Change

by Willow, Jevenna

  “Near perfection,” he muttered, moving closer.

  Sara held him at bay until he fully undressed as well. Her right hand settled against his chest, directly on his heart, as she reached down with her left hand and slid down the zipper of his jeans to its full end—this action as slow as humanly possible under the circumstance; pure torture to a man with a tremendous hard-on.

  He grabbed her splayed hand against his chest and pulled it to his mouth. As she used her other to slip under the material beneath his jeans and cup his manhood into her palm, Casey sucked on each of her fingers individually, trapping her sight to his.

  Just the simple action of his tongue against her fingers and Sara was more than ready for the size of him; the heavy weight of a man’s hardened shaft cupped into her warm palm and her core throbbing, begging him on.

  She’d always be ready for this man, no matter the enormous size. Hadn’t she told him this once before? A lifetime ago.

  He dropped her hand the second she started to drag a lone fingernail over and under the length of his sack. Mr. Griffen, in fact, had to clear his throat to speak.

  “Let me get out of my jeans, first.” His voice was tight, raspy. Music made to her ears.

  “You have two seconds.”

  Sara then dragged the sharpened appendage over and under him again.

  Casey used only a half second to waste undressing. He backed up, dropped his jeans to the floor and kicked the material aside. The dark blue, skintight briefs followed. He removed his T-shirt over his head, which followed his other garments to the carpeted floor.

  Sara lowered her eyes and physically stared at his massive size. Perhaps she’d misjudged her body as being ready for so much heat. However, it was far too late to vocalize any qualms about it. Casey had moved up to her. The tip of his pulsing cock pressed firmly into the juncture of her closed legs.

  His hands moved swiftly to her bared breasts. A slow exquisite knead of her flesh within his palm caused Sara’s head to tilt back, and made the way for his mouth to discover her neck.

  They would fit together perfectly—if done right. Hadn’t she always known this? Hadn’t she always wanted this from him—and only him?

  His merciless mouth worked its magic down the length of her skin, over the staccato pulse in her throat, across her bared shoulder and down to her breast. There, he found a taut nipple more than willing to be conquered. As he dragged his tongue over the rosy crest, over its center connected directly to her heat, Sara moaned.

  Sex with men had always been intense, hot and wet, and more than satisfying in many, many ways. This was going to be far different from just sex. This was going to be a physical coupling with someone who actually cared about her, and who would care if her pleasure came before his.

  While her mind was set to this thought, Casey had taken his hand, slid it down the side of her torso, rounded it to her front, and cupped her into his palm. Seconds later, he shoved two colder than expected fingers deep inside her moistened core. The flow of her silken honey made the path easy.

  A slow and steady pressure back and forth with his fingers caused Sara’s groan to come out as loud. He was killing her with need—and looked damn proud of it too, as her eyes raised and she saw desire beyond the mortal realm of sanity mirrored back at her.

  His fingers slid out slow and easy.

  Sara watched as Casey then raised them to her breasts and he dragged both over her taut nipples. Her flesh now glistened with her own juices. A hasty bending of his head, his tongue quickly removed the moisture.

  Yes, oh yes. Exquisite torture, exquisite ecstasy, and exquisite reality of what was coming drew her thoughts to the here and now.

  Casey licked his lips and smiled. “The bed, Sara?”

  A slow nod and the word, “Bed,” answered the man.

  She wouldn’t have been able to say much else, because there wasn’t one inch of her body that could forget it was touched by a Master.

  He took her by the hand and moved her to his massive bed located dead center of room. The last time she’d been on his bed, fear had frozen her there. Fear of the dark and the unknown had kept her mouth shut…and that fear forced her disappearance six months prior.

  Sara did not fear Casey’s bed anymore—or him.

  As she lay out on her back, he moved on top of her, straddling her hips. His hand dragged across her side. His other found the side of her face. His gaze trapped hers as the words she so desperately needed to hear, came out of his mouth.

  “I want you so bad, it hurts. But I am trying to go slow at this, and the longer we take, that trying is falling hurriedly to the wayside, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t want you to go slow. I want you…now,” she told him, boldly and without moral restraint.

  Casey moaned and closed his eyes. The sound coming from the back of his throat was almost foreign to the ears. He seemed to be in terrible pain by words alone. Heavenly acts, and the making of just one more would relieve any mortal sin inside both, soon enough.

  “I know you don’t want this to be slow,” he rasped out, “But believe me…you will have wished for it, once I enter you.”

  Men always thought themselves larger than they were, but in Casey’s case, Sara already knew how large he’d be. Positively massive.

  “I’m ready,” she admitted.

  “I know you are, Sweetheart.” Casey smiled. “But you might not be ready for all of my size.”

  “I am more than ready,” she repeated. And she was. Truly, she was more than ready to take Casey inside her body, melt into him, and find everything she’d ever been looking for.

  If not now, then when would there be another chance for Sara to find her everything?

  If not here, then where?

  If not with him, then she did not want to know with whom.

  She put her hands to his shoulders and dug her nails into his skin. Those hands then slid up the sides of his neck, captured his face, and pulled his lips to her mouth.

  The incentive she made had Casey’s thoughts moving onto the path of her guidance, his pants caressing her face.

  Their kiss became long. So long, Sara never felt the weight of his knee push her legs apart. She never felt the guided tip of his shaft pushed gently into her core. She’d been in another world—a realm of the real, not of the make-believe.

  But this was so surreal it took her breath away. It made her heart skip beats. It made Sara want Casey more than anything wanted before in life.

  He pushed his hips into her, pushing his pulsating cock deeper into her core. She accepted the width and length of his shaft easily enough. The pressure built, the heat escalated out of control, the sense of reality started to drift away from her grasp.

  A hasty kiss to her mouth brought most of that reality back—not all.

  Sara raised her hips to meet each hard thrust. She dug her nails into his shoulder, slid her hands down his sides, and firmly grabbed his muscled ass to hold him tight. The harder he pumped into her, the deeper her nails dug into his skin, muscle, and near bone.

  This man knew what he was doing and how to do it to please her. That was a given. Sara was more than pleased. She was in awe.

  She started to rise to the precipice. Inadvertently, she called out his name. Her head pushed back into his pillow, and his mouth found her bared throat, where another kiss was then placed, and then another…

  One harder, more penetrating thrust by his hips was made to push her over the edge.

  Casey’s name was a hard scream out of the back of her throat, as she came over his swollen shaft, her inner muscles working against his inner strength. Another climax and the ultimate free-fall back to earth left her breathless.

  In only a matter of seconds, he’d spent himself. Casey fell limp, directly on top of her. With a raise of the head and his gaze trapped into hers, he growled at her face.

  Deep, penetrating eyes caused a sudden knee jerk reaction inside of Sara she could no longer ignore. She grabbed onto his bac
k and held his body to her, only to force the fury from his thoughts. But Casey was much stronger. He easily pulled from her grasp, rolled onto his back, and threw his arm over his forehead.

  He turned to stare at her face. He looked angry; angrier than she’d ever seen any man look before. With tightened vocal chords, he declared, “Do you know what we just did?”

  Sara’s eyes widened. Was this a trick question? Of course, she knew what they did. This man made love to her.

  She would not guess at what the required answer should be, however. He had to tell her.

  “What did we just do?” she asked timidly.

  “Unless you’re protected, because I sure as hell was not, I may have gotten you pregnant, Sweetheart. Your body’s response is telling me it would be the perfect time.”

  Sara’s sigh came out. She took a deep breath over that release of air, only to dissipate it from her thoughts. “Um…no, I’m not,” she admitted. After all, why lie? Saying she was, when she wasn’t, would serve no purpose to either him or her.

  Casey’s groan was loud as much as the word following it. “Christ!”

  Sara pushed her body up by her elbows to look down at his face. “Let me remind you, in case you have forgotten…I am not the one who tossed me into your car. I’m not the one who told me you wanted me so badly, that it hurt. I am not…,” she tried to get out.

  Casey stopped these words by grabbing the back of her neck and pulling her face to his. His hard mouth locked onto hers like a heat-seeking missile sent into deep, dangerous waters. Seconds before his lips had found hers he’d smiled.

  “I didn’t say it was a bad thing. I only said I might have gotten you pregnant.”

  “You mean…”

  His grin widened. “I mean…if it happens it wouldn’t be the end of the world, Sara.”

  “You can say this now, while smiling like a damn Cheshire cat—and likely ready for round two,” she explained. The man’s smile had widened considerably at this hypothesis. “But you won’t think this way if it really happened. I know you,” she reminded him. “You’re a player, in a playboy’s world. A kid would destroy all you’ve worked so hard in gaining.”

  Casey pushed up to one elbow, looking her square in the eyes. His hand moved to her face and he laid gentle fingers alongside her cheek, the touch as slight as a feather brushed against the flesh.

  Sara couldn’t help tipping her head into the warmth of his palm as he responded to the subtle accusation. “You don’t know me at all, Sara. It’s what I have been trying to tell you all along.”

  This dumbfounded her. She stared at his face, unable to make sense of his thoughts. Her head then fell back to the pillow.

  Casey moved quickly, rushed his body over hers again, straddling her hips. He sat atop her, pinning her into the mattress. His silken shaft lay out across her abdomen and was more than ready for round two.

  He looked her in the eyes. “And that is why we have all day and all night, even the rest of our lives, to get to know each other.” When she was about to argue, he furthered it with, “The real us, Sara.”

  “But,” she started producing; a hasty finger set to her lips silenced the remainder.

  “No, Sara. The real you: all of you, all your secrets, all your lies, all your memories, and every second of your pain.”

  Sara closed her eyes.

  Why? Why would he want to know these things? To what purpose would that serve him?

  What heartache would it only give her, in the end?

  A gentle brush of his mouth against hers reopened her lids.

  “I know what I had to be told to understand you, Sara. But I want you to tell me the truth now. It is in you, somewhere. Let it come out, tell me the truth about who the real Sara Rogan is.”

  Sara took a deep breath and held it. She knew she had to make her thoughts into words, but it was so damn hard while he was staring at her.

  “Sara has no truth. She never did. She never will,” she said, allowing the slow tears their freedom.

  In that one brief instant, reality took hold and slammed the door shut to destiny; a destiny that could have been great.

  Sara Rogan was truly nobody. Love did not pull her into one being—as she’d expected it could. Love shoved her apart, creating another…to live out another lie, another being, another to be hurt again—as she knew it had too. She was Sara Nobody, not Sara Somebody.

  Sara Rogan died in a locked closet twenty years ago. The authorities found the body of an unidentified child, when new tenants moved into the apartment six months later, and to their horror discovered the skeletal remains.

  Sara Rogan was not real.

  But what was real? This? Love? Being able to spend stolen moments in the arms of a man you desired? Or simply stealing those moments when they’d never been yours to begin with?

  Reality was only a faked falsehood to whoever needed it most—when needed most.

  Right now, Sara needed whatever would hold her together as a person. As a woman the glue was for her to be loved by a man. A shadow, a ghost of what she once was, she had to let go her past. She’d done what she had, given no other choice.

  Unfortunately, those choices were real and real was only make-believe.

  In Sara’s world, real was the shadow cast from the darkest recesses of one’s tragically altered mind.

  Chapter Twelve

  Forty days later…

  Casey watched Sara close her eyes. She didn’t look as if she was at peace with herself, or with what they’d done. She was staring out the kitchen window, her hands clamped to the counter, a blank expression on her face.

  Yet, neither was he harboring any real peace.

  Dammit! He knew he’d pushed her too far, over the edge, and once falling off that cliff, Sara couldn’t come back to him as he’d expected she would.

  She was now someone else. She told him her name was Beth, that she didn’t know any woman named Sara, and worse…who the hell was he?

  Better yet, why the hell was she naked and in his bed?

  He gotta hand it to her, she had the worse timing imaginable.

  A brittle, fragile being, Casey knew he shouldn’t desire her as much as he was, yet Beth couldn’t go anywhere else, so he’d curbed the desire culminated over the years, at least for the time being. He’d done this to her so now he had to ride it out.

  Casey had to correct his mistake before he lost her completely.

  He loved the real Sara far too much not to correct what he destroyed.

  He set a gentle hand onto her shoulder.

  Sara jumped, turned to face him. “You scared me!” Her wide eyes pulled him into her tangled web.

  “Sorry. I thought you heard me come in.” Casey set down the bag of groceries he’d carried from the garage.

  He wasn’t going to tell her he’d contacted a psychologist and that the man recommended an in-home visit, under the radar of course, and would be here within the hour.

  Casey was going to introduce Doctor Pensch as only a friend. Neither man wanted to scare Sara into becoming someone else, nor a person Casey couldn’t keep under his control. This visit would be a preliminary contact, at best. The doctor would look for signs of total mental burnout, DID over-burn, and then give Casey a plan he could put into motion.

  Right now, he was taking one day at a time, one minute at a time; watching a woman destroy herself.

  “Did you get the spinach?” she asked, digging through the grocery bag.

  “Yes. It’s in there,” he muttered, heading to the refrigerator. Thank God he still had beer in the house. Thus far, most of his drinking was done at the club, behind closed doors.

  Sara/Beth had demanded he remove the pole from the mirrored room. He’d done as asked, yet hadn’t thrown the pole away. If all went well with the visit from the psychologist, the old Sara would be back by the end of the day.

  Casey couldn’t wait. Nothing of Beth stirred his loins. She wouldn’t wash her hair, didn’t care about her clothing, r
efused to take showers; most of the time he had to drag her into them, kicking and screaming, and then tended to come out with bruises in places never meant for bruising.

  She found the spinach and grimaced, then glared his way. “What the hell is this?”

  Casey popped open the beer can and took a huge swallow. He shrugged. “Last I looked, it was raw spinach.”

  “It’s not supposed to look like this. It’s supposed to be green!”

  Well, fuck! He’d never bought spinach in all his life—didn’t do grocery shopping if he could help it. Wasn’t it supposed to be a little yellowed?

  She threw the spinach at his head, confirming apparently not.

  “You’re useless!” she screamed, running from the room.

  Casey let the disappointing salad greens fall to the floor. He took off after her. The last time she threw a tantrum, he hadn’t been able to get her out of the mirrored room for two full days.

  Two full days she’d stared at her reflection, unable to comprehend both their loss.

  He caught up to her at the bottom of the stairs, grabbed her by the arm, and whipped her around.

  Mutiny stared back at him.

  Dammit! He wasn’t going to allow any more mutiny from this woman. There was a time and place, and those were in the distant past.

  Just then, the doorbell rang.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” she jibbed.

  Casey growled. “When I’m fucking ready!”

  It rang again.

  Sara/Beth’s wide smile pushed his buttons in the wrong way. Yet, he gave in and released his firm grip on her arm. “Stay put,” he warned.

  Beth was more on the level of petulant child; whereas Sara, Mecenna, and Debra had been grown women, highly intelligent, with street smarts to back them up. More often than not, Beth wouldn’t listen to whatever he said. He’d gotten stuck with the worst of her personalities.

  “And if I don’t?” she asked, sticking out her tongue.

  “You will,” he threatened, drawing in his ragged breath.

  Casey left her on the stairs and made his way to the front door. He allowed Doctor Pensch entrance. “Come in, Charlie,” he said, stating the man’s first name aloud.