He gave her another gentle kiss, drinking in her hushed moans as he tightened his fingers around his shaft, swirling the pulsating tip around her drenched entry. Blinded by the need to be bound by her wetness, he tried to push inside, gasping softly when he realized he couldn’t.
His eyes flew open just in time to catch hold of Veda’s brown orbs, wide as saucers, drinking him in like she was watching a horror movie. Her fists were squeezed tight at his shoulders and her knees had climbed high on his waist, pussy walls padlock-tense.
Too tense for entry.
Gage looked over his shoulder and found her knees bent as far as they could go, her painted toes curled.
He came back to her, brushing their foreheads and searching her eyes. He waited for her to try to put him on his back so she could ride him. Or turn her back to him so he could fuck her doggy-style.
She didn’t.
But he saw the lump move down her throat. He saw the wideness in her eyes multiplying—the expansion seemed never-ending.
He saw her.
After sucking her bottom lip between his, then her top, keeping his eyes locked to hers the entire time, he tried to enter her again.
Her walls squeezed. She slammed her eyes closed.
His eyebrows tensed at the sight. Lips still brushing hers, he shushed her softly. “Relax, Veda.”
Her eyes blinked open, as if she hadn’t even realized they were closed, and met his. She sucked in a breath through her parted lips and nodded sharply.
Gage finally understood what he saw. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it all along.
“Relax,” he whispered.
A long moment passed with every bone in her body so rigid he felt like he could split her like a saltine cracker. Then, finally, her fists loosened, the broadness in her eyes easing even as they filled with tears. The lump in her throat dislodged itself and then disappeared.
Gage brushed another kiss on her lips and pushed, gasping as her body granted entry to the desperate tip of his dick. The urge to go balls-deep was damn near incapacitating, but he didn’t dare.
Not yet.
He gave her just the head while spreading his lips over hers, drawing her into a prolonged, passionate kiss, assaulting her mouth with his tongue until her pussy grew slick and drew him in. He moaned when it did, her tunnel stretching with each kiss of their lips, drenching his hardness with each sweep of their tongues, more snug around his shaft with each second their eyes remained locked.
He pressed his forehead to hers once he was in deep, his fingers disappearing in her curls. He let his dick draw breath from her supple walls, needing her more in that moment than he ever had before. Instead of listening to every bone in his body that screamed to trust, every natural instinct that yearned for release, he watched her.
He waited.
He waited until the line between her eyebrows had vanished completely, until the legs locked around his waist slackened, until she was massaging the smooth skin of her calf on his back, and until her eyes had filled with just as much desire as he felt charging through his veins. He waited until her fingers clawed down his back and claimed his ass in a firm grip, for her hips to rise to his. He waited for her to draw him in.
And as soon as she did, his voice warmed her lips in a ragged whisper. “I love you, Veda.”
Her eyes widened in his.
He retreated until just the tip remained before driving blindly back inside—inside the place he wanted to live and die.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Letting his own eyes flutter shut, he finally gave in to the bone-crushing need, sinking into her velvet walls with a groan that burned his throat, unable to stop himself from slamming his hips into hers.
11
Veda opened her eyes the next morning only to quickly shut them, moaning into her pillow.
She should’ve ended it.
She should’ve ended it at the gala, when she’d had the damn chance.
Now…,
She tried to breathe, but the pillow was blocking her airway. She considered staying there and letting herself suffocate. How had she allowed her life to spiral this far out of control? To become so far removed from the goal that had once dominated her core?
She wanted to get back to the old Veda, but she wasn’t sure she could. She had no idea how to return to the Veda who’d crashed that spit-shined rich boy’s engagement party just two months ago. She didn’t even know who that Veda was anymore.
A gasp raced up her throat and she shoved up on her forearms, naked breasts jiggling in the cool air of her bedroom. She sucked it in through her freed nostrils.
Bacon.
She smelled bacon. And eggs. Toast. The run of water from the kitchen faucet. The clattering of pots and pans.
Déjà vu encased her. Her eyes flew to her balcony as she waited for the urge to flee. When that urge never came, she knew it was too late.
It was too late to run.
She hurried out of the bed and seized her robe from the back of her closet door.
Securing the white cotton robe around her waist, she entered the living and dining area, pushing her bed head out of her eyes as she moved.
Gage looked up from the dining room table, wearing only his boxers, just as he set down a second plate.
Veda couldn’t help it. She smiled. She felt her eyes melting like the maple syrup in the middle of the table. Her skin tingled, as if the tangy orange juices he’d poured had relocated to her veins and the citrus was burning them from inside out.
Her eyes rose to his, and her center tightened in a way it never had for any man. She found herself moving to the table like a zombie, smiling down at the breakfast plates.
“A puppy dog comprised entirely of waffles?” She giggled, lifting her eyes to his. He’d made the puppy’s face out of a normal waffle and cut chocolate waffles into ovals to make ears. He’d finished off the puppy’s smiling face with various food supplies from her fridge. “You have a gift, Blackwater. Is there a single image you can’t create out of the random breakfast foods in my pantry? I didn’t even know I had chocolate waffles.”
A smile lifted the corner of Gage’s mouth but he kept his eyes lowered, motioning to the chair across from him.
Veda heeded his silent offer, sitting down and breathing in the fragrant food.
“There’s no way I can eat all this, Gage.” He’d filled her plate to the brim. “You’ll probably end up demolishing your plate and mine.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Especially after last night. You’ll need it to regain your strength.” She blushed as she thought back to the night before. He’d warned her he would finish fast the first time, and he had. But that didn’t stop him from pushing her knees into her chest right after, burying his lips in her cunt and licking her until she came. It didn’t stop him from waking her in the middle of the night for round two, where he fucked her so patiently she lost track of passing time and how many orgasms had rolled through her.
She breathed in deep, her body already yearning for more of his gentle touch, and his not-so-gentle dick. The passionate warmth of his voice on her neck, the whisper of filthy words as he came.
Except last night… his words hadn’t been so filthy.
They hadn’t been filthy at all.
Veda’s stomach dropped to her feet, and she lifted her eyes to him as he took the seat opposite her.
“Thank you for the delicious breakfast,” she said.
He snapped open a black fabric napkin and laid it on his lap, lifting his eyes to hers for only a moment before picking up his fork. He smirked again, shoveling a forkful of eggs in his mouth.
Veda expelled a breath, finally accepting what was going on.
She was being fed, and punished. How sadistic of him.
I love you, Veda.
She filled her own mouth with a helping of eggs as her mind shot back to his words the night before. The first time the declaration had spilled from his lips, she’d blamed it on a moment of passion.
Nope.
Not only had those three words left his lips a second, third, and fourth time, they’d spread through him, filling his eyes too, as well as his thrusting hips, until Veda could no longer deny it.
She understood why he seemed to be doing a complete about-face that morning. Why he could barely look at her. Why the smiles on his face rang false.
He didn’t know that she wasn’t capable.
She wasn’t capable of saying it back.
His biceps flexed as he put both his elbows on the table, keeping his eyes down as he annihilated his food.
“Elbows on the table.” Veda clicked her teeth. When he didn’t look up, her voice lowered. “That’s Rich Boy Etiquette 101. Somewhere, your mother is having a stroke and has no idea why.”
Gage set his fork down and took his elbows off the table. He avoided her gaze as he reached for his juice, emptying it in a few swallows.
“I had a nice time last night,” she whispered.
He set his glass down. He looked at her. For several silent seconds, his plate went ignored.
Veda breathed in. “You made me feel… really good.”
He blinked lazily.
“Really special.” Veda set down her fork too, because she couldn’t eat when he was looking at her like that. “Gage. Listen—”
“Tell me not to marry her.”
Veda caught the gasp that tried to leave her lips, trapping it in her chest, causing it to expand. She took a moment to collect herself.
He didn’t leap to her rescue, didn’t fill the silence to help make her more comfortable. He let it linger and wage war. Encompass her bones and lock on like a boa constrictor, asphyxiating her, squeezing to the point of pain.
“What?” she whispered, even though she’d heard him loud and clear.
His eyes moved to a different place. They grew vulnerable, and his voice lowered to a whisper. “Tell me not to marry her.”
Veda felt her face showing her alarm in conjunction with her body, both going into overdrive. She opened her mouth to tell him that he was walking in the danger zone. Hell, he was pirouetting all over it. She opened her mouth to tell him that he’d spit on their boundaries the moment he’d let those three dangerous words leave his lips the night before. She went to berate him, tell him to stop; otherwise, she’d be forced to end their casual relationship for good.
“Don’t marry her.” She gasped at herself.
Had she just said those words?
It finally made sense to her—why he’d been unable to stop himself from saying those three words the night before. Stunned at her traitorous mouth, she was almost convinced that a puppet master had set up camp in her brain, forcing words from her lips that had no business being uttered out loud.
Before she could lament over what an idiot she was—how it was possible that she’d lost that much control over her body—Gage had left his seat. He moved to her in such a hurry that he knocked the side of the table, making the plates and silverware clatter.
He cupped her jaw in his hands and Veda moaned at the softness of his lips as they met hers. She rose out of her seat for more.
Their tongues brushed, and an epiphany exploded inside her.
It all made sense as they tilted their heads and deepened the kiss, food forgotten. It all made sense when Gage leaned down and slid his hands under her body, lifting her from the chair and into the comfort of his arms. It all made sense when, as he carried her back to the bedroom, he bent his head to brush the flap of her robe open and suck her nipple into his mouth.
It all made sense.
Her body wasn’t hers anymore.
Her mind, her heart, her every aching limb…
They all belonged to him.
—
Veda now understood why Linc spent so much time beating the shit out of this bag. Pummeling it until he appeared on the verge of seizure or complete collapse. Not stopping until his bones gave out or he completely dislodged it from its flimsy hook on the ceiling. Whichever came first.
Usually, it was the bag.
And Veda now understood why.
It was because it felt good.
It felt damn good.
It helped her forget that it had been over two months since she’d returned to Shadow Rock, and not only had she failed, but she’d failed epically. The nine of the monsters who’d stolen her soul were meant to be dead by summer’s end. She’d intended to discover the identity of the elusive number ten even sooner than that. But none of that had been accomplished.
None of it!
Over two months, and she hadn’t even killed Todd Lockwood.
Even worse, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
She wasn’t sure she wanted anything that didn’t involve Gage’s thick cock pounding her from every imaginable apex. The comfort of his arms wrapped around her from behind when a nightmare woke her in the middle of the night. She wasn’t sure she wanted anything but for the love that dominated his eyes whenever he looked at her to never die.
“You’re gonna break your thumbs.”
Veda jolted in mid-punch, the sucker in her mouth going slack as her eyes flew to the door of the boxing room, catching sight of Linc wearing black sweatpants and a black wifebeater. The dark color made his tan skin radiate. His green eyes seemed to leap from their sockets and race across the room, getting her around the neck.
The eighteen-year-old in Veda felt instantly safe. The twenty-eight-year-old in Veda didn’t know what she felt, but whatever it was straightened her spine, tightened her fists, and widened her eyes.
“Huh?” she mumbled around the sucker, her eyes rising higher as he approached. “My thumbs?”
He came to a stop in front of her. He hadn’t tied his hair back so it tumbled down from the uneven part in the middle of his head and framed his face, passing his bulky collarbones in gentle brown waves.
Veda wondered if she’d ever be able to look at his face without zooming straight to that scar on his eyebrow. She ached to apologize for putting it there, but knew she never could.
When her hands were suddenly encased in warmth, she blinked rapidly, wondering what world she’d just disappeared into. She looked down, stunned to find her hands in his. His thick fingers engulfed hers. They felt rough and callused against her skin, worlds away from Gage’s soft, smooth ones.
Linc rammed his thumbs inside both her fists, forcing them apart.
Veda let him spread her fingers wide, nearly taking the sour apple lollipop in her mouth off the stick as her cheeks sank into nervous suction cups around it.
He took her left hand and curled her four fingers down, setting her thumb on top. “This is correct,” he said, motioning to the fist he just made. He took her other hand and wrapped it up the way she’d had it previously, with her thumb locked underneath the rest of her fingers. He pointed to it. “This is a great way to break your thumb.”
Veda studied the two fists, wondering why she hadn’t noticed it herself. Now that he’d schooled her, it seemed terribly obvious.
“You might want to take that sucker out for once too, before the bag ricochets, hits the stick, and makes you choke on it. You’re welcome,” he said, when she just stood there sputtering like an idiot.
Veda turned to watch as he crossed the room to his favorite punching bag. Removing the sucker from her mouth, still agape, she watched him get straight to work, like always. He resumed ignored her completely, like always.
After crossing the room to throw away her sucker, she came up to the punching bag next to him but didn’t put her new fists to good use. Instead, she hugged the bag, pressing her cheek against it, just watching him.
For several minutes, he had the grace to pretend he didn’t notice. Then, when her staring grew creepy and uncomfortable, his fists stalled in midair, but he kept his eyes on the bag as he growled, “What?”
Veda smiled, feeling her cheek smashing on the bag. “You disappeared from the hospital for a while there.” Four weeks, to be
exact. She left that part out, not wanting to seem like any more of a stalker than she already did. “I was beginning to wonder if you quit on us.”
He gave her his back and struck the heavy bag. “I got suspended.”
“What happened?”
His head fell, but he didn’t turn to her. She knew he was regretting helping her out with her thumbs. Telling himself he should’ve let her break one of them. At least then he wouldn’t have to share this room with her anymore, enduring her questions and curious stares.
He lifted his head and stared at his abandoned bag. “I got angry. I expressed that anger. I got suspended.”
“What made you so angry?”
He seemed to contemplate ignoring her. “A warrant I was counting on fell through. I took it out on that girl, Sarah Adams. I shouldn’t have touched her.”
“What made the warrant fall through?”
“Some bullshit.”
“What kind of bullshit?”
He sighed. “Faulty language. Translation: the rich prick I was gunning for found yet another loophole.”
“Yet another? So you’ve been after this rich prick for a while?”
Linc continued demolishing his bag, apparently having had enough conversation for the day.
But Veda wasn’t done. Now that she’d had a plethora of firsts with him—a first touch, a first conversation, even the first hint of a smile—all in less than five minutes, there was no way she could go back to the silent place they’d been before.
If she couldn’t tell him who she was, thank him, and return his mother’s chip, then at least she could be his friend. Gym buddies.
That seemed safe enough.
“Why did you let Todd get away with raping Sarah?” The moment those words left her mouth, she realized this wasn’t the greatest way to make friends, but she wanted an answer more than she wanted to win him over.
He didn’t look at her, continuing to punch the bag as if she weren’t there.
Her voice rose. “Why didn’t you try harder to get her to do a tox screen?” When he still didn’t answer her, Veda gave up. She faced her own heavy bag, kicking it with the toe of her sneaker while sneaking looks at him. Convinced she’d lost him with her incessant questions and accusatory words, she went back to punching her bag too, but her strikes were halfhearted.
Quiver (Revenge Book 1) Page 17
