by Christa Wick
"Eyes open, Marie. I want you to see what I see."
"I know what you're seeing," I bite out, my lids still squeezed shut.
Without the fabric's cover, my thick thighs and plump calves are on display, the flesh dimpling and marked with faint lines where there’s no natural give left in the skin.
"I don't think you do, baby. Open them."
Head spinning, I hope he means my eyes and not my legs. Seeing his lean, beautiful body, I’m not quite ready to proceed. I exhale all but the last of my resistance, open my eyes and stare at the ceiling.
"If you won't look at yourself, look at me."
I look and instantly regret it. His lips are parted. Languorous blinks track each inch of the resumed unveiling of my body. His other hand captures my attention as it moves along his torso—first in a line up that gloriously thick cock, then the slow drag of three fingers across his muscled abs and up to the small, dark red bead of his nipple. Pinching himself, he draws a shuddering breath.
My pussy contracts, the slow, inexorable tightening of muscle refusing to relax. Tighter and tighter my insides pull. With the sheet and blanket on the floor, Luke crawls onto the bed. With his muscular thighs straddling my plump ones, he forces his hands between my bottom and the mattress to capture the hem of the baby doll. He pushes it up over my hips, my body now wiggling in compliance and need as he peels the shimmery fabric from me.
When he has me stripped, he moves toward the center of the mattress. "Spread your legs."
My lungs the only muscles still under my control, I breathe. The air sucks and pulls—shaky in, shaky out.
Luke eases his hand between my knees then gently draws one leg toward him. When he has me spread wide, he fills the space between my thighs, his broad shoulders ensuring that my legs stay open.
He rubs a bearded cheek against my inner thigh. His lips follow. His nose brushes my pubic hair and then he repeats the bristly caress against the other thigh. He looks up at me, brown eyes unreadable as he spreads my pussy wide open to his intense gaze. He looks down and a space opens between his lips.
His tongue darts out to run along the edge of his top teeth. "Are you this wet for all your lovers, Marie?"
I close my eyes, certain I’ll cry if I look at him any longer. He will discover the answer to his question all too soon. If I tell him before then, he might stop.
As much as I might try to fool myself or Luke later, I don't want him to stop. My pussy hasn't unknotted, neither has any other muscle in my body. I’m one thrumming, throbbing mass of need coiled tight and ready to burst.
He doesn't tell me to open my eyes as I expect him to. Instead, I feel his lips against my clit, the pressure so tentative I think he’s deliberately testing my reaction. My mound lifts, my body yearns for more. He gives me more, running his tongue up the spine then angling his head to seal his mouth hot against my flesh.
He sucks. The room fills with the soft, wet sounds of his devouring me. His thumbs trail down my needy slit to find the entrance of my pussy. Feather light strokes moving in opposite directions tease its rim until my moans join, then smother, his audible sucking.
My hands, frozen at my sides since he finished undressing me, shoot down. I wind my fingers in his thick dark curls and groan. Luke lifts his head against my hands, as if letting me know he realizes just how very much I’m enjoying his efforts.
I look across the swell of my stomach to find him watching my face. Another acknowledgement flickers across the brown irises and then his eyes shut. His head sinks lower, allowing his tongue to make its first, exploratory push inside me. My fingers straighten against his skull. I wantonly push against the crown of his head. He nuzzles closer, the bristles of his beard brushing against the sensitive flesh of my pussy and thighs.
The core of my sex contracting, I gasp.
Luke pulls back. Wet lips press against my thighs. His teeth gently dent my flesh as he leaves a love bite on each. Fingers stroke the shaft of my clit then slide to where my pussy weeps with need. A finger pushes in, my flesh crazy-sensitive and jerking in response.
That's when he asks the question I've been dreading.
"How many lovers have you had, Marie?"
12
Marie
I can hear the slight unease that tinges his voice—as if he knows the answer and it bothers him. I wonder why he cares. Will my lack of lovers make him stop? Does it make me even less attractive or does he have a conscience buried somewhere beneath his carefully controlled façade?
"None-of-your-business." Each word is a labor to expel because he hasn't stopped slowly stroking his thick finger inside me.
"You're very narrow, baby." He eases a second finger in and traces the edge of something, not the outer perimeter but a very tender inner circle just an inch or so inside me. "You have had a lover, haven't you?"
"Of course," I bite out. My body betrays the lie with a squeeze against his fingers. I shut my eyes, praying he didn't notice.
"How many?" He pushes a little deeper, finding another sensitive spot against the roof of my pussy. He takes a little come-hither stroke inside me that curls my toes and makes answering him impossible. "I can tell it's no more than a few."
Another stroke and I almost pass out.
His lips return to my clit and the sweet suckling restarts. Licking, nibbling, he waits until he’s driven me back to the point of distraction before he murmurs softly against my core.
"I bet your brother knows."
He wouldn't really do something like that, would he?
"Don't—" I start.
"Then tell me." His fingers slide back to the inner ring and trace its edge. "Two?"
"Yes…two. " My pussy gives another damning squeeze and I throw my hands over my face. "Please stop asking me questions."
His tongue dips back down, filling and stretching my hole as he pushes deeper. With one big hand across my mound, he presses his thumb against the spine of my clit, just above the hood and the tender glans it holds.
He rubs a tight, continuous circle, bullying the sensitive pearl just below the hard press of his thumb. His tongue fucks in and out. My hips take up the rhythm, my hands returning to his head. Arousal takes control of my muscles, leaving me helpless to stop the unintentional scrape of my fingernails along his scalp as my fingers curl.
Small mewling sounds contort through my throat, shaming me with how quickly I’ve capitulated yet again. I shake my head, dislodging the shame. His fingers and tongue feel too good—a hundred times better than my rushed efforts to elicit a quick climax in the shower or the rare moments I have the apartment to myself.
Tension building higher than I can hope to control, something flips inside me. I slam my head against the pillow, my hips pushing high up off the mattress. I grab two handfuls of Luke's hair, worried his sweet mouth will cruelly abandon me before I climax.
"Don't stop," I plead softly, the words almost breathless. "Please."
Luke groans against me, inside me, the strokes and rubs of his tongue and thumb dominating my body and mind. He flicks, nibbles, and then I’m spiraling down, plummeting hard into my release. He stays with me through every twitch and roll, every shake and shudder, his strokes and thrusts coming faster, more insistent until I collapse to the mattress in a quivering mess.
My pussy throbs with hard contractions around his immobile fingers and even that threatens to set me off a second time. I’m sated and insatiable, satisfied yet ready for more. I wiggle restlessly against his fingers and begin to bite my bottom lip.
A plea of fuck me, fuck me, fuck me rolls through my mind and echoes across my body, but the words won't leave my mouth. Wanting, undeserving, I can only wait for his next command.
Surging up my body, Luke captures my head. His fingers knot in my hair with the same possessive intensity with which I just held his. His tongue invades the deeper recesses of my mouth, the curling licks almost as pleasurable as the ones he took inside and against my pussy as his thick cock pushes again
st my mound.
Small advances and retreats of his body force the shaft up and down my clit. My hands find his hips and fasten around them. I want to cry—from pleasure, from confusion, from the dozen different emotions whipping through me.
It's not as if I live a sheltered life. I know about sex. I’ve viewed it on television and in movies, heard its sounds through thin walls, interrupted its early stages far too often in separating Rose from her latest boyfriend when she was a teenager.
But, whatever the medium, I have only and always been the outsider, the viewer, the listener—until now.
Luke brushes his thumbs across my cheeks then kisses each one in turn. I realize my desire to cry has progressed to actual tears.
"Are you afraid, Marie?"
He sounds concerned again, like he will stop if I admit I’m afraid. He has no right to sound tender and gentle. He’s all but forced me into this bed with a devil's bargain. I shut my eyes, more tears falling as I struggle with my arousal and anger.
His mouth finds my ear, his hand caressing a path down my body. His fingers smooth over my mound then slide inside me once more. I squeeze around him, thighs tightening, hips lifting. A fresh moan curls its way past my lips and I give a little upward pump against his fingers.
I haven't answered Luke's question, but he has ways to make me talk. I don't even have to open my mouth to tell him everything he needs to know.
Afraid or not, I want him.
He rolls onto his side, his hands and mouth leaving me. I suppress the traitorous whine scratching at my throat as I roll with him. I pull my legs up, my arms protectively covering my breasts.
Seeing me curl in a fetal position, Luke smiles. His attempt to flatten the expression turns it wry, just the corners of his generous lips flipping upward. Blinking, he turns away and sits up.
I study his back. Light olive brown and muscled, it makes my fingers itch with the need to stroke the supple flesh. I roll my lips in appreciation, my gaze jumping, as he extends his arm and opens the drawer on the nightstand next to the bed.
I don't pay the slightest attention to the drawer or his interest in its contents. My attention whispers along the slight turning of his narrowed waist, the glimpse of his firm, shapely ass as he leans forward, the flex of his shoulder and biceps as he reaches into the drawer.
Mesmerizing.
Withdrawing his hand, Luke places an object on the nightstand.
Seeing the object, I freeze then thaw just long enough to shake my head. Whatever that black, rubbery column of three balls of increasing size is called, it’s not going in me. I don't care which direction or which hole. It isn't going in. Period.
Looking from that thing to Luke's face, I see his wry smile split a little wider. He breaks it with a lick of his bottom lip then reaches back into the drawer. He pulls out something I recognize—a leather flogger, its suede strips cascading over the edge of the nightstand. I press my lips together, my gaze narrowing to ensure my entire face is tightly locked down in disapproval.
"Which part of complete surrender don't you understand, Marie?"
There’s a teasing quality to his voice now, playful and sexy, but I’m not about to be suckered in by it or by that charming lift of one brow or the way his eyes glitter when he looks at me. Those are just the effects of light and acoustics and—
My brain comes to a full stop as he pulls out a third item—something that looks like a metal antenna but narrower and without the little knob at top.
I suck a breath in, the air entering me with a choked, wheezy cry. I blink, my eyes shuttering and opening a couple dozen times in the space of a few seconds as every muscle in my body constricts defensively.
"Marie..." Luke drops the rigid strip of metal and lightly rests his hand against my cheek.
I pull back. He knows how to please a woman, I have no doubt on that point, but that switch, or whatever it is, has nothing to do with pleasure.
"Is it this?" Bending down, he retrieves the rod from where it landed on the floor.
I flinch. His sharp gaze catches my reaction and he slowly brings the tip to rest against my cheek. His eyes narrow in concentration and he moves the switch a fraction of an inch to the right. I know what he’s studying so intently. The line of the scar is thin and faint, undetectable with make-up on, but I’m no longer wearing make-up after my bath.
"What happened here?" He strokes the tip of the switch over the scar.
I close my eyes. I don't want to talk about it. I won't talk about it.
My expression must reflect unrelenting obstinacy because he orders me to roll over. He guides me with a hand on my shoulder until I’m flat on my stomach. His hands brush the hair from my back and then his fingers gently explore my flesh. He takes his first long pause at the bottom edge of my left shoulder blade. I screw my eyes more tightly shut, trying not to remember the way my father's belt strap cut into me once as I tried to run.
Luke's fingers resume their slow walk down my spine. He leans closer, his breath light and warm against the center of my back as he inspects two more faded scars. Same belt, different nights. Pressing my face deeper into the pillow, I clench my right hand in a fist.
"Show me your hand."
Nothing escapes his attention it would seem. Trying to comply, I lift my left hand and press it to his chest.
"Not the one I want and you know it." His soft, tender voice reminds me for a moment of my dead mother despite the clear masculine timbre. Resting his arm across my bottom, he strokes the tense lines of my fist.
I refuse to relax the hand. He sighs, the heat of his breath sending a shiver up my spine. Retreating, he strokes my shoulder and tells me again to roll over. I raise my face just enough from the pillow to speak.
"If you stop your inventory." My emotions too raw to look at him, I hide my face against the pillow once more.
He strokes my back. "Show me your hand and I will."
I shake my head, the motion lost in the down-filled pillow.
"Roll over." Nothing soft remains in his voice. This is a command, calm but resolute. He won't let go of the issue until I obey.
I roll over. The movement brings my right hand to his side of the bed. I feel as transparent as a child in trouble, but I cannot help tucking it beneath me, the palm open and flat against the mattress.
"Look at me, Marie."
I answer with another shake of my head. I’m afraid of what I’ll see—pity or a sadistic monster getting off on my prior pain. Either is unacceptable. Feeling Luke move, I brace against his anger even though he has yet to explode in my presence.
He drapes an arm across my chest as his weight settles onto the bed and his body sinks toward me. His lips press lightly against one shoulder while his fingers stroke the other. "The scar on your cheek is from some kind of metal rod."
I clamp my lips together. I don't want to discuss my childhood, my scars or the man who gave them to me.
Luke redirects his focus from my shoulders to my head. He brushes his chin against my ear, his hand cradling the other side of my face. "There are no abuse reports because your father kept the three of you out of school and never stopped moving."
I screw my face tighter. Shifting, Luke covers me with his body. His arms support his weight so that I feel only the animal heat radiating from his skin and the reassuring bulk of his cock and balls as they settle against the Y of my clenched thighs.
I realize he’s gone soft. My reaction to his toys didn't turn him on. His voice reflects understanding, not pity.
I open my eyes to find him studying my face. Fierce concern stamps his features, deepening my confusion. Why would a man forcing me to sleep with him in return for helping me rescue my sister give a damn about how my father treated me? Why would a man with those kind of toys in his nightstand not be rock hard seeing the fear they created in me?
Luke strokes my hair from my face, his fingers combing through it to loosen the tangles. Doing so, he looks away for a few seconds. When his gaze return
s to hook mine, his eyes shimmer with an unexpected wetness.
"Tell me, Marie."
I open my mouth, close it to swallow, then suck a deep breath in. Luke rests his cheek against mine, gently quieting my fear and hesitation.
"One of the twins broke the antenna on a portable television." Remembering my father's discovery, I roll my lips in fear just as I did that long ago day. "The twins were three."
"So you said you broke it." Luke rubs the back of his fingers against the line of my chin.
"Yes."
A sobby little hiccup erupts from my chest. Tommy had been napping on the couch that day. Finding him in the same room as the broken antenna and television, my father had lifted him roughly by the arm before I could run into the room screaming that I had broken it. The first blow of the antennae landed on my cheek. Usually careful not to leave marks the neighbors could see, my father had then wrapped one giant hand around my face and used the metal rod on the back of my head four more times.
"It's okay, baby. He's never going to hurt you again."
Luke pulls away, his hand seeking mine. Finding it, he coaxes me into turning it palm up.
"And this?"
I close my hand but he gently pries the fingers away.
"It looks like a cigar burn."
I nod. "His last cigar two days after I spoiled a con. The woman...it was all the money she had...I was twelve."
Luke kisses the scar, then carefully closes my fingers over the mark.
"Your father is lucky he's in prison."
The tight, low rumble of his voice turns the words into a death sentence. I look at Luke's face for a few seconds before the intensity of his gaze forces me to look away.
"I didn't know that." My body relaxes another fraction as I finally let go of a fear I’ve carried for six long years. "For how long?"
"Another decade, at least." He sits up, his hands caressing my body as he continues. "Without you, his cons completely fell apart. He was busted twice the first year, the second time while he was out on bail and awaiting trial. A mix-up on the docket got his sorry ass out of jail again. It would have been a matter of hours before they discovered the error and put him back in jail. I guess that's why he immediately robbed a liquor store with a Bowie knife."