by Jessa Kane
This is the first time I’ve seen him without a shirt and oh my goodness, he’s built like some ancient warrior. If I used his abdomen as a slide, it would be like riding a roller coaster. That’s how defined those muscles are—and his arms. Lord, I think he could tip a phone book in half without a single grunt.
I was already on cloud nine over Lincoln letting himself touch me, for trusting me to be the one he overcomes his affliction for, but knowing this is the man who I brought to a climax with my butt? I think my temperature could heat this whole lagoon.
Lincoln and I lock eyes underwater.
His fury would have made me catch my breath if I had any left. But I’m running short of oxygen, so I kick to the surface. I’m only a few feet from shore, so I throw the coconuts onto the grassy embankment and wait for Lincoln to surface.
A second later, he does, a couple of feet away, his broad shoulders cresting the top of the blue-green water, moisture dripping from the ends of his hair. Jaw clenched.
He’s extremely angry at me, that’s easy to see, but I’m too spellbound to care.
“You look so handsome,” I blurt. “With the waterfall behind you and—”
“You jumped, Nova,” he shouts, plowing a hand through his soaked hair. “You will never do that again. You didn’t even warn me.”
“The happiness made me do it.”
Lincoln opens his mouth to shout more, but he stops short, brow furrowing. “Happiness.”
“Yes.”
His voice is much more silent when he says, “I…made you that way?”
“Uh-huh.” My smile is so wide, it’s starting to hurt my face. “And you jumped, too. You touched me and you jumped off a cliff. You’re learning how to let go and relax, Lincoln.”
The man is looking at me like I’m crazy. “There was nothing relaxing about watching you jump off that edge.”
“If I promise to warn you next time—”
“Next time?”
“Will you tell me why you don’t like being touched?”
Lincoln tenses, his gaze growing far-off for a moment, before it returns to me. “I’d like you on the shore, please,” he says gruffly. “Where it’s safe.”
“Okay,” I whisper, swimming past him to the embankment. I feel his eyes on my back, my bottom, my thighs as I climb out. Though I pick up the coconuts with the intention of cracking them open for our breakfast, I can’t help but watch Lincoln lift himself out of the water, his thick triceps flexing, water sluicing through the dark pelt of hair on his chest.
Daddy.
The act of thinking that one single word makes my clit throb.
I’m so over-the-top breathless, I turn away so I don’t embarrass myself. Kneeling down, I lift the first coconut over my head and smash it down on a rock, creating an opening on the rough, brown side. Sensing Lincoln approach at my side, I hand him the cracked nut with an encouraging smile. “Drink.”
He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You first.”
“Very well,” I say primly, cracking my own coconut. Then I tilt it a few inches above my mouth and let the sweet nectar dribble onto my tongue. There’s so much of it, I can’t swallow fast enough and it drips down my chin, onto my breasts. If I was alone, as usual, there would be nothing odd about the act of drinking the coconut juice, but with Lincoln watching me, his chest moving in quick heaves, I feel like I’m giving a naughty performance. My body reacts to how much he’s enjoying it, my back arching, my tongue licking to collect excess drops.
“Goddammit, Nova,” he grates. “I better be awake. You better not be a fucking dream.”
What does he mean? “I’m not a dream. I’m real.” Standing above me as he is, the sun outlines his head, making him look like a shadowed god, especially with his amber eyes shooting sparks at me. “You seem like a dream to me, too,” I whisper.
He barks a laugh. “I’m more like a nightmare.”
Something twists in my tummy. “Why do you think that?”
Lincoln sits down beside me on the grass, his coconut still untouched in his hand. Mere centimeters separate us and I ache to lay my head down in his lap or cuddle beneath his arm. But I know I can’t take a mile, just because he’s given me an inch. “I wasn’t allowed any sort of affection growing up. Ever. My father saw it as a weakness and only the strongest survived. He browbeat any kind of need for…human touch out of me.” Lincoln’s eyes sweep over me, then away. “At least, I thought so.” Forehead knit thoughtfully, he twists the coconut side to side on his muscular thigh. “I can’t even shake hands at a meeting without feeling as though I’m giving in to pathetic, human feebleness. But you, Nova…that burn of self-loathing isn’t there when I touch you. Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, my heart stuck in my throat. “But I’m so glad for it.”
The intensity rolls off Lincoln, locking me in its grip. “Everything you’re thinking is on your face, Nova, at all times. You’re honest and good. Even now, you’re looking at me like I’m your hero and…what if that’s true?” His voice drops to a threadbare whisper. “How can needing your touch…or needing to touch you…make me weak when your happiness, your pleasure, makes me feel so fucking strong?”
I turn and kneel beside Lincoln, hot pressure building behind my eyelids. The rippling line of tension in his shoulders and jaw tells me how difficult it was to make that confession—and he made it to me. I’ll treasure his honesty and seal it inside me, guard it forever. “Lincoln, I don’t have a lot of life experience, but before…when we were touching, putting my faith in you made me feel like I could do anything. Like I had power and confidence. Maybe trusting another person with your body is the bravest thing of all. Not a weakness.”
His head whips in my direction, hope writing itself slowly on his features.
Hope and stark, masculine need.
“You’re mine, Nova,” he growls, “And that’s the end of it.”
“I’m not arguing,” I breathe, lust fanning to life in my tummy.
He palms the coconut in one hand, turning onto his knees and coming close, close, looming over me, until I have no choice but to lay down on the grass, not a stitch of clothing to cover me except the sodden scarf around my waist and a flimsy bikini top. “I don’t mean you’re mine for the fucking week. I mean always.” He turns over the coconut and warm, sticky moisture spills down onto my belly, trickling lower and creating a river of wetness that travels through the folds of my bare sex. “Open your legs for me, sweet little girl, and show me what I own by rights from now through eternity.”
A whimper sneaks past my lips, fires lighting all along my nerve endings as I follow his command, dropping my knees open and letting him inspect the flesh between, which he does with possessive eyes.
“That’s one pretty, little, never-been-fucked pussy, Nova.” Lincoln tosses aside the coconut. “Have you been keeping it innocent for Daddy?”
“Yes,” I sob, my nipples burning they ache so bad, my hips restless on the soft grass. “Oh, Lincoln, please.”
What am I even asking for? I find out when Lincoln drops down onto his stomach, his hard mouth positioned between my thighs, his breath coasting over the excess coconut juice that glistens on my sex. “Once I get a hit of this tight, young thing, I’m going to be on you day and night like a beast, Nova. If I fuck you now, I’m not sure we’ll ever make it home, so right now, I’m only going to eat your cunt, little fairy.” He wiggles his tongue against the split of my womanhood until it parts, groaning loudly as he sips at me. “And once your throat is loose and relaxed from screaming, I’m going to introduce it to my cock.”
Lust hits me so hard beneath my belly button, my thighs fly together involuntarily, but Lincoln presses them wider with a growl, his tongue swiping a path through my folds. My back arches off the embankment on a choppy moan, visions of Lincoln putting his male part in my mouth filling my mind. “I-I didn’t know…is that a thing people do?”
He turns his head, laughing darkly against the inside
of my thigh. “It’s a thing Daddy is going to need from you. Often.” His lips twist on top of my clit, sending a cascade of excruciating heat through my lower body. “Is it my fault your lips are so sweet and swollen? Do you honestly think I could keep from fucking them?”
“N-no, Lincoln,” I manage, my thoughts barely coherent.
They scatter even further when he drapes my legs over his impossibly strong shoulders, folds me in half and bears down on my clit with rough drags of his tongue.
My scream shatters the serenity of the lagoon.
I can’t move, he’s holding me so securely. All I can do is dig my fingertips into his hair and face the onslaught of bliss. His tongue never ceases, never slows, rubbing me there in aggressive circles, his animal grunts increasing my pleasure with their vibrations.
“Oh my goodness,” I wail, throwing my head back, trying to be a good girl and give Lincoln what I sense he needs by letting him spreading my thighs as wide as they’ll go. “Oh, I think…I think I’m going to…”
Just as the crackles begin in my ears and my femininity clenches hotly, Lincoln drills his tongue high and tight into my sex and this time, my scream is likely heard in New York City. My hips buck off the earth, my heels grinding into the taut muscles of Lincoln’s back. A bolt inside me loosens and euphoria implodes deep in my core, sending me into a shaking fit.
I’m crying and whining and chanting Lincoln’s name as he prowls up my body, his fingers shaking as they untie his shorts. I’m only given a brief, life-altering glimpse of his thick, heavy shaft before he’s pushing it between my lips. “Fuck me, your come tastes like hot sugar, baby.” He pries my jaw wider, settling his thighs on either side of my head. “Come on, little girl. Get that mouth open. Give me what I need.”
Salt and man and flesh greet my taste buds, the substantial weight of his erection anchoring me physically, emotionally, his hips beginning to work in insistent strokes. With choked groans of my name, he plunges his pulsing rod halfway into my mouth, cramming me to capacity, then easing it out, in, out, in, out, in.
“Ahhhhhh.” He fists my hair in his right hand, holding me still for his thrusts and my eyes tear with pride over the visible pleasure I’m giving him. “Yeah, you’re giving me that virgin mouth, aren’t you, little girl? Confused or not, you just know you like it. You know you were meant to swallow that big cock.”
Swallow.
My mind registers what Lincoln wants and my body reacts, desperate to give it to him. Up until now, he’s only reached the start of my throat, but I relax that soft tunnel now and let his thick head breach that resistance. There’s an urge to choke when his thickness fills my throat, but I forget the discomfort when Lincoln hits his peak, his ancient warrior body flexing in the sunlight and shuddering. His hips whip up and back in jagged movements, his fist tightening in my hair as salt floods my throat.
“Christ. Christ. Suck Daddy down. Oh sweet Jesus. Yes.” His hips undulate madly, his heavy balls pressing to the underside of my chin, his shaft fully seated inside my mouth and throat now, jerking as it spurts hot liquid onto my glands. “Perfect little girl. You’re a perfect little girl for Daddy. Fuuuuuck.”
I breathe through my nose for long moments, drowsy in my enjoyment of experiencing Lincoln’s orgasm along with him, until finally he drops down beside me, his chiseled chest sweating and heaving. I struggle to catch my breath as well, but I’m barely given the chance before he pulls me up against him—
And I get my first hug since I was a child.
A sob explodes from me and I embrace Lincoln back, wrapping my legs around his hips as much as possible and clinging, my mind and body carried away on the rush of both intimacies. Sex and affection. The former of which I’ve needed since meeting this man, the latter of which I’ve been starved for forever. And I never want either pleasure from anyone else but this man. Not ever.
“I love you, Lincoln,” I say, letting his chest hair absorb my tears.
He pulls back enough to make blistering eye contact, intense wonder etched into the face that has become beloved to me overnight. “I love you, too, Nova.”
Lincoln carries me the entire way home, cradling me to his chest like a long-lost treasure.
I don’t even care that I’m almost completely naked, because I’m wrapped up in the man and his love and there’s nothing I need more than that.
Based on the shape of the coastline, I can tell we’re almost at the house on the cliff and I can’t wait to get inside. Home. To be with Lincoln again in ways I don’t know exist yet.
“I’ll set up an office here. We’ll split our time between the island and New York.” His sure, determined voice, the way he makes plans that include me, makes me want his mouth between my legs again. Makes me feel safe and wanted. “But promise me not to walk through Manhattan barefoot, Nova,” he says, a smile playing around his mouth.
I giggle into his chest. “I won’t. As long as you promise to go barefoot on the island.”
“You’re determined to make a relaxed man out of me, aren’t you?” Without warning, he tosses me up over his shoulder, leaving me dangling face down and laughing into the ocean breeze. “Well I have news for you, Nova, you make me the furthest thing from relaxed.”
“What do I make you?” I ask, pouting at the ground.
He grips my backside with a growl, giving it a sound slap. “Horny as a motherfucker.”
“Oh,” I whisper, smiling shyly. “Lincoln, can you…? After we…after we, um…”
“After we what, little fairy?” He reels me back in over his shoulder, drawing me down the front of his body and settling my legs around his waist. “What’s on your mind?”
I close my eyes and blurt the question in my head. “I was wondering if you would hug me again after we make love?”
Regret collides with shock in his expression. “Ah, Nova, my angel,” he says thickly. “I’ll hug you any time you want.”
“Really?”
He pulls my head into the crook of his neck and bands his strong arms around me, the sheer force of his protection and love making me moan, my eyes filling with tears. “You’re my miracle. Do you understand that? I’ve been walking around like an empty shell and then you come out of the sky, like sunshine after a never-ending storm. You fill me up. Repair me by simply existing. I’m sorry you went a single second without what you needed from me. You’ll get anything you want or need for the rest of your life. It’ll be my privilege to give it to you.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, laying kisses on the strong column. “Lincoln,” I murmur, rubbing the tips of my breasts in his chest hair. “Lincoln.”
“My Nova,” he rasps, dropping his hands to massage the cheeks of my bottom. His touch is arousing, but his amber eyes are concerned. “How did you go so long without love when you have two sisters? What happened to your parents?”
I cling to him tighter, burying my face in his throat. “They passed away in a car crash. I was little and they were coming to pick me up from dance class. My sisters…they have every right to h-hate me—”
“What?” His body stiffens against mine. “Nova, no. That is bullshit. Have they really made you believe an accident was your fault?”
Emotion is clogged so tight in my throat, all I can do is lift my shoulders and drop them.
“You are not to blame. You were an innocent child.” We’re storming toward the house now, Lincoln’s feet leaving the grassy hillside and eating up the stone path. “I’ll never forgive myself for not getting here sooner. You’ve needed me, goddammit.”
“You’ve needed me, too,” I whisper.
“More than you’ll ever know.” We enter the house through the glass side door and Lincoln settles me on the dining room table, his hips pressing in tight to the apex of my thighs, leaving no doubt of his arousal. “I’ll hold you until the end of time if that’s what you need. I’ll keep my arms around you at all times. I’ll—”
A cell phone, fax machine and computer all begin dinging
at the same moment.
Lincoln drops his forehead onto my shoulder and I laugh. “I’m all sticky from the coconut juice. Go take care of your work and I’ll meet you—”
“In our bed, Nova,” he says, kissing my forehead. “I’m going to cancel all my calls and put an out of office reply on my email. Then I’m going to drown in you and not come up for air until I’m good and goddamn ready.”
“It’s a plan,” I whisper, my heart fluttering in my throat. Lincoln seems torn over leaving me, so I do him the favor of hopping off the table, giving him a nudge toward the office. “Take your time. I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”
“I must be the luckiest bastard alive,” he mutters, backing away from me with heat in his eyes, my nakedness reflecting back at me. “I won’t be long, little girl.”
I practically float up the stairs to the bedroom, pirouetting on one toe at the entrance to the bathroom, pondering a soak in the bathtub. But when I see my face staring back at me in the mirror over the sink, I remember. I remember what my plan was in coming here. Dread spikes in my belly as I retreat back into the bedroom, going to my backpack and untucking the cell phone from its front pocket. There are forty text messages from my sisters.
Did you do it yet?
Don’t you dare come back here until you’re knocked up.
Remember Mom and Dad. Remember what you did. You owe us.
We need that money. You’re going to get it for us or else.
The text messages go on and on until I’m sick to my stomach. And not out of guilt toward my family. No, I’m ill because I agreed to this scheme. I let my sisters convince me I’m a bad person. That I am truly at fault for something out of my control. I came here and I…
I deceived the man I love.
The man who loves me.
Although, can he really love me if he doesn’t know I’m a liar? The kind of person who would agree to getting pregnant on purpose? Lincoln trusted me with his secrets, he let me heal him and that trust would be fractured if he knew I’d come here to con him.