by LJ Evans
I’d always known Dax had a soft, tender side. I’d seen it the first time he’d handed me a stargazer lily in Hyde Park. I’d seen it in the way he cared for the people in his life. The way he looked out for them. Dawson. His father. Me. But seeing it so prevalently in the last couple of days made it almost impossible to keep up my walls. I had to resort to snark and taunts of our past in order to do so. Reminding him that Benita or any of her gal pals would love to marry him was just another way of shoring up my defenses.
“I’m pretty sure none of those women would do the trick,” he responded.
“You never know. Maybe they’ve outgrown their child stage as well.”
“It has nothing to do with them. It’s because I found what I wanted a long time ago.” His voice was deep as his eyes burned into me.
I threw another grape in his direction, but he easily deflected it.
When I didn’t respond, he continued to torment me instead. “It’s the same reason none of the men in your life have stuck. Because your heart knew what it wanted.” His voice lowered a notch, as if he’d just unburdened his soul and admitted he loved me. Which he never would. “How many people have you been with, mon bijou?”
The question irked me for so many reasons. Because he thought he had the right to ask. Because the honest answer was that I didn’t know.
“I have no idea. I’ve never kept score. I don’t care. I’ve gotten pleasure when and where I wanted it. Why? Do you suddenly need a list? How many have you been with?” I growled back at him.
“Fifteen,” he said so fast it stunned me.
“You knew that pretty quick.”
“I remember them all.”
I tried not to let it stab at me, because I knew Dax didn’t mean it as a judgment, even though I felt that way. Sex was sex. It was like drinking or eating. I didn’t remember every single meal, but I did remember the ones that stood out.
“You sound freakishly serial killer-ish right now. Do you have a memento from each time or something?” I said to hide my own mixed feelings over the conversation.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to remember the people you’ve been with. I don’t fuck to forget. I make love to have another unforgettable experience burned into my memories. The slope of a hip. The curve of a waist. The swell of a breast, the tip pebbled and hard, ready to be devoured. Those moments can’t ever be taken away.”
His words lit up a flame inside me. I wanted those tender moments. The memories being built as if they were photographs, like the one he’d taken of me earlier. Something that could last.
“Those things are waiting for you every time you find a woman ready and willing,” I said with a careless shrug.
“Yes, and each curve and valley is different. It’s like driving through the mountains. It’s all hills and trees, but each formation is unique. The trees aren’t in the same place. The rocks jut into the sky at slightly different angles. Each one is special. Irreplaceable.”
I stared at him, my heart beating furiously, unsure of how to respond to the beauty of his words. He was Mr. Suave. Mr. Charming. Mr. Sweet Nothings. He definitely didn’t deserve someone like me. Someone who screwed to forget just like he said. Someone determined to live only for pleasure.
But then I remembered, that was the old Jada.
The new Jada had left behind so many of the things of her past, like drinking into oblivion and using tranquilizers to forget. Maybe sleeping with men who could send me into forgetfulness with a momentary orgasm was something else to put behind me.
But it meant taking a leap of faith, trusting that someone could and would be there for longer. A leap that Dax seemed to be asking me to take in his direction. I wanted that so much it hurt more than my bruised ribs, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. Would he stick around when his father reminded him of the obligations he had and the dangers of being with a Mori? Dangers that were justified. I would want to die like the notes requested if something happened to him because of me.
I got up, putting space between us, trying to clear away the cobwebs of desire and longing that he was filling my brain with. But Dax didn’t leave me be. He pushed instead of retreating. He rose as well, tugging my hand and pulling me into his body, bending so our faces were close together, so close I could smell the hint of grape on his breath mixed with the salt of the seawater and sand.
My eyes settled on his lips, reliving the glorious kiss we’d shared the night before. A kiss that had been more than just hasty foreplay leading to naked skin and orgasms. As if the kiss itself had meant something. Tender and reverent.
With one hand on my waist and the other still holding mine, Dax moved us so that we were twirling in the sand as if we were dancing, feet dragging along the shore, wind blowing around us, the real world far, far away.
“Do you remember the first time we danced in silence?” he asked.
“I remember dancing with you at Violet and Dawson’s wedding,” I deflected.
“I remember you were wearing a black dress when you normally favored colors. I remember the way it clung to your curves and how your breasts swelled above the neckline when I held you like this. I remember the smell of the stargazer lily corsage I’d given you,” he said. “And I remember that you tasted like the sweetest thing I’d ever had.”
Our first kiss. Dancing in a silent room in the museum.
“That wasn’t me… That was some other person who didn’t understand anything about life,” I whispered. “She was a shiny, untarnished gem. I’m a dirty knockoff.”
“I hate that you see yourself that way.” His voice was deep and gruff with emotions. “That girl…she was like finding a diamond before it’s been cut and polished. This you…you’re the real diamond, mon bijou. Not flawless, but more unique because of the imperfections. Because of what you’ve gone through to become this version of yourself.”
His mouth took mine with such tenderness that it almost broke my heart, kissing me as if he could force me to see myself through his eyes. But the gentleness quickly dissolved as his lips pressed harder, turning the soft touch into a demand. I shoved my hands into his hair, gasping at the pain the raised arms caused but not letting him pull back when he tried to. Instead, I pushed fiercely against the seam of his lips. He groaned and let me in as our bodies shifted, drawing closer. Hips moving together, heat building. Relief far away but dangling in front of us like some tantalizing possibility.
The sweet pain of it filled me until I was forced to take a step back, but he only let me go so far, hand grasping my waist and holding me in place. “Don’t run,” he said, a guttural growl that lit the flames in me even more.
“That’s usually your job,” I told him, lifting my chin.
He nodded. “Yes. But I’ve given up running.”
“What about you father? What about your aunt?”
“The only thing that matters is you. This.” He pulled my hand to his chest, where I could feel the wild beating inside it, and then placed his free hand on my chest in the same place. “Do you feel how my heart pounds for you? Do you feel how yours answers with the same rhythm? We belong together, mon bijou. Our bodies have known it since we were teenagers. It was our minds and our families that got in the way.”
I suddenly realized I was crying. The wind chilled the tears as soon as they landed on my cheeks, and I hated that I was showing this weakness. I hated how much I loved his words, and his touch, and…him.
“Take me back to the cottage,” I told him.
He looked sad, as if I’d told him to leave me alone. I took a step closer, putting my free hand over the one he’d placed over my heart.
“Take me back to the cottage, Dax, and show me with your body what you’ve tossed out so carelessly with your words. Make me believe them.”
“You’re hurt,” he said softly.
“Not having you hurts worse.”
He stared again, searching me for the truth, but I’d already spo
ken it.
“Now, Dax. Now or never,” I demanded.
In a swift motion that I didn’t expect, he swept me into his arms, leaving the blanket, the basket, and the mess we’d made on the beach to storm up the sandy dune toward the golf cart. He put me in the passenger seat, kissed me again with a ferocity that spun like sunlight through the clouds, and then jumped behind the wheel just as Mike and Armando realized we were leaving without them.
We’d already taken off up the path before they broke into a run to come after us. We left them in the dust as Dax pushed the cart as fast as it would go. The jolt of the rocks and holes reminded me that my body was battered and bruised, but I didn’t care. The pain inside my heart was demanding to be cured. Healed. Years of it. I couldn’t wait until my body recovered. I didn’t want to. I wanted him to fulfill his promises one damn time in our lives.
At the cottage, Cillian was at the door, looking like someone had just pissed on his shoes. He was unhappy that we’d left the detail on the beach. I got out of the cart, and before I could take even two steps, Dax had swept me into his arms again. I couldn’t help the carefree laugh that broke free from my lips.
“I can walk, Armaud.”
“Dax…don’t you dare go back to calling me Armaud,” he said, eyes flashing at me. When we got to the door, Cillian growled out, “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Dax looked Cillian in the eye and said, “We don’t want to be disturbed.”
Cillian’s eyes grew wide, and then I thought his lips curled upward ever so slightly. He didn’t respond. He just nodded.
Dax all but jogged up the stairs, kicking the door of my bedroom shut behind us. My heart was pounding furiously. My sore body was already lit up, burning with want. I was unsure of what damage this would do to me, but I didn’t care. I needed this pain to make sure it felt real. To know that it wasn’t some dream I was having. To prove I wasn’t in a coma in a hospital in San Francisco after the bomb had gone off.
We were both sandy and damp from the beach, but it didn’t matter as Dax lay me down on the bed. He joined me, body lining up alongside mine but not on me. I could feel him hesitating again. I slid my hand down the muscled contours of his chest dusted lightly with dark hair, the kind that trailed down past his belly button, pointing the way to the treasure. When my hand ran into his jeans, I popped them open, grazing the mound underneath, and he made a sound, deep and throaty in his voice.
“Not yet. I’ll lose control like it’s my first time,” he said.
He pulled my hand away and kissed the palm and then slid his mouth up my wrist and along my arm, sucking at the soft recesses of my inner elbow and then continuing over my bicep. The gentleness burned through me as much as the kisses themselves. He pulled back, raising my tank top, removing it and my bra with the speed and dexterity of someone who was well versed in female clothing. The bruising from my back had curled over my sides, and the sight of it made Dax pause.
“Don’t you dare stop,” I told him.
His lips found the purple turning green, gently touching it with soft lips, one hand going to a breast while his tongue found its way to the pebbled tip of the other. His mouth almost completely covered the small mound. He looked up at me as he tugged and licked and sucked with gorgeous, lined eyes full of heat and longing, and my hips bucked of their own accord, needing tension, needing the feel of him against me…on me…in me.
He removed his mouth to speak, and I panted and groaned, instantly missing the feel of his tongue on me.
“My pace, mon bijou. My pace or not at all.”
My threat on the beach being turned into one of his own.
I liked fast, hard, and furious. Dax was all about control. He’d proven it with his tongue one time in a bed that didn’t belong to either of us, slowing driving my body insane until I’d shattered apart in the best orgasm I’d ever had. If he could repeat that, do more, I’d gladly hand myself over to him.
“Just don’t fucking stop,” I growled back.
He smiled. The smile that had first made my belly flop. The smile that proved to the world he was every bit the suave and charming prince of the fashion world the tabloids made him out to be. Then, his tongue took possession of my breast again, and I sighed with relief even as the heat pooling deep inside me grew until it felt like it was going to overflow. Until it completely engulfed me.
His hand coasted over my belly, tugging on my belly button ring so lightly it caused me to shiver at the barely-there touch. Then, he was tugging down my leggings, lips following the trail of his hands, curving over my hips as the rest of my clothing disappeared. His tongue settled along my seam, and my hips rocked again.
He held my hips down.
“Don’t move, mon bijou. I won’t have you hurting yourself for this. Let me do the work.”
My hand buried itself in his thick locks as his mouth returned to my core. Staying still was not my way. But the battle to do just that only enhanced the flame inside me, growing it like oxygen to a fire. His hand and mouth were slow and methodical and gentle. Coaxing me. Driving me closer. The buildup smoldering from my toes all the way to my heart. And when I finally reached the summit, I cried out in pleasure, my body trying to rock and him holding me down gently but firmly while the waves flew through me.
When he looked back up at me, his smile was smug and cocky. So fucking Dax that my heart spasmed the way my core had. An orgasm to my heart that I knew I’d never forget. Never be able to replace. Never be able to live through.
He moved away, standing and eyeing me. My fingers trailed down my body to the curls he’d just abandoned, still needing more friction, needing to repeat the waves I’d just felt, but he yanked my hand away, kissing the palm.
“No. That’s for me today. Only me.”
He unzipped his jeans and slid them off along with his underwear, returning to my side, but I needed him on top. I needed the weight and the pressure. I pulled on him, toppling him into me. I gasped, and he lifted up as if he was doing a push-up, strong biceps flexing. Beautiful. The French god I’d always teased him of being.
“I need your weight. I need to feel you in every inch of me,” I told him, longing in my eyes.
His mouth returned to mine, tongue slipping inside, caressing me, speaking to me with motions that made me want to cry again. The tender reverence was something I’d never had and never wanted. I didn’t want to be treated like a fragile flower. The guys I’d been with who’d tried to handle me that way had seen me walk out the door before we’d ever finished. And yet Dax doing it felt different. Felt necessary. Felt needed.
That was when I felt it inside me, like a lock being undone. For the first time in my life, I just let go and gave in. I let Dax have complete control of me and my body, and with it, my heart and soul.
Dax
SIXTH SENSE
“I see it in the stars, I feel it in my bones
It's written in the cards, just like we've always known.”
Performed by Imelda May
Written by Moak / May
I was begging her with my tongue, tempting her with my lips and my hands, wanting her to let go. To give me the one thing she’d never given anyone: control of her heart and her body. When I felt her let go underneath me, the softening of her limbs, the stillness of her hands, my heart leaped. Joy filled me, and I couldn’t keep the smile from my face even while I kissed her.
I spent the next hour worshipping every single part of her: the tiny beauty mark on the base of her neck, the scar on her shoulder, the cuts and scrapes crossing her skin, and the deep lines from the muscles she worked hard to earn. My tongue tangled in her belly button ring, pulling as my hands found her insides. She gasped and moaned, but she didn’t buck or twist. She simply let me love her the way I’d been aching to do for years, until I made her fall apart all over again with my fingers just as I had with my mouth.
My groin was hard, engorged beyond the limit, ready to break, but I
wanted every sweet moment with her before I gave in to it. After I started to kiss my way down her chest and belly again, she surrounded my length with a palm, finger teasing the tip, and I groaned.
“My way,” I whispered to her.
She nodded with a smile on her face that I’d never seen on Jada before. Pure radiance. Filled with pleasure. Happiness without the regret that normally rested behind it.
“When do you get relief if we do it your way?” she teased.
I groaned and rose, heading for the door, and she called out, “Where are you going?”
“To get a condom.”
“You better get more than one!”
I turned back to look at her lying on the bed the way I’d left her. The beautiful lines of her body were bare, her eyes filled with something that I hoped echoed what I felt in my heart, hair spread around her like a dark halo. I couldn’t move. My hand went to my chest where my heart felt stuck, as if it had forgotten how to beat.
I lunged back to the bed, pulled her hand up, and kissed the palm with fierceness.
“I love you,” I told her, my eyes meeting hers that were dark with lust, heated with pleasure, and an array of other emotions I was nervous to name.
She didn’t still or pull away at my admission. She just stared, a new war going on inside her while her lips moved and no sound came out. I placed our joined hands on her chest again like I had on the beach. The pounding was stronger, fiercer, just like Jada herself. “It’s okay,” I said softly. “I can feel it.”
Then, I kissed her lips until my body ached, demanding relief.
I eased away, smiling at her before going to my room and searching through my luggage for the strip of condoms I almost always had there. When I came back, her hand had journeyed down her body again, and the possessive growl I felt go through me was nothing I’d ever experienced before. Seeing someone touch themselves was normally a turn-on—one I reciprocated—but today, with Jada, I wanted every single one of those touches to be mine.