me.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t conceive the possibility, then she closed her eyes and tried. “Oh, my.”

  Denver groaned as he kissed her neck, using his teeth to score her skin lightly. “Oh, hell, yes.”

  She smiled against the skin of his shoulder and did it again. And again. And again. “This feels so good!”

  Denver lost it, he just lost it. He couldn’t help himself, he began to thrust into her over and over. Pumping his hips. Plunging into her softness. Plowing into the warmth of her body over and over, hard enough to move her up and down on the mattress.

  Bryn keened as the pleasure within her wound so tight that she couldn’t hold back. Elation bloomed within her as she came, her nails digging into his back, holding him to her, lest he dare stop before the amazing release could bring her such pleasure.

  Denver couldn’t hold back another second. He came so hard, he thought the top of his head might blow off. She had no idea what she’d done to him. “Baby, baby, baby,” he muttered as he gathered her softly against him, rolling to his back, crushing her soft body to his. For long moments, their ragged breathing was the only sound in the room.

  “Denver?”

  “Hmmm?” He cradled her close, stroking her back. “You okay?”

  “Better than okay.” She rested her palm on his chest and looked up into his dear face. “I can’t believe it. You know the real me and you wanted me anyway. There is no one else like you in the whole world. I love you, Denver Bolden.” She kissed him right over his heart. “I love you so much.”