by Skye Warren
She wanted to throw her arms around him when he opened the door. His grin was mischievous, holding both a question for her and pride at a job well done. Instead she settled for a huge smile in return. She couldn’t have held it back anyway. He’d been amazing in class, authoritative and relatable as usual.
“You were fantastic. I knew you would be, but damn. You even surpassed what I was thinking.”
He shut the door as she passed. “No one ran away screaming, so I’m calling it a win.”
She rolled her eyes. “No one even notices how you look anymore.”
Though she noticed how he looked now, still wearing his slacks and dress shirt, though he’d rolled the sleeves up. His clothes were a little rumpled, his hair a little mussed. Her hungry gaze roamed his body, and when she met his eyes, the desire in them matched her own.
He pressed her against the wall. His kiss said it wasn’t a good time for discussion. It demanded things of her, things like submission and sweetness, like passion and playfulness, and she was too happy to oblige. His tongue darted into her mouth and then out again, quicksilver, and she was left to chase into his with her own.
His hand cupped her neck, a solid and comforting touch that morphed into something dirtier as he grasped her hair. She gasped at the sensation. Her cunt clenched in time with his fist. His other hand slid up from her waist, underneath her shirt, the hot contact enough to melt her into the implacable surface behind her.
He broke the kiss but continued to touch her, everywhere, as if it had been months or years instead of hours and days.
“It’s harder than I expected.” He nibbled a path down her neck.
Oh God, that felt good. Her hips bucked. “Teaching the class?”
“Pretending I don’t know you.”
Her heart squeezed. “For me too. But I’m proud every time I see you there.”
His smile was almost boyish. She had a hard time even seeing the scarring as some specific impediment. It was just the way he looked—a part of him. The only reason she regretted it was because she knew it gave him pain.
He would occasionally turn away and grit his teeth. It came and went, he said, like being burned all over again, echoes of the past. She would have done anything to take that away if she could. She loved, loved, loved him. And he loved her back, she was sure of it. So this insecurity business could die an ugly death, as far as she was concerned. No reason to hold him accountable just because some guy had been a jerk her sophomore year.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. He raised an eyebrow, and she continued. “I heard the tail end of your conversation with Professor Jenkins. The first day of class.”
“Shit.” He shut his eyes. “I’m sorry. I hoped you wouldn’t see her there. Erin, I swear I didn’t—”
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I trust you, and I understand that she might come speak to you once in a while. You guys do share an employer, at least for the semester. So I didn’t want you to have to worry that I’m going to freak out if you have a conversation. I wouldn’t even have said anything, except I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide from me.”
He pulled her to the couch. “I appreciate your progressive views on the matter, but as our fellow classmate would say, bullshit.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You have every right to be upset about finding me like that or at the very least to know what we talked about. And even if you don’t insist on it, I want to tell you. I made it clear to her that we were over. I told her if she came to my house again, that I’d call the cops on her.”
“You actually said that?”
He shrugged. “It’s the truth. What she did was beyond inappropriate, and I needed to nip it in the bud. For my relationship with you but also for myself. I can’t promise she’ll never do anything again, but I have no interest in her. None. And I’m pretty sure I pissed her off enough where she’ll want nothing to do with me.”
She arched a brow. “Setting a precedent, are we?”
He chuckled. “You’re going to throw all my lectures back at me, aren’t you?”
“Most likely. Why, you going to get fed up with me?”
“Never.” Another kiss, softer this time. “Stay with me.” A press of his lips to hers. “Wrapped up so tight I never have to worry that I’ll wake up and you won’t be there.”
As if to obey him, her limbs moved without thought, her arms twining around his neck, her legs hitching around his thighs. Her back arched up from the wall, seeking the hard length and hot pulse of him, trying to connect them everywhere.
“I’ll never leave you,” she whispered.
She felt him through her jeans, felt his cock jump in response to her words. They were connected, the emotions and the sex. They tangled together like their bodies and hearts, not elegant but instead grasping, pleading, begging. Needing.
She shuddered, silently beseeching, but when her tongue found the heavy beat at his neck, she moaned. He tasted like musk and man, like faith and irreverence all at once. His skin here was unmarred, uninjured, and yet still rough. The uneven rasp of a healthy, vibrant man who had worked and fought and weathered the world before finding refuge in her arms.
He reacted to the wet slide of her tongue violently. He bucked against her, slamming her into the wall.
“Wait,” he muttered. “One minute…just.”
She didn’t want to wait. Didn’t want him to bring himself under control, burying the passion somewhere deep and unreachable. She grazed his collarbone with her teeth, an animal instinct to incite and distract him. To draw out the beast inside him—not the wounded skin he thought made him so, but the hard, angry part of him. The part he kept carefully away from her, treating her instead like fragile glass. As if she wouldn’t be able to handle him—or as if she wouldn’t want to. She couldn’t blame him after the way Professor Jenkins had left him at his most vulnerable. He’d learned to hide his pain and frustration. He’d learned to doubt Erin too. But she was stronger than that. She wasn’t delicate nor easily bruised. And she was greedy. Nothing but the whole of him would be good enough.
She slid her hand down the plane of his chest and abs, down to the cloth-covered cock below. It strained against his pants, restricted by clothes and by him. However she wants it, don’t push too far. That was fine at the beginning, but not now. She had something to prove and maybe so did he.
She squeezed gently, luxuriating in the stuttered breaths bellowing from his chest, the low, pained grunt emanating from his throat, and, God, his hands—the way they pushed like beams against the wall on either side of her head, straining with the force of his lust and yet holding steady to allow her to explore. So much strength, so much restraint. He was a lashing storm clasped tightly in a steel box, and she held the key.
With her fingers flying, she unbuckled his belt and took out his cock. It fell heavily into her palm, burning up against her skin. She fell to her knees and tongued him, kissed him with all the force and passion that she had given his mouth just seconds earlier. She had sucked a man before, had even done this to him before, but never quite like this. Like making out with his cock, like making love to him with her mouth. He was smooth and slippery on her tongue, the faint salt barely registering beneath the passion that drove her. And to her delight, he was too caught up in the moment to censor himself. He dropped one hand and clasped her head, thrusting deep in beautiful rhythm. This was no careful role-play like they had done in his office that day, this was unruly and wild, a deluge of sex and sensation.
He pulled away—jerked himself back from her, panting. “God, Erin. God.”
She sank back to the wall, the slab cool against her fevered skin. The air felt thick and sumptuous, hard to breathe but nourishing too.
“How do you want me?” she asked, her voice low.
“I’m too far gone after… I’m on the edge, Erin. Let me step back and then I’ll make this good for you.”
“I don’t want you to
make it good for me. I want you to jump.”
She reached for him, tugging the pants that hung at his thighs, down his legs and off completely, leaving him bared in only a dress shirt hung open. The lines of his body curved so elegantly, all that power contained, the strength sharply forged—exactly like the man within. She stroked down the outside of his calf, the tanned skin and sprinkling of male hair, admiring.
When she looked up, the question was in her eyes—the plea. Please? He groaned, and it sounded so dire, like something had perished, and she hoped it was his self-control.
He pointed to the living room where the hardwood floor softened to plush carpet. “Hands and knees.”
She scrambled to comply, dropping her clothes as she went, shedding out of them like finding a new skin—this one molten and pure. Nothing but sex and sensuality. Only helpless, guileless intimacy here. The carpet felt scratchy on her forearms, a metal scrub brush on ceramic. She turned back, offering herself up to him, letting the embarrassment wash over her and heighten the gift of herself.
Blake
Blake took his time retrieving a condom from his pants pocket, slipping it over the length of his cock. Not looking at her—he couldn’t. Like Erin had done in class that first day with her pens and her notebook, keeping herself hidden because to see would be too much. Her beauty too blinding and his own weakness at the fore. He wanted to ravage her in a way that would change her, indelibly bind her to him so that neither of them could break loose.
He was afraid, though, of the tension rippling through his arms, the dark murmurs of his heart. He could be too rough like this. He needed to check himself even if she wanted to give him full rein. What if he hurt her? What if he scared her away?
But he wasn’t sure he could stop himself. Just warning himself to be careful wasn’t enough, not when his whole body bristled to take her. Erin knelt before him, the curve of her ass so sweet, the pink lips of her sex glistening. He was ravenous for her, desperate to be inside her and over her, surround her until all she breathed was him.
Be careful, he admonished himself. Go slow.
He fisted his cock and forced himself to speak evenly. “What are you thinking about? Right now.”
Her eyes widened. “About you. How you’ll feel inside me.”
“You need to come?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“When’s the last time you got yourself off?”
She blinked. If he wasn’t mistaken, a blush spread over her cheeks, spilling over the back of her shoulders. “You mean the last time we…?”
“Not me. You. How long has it been since you touched yourself?”
She turned her face into the carpet, muffling her answer. “This morning.”
He stroked up the inside of her thigh, not wanting her to feel alone in this and needing—needing to touch her soft skin. Not wanting to be alone in this either. Blood coursed hotly through his veins, pounding a beat of urgency and desire. Of possession, even though he knew that wasn’t right. Wasn’t good.
She deserved to be cherished, but all he could think was to hold her down and fuck her. She deserved to be worshipped, but he imagined his every sinful dream upon her body. Most of all, she deserved a better man, one whole and unbroken, but he would never let her go.
The silky skin at the top of her leg was already damp. He drew circles there idly, needing to stall before he plunged into her. Before he hurt her. He would accept her submission, her trust. He’d use her sweet body and in doing so reach his own bliss. Selfish, monstrous—that was him.
He leaned down, murmuring the only love words he could think in the moment. “Show me. Make yourself come for me.”
With a moan of acceptance, she reached down. He could see flashes of pale as her fingers worked quickly at her clit. Thick blinds filtered light from the evening, a shy illumination of her gorgeous curves and shadows beneath. He knelt behind her and bent his head. She tasted lovely. He reached deeper, nudging her legs farther apart and delving into her with his tongue. She shivered, and the motion of her hand sped up.
He’d directed this, but he felt strangely powerless. He could lick her, caress her with his tongue, but it was she who controlled the pace, she who stroked herself toward climax. It wasn’t what he’d intended at the start, but her pleasure was its own sweet reward.
She began to rock in a familiar rhythm. He grabbed her hips to hold her steady. His harsh grip seemed to spur something inside her. Her sounds were frantic now, her fingers desperate. He slid his own two fingers into the warm clasp of her body, finding the right angle and perfect spot, meeting her caress with his tongue through her swollen flesh.
She cried out as she came, sounding desperate and so wholly his that he reared back and slammed inside her before she had finished. He pushed inside again and again, not letting her relax or find comfort in the fullness. It was different than ever before, and that thought only spurred him higher. Harder. Deeper inside until she clenched around him in a bid for reprieve.
He couldn’t, though. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t breathe. More, more. He slid a palm along the sweat-slicked skin of her back and grasped her hair at the base. He pulled her up against him so she knelt upright and him behind her, almost beneath her, fucking upward. Reaching around her, he found her clit and fondled it with the same rhythm she’d used on herself, having learned her secrets now.
She gasped and sobbed in his embrace, hands damp with her own desire, clinging to his arms and scrabbling at his sides—wherever she could reach, which wasn’t much. He had her in hand now, under his control in a way he both loathed and craved. He wanted to give her all his gentleness only to find there was none left. He sucked at her neck, leaving marks for the world and for her—but mostly for himself. To know that she was his and to never doubt, never fear.
Still holding her steady with his hand tangled in her hair. Still circling her clit in time with the pulse of her cunt around his cock. “Come,” he murmured in her ear. “Come for me.”
“I can’t.”
“Do it now.”
He pinched her clit, and she came with a hoarse cry. Her pussy squeezed him tight. He almost came—not yet, almost.
“Again,” he demanded.
“No more. Oh God, I really can’t.”
But she could. Her inner muscles still rippled around him, her last climax hardly faded.
He bit her earlobe gently. “I want to feel you come again. I want that sweet pussy to squeeze me until I can’t hold back anymore. I want to feel your wetness drip down my cock to my balls. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”
She might have cried out his name, but the sound muffled in his ears as she did just what he’d ordered. As she came and shook in his arms while her sex tightened almost painfully around his cock. His vision went white, his body rigid. He came in a moment of blinding ecstasy and helpless, heartless need. With a cry of despair and release. With the knowledge that he would never survive it if she left him too.
He curled onto his side, catching her as she fell, panting. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“No.” Her voice was raw. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Don’t you dare.”
So he didn’t say it aloud, he just thought it. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go. You’re mine now, God help you.
Chapter Fifteen
Erin
Erin stretched. Her muscles felt wrung out and used well.
She turned her head, facing her lover with a lazy smile. Blake had his eyes closed, arm slung over his face. He grew less bold in the aftermath, as if she might find his scars ugly without the haze of arousal to soften him. He had also maneuvered them so that she saw his unmarred side. He did that constantly, so smoothly she hardly noticed until after. She wasn’t sure he even knew he did it. The burned skin was only a glimpse on the opposite cheek. Shiny tissue. White and pink that didn’t tan to bronze with the rest of his skin.
She wished she could tell him it didn’t matter. But that wasn’t really true. How man
y people wore the darkest part of them on their faces? What a different world it would be if we walked around with signs that proclaimed the worst thing that had happened to us.
For her mother, it would be whatever had happened in the house where she’d worked as a maid and then suddenly hadn’t anymore. For Erin, it would be when her boyfriend had taken her to meet his parents and they realized his father had been the one to hurt her mother. When her boyfriend had called later with that bullshit story about her mom stealing from them, sure that his father was innocent of any wrongdoing. When he’d left her to find her own ride back to campus and when she’d seen him walking between buildings with another girl on his arm. Broken spirit, her mother’s sign would say. Broken heart for Erin.
Broken body for Blake.
Put that way, she felt lucky. Everyone had pain in their pasts. Some had it worse than others, but no one was untouched. The difference was that Blake was introduced that way. The rest of them had their smooth-skinned shells to hide behind.
He turned to face her, exposing himself. She looked into his eyes and felt herself fall into them—the contentment there and the shame.
“What are you thinking about?” he murmured.
She almost smiled at the echo of his earlier words. During sex he’d asked that question. And her answer was the same, in essence. “About you.”
He raised a brow. “Anything in particular?”
She studied the smooth bronze of his skin, the mottled pink. The courage with which he faced each day, holding that damned sign up, his head held high.
“How beautiful you are.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “That’s cruel,” he said mildly.
She flinched. “I mean it. You’re beautiful to me.”
He faced the ceiling again. “Fuck, Erin. I never asked you to lie to me.”