Beyond Bliss

by Foster, Delia

He was behind those doors.

  And now he sat next to her, his pupils so wide and dark, his eyes gleamed onyx. He was a proud man, but she could see pleading in those eyes.

  Begging for a chance.

  It was hard to look at him directly at first. After she walked in, each step that brought her closer to him sent her brain into short circuits and her heart on a marathon sprint.

  He let her come to him.

  She appreciated that because as things continued to spiral out of control, she needed to own some piece of what was happening to her.

  He’d lost some weight.

  Not a lot, but the planes of his beautiful face seemed more angular. The stubble on his cheeks told her he hadn’t shaven in a few weeks.

  And it was barely perceptible, but she could see that underneath his beautiful gray eyes, the skin had darkened.

  The only times she’d ever noticed that was after he’d spent several nights awake, handling a critical emergency with the business.

  His written words whispered over her again.

  Nothing worth having is every an easy journey.

  For the last four years, you’ve been the first thing I’ve seen in the morning, even before I open my eyes.

  Almost as if it had a mind of its own, her right hand lifted until she cupped his jaw in her palm. His eyes widened.

  She was just as surprised, and she was sure he could tell, but she didn’t pull away. He was a flame, and she the moth. Before she could pull away, he set his own hand atop hers, squeezing gently as he held it in place.

  He leaned against her touch and closed his eyes.

  “Please tell me I’m not dreaming….and if I am, I don’t want to wake up.”

  In that moment, pieces of her heart began to float. They began to lift in the air and piece themselves back together in a whole. Some of the edges were still jagged, but they would smooth out over time.

  And she knew, she just knew with every cell in her being that even though damaged trust was hard to repair, what she felt for this man laying his soul bare…

  What he felt for her…

  It was worth fixing.

  It was beyond worth fixing because she knew once they did—and they would—it would be beyond bliss.

  “I’m pretty fucking miserable too,” she whispered. “I was hoping you could fix that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  He crowded her in the empty elevator, barely giving her space to move.

  But she wanted to be crowded.

  Her eyes danced with a light that was still a little dim, but he swore he would make it brighter. It might take some time, but he would spend the rest of his life making her happy.

  “So we were in the same bar we met in. And now we’re in the same hotel we first, um—” She blushed, and he found it enchanting.

  He pressed his forehead against hers, eyes still open, lips barely touching.

  But when he spoke, his lips brushed against hers. “The same hotel we first made love?”

  His head moved lower, so he could taste the soft skin at the base of her neck. She let out a breathy little moan when he pressed a kiss against it too.

  “The same hotel where I fucked you the first time?” He continued to press kisses along her neck and then his mouth traveled along the curve of her shoulder and then back up to her ear.

  She shuddered, and he couldn’t blame her. He could barely talk as he cornered her in the elevator and allowed his hands to journey along the soft, supple form they’d gone without for far too long.

  “The same hotel where you threw a vibrator at my head?”

  It took a few moments before he felt her stiffen against him.

  “Excuse me?” Her voice was still breathy, but stern nonetheless.

  His eyes burned into hers.

  “The same hotel where I joined my body to yours? The same hotel where the instant we connected, I knew my being, both physical and spiritual, would never be the same unless it was joined with yours?”

  She sagged against the wall and blinked furiously at the moisture he was sure would spill.

  “Don’t do that,” she whispered.

  Before he could respond, the elevator dinged.

  He took her hand, and led the way. She was silent, but by the way she kept a brisk pace with his, her feet moving steadily and surely, he knew she knew where they were headed.

  The room where it had all began.

  *****

  The minute they were inside, he cornered her again.

  But this time, there was no space.

  She didn’t want any.

  Greedy for his touch, she arched against him, desperate for more.

  “Wait, wait,” he panted. “We need to talk. I need to make sure you’re sure. I don’t want any misunderstandings. I want you to know everything.”

  He closed his eyes, as if he were in prayer.

  “Lucas?”

  Those beautiful gray eyes, dark and stormy opened once more, consuming her whole.

  “After Zach…,” she struggled to say his name. “After the letter you wrote me…is there anything I don’t know?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then we can talk later. I’m here, I know everything. I want you so much, please…we can talk later.”

  Her voice sounded desperate even to her own ears, but she was so eager for his touch—no, this wasn’t eagerness.

  This wasn’t want.

  It wasn’t even desire.

  It was pure, unadulterated need.

  The need to connect with him on an elemental level, where the people or the words didn’t matter anymore.

  “Lucas, I need you. I need you on me, I need you inside me. Please, it’s been too long,” she begged shamelessly.

  “Please,” she whispered once more, a gentle benediction. “You don’t know what it was like, thinking that you would never kiss me…never touch me again.”

  Again, he shut his eyes, before he leaned his forehead against hers.

  “Imagining my life without you was the purest version of hell. I need you Sophie. If we do this, and you leave me, you’ll break me.”

  It was a single tear that streamed against her cheek when she whispered, “You already broke me.”

  He buried his head in her neck. “I’m so sorry baby, I’m so fucking sorry. I just didn’t know—“ his voice broke, and she realized he was crying too.

  Gently, she lifted his face away from hers, she let him see her face.

  Raw and exposed.

  “Lucas, I love you so much. Even when you boss me around, even when you antagonize the hell out of me. Every night with you, when I closed my eyes, I knew you watched me as I fell asleep. ..and for the first time, I was…”

  She paused, needing the time to formulate words that would tell him what she needed to say.

  “You said that I own you. Well, you own me. When I thought that you’d like deliberately—that you’d—Lucas, I walked away from a wedding. I was devastated, but what I felt then was nothing like the loss I felt when I thought we were done.”

  “You walked away from me. You didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”

  “Can you blame me?” she challenged. “You had a history with my ex-fiancé. You kept the truth from me.”

  “I was scared. What we had was perfection. It is perfection,” he vowed. “I’m so sorry baby, I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, but the deeper I fell for you, the harder I fell—telling you became that much harder. I couldn’t lose you, and then I fucked up, and that’s exactly what I did.”

  Tears seeped out, slowly and surely. It hurt to see him hurt, and she told him so.

  “I can’t bear to have you feel this way. I’m here, and I love you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. We have time, Lucas. My sweet, sweet, stubborn Lucas,” she whispered before she pressed her lips against his jaw. She peppered kisses along his jawline, the straight column of his nose, against his closed eyelids.

  “I love you so much, i
t doesn’t feel like love. It’s so much more. I’m done being scared. I want a new beginning. That’s what you were doing today, wasn’t it?”

  The only answer he gave her was in the way his lips molded against hers. He drank from her mouth deeply, as if she were a mirage in the middle of a desert.

  The sound of a zipper peeling apart permeated silence punctuated with breathy gasps and groans.

  Before she could blink, she was on the bed.

  The same bed where they’d come together the first time.

  He pulled away from her, impatiently pulling at the charcoal gray slacks and white oxford he wore as his dark gray eyes bore into hers.

  “I adore you,” he said, his voice cracking as he finished the vow. “I meant it Sophie, you’re my everything.”

  Hot, she felt so hot. She pushed her length of hair up and away from behind her neck and onto the pillow.

  “Lucas, I need you. I don’t know how to be me without you.”

  He groaned, shedding the his boxers, before his bigger, muscular frame covered hers.

  She groaned at the sensation of her sensitive nipples scraping against his chest.

  Wet, so wet and ready.

  “Please, inside me now, I can’t bear it,” she whimpered.

  One of his hands braced on the side of her head while the other wound itself through her mass of hair. “Do I need protection?”

  Her eyes met his, and in that moment, she felt everything.

  His need for her, his desire, his love.

  “No, I’m on the pill and I’m safe. As long as you’re sure you’re cle—“

  She didn’t finish the sentence.

  His mouth consumed hers, and she felt wet press from his cheeks onto her face the same moment the thick head of his cock pressed against her entrance.

  He pulled back, as if to say something, but before he could, she would her legs around his hips and arched up.

  “Oh god, oh god, ohhh,” she whimpered between pants and gasps as he eased himself inside her.

  “I don’t think this a good time to pray sweetheart. Isn’t lust one of the several deadly sins?” he joked, but despite his light tone, his eyes were intense and adoring. His features were taught, his face an image of sheer masculine beauty as he struggled to maintain control and move slowly.

  Carefully, as if she were the most delicate crystal glass.

  Sophie canted her hips up to receive him deeper right as he thrust unto her until he was seated at the hilt.

  She expelled her breath shallowly as she adjusted to his size.

  “You okay baby?”

  She smiled gently up at him as he paused, unmoving while he was so deep inside her, joined as if they were one.

  He’s beautiful.

  She lifted both hands so that her fingers could wander along his cheekbones, trace along the edge of jaw, rub against the slight abrasion of his new facial hair before she nodded.

  “I’m okay, but that’s seven deadly sins, not several…and this is love, Lucas…so the way we feel about each other isn’t a sin. It’s bliss…” she trailed off, unable to formulate the words that would be right for this moment.

  There were no words.

  Emotion clear in his suspiciously bright eyes, he groaned and dropped his forehead so that it touched hers.

  “Maybe I was a saint in a past life. Maybe I did something really good before because I don’t know.” His breath washed over her lips as he spoke, “I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve you…and to deserve a second chance, but I promise you Sophie, I promise you with everything I am, everything I have, and everything I will be, that I won’t fuck this up. I will spend each and every day of my life on this earth making you happy.”

  She lost her breath as emotion overwhelmed her. The feeling, it was light and airy, indescribable really, but it expanded in her chest just as her heart clenched.

  It only intensified the pleasure she already experienced from the way he felt—so amazing, so full and deep and hard inside of her.

  With her eyes, she tried to convey the message her heart spoke loud and clear, but with her voice, she expressed the need that was quickly becoming crucial.

  “If you’d like to start doing so, you could move,” she suggested helpfully.

  She followed this by clenching her muscles around him tightly while he stay unmoving, buried in her wet warmth. His husky laughter at her words faded away as need took over.

  Over and over, they met as one. Their lips melted against each other in decadent, drugging kisses.

  Their bodies merged as she offered herself to him, cradling his hips firmly between her thighs.

  His taking of her was thorough as he stroked into her in an unhurried fashion. Each thrust forward plunged into her from the very beginning of her slick opening, stretching through her delicate tissues, seeking his place inside of her until his cock rested deep inside her.

  Almost as if he could touch her heart.

  Sex with Lucas was always mind-blowing, but this…

  This was something different.

  This was sublime.

  She could have stayed joined to him, rocking into each other, forever, but her body had other ideas. The pressure started from the spot he seemed to be able to hit, impossibly low in her belly, radiating through her body from the delicious burn she felt each time he landed home.

  The resulting burn was exquisite, torching through her body as she grew slicker, her body instinctively tightening around him.

  “Sophie, keep your eyes on me when you come.”

  His command was raspy, his voice hoarse from exertion and emotion as he used his body as an instrument for her pleasure.

  She tried to stop her head from restlessly turning side to side and focused on him, connecting with his heated gaze.

  And then it was upon her, sudden and devastating.

  Fire flamed, bright and hot in his eyes, and the intensity seared through her, scorching in it’s power.

  From the way it had been building up inside her, she had anticipated a violent climax, but this—

  This took ahold of her so suddenly, so unexpectedly, she tumbled headfirst into a volcanic eruption. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes as her body flew, higher and higher, until she got so close to the sun, she was surely burnt to dust.

  And then…slowly, she started to come back to reality. The intensity, the pressure steadily ebbed down, but her muscles still trembled and she kept her legs locked around his waist.

  “I love you.” His voice was raw with emotion. “Words can not describe the beauty of what you just gave me.”

  When her descent was final, she still looked at him dazedly.

  He was still rock hard inside her.

  Stunned, her body still sensitized and humming with pleasure, she searched his eyes. After what had just happened, she felt the need to say something profound.

  “You didn’t come,” she said breathlessly.

  So much for profound.

  His gaze burned into her. “That one was for you,” he muttered. “Next time, we go together.”

  “Wha-”

  Sound barely escaped her mouth as he hooked a muscled forearm under her right knee and hitched it up and he hungrily claimed her mouth at the same time.

  It should have been impossible to respond again so quickly.

  That incredulous though was snuffed out as he thrust deeply, sending her into the throes of mindless pleasure.

  His strokes were still deep, but less deliberate and more erratic. This time he had no control left.

  He claimed her body like a starving man at a feast, needing enough to sate hunger, but desperate for more for the fear the hunger would appear.

  Flames licked at her nerve endings as he moved in and out, and once he’d had his fill of her mouth, he dragged his lips across her mouth, up her neck to the side of her ear.

  “I love you so fucking much. Being with you like this makes me crazy.” He hitched her leg up higher, so that he
went deeper and increased the pressure against her sensitive clit.

  Sophie cried out sharply in disbelief. Again, it was starting again.

  “So sweet, my Sophie. I’ll never get enough of this sweet pussy,” he murmured against her ear. “Your body was made for me. You were made to take my cock.”

  The pressure inside her intensified as he continued his dirty talk, whispering harshly into her ear. He spoke endlessly, his words raw and carnal as he slammed into her relentlessly.

  She’d become a wild thing.

  Feral and primitive, only attuned to the need for his body.

  “You feel so fucking incredible skin to skin, baby. I knew it would be this way. I knew it would feel amazing fucking this tight, wet pussy bare. You’re my first like this, you know. My only,” he whispered hotly.

  Where she found the strength to speak, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t continue without relief any longer, she was so worked up. Somehow she managed out a strangled plea.

  “Lucas, please,” she gasped.

  His lips left her ear as he raised his head to look at her.

  Mesmerized, she was helpless to tear her eyes away from his stormy gray gaze.

  He increased the pace of his thrusts, never once breaking the connection.

  A few more thrusts before he gritted out, “Sophie, now!”

  And for the second time within the span of an hour, she went up in flames.

  This time, he went with her.

  Chapter Thirty

  Hours had passed, but just how many, she couldn’t say. Her only indication time had passed was through the window, as the bright sun disappeared behind dusk.

  She was content to lay wrapped in his arms, replete with satisfaction as they exchanged light, stroking touches with one another.

  This need for touch felt different than their earlier passionate embraces, though. It was almost as if they were each seeking reassurance that this wasn’t a dream, that the other was there.

  Until her stomach chose to growl—loudly.

  He grinned at her. “Work up an appetite, huh?”

  Even after he’d thoroughly taken her inside out, she still blushed.

  “I had a green juice this morning,” she said defensively. “I was supposed to go to my—shit! What time is it? I have my birthday dinner. It’s my birthday,” she said in lower tones, her eyes downcast.