After all… I had two more days at most before everything would remain unsaid forever.
I slid my lips rhythmically up and down his shaft, caressing him more firmly with my tongue, finding the pleasure points where he could not help but cry out as I massaged them, and where I felt him swell and throb in response to my touch.
“Oh, God, Erin, that feels so good. You must… you must stop now, or I’m going to…”
I disregarded his breathless instructions, loving that I was defying his wishes, sucking him hard and deep, wanting and needing to take him further than he had been taken before. His body tensed, his left hand closing around my left and grasping me hard as he let out a loud groan of pleasure. He felt hot in my mouth, as hard as granite, and then he gave himself up to me, spurting into my mouth, warm liquid, and I swallowed him greedily.
When I sat up he pulled me to him and kissed me long and hard. In the embrace of his strong arms I felt amazingly safe. With the taste of him still in my mouth, the feel of him next to me, my senses were filled by him and I was utterly at peace.
I closed my eyes as his breathing slowed, and when I opened them again it was to discover I’d fallen into a deep sleep. The light through the window was totally different—a bright reddish-gold of late afternoon.
Nicholas lay beside me. He was awake and reading a book. Peeking at the cover I saw it was a Stephen King novel. He seemed engrossed in it and I now realized the soft sound I’d heard while coming out of my sleep had been pages turning.
“Afternoon,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face. “You slept for hours. Take a look through the window. We have some more visitors.”
Staring down at the dam, I caught my breath. A herd of four elephant had arrived at the water. They drank, then sluiced water over their massive, grey bodies with their trunks.
Nicholas laid his book aside and, in each other’s arms, we watched their evening ritual. By the time the elephant had moved away, the sun was setting, blazing in through the window in a fiery mingling of colors.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
“You’re beautiful.” He moved his hips against mine. I could feel him aroused once again, and realized I was breathless with desire for him. “Your eyes, Erin… they’re incredible. The deepest blue I’ve ever seen. They sparkle when you smile. And I can’t look at your lips without needing to kiss them.” He brushed his mouth over mine.
“I want to see you naked,” he murmured. “God, your body’s a turn-on.”
With careful fingers he unbuttoned my shirt before opening it.
“Your breasts… so firm, so round.” He stroked his fingers gently over them before bending to suck and tease my nipples with his tongue. He nibbled at my left nipple before biting it harder, causing me to let out a small squeal at the unexpected sensation.
He ran his tongue over it again and heat spread through my body to pool in my core. Playful desire was escalating into urgent need. We both felt it—I could not deny it.
He slipped my shirt off and removed my pants.
I lay, staring up at his hard-muscled, aroused body as he knelt over me, taking me in with appreciative, admiring eyes. He was the beautiful one—a breathtakingly handsome man whose rugged appearance concealed the tantalizing complexity of character that lay beneath.
He ran his fingers lightly over my breastbone.
“I’m sorry I had to bruise you so badly.”
“You were saving my life,” I said, and gestured with my left hand to emphasize my words. The action caused the inside of my arm to be exposed and something inside me constricted as I saw his eyes narrow.
I tried to move my arm back again but he stopped me with a firm grasp on my wrist. He bent closer, examining the five telltale bruises which were fainter now than they had been, blurring purple-yellow, but still entirely visible.
“Erin,” he said, and his voice was cold. “I didn’t do that to you. I held you under your arms when I was dragging you out of the car. And this?” He ran his fingers lightly over the massive bruise on my hip.
I stared up at him, wordless, the fury I saw in his face making me feeling frightened even though I didn’t know exactly why.
“Was that your husband?” he asked.
I found myself blinking tears away. I still couldn’t speak. I gave a small nod.
“Jesus!” he snapped.
“It’s not—it was just a moment when he lost his temper. He pulled me towards him and I banged my hip on something.” My throat felt very dry. “It’s never happened before.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said slowly. “It’s happened before.”
I shook my head, but the memories were flooding back now—Vince shaking me until my teeth rattled during a particularly vicious argument; Vince bending my finger back during a fight over possession of the remote control—he had meant to bend it, of course, had intended to cause me pain although he had certainly not meant to break it. I’d had to go to the emergency room and had spent six weeks in a splint.
Vince, enraged that I’d been speaking to another man at one of the launch parties for his new photographic collection, grabbing my arm as soon as we were in his apartment together, and forcing it back towards my face so hard and suddenly that my own hand had hit me with enough force to make my nose bleed.
I didn’t know what to say to Nicholas now. I’d forgotten those incidents—or made myself forget—believing them or perhaps wanting them to be incidental, unimportant blips on the radar of Vince’s and my relationship.
Silence filled the small chalet. Even the chorus of the birds outside seemed muted.
He exhaled deeply and let go of my wrist.
“It’s never just once,” he said again, more gently this time. “Not ever. Why didn’t you tell me this had happened?”
“I didn’t think it was such a big deal.” My voice sounded very small.
“It’s abuse,” His voice was like steel.
“Well, not really, no. We just have a—a dynamic relationship.”
“I’m sure that’s how my parents’ marriage started out as well,” he said, in the coldest voice I had ever heard him use, and my eyes widened at the words. Was this what he had gone through? Was this the part of his past he did not want to talk about?
“Your parents?” I repeated, my voice unsteady.
“I can only surmise it escalated as the years went by. Nobody would marry a man they knew was going to put them in hospital once a month, would they?”
He stared down at me with icy eyes and I could find nothing to say in response.
“I’m sure that’s how it started,” he continued. “A pinch here. A slap there. Every time getting worse. Each time blaming the victim—because it’s always your fault, isn’t it, Erin? You should be schooled in that by now.”
His voice was heavy with cynicism.
“By the time I was old enough to be aware of it, it had started in earnest. I’d lie in bed and listen to the punches. The meaty sound of flesh hitting flesh. My mother’s screams. The way she’d beg and plead with him to stop. Sometimes she’d try to defend herself and then things inevitably got worse. Furniture would be knocked over. Glasses were smashed. The extent of his rage… it was uncontrollable. Brutal. And I grew up with it.” He was blinking now—were those tears in his eyes?
“What did you do?” I asked softly.
“At first, when I was very young, I’d try to comfort my mother. To help her. Bring her ice. Stop the bleeding. Twice, I called the ambulance for her.”
“Oh, Jesus, Nicholas, that’s terrible.”
“Later, I tried to intervene. I got smacked around for my troubles, although not as badly as he hit my older brother. For some reason, the abusive bastard didn’t bother to hurt me, which made it all the worse. Then, a few years later, when I was bigger and stronger, I finally managed to best him. I put him on the floor with a black eye, two teeth missing, and concussion.”
I didn’t know what to say. I found his hand and held
it, and he gripped mine tightly.
“God, Nicholas, I’m so sorry that had to happen to you. That you had to go through such a thing—with your own parents.”
“It was hell,” he told me, and looking into his eyes I could truly believe the words. I wanted to hold him, to offer him comfort from the agony he’d gone through, but when I reached for him, to pull him down beside me, he locked his arms around me and drew me up to sit facing him.
“Erin, I can’t let this happen to you,” he said slowly. “I can’t. I don’t even care to what degree it occurs. Abuse in any form is absolutely unacceptable. It is a crime.”
“My situation is different, Nicholas. Vince is not a criminal. It’s not abuse…”
“Your husband is a wife-beating bastard,” he spat out.
“No!” I shouted. “Stop saying those things about him!”
Rage and shame flooded through me, so intense my eyes filled with tears. Seeing them, his face softened. “I’m sorry, Erin,” he said, but when he tried to take me in his arms I pushed him away.
I was furious with myself for having let Nicholas see that bruise, and furious with him for having said these hurtful words. Instinctively, I had been trying to hide my arm from him, knowing deep down that he would say something if he saw it. The thought of Vince in jail for spousal abuse terrified me, so at that moment I could only defend my husband’s actions. I was not like Nicholas’s mother. I was not a victim, and never would be.
I was still seething when Nicholas got up and strode over to the window.
“Whatever, Erin. Believe what you like about him.” His voice was filled with despair. “I can’t convince you, even though you’re a highly intelligent, independent-minded woman. You’ve got a blind spot when it comes to your self-worth. You’re in denial. No matter what I say, it won’t make a difference.”
“With all due respect, Nicholas, I know Vince better than you do. He is not a violent man normally. Well, only when he gets upset with me, and I can control that. You went through hell, and so did your mother. That doesn’t mean everyone who—who is in a physically passionate relationship is going to end up doing the same.”
He didn’t answer but simply shook his head. The distance between us felt suddenly huge and cold. I got out of bed and walked over to stand beside him, naked, locking my arms around him, staring through the window at the last fiery traces of the setting sun.
“Do you even hear your own words, Erin?” Nicholas asked quietly, staring out at the darkening landscape. “You blame yourself, just to make excuses for his appalling, out of control behavior.”
“In a couple more days I’ll be gone, Nicholas. You won’t have to worry about me anymore, so why are you wasting time doing it now when we could be spending it so much more pleasurably?”
I smoothed my hands over his back. Then I locked my arms around him and kissed him.
At first, I felt him tense against me with anger, but then as my lips softened his, and his own parted, we melted into each other. Our tongues caressed, our bodies pressed tightly together. I felt the now-familiar rush of heat inside me, the incredible pulsing desire that his proximity triggered… and I knew that he was feeling it, too.
“Erin, how do you do this to me? It’s crazy. Wonderful, but crazy,” he whispered.
He walked the few steps to the bed and we fell on it together, kissing hard, almost frantically, as if both of us knew that this time might possibly be the last.
His lips trailed down my neck before he took my right nipple in his mouth, grazing it with his teeth before sliding his tongue over its hardening tip. I moaned softly, thrusting my hips towards him, the delight his touch offered triggering a more urgent, throbbing need in my lower belly.
“Such perfect, responsive nipples,” he murmured, turning his attention to my left one, his pleasuring tautening a cord of desire inside me so intense that I thought I might come from this touch alone.
“Don’t stop…” I managed, breathlessly, but he released my nipple, leaving it tight and hard.
He kissed his way down my body, his lips moving tenderly over my stomach and his tongue exploring my navel before trailing lower, and I caught my breath as he gently parted my legs to move between them. My clitoris throbbed so hard that I tensed, anticipating some discomfort when he touched it. I should have known better from the man who seemed to be able to read my mind… and my body.
He caressed it so softly and tenderly with his tongue that within moments I melted into the mattress. The exquisite, liquid stimulation this offered me was intensified when he slid two fingers into me, their tips gently massaging my G-spot. I was paralyzed by these caresses, a prisoner to my own delight, able only to clutch the sheet in my fingers as a storm of sensation brewed inside me.
I was breathing hard, my heart banging audibly, feeling myself quivering around him as the heat inside me overflowed. I came with an intensity that made me cry out, and his fingers stroked over the erogenous zones inside me to prolong and enhance my spasms of ecstasy.
What we were sharing was deeply, intensely sexual, but at the same time it was something more. I sensed there was a tenderness in his actions; an intimacy between us, that had not been present before.
“Erin,” he breathed, moving over me to look into my eyes. His own pale eyes were wide and I could not read the expression in them, although I could feel the gentleness with which he kissed me. Now his cock was sliding deliciously over my wet, swollen outer lips and I wrapped my legs around him, angling myself to receive him.
“Are you okay with this?” he whispered, as the wide head of his cock touched my entrance, the caress causing me to catch my breath. He was asking, I knew, because this would be unprotected sex… and truly it felt like it, in more ways than one. I didn’t have any defenses left against Nicholas. He had stripped them all away.
“I need you inside me,” I told him. “I need to—to make love with you.”
“I need to make love with you, too,” he groaned. He cupped a hand under my buttocks and, in a series of deepening and utterly sensual thrusts, he entered me. All the while he stared into my eyes. I could not conceal the helpless pleasure that this full, naked penetration offered. He was pushing me wide open, filling me up with his hardness.
“You feel so good, Erin. My God, I’m touching you, inside you, naked.” His voice was husky, filled with emotion.
I wrapped my arms around him, pressing myself close to him, feeling his powerfully muscled back and the rhythmic flexing of his buttocks as he drove himself into me. Slowing his rhythm, he eased himself out before pushing in slowly again and again, letting his thickness glide over all my most sensitive points so that I moaned with the pleasure of it. I felt so in harmony with him, as if we were truly one… the closeness was astonishing and I found myself having to bite back words that I could not risk saying aloud.
Better to think of the sex—to focus on the sheer, raw physical pleasure of this act. Every nerve ending in my body was sparking with delight at his slow, deliberate movements. My eyes were locked with his and I felt as if I was drowning in his gaze.
“And now we go harder,” he whispered, angling his pelvis and withdrawing almost all the way before spearing into me so brutally deep and hard that my eyes widened and I braced myself, anticipating that this would be painful. But as he reached the deepest point, he slowed, easing himself in to fill me completely, so that his engorged head softly kissed my most tender depths.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured, his fingers stroking and teasing my throbbing nipples. “I don’t ever want to hurt you. I want to take you. To become one with you. No resistance… no boundaries.”
“Oh, God, that’s good,” I gasped, as he pushed into me again and again. The sensation was incredible. With me totally relaxed, completely trusting, he was able to slowly increase the tempo and vigor of his deep thrusts while offering me one of the most erotic and intimate experiences I had ever had.
I was opened to him, vulnerable to him, completely p
ossessed by him, and it was so astonishingly sexy. I’d never believed I could orgasm in this position, in this way, but my body knew better. I felt my pleasure ratcheting up to a level that was making me breathe fast and thrust my hips toward him. In his eyes, I saw my own amazed delight reflected.
“Yes,” he encouraged me. His fast, powerful movements were filling me up, I was taking him all, as deep as he could go, and the sensation was exquisite. I was gasping, sweat suddenly turning my skin warm and slick, and suddenly it was too much. The friction was so unbearably delicious it was sending me into a place I’d never been before.
Wild with need, I clawed my fingers into his shoulders, shoving my pelvis into his, bruising my clitoris against him as I greedily devoured the ravishment I needed to reach the final summit. God, his thrusts were turning my G-spot into a liquid hot erogenous zone. I was tightening, quivering, I could not help crying out. I saw his eyes narrow, his face slacken, as he watched me come undone.
My orgasm shook me to my foundations. I came painfully hard, digging my nails into his skin as the convulsions of delight shook my body. And then, as if he’d only just been able to retain the control he needed to see me satisfied, he rammed himself into me once more with a breathless groan. Deep inside, I could feel every powerful spurt that he pumped into me.
My heart was pounding; my body trembling. I did not think I would be able to move for a long while—years, perhaps. Nicholas was still inside me, holding me tightly, soothing my rapid breathing with gentle kisses and whispered endearments so loving they tore at my heart.
Even as I held him in my arms, tasting his skin with my lips and feeling the liquid heat of him inside me, I was doing my best to break free from these wicked tendrils of longing that were drawing me to him again.
After all, this lovemaking could well have been our last. As phenomenal a lover as Nicholas was, and as tender as his words to me were, by the time I was able to leave I was sure he would be tiring of me, ready for some more solitude before his next depraved foray into the world of married women.
And it was best I did not think of where I would be going, or what I would be doing.
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