Rough Around the Edges

by Ranae Rose

  He stopped wondering when the clasp popped free and her breasts spilled out.

  They were round and full and their teardrop-contours begged for his touch. Cupping them from below, he cradled them in his palms, dragging his thumbs over her nipples and relishing the way they sprang up even harder when he rubbed.

  He leaned down until his lips brushed her ear. “Come to bed with me. I want to taste you.”

  They sank onto the edge of the bed together and he cupped one of her breasts again, this time lowering his head until his lips brushed its peak.

  Her skin was soft but her nipple was firm inside his mouth, a combination that made his cock throb. He would’ve sworn out of sheer pleasure when she raised a hand and buried it in his hair, but his mouth was full.

  He barely felt the twinge of pain when she curled her fingers against his skull, pulling his skin tight.

  She must’ve realized that it pulled at his wound though because she withdrew her touch as if she’d been shocked. “S-sorry,” she breathed.

  He kept his mouth on her breast, teasing her a little longer before forcing himself to relent and raise his head. “It’s all right.” He would put up with her hurting him a lot worse than that if it meant being so close to her. The insubstantial pain had been nothing compared to the pleasure of placing his hands and mouth on her body.

  He pressed his lips to her other breast and she gripped his shoulder, digging her fingertips into his skin. The bite of her nails felt good; the only thing that would’ve been better would’ve been if she’d been digging into him that way because he was fucking her. But drawing her nipple deep into his mouth and making her sigh as she gripped him that way was a close second.

  By the time he raised his head from her breast, she was trembling in his arms. Her flushed cheeks and parted lips told him it was from anticipation, and the realization almost made him shake, too.

  “Come here, Ally.” He drew her even closer and they fell back onto the bed together, limbs tangling.

  Lying on their sides, they kissed. Her lips were always shapely, but were swollen beyond their usual fullness, inflamed from contact with his. They continued anyway, until the tip of his cock brushed her pussy, hot skin against hot skin.

  The contact sent a jolt of urgency from his dick to his brain and that was it – he had to be inside her. It was impossible to stifle a moan as he met her eyes, but he untangled his limbs from hers anyway, shifting his gaze to the dresser.

  Once he reached it he opened the t-shirt drawer and rooted through it, sending a couple carefully-folded shirts to the floor. The box he’d been looking for was there, right where he’d left it, toward the back of the drawer. What would Ally think if she knew he’d bought it after she’d agreed to go on a date with him?

  Yeah, he’d planned to take things slow. Slower than they’d gone so far. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself from thinking about what would happen when they – eventually, hopefully – made it to this point, and he’d wanted to be ready.

  Turned out the purchase had been the smartest move he’d made since he’d helped out Melissa and consequently won over Ally. Just the thought of having her overnight in his apartment and realizing he didn’t have protection was almost enough to make him want to weep.

  But they were more than all right as far as protection went. He had an entire box of condoms and Ally didn’t seem offended when he turned with one in his hand and ripped the package open.

  Pinching the tip of the condom, he rolled the transparent sleeve down over his dick, a potent wave of anticipation causing every muscle in his body to tense as he eyed Ally. She was sprawled on the bed, her hair already messy. The triangle of bare skin peeking from between her thighs set his heart racing and he could feel the thumping pulse at the base of his cock as he finished sheathing himself.

  When he settled onto the bed she turned her head and tilted it so their lips met.

  He bit her lower one before ending the kiss, and when he released her she opened her eyes and looked directly into his. “I’d like to be on top.”

  Her words washed over him like liquid fire, filling his mind with images of her thighs on either side of his hips, open to him. “No complaints there.”

  She climbed onto him and it felt even better than he’d imagined. The pressure of her knees on either side of his legs made his cock throb against his palm as he gripped it by the base and guided it to her entrance, letting the tip bump her clit and then brush the lips of her pussy. He could feel her heat, even through the condom. “Ready when you are baby.”

  Chapter 8

  She lowered herself down onto him, forcing her hot flesh to envelop the head of his dick.

  For a second he was frozen, motionless against the mattress as his mind and body adapted to the shock of being inside her. He was barely in and already she was squeezing him, her channel tight around his cock. As soon as he regained the ability to move, he flexed his hips, plunging deeper.

  She was on top, but she was responsive to his motions. When he moved, her hips rocked too. Hardly a moment had passed and he was already balls-deep inside her. It was the best feeling he could remember experiencing. The sheer bliss of her walls wrapped tight around his shaft drove everything else from his mind and he moved by instinct, thrusting into her.

  She looked amazing on top of him, everything exposed to his gaze. He could see how tight her folds were around his shaft when he pulled back and exactly how swollen her clit was just above where they connected. Her entire body seemed to ripple with his movements, his motions passing through her limbs and core and making her breasts bounce.

  He could’ve watched them like that forever, but the pressure of release was already mounting at the base of his spine, urgent and strong – but not stronger than his will to make what they were doing last.

  When she started rolling her hips in a way that complimented his efforts, he pressed his fingertips against her clit.

  She went still. He missed the way she’d been moving on top of him, fucking him back, but the look of stunned pleasure on her face made it worth it. He moved his fingers in a circular motion, working the swollen bud, making her gasp.

  As he continued, she didn’t move her hips like she had before. Instead, she stayed steady and rode out his motions. For a while, anyway. Eventually she fell forward, bracing herself with her palms against his shoulders. The position brought her breasts closer to his face, filling his field of vision with their round curves and her hard nipples. He bit back a curse and continued to tease her clit, faster.

  “Don’t stop,” she breathed. The note of urgency in her voice sent a pang of satisfaction through him and he redoubled his efforts, letting the tips of his fingers bite lightly into her soft, wet skin.

  She was naturally tight – so tight that when her pussy shrank around his thrusting cock it almost hurt. Almost. Being close to pain gave the pleasure an edge that took his breath away. The sound of her breathing was rushed and urgent as her channel pulsed and tensed in the grip of her climax. He focused on the sound and let it push him over the edge, too.

  He tipped his head back against the pillow as he slipped way past the point of thought or restraint, lost in the ecstasy of feeling her come and doing the same as her body drew it out of him, so snug around his dick they seemed to have become inseparable.

  “Fuck.” He didn’t mean to swear, but it was the first thing he did when he got a scrap of breath into his lungs. The explosive pleasure of coming inside her was so mind-numbing he couldn’t even say her name.

  Her pussy clenched around his shaft again and she fell forward, collapsing on his chest. His dick throbbed inside her as he gripped her hips and held them steady, thrusting deep. She squeezed back, her pussy going so tight around him that she had to be doing it on purpose. He sighed and continued to pour himself into her until he was almost numb, his capacity for pleasure exhausted.

  “Ally.” He slipped a hand behind her head, buried it in her hair and guided her until their mo
uths met. She parted her lips and he slid his tongue deep inside. He was tired, but he still craved her. He tasted every corner and hollow of her mouth before ending the kiss.

  When he opened his eyes, she was staring back. He held her gaze for a few moments, then lifted her hips and withdrew from the tight embrace of her body.

  He lowered her and she settled beside him, resting half-sprawled over his body, her limbs overlapping his. Lying still with her at his side felt better than he would’ve expected, though it was a different sort of pleasure than he’d experienced while they’d fucked. She sighed and her breath rushed against his shoulder, warming his already over-heated skin.

  He let his gaze wander over her loose waves, which were fanned in disarray over the pillow she was resting her head on. The light was catching the curls by her temple and at the top of her head again. “You look like you’re wearing a halo.”

  “What?”

  “Your hair – there are all these little curls sticking up, and the light coming in through the window is shining on them. It makes it look like there’s a ring of golden light around your head.”

  She raised a hand and pressed it to her skull, sweeping it over her head. The light-catching curls were resilient – they sprang back up as soon as she flattened them.

  He caught her by the wrist and pulled her hand away from her hair, towards him. “I like it.”

  She lowered her hand and her fingers slipped away from his, but the lapse in contact was only momentary. A second later, she placed her hand on his stomach and traced his abs, her fingertips soft as she explored his skin.

  It tickled a little, but he didn’t move. He wouldn’t waste a chance to be touched by her. Relaxing, he lay still, mind and body attuned to the soft brush of her touch.

  When her fingers faltered, hitting a bump, it snapped him out of his state of post-sex bliss.

  “What happened here?”

  He’d forgotten about it. For the first time in almost a year, the twisted trail of scar tissue that wound down his left thigh had slipped his mind so thoroughly he hadn’t even thought about it during sex, hadn’t realized where her hand had been heading. He didn’t have to look down to see it, though – the pattern and texture of it was already in front of his mind’s eye.

  “Shrapnel. From an IED blast.” There was no reason not to be honest about it – not now that she’d seen the scar and they’d been so intimate. Still, he hated the feel of the words on his tongue. They were uncomfortable in his head and even more uncomfortable once spoken.

  “Oh.” She kept her hand there, her fingertips resting against a particularly thick knot in the long scar. “You were deployed to the Middle East?”

  “Afghanistan. Spent about eight months there.”

  She resumed her motions, tracing his scar just like she had the ridges of his abs and the slashing lines of muscle at his hip. “Is it still painful?”

  “Sometimes my leg feels a little stiff if I haven’t moved it in a while – usually when I wake up, but it’s not that bad.” Really, it was more like every time he woke up, but it didn’t matter – if he moved around enough, he was always able to work the kinks out of the muscle. Eventually.

  “Could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, anyway. They put all kinds of shit in those bombs – bolts, ball-bearings and whatever else they can think of that’ll rip someone apart. This—” he laid a hand on top of hers, pressing her palm flat against a ridge of raised tissue “—is like a scratch compared to the damage those things can do.”

  It was true, but he tried not to think deeply about it, even as he spoke. His mind wanted to wander down the paths remembering exposed and it was a struggle to stop it. He focused on Ally – the feel of her skin against his, the smell of her shampoo and the warmth of her breath on his arm – in an effort to stay in the present.

  He didn’t have much feeling in the area around his scar, but he could detect the pressure her fingers exerted as they curled against his thigh. “I’m glad it wasn’t worse.”

  It could have been. Easily. Sometimes we wondered why it hadn’t been. In that moment, with his body still flooded with the effects of being united with hers, he was glad that hadn’t been the case.

  * * * * *

  He took her to the gym and helped her with her kicks, just like he’d promised. Melissa had helped her smooth out her technique, but he coached her practice anyway. “Don’t forget to rotate your foot. And let your arm move with it. Yeah. Like that.”

  Her form was pretty beautiful, really. So was her ass in her spandex workout capris, but he didn’t say that out loud. He stared, though, knowing she was focusing on her target. Yeah, it had only been about an hour and a half since they’d slept together, but his gaze was still just as drawn to her body.

  Not that sex hadn’t been satisfying. It had been. In fact, he was tired. Not so much from physical exertion, but from a pervading sense of disbelief that lingered in the back of his mind, wearing him out. She’d spent the night by his side. She’d slept with him. And she was still with him, apparently happy with his company. It was so good it was hard to wrap his mind around.

  He’d wanted things to go like this – had thought about them going like this, but the reality was still a surprise.

  “How am I doing?” She paused, raised an eyebrow and smiled at him. Obviously, she knew she was kicking ass.

  “Great.” He told her anyway, liking the way her smile widened. “You’ll win tonight. I know it.”

  She held his gaze. “You’ll be there, right? To watch, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Had she really thought he’d skip out on her fight?

  “Okay. I’m going to go home and get ready. Guess I’ll see you then?”

  “You will. How are you planning to get home?”

  “I usually walk.”

  “Not today. Let me give you a ride.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” It wasn’t like it’d be an act of generosity. He wanted to be with her, didn’t want his time with her to end. The morning had been perfect. What if that ended when they parted? Some part of him wanted to draw their togetherness out, wanted to pull her close and keep her there until it was time for her to step into the ring.

  But that was ridiculous. She should go home and do whatever she needed to prepare. “Ready to go?”

  “Let me get my bag and my jacket out of my locker.”

  Before she turned, she gripped one of his hands and squeezed. The contact only lasted for a couple seconds, but the heat of her touch remained on his skin as she walked away.

  * * * * *

  Watching Ally get hit wasn’t exactly enjoyable, but watching her retaliate filled Ryan with a sense of pride. Maybe that was dumb considering he’d only helped her with her kicks for about an hour, but either way, he liked seeing her take the upper hand in the ring. The other woman she was fighting was taller and had longer reach, but Ally was landing two punches for each one her opponent managed and she’d worked in one of those kicks they’d practiced, too.

  The stand-up combat didn’t last. The fight went to the ground when Ally’s opponent swept her there, and Ally ended up in the other woman’s guard.

  Ally straightened her spine, pressed her hands to her opponent’s hips and dug her elbows into the woman’s thighs. It took some struggling, but eventually she escaped.

  She seized the other woman’s arm, but not for an armbar. Instead, she pinned the limb back against the mat in a wristlock – a move that ended the match when the other woman tapped out.

  It felt good to see her win, to see the look of tired satisfaction on her face as she rose from the mat. The crowd – not as big as the ones the men’s fights drew, but not insubstantial – cheered and applauded. Ryan joined them.

  She was so pretty, even when her hair was a tousled mess and her face was flushed and shining with the effort of the fight. Cameron did the women’s nights justice – the women who competed there were athletes and the matches
were serious, just like the men’s. But still, as he stared at Ally, he couldn’t help but see a beautiful woman. Surely everyone else did, too. She was gorgeous no matter what she was doing.

  And she was looking in his direction as she climbed out of the ring. Cameron was at her side, congratulating her. But she only glanced at him for a moment before meeting Ryan’s gaze again.

  “Nice kicks,” he said when she reached him. “Nice fight.”

  “Thanks.” She was still breathing hard from the match, but she was smiling.

  He walked with her as she made her way to the locker room. “Here,” he said, offering her a bottle of water when she paused near the entrance.

  “Thanks.” Her fingertips brushed his when she accepted it, their heat a welcome contrast to the frigid condensation that had accumulated on the bottle’s sides. “It’s ice-cold. Where’d you get it?”

  “The fridge in Cameron’s office.” He couldn’t help but grin when an expression of disbelief flashed across her face.

  “Are you kidding? He guards that thing like it’s buried treasure.”

  It was true – Ryan hadn’t been a member of Knockout for long when he’d first noticed that Cameron tended to hover near the mini fridge like a dog with a particularly juicy bone. “He’s playing nice today because I have something he wants.”

  “What’s that?” Ally leaned back, her shoulders flat against the brick wall.

  “Me.”

  “Whoa. I thought he had a girlfriend.” There was a teasing light in her eyes as she looked him up and down with a half-smirk.

  “Ha. I mean he wants me to fight next weekend.”

  “Didn’t you already tell him you were planning to?”

  “Yeah, but there’s been a slight change of plans. He’s rented out a larger venue for the weekend. He’ll need to fill most of the seats to make a profit. So, he wants to advertise something special to draw people in. That something is a fight between me and some guy he’s talked into coming down from Philly to compete. He’s supposed to be a total badass or something. Undefeated.”