by Naima Simone
“That was Rafe.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “He already knows about the call and is tracing it now. We might have information as early as tonight.”
“That’s a relief,” she murmured, but her eyes—those intense eyes that he wanted to order to mind their own business—searched his face, studied him as if she could peer past the surface to the wounded, primal being beneath.
Get the fuck out of my head!
The roar bounced off his skull, the guilt and shame gnawing at him, increasing the volume, accelerating the velocity so the yell echoed in his head like a recording on warp speed. God forbid she glimpsed what was crawling around his head. For a moment, an image flickered across his mind’s eye. Her lovely, full mouth straightened in a sorrowful line, her beautiful eyes brimming with pity…and fear. Her shoulders curved slightly forward, arms wrapped around her, warding off his touch. Abhorrence. Revulsion. As if one brush of his fingers would transfer the murderous taint staining his soul.
She had to get out of his house now.
“Chay,” she whispered, stepping closer to him.
“You need to go,” he growled. He didn’t backpedal, didn’t cower, but damn if he didn’t want to. One touch of her slender musician fingers, and that fractured armor that encased his emotions would shatter into splinters. In this second, she threatened him more than a counselor’s couch or demons he couldn’t beat back.
Ignoring his warning, she pressed on. “What’s wrong?”
“Aslyn.” He narrowed his eyes, hardened his voice to stone. “Go. Now.”
“No.” She moved forward again, eliminating the space between them. Compassion and concern radiated from her gaze, but underneath glinted something more worrisome. Determination.
Shit.
The therapist had poked the beast within him, but Aslyn stirred it. Excited it. It reached out to her with eager, greedy claws, wanting to drag her closer, gorge on her sweetness. Satisfy the voracious need…quiet the relentless craving.
If he let the darkness loose, he didn’t know if he’d be able to cage it again. If she wouldn’t be collateral damage left in its wake.
“Aslyn, damn it. Get out.” The words rumbled from his chest on a tide of desperation.
“No,” she repeated. And then more softly, “No.”
She moved too fast or maybe he’d moved too slow. But before he could dodge her, she infiltrated his personal space, pressed her chest to his. Cupped his face. She murmured his name and he tasted the sweet scent of strawberries on her breath. He wanted it in his mouth. Wanted to taste it directly off her tongue. Lust, blistering and heavy, poured through him in a thick, molten molasses. It pounded in his chest. Pooled and throbbed in his cock so the hard length pressed insistently into her belly. No way she didn’t notice. No way she didn’t feel it damn near nudging her, begging for her attention.
But if he expected her to be appalled, he should’ve known better. Most women would’ve spun away or played coy. She cuddled closer, applying a teeth-gritting pressure to his dick that had him two seconds from pinning her against the wall, dragging down her jeans and panties, and pounding into a pussy he knew would be hot and tight like a vise grip.
“I don’t want—” he gritted out, squeezing his fists until his fingers pulsed in protest. The moment he removed them from his pockets, all bets would be off. He’d touch her, and there would be no going back from that.
“What?” She whisked her thumb over his cheekbone, under his bottom lip. “You don’t want to use me?” she breathed. “That’s what you said, right?” She drove her fingers through his hair, her nails scraping his scalp and arrowing tremors of pure need down every nerve ending and synapse in his body. He groaned, snatching his hands from his pockets and grabbing her hips, prepared to thrust her away from him before the tenuous leash on his control snapped beyond repair. “Use me, Chay. I’m right here. I’ll take you into the dark and promise not to leave you alone. We’ll go together.”
Then she kissed him.
Jesus Christ. Shock gripped him as her lips parted, her tongue peeking out to slide along the seam of his mouth before plunging inside to demand and claim. But when she pulled back, sank her teeth into his bottom lip and sucked, his paralysis shattered with an explosion that reverberated inside his head like a sonic boom.
With a snarl, he surrendered to her even as he snatched control from her. The aggressor became the submissive, the provoker the supplicant. He slanted his head, his tongue forging deeper and harder. This wasn’t a seduction; it was too raw, fierce, and wet for something as tame as seduction. He conquered. Devoured.
The taste of her—strawberries and Aslyn. The scent of her—honey and sugar. The feel of her—soft flesh and firm curves. Through her thin tank top her hard nipples poked his chest, enflaming him. Fuck, he craved those tips in his mouth, his tongue. He’d order her to hold up her breasts for him to feast on the crests he pictured would be a shade caught between berry red and brown.
Hunger roughened his movements as he encircled her wrists and tugged her grasping fingers out of his hair. He hissed at the pull on his scalp and nipped her lip in retaliation. She snapped back at him. Good. Pleasure burned through him, incinerating the flimsy binds of propriety. He didn’t want sweet or tender. He wanted hard, wild, dirty, a hint of animalistic.
He didn’t want to make love.
He wanted to fuck.
Fuck the demons into submission until all that existed was the beauty of nothingness and pleasure. Oblivion and need.
Entwining his fingers with hers, he propelled her backward until her spine hit the wall. He raised their arms above their heads, holding her hostage there. Cuffing both her wrists with one hand, he lowered the other to her chin, angled her head so he could have more of her. And she could have more of him. Damn, did she take. She coiled her tongue around his, sucking, savoring. A low, ravenous groan rolled up from her and tumbled into his mouth.
His hips punched forward, grinding his erection into the softness of her belly. At the same time, he released her jaw, lowered to her breast, and pinched a pebbled nipple. Rolled it between his thumb and finger. And pinched again.
A keening whimper ripped from between her lips, and she arched into his rough caress.
“Chay,” she cried out his name, twisting and trembling against him.
Reality doused him in a bitter, freezing deluge. What the hell am I doing? The question bombarded him like pummeling fists. He stiffened, self-loathing eating away the lust and pleasure like acid. What am I doing? he silently repeated.
Fucking up, came the answer from the conscience that had been momentarily stymied by lust. He dropped his hands from her body. Shifted back one step…two. Cursing low and harsh, he spun around, spearing his fingers through his hair.
He’d been here before, damn it. Right here in this lonely, desolate place, where only the touch of another human being would ease the pain. Countless nameless, faceless one-night stands had followed in a long succession. Didn’t matter who they were. Didn’t matter what their dreams were, what they wished for their lives. Nothing mattered. Just as long as he could fuck and not be so damn alone.
But Aslyn mattered.
“Use me.” The seductive offer coupled with her kiss had defeated him. Had almost relegated her to the ranks of those other women who didn’t mean jack to him. She was more than a pair of arms and a hot body he could lose himself in. She was a beautiful, strong woman with a warrior’s spirit and an artist’s soul. She was a woman who deserved a man who wasn’t damaged and could love her with a whole, unfettered heart. She was a woman who warranted more than to be used as if she were a dose of medicine taken twice a day then discarded when her expiration date came due.
This—caressing her, kissing her—had been a huge mistake. His mistake. But if he allowed it to continue, she would look back on it as hers. He would be a regret. A disappointment. Because disappointing and hurting each other was inevitable.
“Chay,” she
said, hesitant. Steeling himself against the urge to comfort, he pivoted and faced her. With a will he didn’t believe himself capable of, he forged the wall again, blocking out her confusion and uncertainty and his pain and remorse.
“This time, Aslyn, go. Leave. Now.”
Her swift intake of breath was the only indication of the blow he’d delivered. Her shoulders straightened, her chin notching up. With an abrupt nod, she turned and exited his house, the soft catch of the door as deafening as a hard slam.
He stared at the closed door.
He’d done the right thing, the honorable thing by her and by himself.
Bully for him. He could look in the mirror.
Too fucking bad he’d still hate the man in it.
Chapter Eleven
Aslyn stepped out on her back porch and paused as the storm door shut behind her. Inhaling, she captured the faint traces of grill smoke and freshly mowed grass. Crickets chirped, and in the far distance, the laughter of children who hadn’t made it inside by the time streetlights came on drifted on the breeze. She sighed, sinking down on the swing that had become her haven in the evenings.
She’d considered avoiding this ritual. Especially after the photos and phone calls. Sitting outside on the wide deck had seemed akin to offering up a free peep show. But after what’d occurred at Chay’s home a couple of hours ago, the four walls had started closing in on her, suffocating her. So with the reassurance and comfort of knowing two unseen men guarded her and her home, she’d escaped outside.
Sighing, she drew her legs to her chest and rested her cheek on her knees, the hem of the long skirt she’d changed into brushing her toes. At some point in the near future, the shivers still tripping over her skin and knotting her stomach would abate, and she would no longer resemble a walking live wire. At some point… But as long as she continued to envision kissing Chay and being crushed into a wall by his arms and body, his cock a heated brand against her flesh, the electrical pulses weren’t going anywhere.
Twenty minutes. That’s all it’d taken to flip her beliefs about sex and desire—about herself—on their asses. Prior to The Kiss—that’s how she thought of it now. Something so cataclysmic deserved to be capitalized—sex had been ho-hum, prioritized with football: there all the time, but she didn’t give a damn about it. Her two experiences had been, um, lackluster. And she was being super magnanimous with that description. Definitely nothing to make her seek out a partner and get it on like rabbits. Desire was pleasant and handled by a vibrator with a 100 percent satisfaction rate. There were women who simply didn’t possess raging libidos, and she’d believed herself to fall firmly—and contentedly—in that camp.
Until two hours ago.
Until The Kiss.
She closed her eyes as her heart thumped against her rib cage. Her pulse kicked up to a holy-amazeballs pounding rhythm. She hadn’t gone over to Chay’s house intending to kiss him. It’d just happened. The darkness in his hazel eyes had been like deep calling to deep, and she couldn’t resist. But in seconds he’d transformed lips-meeting-lips to an explosive event. His mouth. His taste. His body. His cock. Oh sweet Jesus. She swallowed, her thighs tightening to alleviate the ache resurrecting between her legs and centering at the swollen bundle of nerves at the top of her sex.
Simply put, the man was huge. Like Mr.-Porn-Star-Take-Your-Dick-And-Go-Home huge.
But instead of a healthy dose of no-way-in-hell-are-you-getting-that-thing-near-me, excitement and sharpened hunger had ripped through her. As if the telltale bump-and-grind she’d done against his erection hadn’t been a dead giveaway. She’d wanted him. Was embarrassingly close to begging him for what no other man had managed to give her—pleasure, satisfaction. Shit, an orgasm. No man had ever given her that. But just the touch of his mouth to hers had made her believe there was more. Something more powerful, more…more devastating out there. And instinctively, she acknowledged he could show her what it entailed.
But he’d pushed her away. Ordered her out of his house and away from him.
So she’d left. And standing there with an erection that had to be hurting, he’d allowed her to. As much as he wanted her, he didn’t want her. That was the stone-cold reality of it.
But damn it hurt.
The creak of her porch step relayed she was no longer alone. Her heart soared to her throat, but when she opened her eyes and met Chay’s gaze, it lodged there for a different reason than fear. He stood, motionless, one foot on her porch, the other on the step under it, a hand braced against a post.
Go home, her pride jeered. Get lost. Go kick rocks.
Slowly, she stood and crossed the few steps that brought her face-to-face with him. They stared at one another, the silence heavy, the tension thick. Her gaze dipped to his mouth. The summer heat thickened as the memory of his lips covering hers consumed her. This is your turn to kick him to the curb, her pride cackled. Get him, girl.
“Coffee?” she murmured.
And her pride threw up its hands in contempt.
He nodded, his intense gaze not releasing her until she turned and headed for her door. She grasped the handle of the storm door, but before she could pull it open, a wide palm settled on the frame above her. She stilled. Behind her, his body didn’t touch hers, but his warmth reached out to her, covered her as surely as if he’d pressed his chest to her back and bracketed her thighs with his.
“I’m sorry.” His lips grazed the tip of her ear, his voice a low rumble that danced down her spine and pooled in her belly. God, that voice. Like sex and sin wrapped in silk—unrefined silk. Because there was a rawness to him. And it called to her as deeply as the sensual temptation.
She started to turn, but his other hand gripping her hip stopped her.
“For?” she asked.
“Being rough with you.” His fingers flexed on her flesh, and she struggled to concentrate on his words and not how he could bunch her skirt around her hips, open his zipper, and take her just like this. And she possessed no doubt she’d love it. Welcome it.
Her stomach tightened, relaxed. “Did it seem like I minded?”
A pause. “You shouldn’t say things like that to me,” he warned softly. Sensually.
His grasp on her hip eased the tiniest fraction as if he prepared to release her. Not yet.
“What was wrong earlier?” she blurted. The bleakness and pain in his gaze when she’d showed up on his doorstep a couple of hours ago still haunted her. Maybe with the wildness passed, he would tell her. Confide in her. Why it was so important that he trust her with what hurt him, she couldn’t say, and didn’t dare spend too much time analyzing. It was just…important.
He remained quiet. Around them the cadence of the crickets seemed to swell to an aria, drowning out the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Well. So much for that. Now he would probably leave—
“I had a session this afternoon.” His admission stunned her; she hadn’t expected it. A rasp of sound above her head drew her attention. She stared at his fist. Gaped at the knuckles blanched a pale gold. “A court-mandated session with a therapist.”
He didn’t continue, but he didn’t need to. She understood. The article she’d read about him had detailed the terms of his sentence. Along with the length of his probation, counseling sessions had also been mentioned. Jesus. What must be discussed on that couch. No wonder he’d appeared shell-shocked. He’d reminded her of a soldier who had returned home after seeing the horrors of war and still had the shadows of the ordeal in his eyes. Whispering his name, she reached behind her, cupped the nape of his neck.
Chay allowed the caress for a second—and only a second. He lowered his arm and stepped back so her arm fell to her side. But he didn’t leave the porch. Didn’t leave her. Accepting that as a sign, she opened the storm door and entered the house. She cut a path to the coffeemaker, but unlike the night before, he didn’t linger in the kitchen. She exhaled a pent-up breath when he moved into the living room. Thank goodness. He was…distracting. And right now wi
th the taste of him still on her tongue, the scent of him still in her nose, and the feel of his body still imprinted on her, she was damn distracted.
By the time she entered the living room with two coffee mugs in hand—his black as he preferred—her nerves were more settled.
Until she saw him standing in front of her piano.
He trailed a finger over the top of the fallboard, the gesture somehow reverent. She walked into the room, and his head lifted, a soft half smile quirking a corner of his mouth. Her breath caught at the rare sight.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. It really is, she thought, referring to his smile, not the piano. “Do you mind?”
Did she mind if he smiled at her? Hell no. Why would she have a problem with that? But then he hiked an eyebrow, and she glanced down at his hand splayed over the top of the piano. She swallowed a groan of mortification. Right. The piano.
“I’m sorry. No, I don’t mind.” She held an arm out toward the Steinway. “Please.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Are you sure? Gabe is fanatical about other people using the computer he writes on. And Greer coos over her art supplies like they’re babies.”
She shrugged. Usually, she was very possessive of the piano—it had been a gift from her parents after she’d signed her first contract at fifteen. Even though she also played a digital piano in her shows, her love was the Steinway. But Chay’s hands on the instrument she adored? Sharing it with him? Even as irrational as it sounded in her own head, his fingers on the keys would be like having them on her. It would be private, intimate…sexy. Yeah, crazy. But suddenly she longed to beg him to sit at the piano, lift the cover, and touch.
Chay pulled out the padded stool, adjusted the height and sat, raising the fallboard. The muscles across his shoulders and upper back performed a sensual dance beneath his white T-shirt, drying every bit of moisture in her mouth. Sorry, Justin. This man brought sexy back.