by J. S. Scott
His tongue moved over her clit a little harder, a little faster, making her even more frenzied. She came apart just when she was certain she was going to lose her mind, her body rocking with the force of her climax.
“Kade.” She gasped his name as she fisted his hair, letting Kade own her body during those moments, his tongue still moving over her clit, his mouth savoring every drop of her explosive orgasm.
She was still quivering when Kade crawled up her body. Both of them were slick with sweat, but she suspected most of it was hers. Dear God…she’d never felt anything like what Kade had just done to her. Her heart was still racing, pounding in her throat, making her unable to speak. Kade’s eyes were turbulent and fierce as he looked down at her with male satisfaction. “You’re beautiful,” he said in a husky, awed voice.
“Nobody has ever told me that before,” she admitted in a shaky voice. “No one has ever made me feel the way you do. You actually make me believe that.”
“Well, believe it. You’re fucking perfect. And your body responds to mine like it was made for me,” he said possessively, threading her hair through his fingers. “And just for the record…I’ve never felt like this either,” he added emphatically, his eyes devouring her, making her even more hungry for his possession.
Asha wanted him inside her at that very moment more than she wanted her next breath. Opening her mouth to speak, all she could manage to say was, “Fuck me, Kade. Please.” Those words had never left her mouth before, but it was so easy to say to Kade when she saw the desire burning in his eyes. He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her, and she wanted him to know that she already did.
“If I fuck you, you’re mine. I don’t know if I can ever let you go,” he rasped. “I’m not sure I can anyway.”
Asha’s heart was thundering as she stroked her hands down his arms, feeling the leashed power and tension in his body. “I have so far to go, Kade. There’s so much I have to do to find myself.” She wanted to tell him right then and there that she was his forever, that she’d never feel this way about any other man. Although she knew how she felt about him, he didn’t deserve a woman who was broken. “I’m still damaged.”
“So am I,” he answered honestly, his look determined. “But I don’t give a fuck. We’ll heal each other. I’ll give you everything you need to be whole again. You belong with me.”
Asha ached to believe him, her yearning for him soul deep. Stifling all the words she wanted to say, she answered, “Then take me. Please.”
“I don’t have condoms. I haven’t been with a woman in years and I’m clean. And I don’t plan to be with any other woman again,” he said, his words a declaration.
“I’m barren. I’m safe. And I trust you,” she panted, her body begging for his possession.
“You’re not barren. I hate that expression, and it doesn’t apply to you,” Kade rasped, his cock rubbing against her folds as he thrust his hips forward. “You might be unable to have a child, but your body is my idea of paradise.”
Asha gasped in shock and pleasure as Kade grasped her hips and entered her in one smooth stroke. He was built big, and he filled her to capacity, stretching internal muscles she hadn’t realized she had.
“Fuck! You feel so damned incredible.” He groaned, a sound of pure ecstasy. “Wrap your legs around my waist. Take everything you want from me. Whatever you need. Take your pleasure from me.”
Asha complied, wanting to tell him that she already had everything she wanted. With Kade buried deep inside her, joined to her, she didn’t think she could burn any hotter. Every nerve in her body was alive and electric as his cock entered and retreated, claiming her as no man ever had.
I love you. I love you.
She couldn’t say the words out loud, but they were pounding through her head, matching the pummeling thrusts of his cock, making her frantic to climax. Every emotion was on overload, and she wrapped her legs tighter around him, her arms cinched around his broad shoulders. Whimpering with need, her short fingernails dug into his back, the pleasure so acute that she couldn’t bear it. “Please. I need—”
“You need me to make you come,” Kade told her, his voice harsh with need. “Only me. Tell me that’s what you want.”
“Yes. Yes. I need you. Just you,” she answered emphatically. “Now do it,” she demanded. “I can’t take anymore.”
“You can take it. You can take me.” Kade rolled, his cock deep inside her, until she was sprawled on top of him. He took her hands and helped her sit up, keeping their fingers entwined. “Ride me,” he said, his jaw tight, teeth clenched. It was a command, not a request.
Asha squirmed on top of him. “How?” This was new, something she’d never done before, and it was both frightening and powerful at the same time.
“Fuck me. Take me inside of you and ride my cock,” he growled. “Hard and deep.”
The look on his face was anguished, aroused, and completely intoxicating. Asha’s female instincts kicked in, watching his expression as she moved sensuously on his cock. The angle was different and he went deep as she sunk down onto him, rolling her hips as she plunged. She moaned as the walls of her channel stretched and contracted, as though they were hungry to swallow him deep inside her. The pleasure of having Kade this immersed inside her was earth-shattering and incredible, and Asha could feel the erotic pleasure course through her as she kept pulling back and taking him back inside her, over and over again. She squeezed Kade’s fingers tightly, her body strung as tightly as a bow. “Oh God, I can’t stand it,” Asha cried, her body so tense, every nerve pulsating, until she wanted to scream with pleasure as she increased the speed of her thrusts.
Kade let go of her hands and reached for her breasts, pinching them lightly, making her feel the vibrating pleasure clear to her toes. Taking her hands again, he placed her hands over her nipples. “Touch them. Whatever feels good,” he demanded.
Too close to climax to even think of feeling embarrassed, Asha took over working her breasts, pinching her nipples lightly, moaning her pleasure as Kade grasped her hips and took control. Holding her steady, he thrust up into her with powerful surges, groaning beneath her as he filled her over and over. “Jesus, you’re so hot and tight that I never want to come.” Kade panted harshly, the look on his face one of pure male erotic ecstasy.
Kade changed his position slightly, stimulating her clit with every stroke of his cock. His eyes were smoldering blue as he watched her touching herself as she whimpered and moaned her pleasure. “Christ! I can’t last much longer.” His plunges became deeper, harder, the stimulation to her clit more forceful. He moved one hand from her hip and pushed it close to the spot where they were joined, his thumb joining the friction of his cock, the stimulation to her clit so exquisite that Asha cried out. “Kade!”
Asha imploded, screaming Kade’s name and digging her short nails deeply into his shoulders as she rode the waves of her climax, the pulsations going on for what seemed like forever. She milked Kade’s cock with her contractions, and he let out a rapturous groan and pulled her mouth down roughly to his in a kiss that left her breathless, spilling his warm release deep inside her.
Their bodies still connected, Asha sprawled on top of his heaving chest, her body a completely mindless heap of quivering flesh.
“I’ve never—that was—” Asha stammered, trying to put into words the way she was feeling…and failing. “I didn’t know it could be like that,” she ended up saying breathlessly.
“It’s never happened like that for me either, baby,” Kade answered, his voice husky and raw.
Kade stroked her back, both of them trying to recover their breath. Words were inadequate, and Asha gave up trying to verbalize her tangled emotions. She just lay there quietly with Kade, savoring the afterglow of an experience so incredible that it had shattered her world. After she could breathe again, she said teasingly, “I’ve watched you do a lot mor
e cardio and never break a sweat.”
“It’s you,” Kade answered mischievously. “Your incredible body nearly gives me a heart attack. You’ll play hell with my ego. I pride myself on stamina, but what just happened goes beyond physical strength.”
Asha actually giggled; the thought of any man lusting after her body so intensely was almost inconceivable to her. But Kade obviously did. The same way she lusted after him. What had just happened, they had experienced together. She was sure of it. “I guess you’ll have to work at improving,” she told him, still slightly breathless.
Kade brought his hand down on her backside with a playful whack. “You’re getting awfully cheeky and bossy. Now you’re really bruising my ego. Do I need improvement?”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “No. What just happened was the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt in my life. It was perfect,” she told him honestly.
All trace of humor gone, he answered, “Ditto, sweetheart.” He pushed the hair back from her face and kissed her sweetly, slowly, like he had all the time in the world and it was the most important thing he had to do.
Asha kissed him back, knowing her life had just changed irrevocably, and she’d never be the same.
Later that night, she redid her henna tattoo, and her butterfly emerged just a little more.
“I want you to help me locate Asha’s ex-husband and her foster parents,” Kade said with a deadly calm, looking from one man to the others sitting in his living room on Thanksgiving Day. He was hosting at his home. The women had kicked them all out of the kitchen today and given them clean-up duty, and Max, Sam, Simon, and Travis all looked at him, perplexed.
“Why?” Max asked curiously, taking a slug of the beer in his hand and giving Kade a confused look. “I thought she didn’t have anything to do with any of them anymore.”
Kade shuddered, the emotions he was trying to hold in check beating at him to let them come to the surface. Briefly, he tried to explain some of the abuse Asha had suffered, the men sitting around him listening intently. Kade took a long swallow of his beer before he finished, “I’ve seen the scars on her body, and I remember the doctor mentioned that he saw what looked like old rib fractures on her chest x-ray when she had pneumonia. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, thinking maybe she’d had an accident and they’d healed. But now, I’m thinking they weren’t caused by a damn accident.” Just thinking about Asha’s ex-husband beating her hard enough to break her ribs and leaving some of the scars he’d seen on her gorgeous body made him clench his fist around the bottle of beer in his hand. For a minute, he wondered if it might shatter.
“I’ll help you,” Max answered dangerously. “And I’m not even going to ask how you saw scars on her body.”
“Kill the bastard,” Simon grunted.
“I’m in,” Sam said, his voice low and threatening.
“Not happening,” Travis contradicted casually.
Four sets of angry male eyes shifted in his direction.
“What the fuck? I’d have thought you’d be the last one to have any qualms about this!” Kade slammed his empty beer on the coffee table, not giving a damn if it left a mark.
Travis shrugged, looking relaxed and in complete control of himself sitting in Kade’s recliner. “I don’t. He deserves to die for what he did to Asha. But you aren’t doing this for Asha; you’re doing it for yourself. Granted, I don’t know her well, but she doesn’t appear to be the type of woman who wants her brother, brother-in-law, and his friends to go to jail for murder.” Travis heaved a beleaguered, masculine sigh. “He can be destroyed in other ways, pay for what he’s done to her.”
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kade wasn’t sure much would placate his protective madness except death to the man who had beaten Asha nearly to death…more than once. Burying his head in his hands, he groaned, “I don’t think I can be satisfied with anything else. Just the fact that he beat her hard enough to probably leave her close to death makes me insane.”
“Me either,” Max rasped.
“He needs to be wiped off the earth,” Simon commented gruffly.
“Agreed,” Sam echoed adamantly.
“For Christ’s sake...I’m surrounded by some of the most brilliant, richest men in America, and you’re all acting like idiots. Put your emotions aside and think with your heads,” Travis said harshly. “You all have too damn much to lose to do anything else. You have kids or children on the way, women you care about.”
“I can’t just leave it,” Kade replied, his voice hostile. “Yeah, I’m thinking of Asha, but he might kill the next woman he gets involved with.”
A rumble of agreement echoed through the room.
“I’m not suggesting that you leave it. I’m suggesting that you put your emotions aside and use your head,” Travis drawled. “The last thing Asha needs is more chaos and guilt in her life.”
A pang of remorse stabbed at Kade’s conscience. He knew Travis was right, but he couldn’t seem to control his need to seek some kind of justice for Asha, one that involved severe pain and suffering to her ex-husband.
It had only been a few days since Asha had given him her body for the first time and rocked his world, but they’d made up for lost time by touching each other every chance they had. He couldn’t seem to not touch her when she was anywhere near him. In fact, the urge to get up and go to the kitchen just to see her, make sure she was okay, was almost irresistible.
“I suppose you have a plan,” Max said slowly, glaring at Travis.
Travis shot a superior look back at Max. “I generally do,” he answered arrogantly. “I happen to use the head above my waist when it comes to women, unlike the rest of you.”
“Not always,” Kade reminded him hotly. “Not when it comes to Mia.” Other than Travis, only Max would understand his statement because he was the only other one who knew that Travis was more than willing to kill when it came to Mia’s safety.
“Unfortunate accident,” Travis answered nonchalantly. “And Mia’s safety was threatened.”
Simon and Sam looked on, confused, but didn’t comment.
Unfortunate accident, my ass. Kade had no doubt Travis had known exactly what he was doing when the man stalking Mia just happened to have his “unfortunate accident” that left him conveniently dead, never to bother their sister ever again. “I’m listening. But no guarantee that I still won’t kill the bastard,” Kade said sharply, his guts still telling him he needed to hurt the one who had hurt Asha.
Max folded his arms and pierced Travis with a stubborn look. “Let’s hear it.”
Sam and Simon grumbled, but agreed to hear Travis out.
With a satisfied smile, Travis began to talk.
Asha replaced the security phone by the door on its cradle and hugged baby Ginny a little tighter. Ginny Helen Hudson was sleeping peacefully in her arms. She loved the smell and feel of the infant, the trust the tiny being had given her by falling asleep while Asha had rocked her. Named after both of her grandmothers, Asha thought she was the most adorable infant she’d ever seen.
“Why would someone want to talk to me?” she muttered to the sleeping infant as though the baby would answer her. “I don’t even know anyone here.”
Turning away from the door, she walked back into the living room where the women were taking up residence while the guys were on cleaning duty after they had all indulged greedily of the Thanksgiving dinner. Fighting down the instinct to go to the kitchen and help because she was still uncomfortable with the idea of men in the kitchen, she reluctantly handed baby Ginny back to Kara with a frown. “Some lady wants to talk to me. A doctor. Kade’s security agent said he checked her ID and she was legitimate. Apparently she knew my father and wants to give me something that belonged to him.”
“What are you going to do?” Mia asked, her voice concerned.
Asha shrugged nervously. “I told him t
o let her come up to the house. She’s alone. I can’t let her leave if she’s claiming to know my real father. I know so little about him. If she does know him, she can fill in some information, tell me more about him and maybe my mother.”
“She could be a reporter in disguise,” Maddie retorted, her voice sounding disgusted.
“Or just curious. There was enough coverage in the gossip rags about your discovery,” Kara murmured as she repositioned the sleeping baby Ginny back in her lap.
The doorbell rang, and Asha flinched nervously. Had the woman really known her real father? And if she had known her father, she probably knew her mother, too. Why, after all these years, would she come here?
“I’ll get it,” Mia said hastily and jumped up from her seat on the couch to jog for the door.
Asha knew she could have answered the door herself, but confusion kept her feet planted on the carpet, the other three women looking at her anxiously.
Mia returned moments later, followed by an older Indian woman. The woman was dressed with casual elegance in a trendy pantsuit of muted fall colors, her hair gathered in a loose knot on the top of her head. Her age was hard to judge, but Asha could see some gray hairs peeking out of coal black tresses.
She stopped in front of Asha, her smile warm and comforting. “Namaste,” Asha welcomed her softly in Hindi, India’s national language. She wasn’t certain exactly what to say to the woman, and not sure whether or not she even spoke Telugu.
Smiling wider, the woman echoed, “Namaste.” She paused briefly before continuing in English. “You look very much like Navin and are as beautiful as Alice.” She gently cupped Asha’s cheek before dropping her hand and adding, “I knew you’d grow up beautiful even when you were a baby. You stole everyone’s heart.”