by A. J. Downey
I was as hard as iron when I replaced my hands with my lips at the back of her neck, draping myself over the back of her, caressing her down her sides as I kissed my way down her back. She rose to meet my lips, writhing unconsciously beneath me, and that was so incredibly hot, fucking sexy, she had no idea the things she did to me, but I damn sure knew what I was about to do to her.
I had intended to cut her some slack when I’d started. That I would just give her a little massage and back off, lying beside her, gather her into my arms, but with the way her breath fell from her lips in these soft little gasps of wonder, the way she whimpered and moaned in pleasure, I just couldn’t keep my hands off of her. She was so sweet, so perfect, so supple and soft beneath my hands and the way she became yielding under my touch?
Goddamn, she made me feel like some sort of virile sex god and I couldn’t keep my hands off of her, my lips off of her, and God willing, my cock out of her if she’d let me go there tonight.
I helped myself to a handful of each globe of her ass and prized her cheeks apart, thrusting my tongue into her wet and waiting cunt, teasing her opening, and reveling in her scent and her taste.
She cried out, deep and throaty, clutching at the sheets beneath her as I lapped at her slit from behind and tease her forbidden, more sensitive areas with the tip of my tongue.
She panted, and the noises she made just encouraged me.
“Mm, I need to be inside of you, is that alright?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Yes!” she cried in desperation.
I climbed her prone body the same way I’d made my way down, pressing lips against her skin, pressing kiss after kiss, trailing kisses and light nips along her skin and taking pride in the goose flesh that rose in the wake of my attentions.
I kneeled, my knees to either side of her thighs, fisting my cock, stroking myself lazily as she rose her hips off the bed in supplication, in offering. I eyed her glistening opening and lost myself in the vision of her in front of me, the feel of my cock, running myself through my hand for just a moment as I imagined how fucking wet, how tight, and how silky she would feel wrapped around me.
“Mace, please,” she begged, and I smiled.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you,” I murmured and dropped to one hand that I planted over her shoulder. The other, I used to guide myself to her entrance.
Sliding into her was pure heaven. I mean, there wasn’t anything or anyone like it. I could feel my eyes roll back in my head at the pure nirvana she inspired as I took my hand from between us and palmed her hip, sliding in all the way home.
This position was nice, intense; with her prone and her legs together like she was, she felt tighter somehow, snug around my invading cock as I lay over the top of her.
I had to be careful in this position. Without a pillow under her hips to hold her up for me, it could be all too easy to slip out, and I tell you what… she felt so fucking good, I never wanted to be parted from her again.
“Raven,” I breathed. “God, I’ve missed you.”
She arched beneath me just a little and wiggled her hips just enough that it was everything in me not to explode like some inexperienced teenager.
I choked off a cry and thrust deeper. She made this wonderful, deep, throated gasp that ended on a strangled cry of her own.
I wasn’t about to rush this. Oh, no. This time was meant to go slow; this woman was meant to be savored, and that was what I was going to do.
28
Raven…
God, I loved him like this. He pressed me into the bed beneath us and at this angle, he felt like he went impossibly deep. I pressed back onto him and it was everything I could do to keep my hips raised to continue to give him access but this felt so good.
He stroked slow, long, hard, and sure but at this incredibly controlled pace that left me quivering and on the ragged edge. The marvel of it was that he kept me in the pleasure, in the moment, on that precipice. I panted and gasped and just let him ride me because it felt so fucking incredible. So incredible, I didn’t care if I even came as long as he just kept doing this forever.
I gripped the sheets beneath us and eventually, my hips failed me and collapsed to the bed. He slipped out of me and I swore. He chuckled darkly and grabbed a pillow from beside us.
“Hips back up, baby,” he urged and stuffed the pillow beneath my hips, then took another and doubled them up before saying, “Back down, that’s it.”
“Oh, that’s perfect,” I told him as he slid back inside me. God it was, too. The wadded-up pillows giving me just enough support, raising me up at not quite the same angle, but a good angle that felt just a little less good but still phenomenal. I bit my lips together and hummed in appreciation as he slowly took me back up among the stars.
I panted and whined, and he kept his pace steady and moaned his appreciation, the vibration of it through my back making my nipples tighten against the sheets, his thrusting doing magical things not just to my chest, but to my clit which bounced and ground against the pillows, touching off sparks of diamond pointed light, lighting the sparks that would eventually be fanned into roaring flames.
I went up like flash paper, burning into smoldering ash beneath my lover’s touch, shuddering uncontrollably beneath him, listening to him laugh and delight in blasting me apart. He continued to ride me through the tremors, my pussy impossibly slick around him, coating the insides of my thighs, as I whimpered, a spent mess.
“Shhh, that’s it,” he praised and drove deep, a little harder, a little faster, the possessiveness of it a total turn-on as I lay almost limp from my life-shattering orgasm just the moment before.
My breath quickened almost before it even had the chance to recover, and I tightened up around him.
“Oh, God, yeah! That’s it!” His voice was strained, he was close, and God, I wanted him to come inside me. I wanted it so fucking bad.
He tried, he kept at me, fucking me so good, but finally with a frustrated grunt, he pulled out of me and said, “I need you on your back.”
I rolled, and he pulled the pillows out from beneath me and made sure they were behind my head, taking the moment away from his own climb toward release to care for me. God, his dark eyes boring into mine was so hot. He got between my thighs and reintroduced his body into mine and drove into me, hard, but not fast. His movements were deliberate, hands going to my hips where he kneeled up above me and watched me. I put on a bit of a show, caressing down my body, pinching my nipples as much for his gaze as for my own pleasure as he struck a steady rhythm.
“I want to watch you come for me,” he growled, and the pad of his thumb went to my clit, slicking through my wetness where his body met mine as he rode me.
I closed my eyes and gave myself over wholly to the sensations he wrought. Writhing for him like a candle flame on a lit wick, and I felt just as hot. His phoenix, rising from the ashes of my past. I burned for him, and I loved it.
“That’s it, baby,” he ground out from between gritted teeth. “That’s it, come for me.”
I bit my bottom lip and watched him, my pussy tightening up around him as he moved inside of me, stroking over that spot, right there, stoking the flames of my desire for him with every thrust, his thumb skimming over that sensitive bundle of nerves, adding fuel to the rising pyre inside me. I moaned on every breath I let out, the peel of them high and feral, something wild.
“Mace!” I cried and my body jerked, spasming, legs locking around his hips, as he collapsed over me, catching himself with his one arm as he tortured me so sweetly, a beautiful agony rippling through me from my oversensitive clit as my pussy convulsed around his cock, milking his own orgasm from him as he cried out, grunting, his thrusts losing their controlled rhythm as he bucked into me wildly.
I screamed a little as his touch against my clit became molten and he recognized the sound as less pleasure and more distress. My nervous system on complete overload as I shuddered and shook uncontrollably beneath him. He braced himself on hi
s arms and lowered himself over me, resting his ear between my breasts, against my chest, listening to my thunderous heartbeat as the organ battered against my ribs, feeling like it was trying to batter its way out from the cage of my ribs.
“Oh, God,” he groaned, spent, shuddering himself as he pulled himself from me. I cried out and gasped at the joyous but unexpected sensation and basked in the glow of his love, melting into the bed beneath us as he settled carefully against me, holding me tight, and I believe, basked right back in the glow that emanated from me.
“I missed you,” I confessed, and he turned his head to press his lips over my fluttering heartbeat.
“I was always right here, baby. Always,” he said.
“I know, and I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“Don’t be,” he said. “I fucked up, I get it, believe me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that… like, you’re never really prepared for someone to own their mistakes. I mean, it so very rarely ever happened.
“Thank you,” I said finally.
“For what?” he asked, raising his ear from my chest, and propping his chin there, holding his weight off of me, careful not to make me uncomfortable with the point of his chin, or to crush me.
“For apologizing, for giving me the time and the space to sort myself out…” I trailed off. God, for everything. I mean, this man whose dark brown eyes I gazed into from mere inches away, who touched me so gently, so sweetly… he’d killed for me. Quite literally had ended my worst nightmare. Had become the thing my fears feared and my shield.
I caressed his short hair lightly and watched as he closed his eyes in pleasure when I lightly scratched my nails through it and over his scalp. He sighed in sheer, unadulterated, contentment and I felt my own heart give an echoing happy sigh. I smiled, I couldn’t help it, and he just laid there, eyes closed, face schooled into a mask of contented bliss. He was painfully handsome – so beautiful to me, so gorgeous in a rugged way.
That sleek alley cat with the notched ear and missing patches of fur, used to scrapping and claws sharp, but so sweet and practically purring in my lap.
“God, I love you,” I said and let my head fall back and my eyes close.
“I love you so much it hurts,” he responded, laying lips against my skin in a gentle kiss; right between my tits, over the plate that protected my cracked heart that I swore was mending right before my eyes thanks to his love.
We closed our eyes and drifted then. Sleep claiming us both, even though we were wrapped up in each other in a less than ideal sleeping position.
I don’t think either of us cared. We were happy to be whole again.
I woke, who knows how long later, sticky between my thighs, covered to my chest as I slept soundly but seriously lacking in Mace’s warmth.
I turned onto my side from my back to see him mere inches away, head propped on his hand as he watched me. I blinked, slightly dazed, and settled facing him, tucking my hands beneath the pillow, under my cheek.
“What are you doing?” I asked with a slight smile and laugh.
“Watching you,” he answered.
“Why?” I asked laughing. “That’s so weird!”
“It’s not weird,” he countered and reached out a hand, smoothing it in a caress just above my hip and down over its curve.
“It’s a little weird,” I said, biting my bottom lip to keep from smiling. He grinned slowly and shook his head, his expression clearly enamored as he looked at me.
All I had ever wanted was for someone to look at me like Mace was looking at me right now, and my heart, I couldn’t tell if my heart were tying itself in a knot in the center of my chest or if it were melting away completely.
Maybe it was both at once.
“What?” he asked, concern sliding over his expression.
I shook my head slightly, a confession of that magnitude a scary one to make. I didn’t want to admit how much my emotional well-being was tied to him. I mean, how co-dependent was that? Totally unhealthy… and yet…
“Raven what is it?” he asked, his concern only growing. He touched the side of my face, sliding some of my hair in a light caress to trap it behind my ear. God, I must have looked dreadful first thing in the morning like this, but here he was all concerned because around him, I couldn’t seem to keep any one of my thoughts or emotions off of my face and despite it all – he loved me. I could see how much in his dark eyes as they roved my face. I knew now, just how much in that gold necklace Maverick had put into my hand mere hours ago.
“I’ve never loved someone like I love you,” I rushed out. “It’s terrifying. I’m scared—”
He touched a fingertip to my lips to hush me and cocked his head slightly.
“I’m sorry I let you down,” he said finally, and my heart broke just a little at that.
“It’s not that,” I whispered. “I just… I’m bad at saying how I really feel. I’ve been hurt so much and I’m trying not to be that way with you.”
He looked thoughtful for a time and finally nodded. “You don’t ever have to be that way with me,” he said. “I want to know it all. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly. If I ever do something to fuck you up, you have to tell me, and I will do anything and everything to fix it. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Raven, and I hope you know just how much and how far I’d go for you.”
I thought about that damn gold necklace and nodded. “I do know, and—”
“And that scares you too.” He smiled faintly and sighed. “I get it. If I could do whatever I did to ol’ Max, what would I do to you?” He gave a sad and broken little half-smile and I felt so shitty saying it but…
“Yeah.”
“I would never hurt you,” he said, and I sniffed. He kissed my forehead. “But you’ve heard that before, huh?” he asked and gathered me close against his chest.
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll spend the rest of our lives proving it every damn day if I have to,” he said fervently and the vehemence he said it with made me jerk my head up to look at him. He was serious. Dead serious.
“You don’t have to,” I said automatically, and he chuckled and held me a little tighter.
“Too late,” he murmured. “I’ve already committed.”
I laughed slightly and said, “That’s ridiculous.”
He smirked and kissed the top of my head and in a funny voice said, “You’re ridiculous.” Which struck my funny bone and made me laugh more. Then the tickling started, then before I knew it and before the laughter died, he was sliding back inside me and the giggles turned to moans, and the moans to gasps and the gasping into cries of sheer ecstasy.
God, I loved this man and what he did to me so much.
29
Mace…
I left Raven to sleep after our second round of lovemaking that morning and took my ass to the farm to work. I met up with Fen as I pulled up.
“How’re things, brother?” he asked as I shut off the bike.
“Good,” I told him. “Okay for now.”
He nodded and sighed, saying, “You know, shit may have gone easier for you if you’d given me up to Mav when it came to that fuckin’ pig.”
I shook my head and said, “Wasn’t gonna happen.”
He nodded and reached out and clasped hands with me. We pulled each other into a hug and let go.
“Any word on what’s up with Tic getting stabbed?” I asked.
“Word is a gang of tweakers wants to move into Rat City with the meth trade.” He shook his head.
“Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen. You have to be a tweaker to think that this shit was a good idea.”
“Word.”
“When’s that meeting supposed to go down?” I asked.
“Church tonight at eight,” he said, sucking his teeth.
“Plenty of time to get through the chorin’,” I said, looking out over the goat pens.
“Yup, so let’s get to it, princess.”
I rolled m
y eyes and forged out toward the barn. It was mucking out stalls today.
“What exactly did you say to Raven last night that had her so freaked out coming through the door?” I asked midway through the first stall.
“Ahhh, yeah… that may have been a manipulative little dick move on my part,” he confessed. I leaned on the shovel and cocked my head, slightly hostile in his direction suddenly.
“Fen, what did you do?” I demanded.
“Ehhh, what I was going to say was ‘Mace needs your help,’” he said. “What maybe came out was just ‘Mace.’”
“Goddammit, man! That was a dick move!” I cried, throwing down the shovel.
“I know! I know but look at me. Both of y’all were fuckin’ miserable for no damn reason other than generating your own angst and drama. Hate me if you want, but you guys are good now, right?” he asked.
I scowled and retrieved my shovel out of the muck and said, “We’re going to be alright. Fixing things is gonna take time, but I ain’t afraid to put in the work,” I said.
Fen nodded. “Good! Good… see, it all worked out then.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “It was a dick move.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a dick and I’m alright with that,” he said with a casual shrug. I rolled my eyes and dug in, shoveling the muck into the waiting wheelbarrow.
“So, what’s your next big move?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Keep looking for work in the field with which I’m actually fuckin’ good at and find a place.”
“You know,” he said casually. “Raven’s place isn’t a bad place, it just needs fixing up. It’d actually be hella convenient for you – being close to the club and all.”
“You been thinking about this,” I said, leaning on the shovel and looking him up and down.
“No offense, brother, but you deserve a hell of a lot better than my fuckin’ barn loft, and my couch when it’s too cold for that. As much as I appreciate the help around the farm, I can’t pay you for shit and this is a teenager’s work. Prospect’s work. You’re skilled labor and this ain’t skilled.”
