by Snow, Nicole
I’m losing my mind, rocking my hips in rhythm to every thrust of his tongue inside me, and he’s just in his glory. Drinking me in with every soaking lick, and the breaths I’m holding come out of me in gasping, shattering cries. He teases me to the very edge and leaves my clit, my inner walls humming.
Until he stops.
Then he lifts his head and looks at me with a slow, dark smile, the moonlight gleaming in his eyes, his mouth so wet with me.
“Better,” he rumbles. “No secrets, Rissa. No holding back. Let me fucking hear you tonight.”
I flush from head to toe. It’s the only warning I get, and then he gives me good reason to scream into the night, his long, thick fingers slipping deep inside me.
After this summer, after tumbling into his arms again and again and again, I should be used to him.
But somehow it’s brand new every time—the sensation of those thick fingers against my soft flesh, the way he eases in and makes me aware of every tiny burst of pressure as one knuckle at a time sinks deeper, deeper.
It’s almost a fever. How he makes me feel so deliciously dirty with something so simple.
Just one finger has me writhing, ripping at the grass, gasping out his name.
“Leo, Leo. Holy—!” My toes curl up in the flowers and the dirt as I lift my entire lower body, offering myself to him.
Next it’s two fingers.
Then three.
And after that it’s so flipping good, so deep, this intimate exploration as his fingertips curl and stroke inside me. It’s almost obscene how he touches every secret place.
He pulls me into the zone, moving one knuckle against my clit. It’s the one perfect place where I can’t think about my father, about Deanna, about anything else right now.
Here, there’s only me, Leo, and my own desperation for his body, his cock, his love.
But I break down completely for him.
He hooks my knees over his shoulders, forcing me open, and bends to flick his tongue over my clit.
Right at the exact same moment he starts thrusting and twisting his fingers inside me.
His mouth pulls on my flesh in screams of sensation. Just as his hand delves deeper, taking me over. I whimper, curling forward, burying my fingers in his hair and wrapping my legs around his shoulders.
Too much. Too explosive. Too wonderful.
I can’t take it.
I can’t take that hot rhythm of his fingers plunging in and out, the slow just-right suction and wetness and heat and friction of his tongue against my clit.
And there’s nothing left holding me back from crying out his name to the stars as I lose it.
“Leo, I’m—”
Coming!
Oh, am I ever.
I come so hard my entire body fluxes like one big pulse, this storm churning through me in hot, shuddering waves as I spill myself all over his tongue, his beard, his fingers.
It’s only the start.
Because now that I’m a shaking, liquid mess, now that I’m all sensitive and everything just blurs my vision with white-hot ecstasy...
That’s when he shifts my legs from around his shoulders and wraps them around his waist.
That’s when he unzips his jeans.
That’s when the biggest cock I could ever imagine presses against me, naked flesh on naughty skin.
And I barely get to dig my fingers into his shoulders and hold on for dear life. He wants it too much. He drives into me in a single smooth stroke, growling the whole way.
“Leo!” I whimper out again.
I’m all soft inside. Vulnerable. The moment I feel the fire of his flesh burning me apart I can’t help but scream at the top of my lungs.
He knows how to torment me so gently, how to push and pull. The lightest touch sets my body off in cascading flame, so all he has to do is stroke his cock so slowly, so sweetly inside me to turn me into a wildfire.
I’m liquid. Molten. Starved.
I’m completely wrapped up in the way he takes me, loves me, fucks me. It’s so good I hardly even know up from down.
When I’m with him, I’m not the quiet, meek, good little candymaker.
I’m a wildcat in love, in lust, and I claw at his back with all my strength. I clutch Leo’s shoulders and rock up to meet him, begging for the beast inside him to make me even wilder.
And he gives me everything I want. Everything I need. Everything I dare to ask for in every shaky moan.
Then he just gives.
He pins me to the earth with a snarl and owns me.
It’s primal and perfect and wonderful.
It’s frantic and hot and gasping.
We’re dueling lips and tongues, grasping hands, rocking hips, and animal groans drowning out the night. We’re my hands raking down his back and his balls slapping my skin, grunting as he drives in, taking what’s so completely his. We’re gasping breaths, and every sweet, slick sound of sliding and crashing and coming together so hard and so fast I think I’m just ruined.
Destroyed for any other man who isn’t Leo Regis.
It hurts in all the best ways, this fabulous ache, this heat overwhelming my pussy as his thrusts come harder. So I wrap him up again as his forehead presses mine, and he pushes a low growl into me, and then we go at it so hard and so frantic our next O is lightning.
We come together.
We come raw.
We come beautiful.
It makes me want to never, ever let him go.
So I don’t. Leo doesn’t even pull out, too hard and too wild, he never softens, and he just keeps going.
And he leaves me swearing, convulsing, nearly crying as he deliberately moves himself inside me so his cock stretches me further, stirs against my inner walls, makes me clench up tight and grip him with a pinch that says, don’t you dare stop.
He makes me feel loved and deliciously used. Two freak opposites. But maybe that’s how a love like ours is meant to be.
I can’t stop my thighs from gripping tight and hot and hard against his hips, the engine powering those punishing strokes that brand me his from the inside out.
There’s a slick heat as my insides lock up, trapping him so deep, until our rocking fusion makes me feel stripped down to my soul.
It’s his name on my lips when I come again, a writhing mess, all clenching muscle and dripping need.
But it’ll always be his name, and only his, won’t it?
He’s the only man I’d even let touch me this way.
The only one I’ll trust to fill me as he stiffens, snarling.
He slams in to the hilt with a roar, and I feel his cock ballooning. I bury my lips against his in a teasing kiss as his whole massive body comes apart.
Leo comes inside me. Pours himself out in a mad rush of heat and growly, primal silence. There’s no mistaking the one-word signal as my pussy wrings him dry: mine, dammit. Rissa, you’re mine.
I can’t imagine being anything else.
And I cry that out secretly to the night sky as we tumble together into another kiss.
* * *
Present
Sometimes I like to think that was the night Zach was conceived.
Bringing that beautiful little boy into this world under those beautiful stars.
Before everything went to hell.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, alone, I stare out into the night and that distant glimmer of firelight in the dark. That’s when I finally let myself cry.
Not for Leo. Not for Heart’s Edge. Not even for Deanna.
For myself.
Curling forward, I hug my arms around myself and choke out these shallow, hoarse gasps that feel like they hollow me out.
I only let myself cry for what’s already gone, what’s worth being mourned.
Mostly, I’m crying because what Leo and I had once is gone, and I still don’t know if it’s my fault or his or just the wretched way everything turned out. All thanks to a vile, faceless corporation and a man who cared more about money a
nd power than he did about life.
I just wish Leo, wounded beast that he is, still knew what to do with a kind touch.
I never knew how much I wanted to reach for him until I realized how fast it could make him turn away.
16
Follow Detour (Nine)
Eight Years Ago
I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
I’m about to ask this amazing, gorgeous, bright-eyed girl to marry me.
I don’t even know what I can offer her. Not when my life belongs to Galentron as sure as Spartacus belonged to Rome. They don’t let freaks like me off their payroll.
They don’t let us have lives. We’re not like normal agents, pretending to be ordinary people with a wife and three kids who have no idea that when we leave for work every day, we’re going to do things that decide who lives and who dies.
We’re ghosts. We’re rumors. We’re slaves.
Officially, we don’t exist.
Not on paper or in any unclassified database.
I don’t know what kind of life a ghost can give Clarissa Bell.
But, shit, maybe if I’m smart, maybe if she says yes, we’ll figure it out.
Maybe we can both turn ourselves into another kind of ghost and disappear somewhere we’ll be safe. I’ll get away from Galentron, from Dr. Ross, and she’ll get away from that bastard piece of scum she calls a father.
I’ve got several leads on shady someones who can get us fake IDs, fake passports. This shady firm, Stork, Storkley, and Associates, over in some place called Finley Grove, Minnesota. This kid named Manny, fresh out of law school, talks a good game behind his old man’s back. Or maybe I’ll just hit up one of those biker dudes with the Grizzlies MC patches who sometimes stop off at Brody’s for a drink on their way through town.
They could set me up. We’ve got options.
I hear Thailand seems like a good place to start over.
Hell, I’ve already been practicing my Thai. I can learn the basics of a new language in a few weeks if I really need to. Maybe she’ll let me teach her.
I let myself drift into those thoughts while I wait for her. I’m not far away from the meadow where, a few nights ago, we wrapped ourselves up in each other under the stars and went buck wild.
I’m standing on the cliff over the field, looking down. There’s still a spot in the grass below where the flowers and dirt are all torn up.
That woman came at me so fast and hard and hot, and I gave it back in spades. That’s just how it is with us.
Two hearts, always fast and hard and hot, but shit. I can’t imagine not being with her forever.
Don’t remind me I’ve only known her a few months.
She’s the one.
The only one for me, and she always will be. A man knows these things.
Doesn’t really matter where we go next.
Just as long as I get her and Deanna away from that monster.
Somehow, I always feel her coming before she appears.
I look up just as she comes down the trail, breathless, looking real sweet today in her pretty little dress, still untying herself from the apron she wears at the coffee shop. The job’s a new thing, but it makes her so happy—yet it still makes me pissed when I think about her old man only grudgingly allowing it when she wanted to sell her sweets at the shop.
The only reason he gave her permission was because she made him look good back at that summer fair.
The wholesome, fresh-faced daughter with her homemade candies plays too well. It’s perfect for a politician’s load of a story about being Mr. Family Man, instead of a ruthless, conniving piece of shit.
I just want Rissa happy doing what she loves.
She looks like she couldn’t be happier as she draws closer, draping her apron over her arm and looking up at me with that bright, lovely smile of hers.
“Hey,” she says, stretching on her toes to try to kiss my cheek.
It doesn’t work. She still can’t reach though she’s not short herself. So she tugs on my arm with a sort of playful begging that’s become our little inside joke.
I bend so she can press her soft, lush mouth to my cheek, laughing and tucking her against my side with a familiarity that makes me ache in all the best ways. Her curves mold too well to my edges.
“Sorry if I’m late,” she says. “It took a little longer than expected to clean up and close up the shop.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t really have a timer as long as I’m back before they look for me in the morning.”
She looks worried and curls her hand against my arm. “They’re really strict with the guards, huh?”
I want to tell her I’m more than a guard.
But there’s no point.
I won’t be anything, soon, if she says yes.
I can forget everything Galentron made me. What I am now doesn’t matter nearly as much as what I am to her.
So I shrug, offering a smile that I hope doesn’t hint at how nervous I feel. The ring box in my pocket feels like it weighs tons. “It’s like a frat house, almost. Someone’s got to keep us in order.”
“Because you’re so dastardly. Always misbehaving.”
“You make me misbehave,” I growl, leaning down and nuzzling into the rich brown locks of her hair.
She smells so good, always that hint of sugary sweetness. Right now, it’s touched with the hint of Arabica from the coffee shop, but underneath it, there’s something that’s just her.
Damn if I don’t breathe her in again.
She laughs, pushing at me lightly. “You’re always sniffing me. You really are an animal. Going to hike your leg and mark your territory next?”
“Nasty.” But I can’t help a chuckle, squeezing her tight. “Any more toilet humor and you’ll ruin the night.”
“Oh? And what would I be ruining?” She tilts her pretty face up to mine, her eyes heavy with that hint of shadow that always makes green irises glow, her lips curled in a quirk that’s always too sweet and just a little bit mocking. “Planning for round two? Are we defiling more flowers?”
“Fuck. That’s not why I brought you here, although I wouldn’t object, depending.”
“Depending on what?”
My mouth goes dry.
I’m elated, excited, hopeful, but also plain freaked.
They say there are two occasions in a man’s life where he can’t tell joy from fear.
The birth of his first child, and when he proposes to the girl he loves.
I take a deep breath, pulling away from her.
She watches me quizzically, tilting her head to one side right before her eyebrows shoot up.
She already knows. She watches me sink down on one knee.
I can see it in her eyes while I reach in my pocket.
A flick of my thumb opens the box on a slender silver diamond band, holding it up for her as I kneel there in the flowers and say the words that have been lodged in my throat for days.
“Depending on if you say yes,” I say, clearing my throat, strengthening my voice. I don’t want there to be any hint of doubt when I say, “Clarissa Leigh Bell...will you marry me?”
I’m sure she’ll say yes. I think.
But there’s this breathless moment when I think I might be about to get my heart crushed. She just stares at me with her eyes so wide, unblinking.
Goddamn, I know she loves me. Know she wants to run away with me.
But what if I’ve pushed too hard, too fast? It’s honestly asking a lot after the life she’s been trapped in. This much change might be terrifying and—
“Yes!” she cries, tumbling down into my arms, barely catching the ring box to clasp it between our twined hands.
Then comes the kiss to end all kisses. It tastes wet and salty, her tears flowing freely.
Maybe not just hers, even if I’ll never admit it out loud.
Even if she’d said no, I’d still have done everything in my power to protect her.
To save her from
that wretched man.
Still, the fact that she wants to leave that life behind not just as my lover, but as my wife means the whole damn universe.
It’s everything. It makes everything I’ve endured to get here worth it.
The pain. The torture. The conditioning. The brainwashing that even now scares me, when I’ve done everything I can to fake compliance, fighting the command triggers burned into my grey matter.
She’s the one reason I’ve been able to hold on.
And she doesn’t even know how long she’s been keeping me together.
One fine day, I’ll tell her.
I’ll tell her how young Tiger fought against his bonds each and every time Dr. Ross held him down and injected him with burning shit to make him more obedient and whispered the same words to him over and over and over, engraving them deep in his brain.
I’ll tell her how that boy held on to her and wouldn’t let him take the memory of a pretty girl twirling a flower between her fingers under the summer sun, and the shy, sweet way she looked at him.
I’ll tell her about an older kid wondering who she grew into, now and then dreaming her voice. The same voice I remembered hearing deep down in the catacombs under the mansion.
I’ll tell her about carving her face into thin slips of wood, carving flowers I swore I’d give her one day, holding on to them when I felt like I’d break at the slightest provocation.
I’ll tell her how sometimes the neat lines between love and obsession get so blurred, I can’t even breathe anymore without picturing her.
That’s why I want to save her so much.
Because Clarissa saved me.
Right now isn’t the time for those words, though. Now’s the time for tearful kisses, for the tight roughness in my throat, for her arms around my neck and her body against mine, and then we’re hand in hand, and I’m sliding that pretty, slender engagement ring on her delicate finger.
I can’t stop smiling, and my smile echoes on her lips, in her eyes.
We don’t need to say a word as we stand, picking at the flowers from the edge of the cliff, hand in hand.
Yeah, it’s that corny old legend, the lovers of Heart’s Edge.