by Aria Ford
“When we woke up together this morning,” she goes on, “I planned to get in touch with Parker and end it. I was just trying to figure out what to say to him when I found Jade in Ivy’s room. I wanted to tell him I felt so much more for you than I ever felt for anybody before. I didn’t know if you felt the same way about me, but I could never be Mrs. Parker Lynch—not after what happened between us last night. I don’t ever want to settle for less than that.”
I can’t look at her. My eyes won’t work right, and my heart threatens to shatter in my chest. I hang my head. When I finally make my voice function, the sound comes out as a high-pitched cry from the depths of pain. “I love you, Kira. I never thought anybody could care about me or that I could care about anybody ever again. I don’t want to lose you. I want you to stay here, but I never dared hope you would feel the same way.”
Both her hands close around my cheeks. She murmurs under her breath. “Shh. I do feel the same way. I don’t want to leave you. I’m a part of this now. I always will be.”
I can’t stand this anymore. I collapse into her, and the tears break out on the bedspread. I rest my broken head on her chest and let the pain rush out of me. As much as it hurts, it feels good to shed all the tears I’ve been holding back these long, weary years.
She pets my hair and rubs my neck. She doesn’t try to stop me. She’s just there. She’s always, always there. She’s there like nobody else has ever been. She wants all the nastiness of this situation. She wants to embrace it and be a part of it. That’s the most amazing part of the whole thing.
I can’t stop crying, but I adore her more than ever now. I don’t care if she sees me like this. I want her to. I want her to hold my secrets in her hands. I want to trust her with everything.
I raise my head to face her, and the emotion changes to wild desire. I can’t get enough of her. I need her more than ever, now that I don’t have to hide how I feel from her.
I kiss her with my lips still all wet with tears. I only meant it to be a little kiss, a little signal how I really feel about her, but she changes it into something so much more than that. She welcomes my kiss with her mouth open, and I fall into the magical brew of her tongue and lips and saliva.
Her arms wrap around my neck, and she draws me down on top of her. She kisses me stronger than I ever dared kiss her. I don’t want to hurt her again in her weakened state, but her energy rises faster than I ever thought possible.
She rolls under the blankets where I embrace her. She breathes into my nose, and her luscious tongue tickles my mind. That tongue laps its silky warmth down my body to my crotch. I need her so bad. Does she know what she does to me?
Her breath smells sweet and flowery. Her cheeks flush red from her pulsing blood, and her lips flash over my mouth. She squeezes my neck and caresses my hair off my forehead. She wipes the tears off my cheeks.
I only want to hold her and kiss her. That would be enough after the day we’ve had, but when I stretch out on the bed next to her, she seethes under the covers to roll her body against me. Her breasts speak to me through the fabrics, and her hips bump up into my thighs. She must feel how hard I am through all those layers.
She probably doesn’t want to do it again after getting punched in the face, and I don’t want to push it. To my amazement, she pushes me off her and throws back the covers. “Come on. Get in here.”
I exist at her command, so I climb into bed with her. Her body closes around me, and I slot into my place in her arms. She’s warm and soft and inviting under the covers, and she turns to face me. She encloses me in her delicious embrace, and we get back to the serious business of kissing.
She slides her legs into mine. One knee slithers between my thighs, and the other closes around my hip. She grinds down on my leg and rubs her mound up against my pelvis. Jesus, she wants it. She’s not so hurt she can’t want it.
I answer that leg with all the pressure she can handle, and she whines into my mouth. I pull back to get a look at her face, and her eyes smolder with passionate lust. Yes, she definitely wants this, and who am I to argue with a woman in the throes of passion?
I attack her with rapid fire kisses, and she’s right there to take each loving bullet. I slip my hands under the covers to find her heavenly body. Her breasts press into my hands, and I grope through her shirt to discover the little taut nubs of her nipples inside her bra. She tosses and writhes when I pinch her.
She’s so good, but I don’t want to rip her clothes off in a frenzy the way we did last night. I want to take my time with her and enjoy every minute of her company. I ease her back, and her crotch slides down my thigh when she lies flat.
I study her molten eyes while I unbutton her shirt. She doesn’t try to stop me. She breathes under my hands, and her lips fall open when I slip my hands inside. I dig under her bra, and those small tight pricks fit between my fingers like they were made for me.
She never takes her eyes off my face when I unfasten her bra. I lose sight of her when I bend down to take her breast in my mouth. She relaxes back on the pillow and embraces my head against her chest. I’m a starving man dying in the desert, and I take nourishment from her breast. Already her delirious energy fills me to the breaking point with life force. I’ll take it and turn it around to conquer the world.
I push her shirt and bra away and kiss down her stomach to her jeans. My kisses follow her zipper down, and her verdant jungle of hair opens before me when I take off her pants and shoes and socks and panties.
Once I get her naked, I lean back to take in the magnificent sight. She's so beautiful, lying there ready and waiting for me. All I have to do is make the first move. I can take her whenever I want, but I'm in no rush. She's mine.
Out of nowhere, her delicate fingers trail down my neck to my chest. She strokes me through my shirt until she finds her way to my buttons. She looks up at me with a question in her eyes, but I would never stop her undressing me whenever she pleases. I'm all hers the way she's all mine.
She flips one button undone, then another. Her fingers excite me more than anything. She peels away the layers. She'll find me underneath. I'm raw and sensitive to her touch. Every brush of her fingertip against my skin sends me into a ferment of twitching energy. I want her, but I don't want this moment to ever end. I want to keep lying here, exposed and vulnerable to her.
Her hand creeps under my shirt, and I can't keep eye contact with her anymore. I have to hide from the sheer raw power of her love. I turn my head aside and rest my face on my folded elbow. I close my eyes, but I can't stop the shuddering breaths ripping through me.
She doesn't stop touching me. She drags her hand over my nipples and down to my stomach. She tears me apart with that maddening touch. I convulse and groan. She knows exactly what she's doing to me, and she won't stop.
I want to hide in her from this excruciating love. It hurts and thrills me all at the same time. It tortures me and fulfills me all at once.
She bends forward and takes a mouthful of my chest. she leaves little love bites down my sternum to my stomach. I can't bear this. I take a fistful of her hair, but I can't stop her diving down to my navel.
She kisses under my waistband while she unbuckles my belt. I'm so hard and tight under my pants, my prick already sticks out above my fly. She touches me there when she yanks the belt tongue out of the buckle. Holy Christ, she drives me crazy.
She draws my shirt off to bare my chest. She pulls my pants down, and they vanish out of my life. Now I'm naked in bed with her, and her alabaster skin closes around me. Her breasts crush into my chest, and her thighs slip between my legs. She rubs her moist pussy against my leg, and her thigh nudges my balls where my hard prick sticks straight up at her.
I fold her in my arms, and the dream becomes complete. She's alive and breathing and wet, and she wants me inside her. She wants me to occupy her, to consume her and complete her the way she completes me.
I kiss along her shoulder to her ear and around to her mouth once again. S
he's ready for me, and when I kiss her, she bursts into wild rumblings deep within her. Her desire hits me like a ton of bricks. What man would ever be enough for her ravenous appetite?
The longer she grinds on my leg, the wetter she gets. She moves over to touch my prick with her dripping slit, and she weaves around until she works me between her legs. Her heat shoots down my shaft into my guts. She wants me, and I'm going insane from hunger for her.
She weasels around until she tilts my cock between her saturated folds. I can't handle the mounting pressure in my cock. I'll explode in a second. My hand closes around her choice ass, and I press into her.
She ripples in my hands and whispers in my ears. "Yes! Yes! Oh, yes!"
That voice blows my mind apart. I have to. I don't care if this is the last time I ever touch her. I have to do this.
She bites down on my earlobe, but the job of getting inside her consumes me. I steer her hips into position, but our two legs lying flat underneath us doesn't make it easy. I worm between her legs, and her wetness lubricates my penetration into her burning fissure.
She tenses to the breaking point. Her inner muscles clench down to keep me out, but I punch through to the blessed sweetness inside. She cries out into my ear. I'm in. She wrestles my shoulders in her fury, but I can't think. I'm stroking in and out of her. Her juices cream over me. I'm in heaven.
She softens into my rhythm until she matches it. She leaps onto my shaft, and she twists her hips around to work my cock inside her. Oh, yeah, that's so good. I never want to be anywhere else but deep in her tasty pussy.
I work against gravity to get as far into her as I can get, but she helps me as best she can. She hitches up her hip and screws her pussy down along my shaft. She gives a little grinding twist at the bottom to wind me in as far as I will go. She quickens her speed to ride me.
Her forehead falls on my shoulder, and I hug her close. I want to protect her, to fill her with joy. I would never hurt her. I love her beyond measure. I want to love her forever, if she'll only let me.
She mews and whines louder. She lets out a plaintive cry every time I pump into her. Her pussy feels so good I want to blow at every thrust, but I hold myself back. I have to take her to the stars first. Then and only then can I satisfy myself.
She bites my neck and sobs into my ear. She's all over me faster than I can think. She mangles my mouth in ravenous kisses. I hear the groans coming out of my mouth. I sound injured, but I never felt stronger and more alive than at that moment.
All of a sudden, her cries change to piercing shrieks. She gushes her slippery syrup all down my shaft. It squishes into my hair and drips off my nuts. She thrashes in wild contortions that threaten to rip her out of my arms.
I flex my muscles to keep hold of her. I strap both arms around her waist to keep her moving against me. She quivers all over in the throes of massive orgasm. My efforts tip me over backward and I heave her up on top of me. She straddles me and sits down on my upthrusting cock.
I fly into a mania of thrusting up into her juicy snatch. She folds over me, and her high-pitched screeches whip me faster. She soars into outer space, and I have to catch up with her. I have to get there, where she is.
Something soft and gentle brushes my cheek. I open my eyes and find her breast sticking in my face. I take the nipple in my teeth and suck as hard as I can. My mind and heart and soul disintegrates in a foaming ocean of frothy delight. She slithers down over my cock, and our nectar mingles in a cosmic cocktail of love and delight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kira
I wake up to sunlight eeking between the curtains of my bedroom. The house stands still and quiet all around me. I'm naked, and my body tingles with post-coital arousal, but Isaac is nowhere in sight.
I slide my arms under the covers, but I find the bed cold where he used to be. The clean sheets excite me even more. I want him here. The bed smells of him, and I close my eyes and inhale that scent into my blood.
I turn over on my other side and gaze at the curtains blocking the light from outside. I don't hear any sound from Ivy's bedroom next door, either. I must be alone for the first time since coming to this house.
I lie there thinking things over. This is the second time I spent the night with Isaac, and this time means a lot more than last time. He loves me and I love him. We want to be together.
What would it be like to call this big house my home—not as a servant, but as Isaac's partner? What would it be like to raise Ivy together, to take care of her while Isaac goes to work, to take on Jade and all her madness as a team?
Isaac wants that, and I want it, too, so what is there to think about? Why can't I settle into being happy about that? When I roll over to look around, my head aches, and that answers the question. All the horrible events of yesterday flood back.
Isaac got into a fight with Parker over me. Isaac tried to hit Jade and punched me instead. I can't accept Isaac's love or a place in this house as long as Parker hangs around the perphery of my life. He told Isaac I would want to stay here instead of going home with him. Why would he say that if he din't already understand what was going on?
Isaac blurted out that we got involved with each other. I cringe when I remember the look on Parker’s face when he realized what was going on, but I can't change that now. I wanted to tell him the truth before Jade showed up and spoiled everything. There's only one thing left for me to do, and that's face him now.
My head weighs heavy on the pillow, though. I don't want to get up. I want to go back to sleep. I lie there staring at the curtains so long, I must have fallen asleep anyway. Sticky glue holds my eyelids together, and I can't lift my head.
Every time I wake up, I think of Parker. I never wanted to hurt him. I love him as much as ever, though not the way I love Isaac. I have to talk to him, to beg him to forgive me, but instead I fall asleep again.
When my eyes snap open one more time, I don't give myself another chance to pass out again. I heave myself upright and set my feet on the floor. I run my fingers through my hair, and that's when I see the note on the table. I don't recognize the handwriting.
Don't get up today, Princess. Stay in bed and rest. Give your head a break. I'm taking Ivy into town for the day, so you don't have anything to do but lie in bed and recover. We'll be back later. I love you so much. XOX Isaac.
He scrawls out his name strong and clear at the end. His love flows through that note to me, and I want to fold him in my arms again. I can't do that now, though. I have a job to do, and my head doesn't hurt enough to stop me.
I slip into my pants and shirt and shoes. The house sounds strange with no one in it. I pad along the landing to the stairs. Ivy’s not in her room, and Jade’s not coming over any time soon. The servants keep to themselves.
I let myself out of the house and hurry down the path to the city street waiting beyond the estate. I’m in my element now, and I drop down the stairs to the subway. Even the train crowded with people seems ghostly and still. The whole city exists somewhere far removed from me. No one notices me pass by. I sit alone in a corner of the train. I might as well not exist at all.
If I don’t belong in this city, where do I belong? I don’t belong with Parker, and I don’t belong on my own out here. I belong back at Isaac’s house. In a few short days, my whole life changed.
I get off at the right stop and head for the old neighborhood. It’s Saturday. That’s why Isaac had the day off to take Ivy out. Parker won’t be working, either. I turn around my old building. The neighborhood goes on without me in it.
I make my way to Parker’s apartment building and ring the bell by the front door. His face appears on the screen, and I stand in front of the camera. “Hello, Parker.”
He doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t frown, either. He just looks at me and unlocks the door. A second later, the screen goes dead and I enter the familiar foyer. I ride the elevator to his floor and knock. He opens the door and lets me in.
He wears a T-shirt and
his khaki casuals. He walks around his apartment in his Birkenstocks. I might be the only person alive who knows him like this. He presents such a clean, professional exterior to the world. Nobody sees him in his private persona.
He walks away from me to the kitchen, where he’s busy putting frozen berries and blobs of yogurt into his blender. He glugs in a can of coconut milk and turns it on. It churns and grinds until it comes to a stop.
He glances up at me. “Do you want some?”
“No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
“How’s your head?”
I nod. “It hurts, but I’m okay.”
He pours his smoothie into a glass and takes a drink. I don’t want to stand around making chit-chat with him. I want to get this elephant out into the open where we can talk about it.
“I’m really sorry about yesterday, Parker. I never wanted you to get blindsided like that. I wanted to tell you in person, but I never got a chance with Jade showing up and everything.”
He holds up his hand and closes his eyes. “You don’t have to explain. You’re a big girl. You can make your own decisions.”
“I never meant for this to happen. I never wanted you to get hurt.”
He looks me straight in the eye. “I’m not hurt. It’s you that got hurt, Kira. I’m just worried you’ll keep getting hurt if you go on the way you are.”
“I won’t get hurt. It was a fluke.”
“I thought you didn’t even like this guy. You told me all about he almost took his ex’s head off with a poker, and how you wanted to leave the minute you got to his front door. Now you’re…. doing God knows what with him.”
“I love him.”
I slap my hand over my mouth, but I can’t push those words back inside. I wanted them out, and now they are.
He shows no sign of surprise. He regards me with his steady eyes. That guy could weather any hurricane. There’s no one on the planet I would rather have at my back in an emergency.
He only nods. “You must love him a lot to put up with his crap.”