Until you came (Series Stonebridge, #3)

by Diana Scott

  “It's been so long. I'm going to die if I don't have you...” his wild voice whispers in my ear as the blows of his hips against my thighs imprison me against the wall.

  Sweat runs down his chest and I feel his drops wet my back as his pulsating sex slips into me as master and lord. Uncontrolled passion dominates us both and in a desperate act I push my hips back. I want him like this, mad with despair, wild and indomitable, dark, fiery and mine. Yes, he may require me to declare that I’m his possession but I will not be left behind, he will feel mine as well.

  I push my hips and feel as his penetration becomes intense, deep, with a little touch of pain and a big dose of passion.

  “Shit! Yes...”

  His hand lifts my calf and I feel like he introduced to the very center of my body. I pant with my body wet and close my eyes when a cloud covers me and my body trembles in an explosion of uncontrolled spasms. Its movements are harder than I have ever felt, it enters me in a continuous, deep and accurate way. The long, strong fingers squeeze my thigh holding it while the other hand clings to the wall for support.

  “I want you...” I say without thinking.

  My words and my spasms must have driven him even crazier because he loosens my thigh and holds my wrists high above my head resting against the wall.

  One last penetration and I feel as its hot liquid overflows and slips down my thigh.

  My forehead rests on the wall trying to catch my breath. His agitated body rests on my back and the warmth of his breathing reaches me through my shoulder.

  Please, I don't want to move. I don't want time to pass because that would mean returning to a reality I'm not sure I can stand.

  A lost and repentant tear falls down my face. How could I have been so weak?

  The passion of a few minutes ago fades away and I am left alone before the shame of my actions. I look down and see a black dress and matching panties swirling between my feet in heels of the same color.

  I feel him move and sit with some difficulty. His hand tries to drag me with it but I release his grip and start dressing quickly. I cover myself as fast as I can. I am disappointed in myself. Maurizio was right, just one call from him and I have succumbed like a fly succumbs to the garbage.

  “Anne... look at me.”

  “It's not necessary,” I answer with pain while I struggle with the broken hook of the dress.

  “Come on, look at me. You knew this would happen. It's you and me, it's inevitable.”

  He stretches out to reach me with his hand, but I escape so quickly that it turns out impossible to him to reach me. His legs respond very slowly, and for the first time I'm glad about that.

  “Is this what this is about? Is that what you wanted, Reed?”

  The man looks at me disoriented as I manage to put the zipper back together. I have to get out of here as soon as possible.

  “Has that always been the case? You call me and I run beside you. You order and I obey, you ask and I give. Is that what you wanted to prove? Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Blackman, you've done it, I've fallen like a fool in love, a fool who can't ignore you. One who loves you even though she knows you're the worst of my decisions. Are you happy now?”

  “Anne, when you left for Italy, everything changed for us. I can't go back in time. I need to solve... my problems.”

  “Of course, you have Collette and I...” I don't have the courage to name Maurizio out loud, not after what I've just done. “I'm leaving, bye.”

  “No!”

  Reed tries to get up but his movements are slower than mine.

  I'm opening the door when Reed pounces on me, losing his balance. We're about to fall but the closed door stops us, body against body.

  “You are hurting me,” I lie brazenly.

  His chest pushes my back, imprisoning me against the door.

  His wet voice runs around my neck and I urinate when I feel it. My body is able to react just by hearing his voice.

  “You will come tomorrow,” he orders with confidence.

  “You have lost your mind...”

  I turn to stand in front of him and see his cloudy look. The walking orthosis is not hooked properly and you can see the effort he is making to stay on his feet. Small gestures of pain run through his face but I try not to think about his pain. With my own suffering I have more than enough.

  “Tomorrow night, in our living room.”

  “But have you lost your mind? Do you think you are capable of ordering and decreeing my feelings? Do you believe me so stupid?”

  “He can't give you what I can. I know you, I know what you're looking for, I know what you need. It is I whom you desire when you turn off the light in your room,” his lips run around my neck and I curse aloud for my weakness. “it is me whom you think of when your body asks for liberation, it is my kisses what your mouth begs for.”

  “Why are you doing this to me? You will not stop until you see me destroyed... What do you want from me?” I babble while his lips run through my cleavage.

  “Everything, I want everything. You will be my lover. I want you available only for me.”

  Yes, my mind clouded by desire responds again and again. Your lover. We will be lovers... lovers... I will be only yours and you... and you... will go on with your life.

  “Let me go, please...” The order turns out to be a desperate plea.

  “You will be only mine.”

  “But you will not be only mine.”

  “Reed moves freeing my body of its weight. He doesn't answer, of course, what did I expected?

  “I'll wait for you at eight o'clock in our room.”

  “I won’t be there," I say while, broken in pain, I pass under his arms and try to open the door.

  “You will come because your heart will ask for it.”

  “And where will yours be?”

  “My heart is not worth it...”

  “Goodbye, Reed.”

  I'm going away once more in ruins. Who would have thought that a heart can break so many times because of the same love?

  “You'll come, you promised!” He screams as I stop in the hall surprised by his words. “You promised to wait for me!”

  His fury mixed with despair confuses me. He and only he is the one who keeps us apart, I don't understand his game.

  “You've lost your mind,” I answer aloud so that he will listen to me, but I didn’t turn around.

  “Maybe so, but you promised to wait for me and I believe in you, Anne Foster.”

  His rude and slow steps indicate that he is moving until he gets behind me.

  “You will wait...” He whispers in my neck.

  “What?” Despair dominates me. “Give me one reason... just one.”

  “The moment.”

  His mouth approaches my back and he kisses me almost imperceptibly on my blouse while he mutters for sure.

  “Tomorrow at eight o'clock. I will wait.”

  His steps are stiff and strong as he moves towards the room. I am confused, hurt and intrigued. You will wait for the moment? What moment? The moment in which I die for love? The moment I start praying because I can’t live without him? What moment?!

  Two kisses

  I cannot hide all morning. Maurizio's ten messages of concern and Solange's ten others call for a reaction that I am unable to offer. I crush the cushion of the sofa with pure contained rage as I regret again and again for my behavior.

  Last night, in situ, I had to face the consequences, but God, with what face should I look at him after what I did? Maurizio has been all affection, pure tenderness and all kindness while I behaved like a warm traitor. I left the Temple without explaining myself and what is worse, without regretting what happened.

  “Ugrr... I'm an idiot!”

  I hit the cushion again and again, waiting for it to bring me back some sanity, but nothing.

  How have I been so lazy! Two kisses, two kisses! Only two kisses were needed to take off my dress and two others to beg his caresses like a possessed woma
n.

  Ugrr! I am so angry that even the kicks to the sofa can't calm me down.

  "You want it as much as I do," said the cretin. Of course I do! I want to go tonight, the next night and all the others. I want to kiss him and drive him crazy, but not as an occasional lover. Not like that, not like that... Stupid and a thousand times stupid. Stupid lover unable to dominate my own flesh.

  I look at the vase in front of me with a malicious laugh. "You're next..." I spell it in a sinister voice when the doorbell rings at the exact moment it's above my head.

  “Shh... pretty, don't be happy. When they leave, I'll blow you up in the air,” am I threatening a vase out loud? Let them lock me up! I'm out of my mind.

  “You're not crazy! At least not enough to lock you up, but you'd better open the door for me, and in the meantime think about one good reason not to kill you.”

  I close my eyes dead with shame. Solange's authoritative voice on the other side tells me that my time of seclusion is over. The time has come to face responsibility and accept its consequences. Self-esteem looks for work in the classifieds of the newspaper.

  “Good morning,” I bow my head and let her in.

  “May I know what were you thinking to leave like that?! I looked for you in every room. I came to think the worst. Nobody knew anything about you. I thought I was dying of worry.”

  Solange walks through my living room like a soul carried by the devil. I am not better than her but I let her unload because she has every right.

  “In all these years, nothing similar has never happened to me. I thought that some unfortunate had crossed the line and I wasn’t able to stop him. You don’t know what a frightful fear I passed! “

  Solange breathes agitated as she sits on the sofa with her nerves on the edge of her skin. The poor woman feared for my safety. Please, I feel worse now.

  “Were you afraid for me? But I did...”

  “Fear!” She answered, cutting off my speech. “No, not fear, I panicked!”

  “Anne, how could you disappear like that?”

  “I'm really sorry, I never thought of worrying you like that, I just... I had to leave.”

  “I know, I know... I know, I know..." she says as she stands in the direction of my kitchen.

  “Did you know? But how? Solange, are you looking for something?” I ask while one by one, she opens the cupboards in my kitchen.

  “A cup and a little bit of coffee. After the night you gave me, I need a double one with a lot of sugar. Let's see if that's how I get to recover.”

  Her features soften and the sudden calm in his voice tells me that I am "a little forgiven". I imagine that seeing me at home safe and sound has succeeded in relaxing her.

  “Leave it, I'll make it. You sit down.”

  My friend nods as she sits in my kitchen and waits patiently. I put the coffee pot on the fire and look for the cups while I find the exact words. It turns out... not like that... you see, love is incomprehensible... shit, not like that either, better tell the truth, without anaesthesia and with a lot of responsibility.

  “It was Reed's fault! I didn't want to...” Self-esteem laughs out loud. “Well I wanted to but not in that way, I mean, I want it and everything but I can't lose my panties just like that,” Solange opens her eyes and I freak out. “I want to say that I don't always lose them, not with anyone, just him, I don't want you to think I'm one of those.... you don't know me that well and I don't want you to think that I'm one of those women, because I'm not... I'm one of those women who thinks with my head but in this case I dropped them without thinking about it... Oh God, I'd better shut up.”

  I sit in front of her waiting for the greatest of my judgments but not. Solange moves the spoon inside the cup calmly while she waits for the longest time. She sips a drink with total parsimony and with great seriousness she asks interested:

  “And you haven't considered wearing pants? They wouldn't fall off so easily anyway.”

  I drop my shoulders and accept their most significant laughter in shame.

  “Solange... I am the dumbest of the dumb. I have assumed it,” I drink of the coffee to lower the look. I feel humiliated.

  “I don't think you are.”

  “Oh, you don’t?” I open my eyes in fright. “I don't think you heard right. I said I ruined our night of introduction by sleeping with a man who wants me as an occasional lover.”

  “And for whom your panties fall to the floor. Tell me, and how exactly is that, do you drop them as soon as you see him or is it a rebound effect?” Solange is laughing out loud as she drinks her sweet coffee.

  “For heaven's sake, Solange, I don't know how to apologize and you have fun. It's not fair...” I get up from my chair while I walk nervously through the little kitchen.

  “You see, when you didn't show up I got hysterical but Billy had the sense to show me that Reed wasn't in the room either so the deduction was easy.”

  “Does anyone else know?”

  We didn't say anything but Maurizio doesn't look like a dumb man. Security informed Billy that he had seen you in my house and that's when I calmed down. Billy also informed the Italian that you were indisposed and had asked for a taxi but I'm not sure he believed it. He just left.”

  “Poor Maurizio. I'm the worst,” I'm squeezing my head in pain.

  “What's done is done.”

  “Were you always so sincere?” The reluctant smile comes to me without looking for it.

  “I think so," she says with a smile. "But now tell me what happened between you and Reed. I want it every little detail.”

  I open my hot eyes and she has fun with my blush on her cheeks.

  “I'm not talking about that particular detail, but how you came to give in. I thought you were sure that yours was a story from the past.”

  “I also believed it but you see, I saw him and all my plans went straight to the trash. When I have him in front of me, I become a woman without reason, a woman incapable of stopping, an uncontrollable devourer...”

  “Are you telling me that you dragged him to bed?” The woman laughed with the greatest of enthusiasms.

  “No, it wasn't me who took the first step, but I didn't put up much resistance either.”

  “Billy saw him follow you to the room.”

  I swear I was just looking for a little calm. When I saw him walking so well, so recovered and with that stupid woman on his arm, it made me crazy. Solange, what am I going to do?” I sole heartbroken.

  “It's not that bad, Maurizio must understand that you and Reed are back. I guess it will hurt him, but he'll have to accept it. Such are the things of the heart, sometimes it is lost, other times it is annoyed and in some unexplainable and very few occasions you win.

  “Thank you for your optimism,” I reply with irony. “But we haven't get back together”.

  “I thought that...”

  “He asked me to be lovers... “ Shame is glimpsed in my words.

  “How?”

  “As he said, he has a resolute life, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't want to have sex with me. Come on, I'm good for a good roll, but not for waking up next to him.”

  “Asshole.”

  I bite my lips as only answer. I think the same as her with the only difference that I am the woman who is dying to share every minute of her life with that “asshole".

  “This doesn't make sense.”

  “Yes, it does. Reed doesn't forgive me for running away when he needed me the most. It seems that Collette is all he looks for in a woman and meets exactly all of his requirements.”

  “But he wants to get laid with you, he doesn't forgive you but he needs you. She is ideal but he wants to have you under his control. It's all very unlikely of Reed Blackman.”

  “I don't follow you.”

  “I mean that Reed doesn't offer second chances to anyone, I mean that man is an ice floe. Why telling you that he hates you for your abandonment and then asking you to be by his side? He is dark black or jet black but never wh
ite.”

  “Sex?”

  “With Collette by his side, I don't think so.”

  Solange's words hurt me and I feel sorry for myself.

  “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, but Collette is famous for her vast experience in the amatory arts, it can't be that. She has only been honoring the temple of the Passions for a few months with her presence, but she is widely known in clubs of dubious reputation.

  “I don't care, I won't see him again.”

  “And why not?”

  “Are you all right in the head? Have you seen me? My eyes are swollen, I feel like the most stupid woman of them all, I forgot my commitments, I'm about to hurt a wonderful man for another who has Mata Hari as his girlfriend, and you ask me why not?

  I walk furiously to the living room. I thought that Solange and I were starting to be friends but it is clear that she is looking for me to be locked up in an insane asylum. You don't do that to a friend.

  “Anne, you can't see beyond your nose.”

  “Yes, I see myself," I say as I look at her furiously. “I'm an idiot and you're missing a screw. You want me locked up in a loony bin like crazy Jeanne.”

  “Think well, men who hate or deny old loves don't ask those same women to be their lovers. Men run away from them. Reed wouldn't do this for a simple roll, can't you see?”

  “No.”

  “Anne, I don't want to hurt you, but I swear that sometimes you seem dumb.”

  “Thank you for your sincerity...” I bite my tongue not to start with the insults.

  “Let me explain it to you in a practical way. Even in a wheelchair, Reed is capable of getting a good roll, have you seen him?” She raises her eyebrows with evilness. “This is not about unsatisfied sexual encounters.”

  “Reed doesn't care about me anymore and you're not going to convince me otherwise no matter how many times you say it.”

  She's right, the accident didn't take an ounce away from his seductive sex appeal.

  “I'm not saying it, I confirmed it!”

  “If for a second I believed in your conclusions, that I don't, what you say would give me a second chance, but it's not like that. Reed and I are not together and it's his decision and not mine.”