by Megyn Ward
Our bed.
“The car is a lease.” I turn to see him standing in the doorway, his face cast in shadow as he casually shrugs out of his suit jacket. “I don’t have many occasions to drive it but I take the opportunity when I can because as it turns out, I like to drive fast.” Jacket off, he folds it and sets it on my old dresser. “The suit is from the Bostonian magazine shoot.” He bends his arm, working a cufflink loose from his shirt. “Boston Chamber of Commerce picked up the tab—I kept it because it was a gift.” He gets rid of the cufflink with a haphazard toss, and it lands on top of his jacket. “But I wear it because it looks goddamn good on me.” He flashes me a grin, working on the other cufflink. “So good, I bought three more, just like it.
“When you left, I lost my fucking mind.” Second cufflink loose, he tosses it next to its partner. “I moved out. Thought maybe I’d rent the place out, but that meant I had to repair the bathroom after your little pyro routine and once I swung my sledgehammer into the wall, I just kept swinging because tearing this place apart was the only thing that kept me together,” he says, shoulder leaned against the jam. “I wanted it gone. All of it. Every square inch of this place because it’s where I had you and lost you and I couldn’t be here without feeling like I was coming apart at the seams.
“I saved this room for last.” Face tipped down, he folds the cuff of his sleeve, rolling it with slow, deliberate turns, revealing the scar, raised and bright pink, against the skin of his forearm. “It was going to be cathartic, tearing it down. It was going to help me move on.” He starts on the second sleeve, looking up at me, his gaze unreadable. “Must’ve brought my sledge in here fifty times, intent on finishing it but I couldn’t. So, I locked the door and left.”
We’re standing in my old bedroom.
“I want—”
“Those paintings aren’t yours.” He says, coming toward me. Circling me slowly. “I already told you—I bought them. They’re mine.”
He’s standing behind me now, so close I can feel the heat of him. I close my eyes and feel myself sway slightly. The sudden absence of anger has left me more than a little punch-drunk. I never considered how my selling those paintings would make him feel. I never even asked.
“Patrick...” I whisper his name a moment before I feel his hands close over my shoulders, pulling me against him.
“I don’t have to buy you, Cari,” he says in my ear, his hands slide down my shoulders, my arms, until they reach my hips. “You’re already mine.” he murmurs against my neck, fingers digging into the dress fabric that covers my hips, dragging it slowly up the length of my thighs. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”
Fifty-two
Patrick
“What are you doing?”
The question comes out a breathless whisper, ending on a soft gasp when I lose my patience and jerk her dress the rest of the way up her thighs.
“I’m doing what I should’ve done the night you started this whole thing,” I tell her, gliding my fingers up the inside of her thigh. “I’m doing what I want.” My fingertips brush against the damp lace between her legs, the feel of her arousal against my skin goes straight to my cock, and I fight to stifle the groan trying to fight its way up my throat.
“I shouldn’t have answered the door ...” I growl in her ear, slipping an arm around her waist while the fingers between her legs tease her through her panties and she widens her stance in response, opening her legs with a soft whimper.
Unable to stop myself, remembering how she felt, bare and wet under my hand last night, I pull the crotch of her panties to the side, running my finger up the seam of her pussy. My swollen cock jerks against the front of my pants at the contact and I groan softly. “I shouldn’t have let you leave.”
Her head falls back, resting on my shoulder, head turned so I can feel her mouth trembling against my jaw. She lets out a shaky laugh that’s supposed to sound condescending but ends up sounding desperate. “Let me?”
“That’s what I said,” I growl in her ear, reaching up to hook the fingers of my free hand into the front of her dress. “Let you.” I jerk down, snapping its straps and she gasps as I reach up, palming one of her bare breasts as they tumble free. “I let you leave...” I push past the folds of her pussy, sliding the length of my fingers up the center of her until the base of them finds her clit. “Because I fucking promise you, if I’d have done what I wanted, you wouldn’t have gone anywhere.” The base of my fingers still pressed against her clit, I dip their tips into her entrance, teasing her with short, shallow strokes while my other hand caresses her breast, rolling and pinching her nipple until its pink and swollen between my fingers. “The fucking I gave you that night was nothing compared to what I wanted to do to you, Cari.” I say it in her ear. “And it’s nothing compared to the way I’m going to fuck you now.” Scraping my teeth along the line of her throat, I pump my fingers in and out, pushing deeper, her pussy so wet, I can feel her arousal, slick against my palm. “Do you know how wet you are for me?” I slide my fingers out to the tips, adding a third before pushing in again, fucking and stretching her so deep I feel her knees buckle. She moans in response, arms reached back, over her head, wound around my neck to pull me closer, the angle of it, pushing her tits into my hand, begging for more.
She’s about to come, her hips pumping against my hand, fingers gripped tight in my hair. Breath coming in shallow, desperate pants. Right when I feel her start to slide over the edge, I leave her dangling, pulling myself free so I can turn her in my arm. “I should have made you mine, right then and there.”
“Yours?” She looks up at me, blue eyes cloudy, full, lush lips parted.
“Mine.” Finding her zipper, I pull it down, opening the back of her dress. “You’re mine, Cari,” I say, walking her backward until the back of her knees hit the bed. “And you know it.”
I peel her dress off, pushing it past her hips, down her thighs until it hits the floor. Leaning into her, I whisper in her ear. “I should’ve made you say it the first time I fucked you.” Dipping low, I lift her breast to my mouth, licking and sucking its swollen, bright pink nipple “If I had, there wouldn’t be any question about who you belong to now.” Skimming my hands over her hips, I grip the thin, lace waistband of her soaking wet panties, slowly peeling them down her legs until they hit the floor.
“You’re gonna say it now.”
Fifty-three
Cari
I should be saying no right now. I should be laughing my ass off and showing him the door. Because if I’ve learned anything over the past eleven months, it’s that I belong to me. I don’t need a man to decide my worth. I don’t need a man to make me feel good about myself.
I don’t.
I don’t need a man.
I need this man.
I need Patrick.
Whoever he is. Whatever he’s become. I need him.
I need him so much that when he steps away from me, I almost weep. It should scare me—how needy and desperate his absence makes me. How frantic and wild I feel without his hands on me. How far I’m willing to go to please him.
It should.
It should scare the shit out of me, needing him this much.
Right now, the only thing that scares me is the thought of him walking away.
The only light in the room streams in from the kitchen, spilling across the bed, leaving the rest of the room in shadows. Patrick’s standing in those shadows, his eyes and face unreadable. “Step out of your panties,” he says calmly, stepping into the light, his hands dug casually into the pockets of his suit pants.
I comply, lifting my foot to free myself before setting it back down, the movement opening my legs even wider and his green gaze goes dark and heavy, traveling down the length of me—The pulse pounding in my throat. My swollen breasts. My dripping wet pussy. The panties still hooked around one of my ankles—leaving a trail of heat that sets fire to my skin.
Eventually, his eyes make their way back to mine, “Are you
still taking birth control?” he asks in that same calm, casual tone, and I nod, catching my lip between my teeth to keep from whimpering. The corner of his mouth lifts, flashing his dimple as he lifts his hands from his pockets. “Good,” he says, taking off his watch and dropping it on the floor. “Sit on the edge of the bed. Hands on your knees.”
I sit, stifling a sigh of relief. I’m not sure how much longer my knees would’ve held out. I start to draw them together, but he stops me.
“Keep your legs open, so I can look at my pussy.”
His words stain my cheeks with heat but, holding his gaze, I put my hands on my knees and do as he says, opening my legs wide.
He moves again, closer this time, until he’s standing in the space between my legs, his huge cock, straining against the front of his pants, inches from my mouth.
He reaches out, his fingertips trailing over my collarbone, soft and tender, his thumb brushing over my birthmark, his touch almost cool against the heat of it.
“Take out my cock, Cari.”
I can’t move fast enough. My hands find the front closure of his pants, yanking it open with the moan of a desperate animal. Jerking them down around his thighs, my fingers scramble against the waistband of his black boxer briefs, nails digging in and raking against his skin as I drag them down his hips, freeing his cock completely. I wrap my hands around his shaft, and it jerks in my grip, his answering groan coupled by a bead of pre-cum, welling from its tip, begging to be licked clean.
Before I can act on the impulse racing through me, I feel a hand fist itself in my hair, almost painfully, and pull back, forcing me to look up at him.
“Hands on your knees,” he says, need, almost as desperate as mine, bleeding through the calm.
Reluctantly, I drop my hands and settle them on my knees.
Still looking down at me, his hand goes soft in my hair, cradling the back of my head. “You want my cock in your mouth?”
The question pounds its way down my spine, straight to my pussy and I moan in response, my fingers gripping my knees. “Yes.”
“You want me to fuck that throat of yours?”
Oh god... “Yes.”
His hand still in my hair, the other cups my face, his thumb brushing along my lower lip, slipping inside my mouth and I run my tongue along the pad of it, hungry for any part of him he’ll let me taste.
“Open your mouth,” Patrick growls, angling his thumb away from my tongue to pull down gently. Slipping his thumb free to run the wet pad of it across my trembling lips.
Gaze locked on his, I do as he says.
“Fuck...” He breathes the word, low and guttural, his hands in my hair, holding my head steady as he slides his cock into my waiting mouth, pushing until the head of it hits the back of my throat. “Your mouth was made for me,” he says, looking down at me, hips flexing and retreating, his hands holding my head still as he works his cock in and out of my mouth with short, shallow thrusts. “It’s mine. Your mouth is mine, Cari.” One of his hands falls away from my face and wraps around the base of his shaft, holding it steady so he can thrust deeper. Faster. “Mine to kiss. Mine to fuck.”
Unable to stop myself, he lets out a groan as I start to lick and suck, greedy for the taste of him, sounds coming out of me that I’ve never made before. Animal sounds, needy, almost frantic. “You like that?” he says, gaze pinned to mine, hips thrusting against my face, faster and faster. “You like sucking my cock?”
I moan my answer, eyes wide, nails digging into my knees with the effort to keep them still. My pussy is throbbing, so wet and swollen with need I feel the pulse of it between my legs, as fast and heavy as a heartbeat.
Without warning, he pulls out of my mouth, his hand dropping away from my hair as he steps away from me completely. Chest heaving, cock wet and engorged from my mouth. He reaches up, yanking on the tie around his neck until it comes loose in his hand. “Lay back on the bed.” Free of his tie, Patrick makes short work of his shirt, his fingers slipping the buttons free, one by one before jerking his shirt off his powerful shoulders and down his arms before dropping it at his feet.
I do as he says laying back completely, the movement drawing my hands up the length of my thighs, feet still planted on the floor.
“Open your legs. I want to see my pussy.” His voice is strange and disembodied, floating above me, reminding me of last night. How he ordered me to finger fuck myself over the phone.
That’s my cock.
I’m fucking you with my cock, Cari. Deeper. Faster.
Driven by memory, I slide my hand along the inside of my thigh, letting out a shuddering moan when my trembling fingers make contact with the slick seam of my pussy. Before I’ve made more than the barest of contacts, strong hands grip my knees and jerk me forward until my ass is hanging off the edge of the bed, Patrick kneeling on the floor between my feet, completely naked.
“Did I say you could touch my pussy?” he says, shoulders pressed into the space between my knees, mouth between my legs, so close to my core, his lips brush against mine with every word.
I drop my hands onto the bed, fingers twisting in the sheets. “Patrick, please...” I’m begging, and I don’t care. “Please...”
“Please what?’ he says a moment before I feel his tongue skim along my slit, teasing me. “Say it, Cari.”
“Please lick my pussy.” I practically shout it, eyes screwed shut in frustration, my breath shallow and erratic.
“Whose pussy?” Patrick pushes the tip of his tongue deeper, parting the seam of me to tease my entrance and I lift my hips against his mouth, a second before the wide palm of his hand presses against my stomach to hold me flat on the mattress. “Not until you say what I want to hear,” he growls against me, teeth nipping the inside of my thigh. “Who does your pussy belong to?”
“You.” I whisper it, my hands going soft in the sheets, my eyes wide and staring at the stars above our heads. “My pussy belongs to you, Patrick.” He curses under his breath, a second before he closes his mouth over the top of my mound pushing his tongue past my folds to press against my clit. He sucks me hard, fitting his hands under my knees, lifting my legs to throw them over his shoulders, dragging me closer, his tongue thrusting deep inside me.
“Who makes you come, Cari?” he says, his voice rough with need as his mouth works against me, tongue sliding over my slit, flicking against my clit.
“You,” I cry out.
“Who fucks you?”
“You.” I buck against his hand. His mouth, the word ending on a low-pitched whimper. “Only you.”
“No one else.” It’s not a question. He locks his mouth around my clit and sucks me so hard I come instantly, screaming his name.
Not giving me a chance to recover, he flips me over onto my belly. Yanking my hips off the bed, he spreads my pussy from behind, pushing the engorged head of his cock against my opening. “You’re mine.” Standing at the edge of the bed, he slams past my entrance, pumping into me so hard and deep, filling me so completely, I lose my breath.
He fucks me fast and hard, the entire length of his cock stretching me, the blunt tip of it stroking my g-spot with every thrust. Within seconds I’m on the edge again, begging him to make me come.
He turns me over again, dragging my hips to the edge of the bed and lifting them so my legs are draped over his forearms, his hands wrapped around the tops of my thighs, angling my pelvis so he can bottom out on every stroke. Leaning closer, the pressure of his hips opening me even wider, so he can stroke my clit with his thumb. “You want to come?”
“Yes,” I moan, straining against the hold he has on me, lifting myself higher, trying to take him even deeper. “Please, Patrick...”
“Say it, Cari,” he tells me, his words harsh, clipped short by the hard, deep strokes he’s giving me. “Not until you say it.”
“I’m yours.” I scream it, the words raw and powerful, my throat burning with the truth. “I’m yours, Patrick. Yours.”
“Fuck!” He sho
uts it, his cock spasming inside me as he comes. My legs slip free as he falls forward, still fucking me through his own orgasm.
“I need you to come,” he growls in my ear. “Come on my cock—right now.”
A second orgasm washes over me, and he gathers me in his arms, holding me close. As I shudder and break beneath him, Patrick is the only thing holding me together.
Fifty-four
Patrick
I came up here to end it.
Driving home, Cari turned in her seat toward the door like she couldn’t wait to get out and away from me, I’d come to the conclusion that we weren’t going to work. I’ve changed, and so has she.
We’re together less than thirty-six hours, and we’re back to where we started. Angry and confused. Unable to say how we really feel. Ask for what we really want. It’s not good, for either of us.
So, yeah. I was going to end it.
I helped her out of the car. Unlocked her door and let her into the apartment. Grabbed a bottle of water because my mouth was so goddamned dry it felt like been chewing on sand all night, and waited for her to catch up.
Then she told me to leave and started screaming at me about fuck this and fuck that. I dragged her to her old bedroom and then I almost fuck her to death because I can’t not touch her and the fact that she won’t tell me how she feels makes me feel insane. Like a total fucking pussy who can’t stop thinking and feeling and wanting things it’s becoming increasingly clear, I’m not supposed to have.
Turning my head, I see the shadowy outline of them, stacked in the corner. I told myself I was going to the charity opening to be supportive. After my spread in Bostonian came out, the event sold out in thirty minutes. I felt obligated to at least make an appearance—so obligated, I considered sending Conner in my place. It took less than three seconds to realize how bad that idea was.