Relentless Liberation

by Fine, L. J.

  His warm fingers brushed the hair off her face, tucking it back behind her ear. Then they kept going, running in a feather-light caress down her spine, giving her goose bumps. His eyes tracked his progress before once again meeting her stare. “A while,” he murmured.

  “So you’ve just been lying there staring at me?” A mischievous spark flashed through his eyes as he nodded and she couldn’t resist her next comment. “Wow, you’re kind of a creeper, aren’t you?”

  Snorting, he rolled his eyes and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her up close to him. If she lived to be a million years old she would never get sick of the way his smooth bare skin felt up against hers, the contrast between his hard body and her softer one.

  “Don’t act like you don’t love it.” He nuzzled her neck and trailed kisses along the skin there.

  “See, maybe that’s your problem.” She laughed as she rubbed up against his warm body like a cat. “You’re far too aware of your appeal.”

  “Then we should balance each other out nicely ’cause you’re far too unaware of yours.”

  “Up until very recently, I didn’t think you were aware of it either. So what changed between yesterday morning and last night?” She almost hated to break their bubble and ask, but seriously, her little theory about him being a pod person couldn’t be right, could it?

  Pulling back only slightly to look at her, he rested his head on her pillow. His meandering fingers started tracing patterns on her bare shoulder that she would have found distracting if she weren’t so interested in what he had to say.

  “Nothing changed in the way I see you, Mina. I’ve always liked your prim-and- proper packaging, that you don’t feel the need to flash all your assets. You’re not the type to throw yourself at a guy. I’m sick of women like that and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I like using my imagination.” He skimmed his fingers down to her nipple, rolling and tugging before he cupped her breast. “And I’ve imagined you about a million times, baby.”

  Groaning, she arched into him. Then his words registered.

  He had imagined her? The more he spoke, the less sense he made and no matter how good he felt, she wanted answers, so she refused to be distracted. Or let him get off course. “Focus, Tyler,” she said, moving his hand to someplace safer, like her side.

  Sighing, he continued, “Your little stunt pushed me past my breaking point and I just reacted. You looked so damn edible last night at the fight it was distracting.” She remembered what he had said the night before about almost getting his ass handed to him. Lightly she traced her fingers over the cut on his left eyebrow that was starting to bruise and she winced. It didn’t seem to faze him, though, as he ignored her look of concern and kept talking.

  “It pissed me off that you left before I could get to you. Then when I found you dancing with that asshat I saw red and all I could think about was getting you out of there.”

  She couldn’t retain the giggle that escaped her at his description of Mark. “He wasn’t an asshat, Tyler. He was actually a really nice guy.” Her eyes narrowed. “A nice guy who probably thinks I’m a pathological liar who leaves out important details. Details like an insanely jealous boyfriend I didn’t know I had.”

  A grim line went right down the center of his face as his expression darkened. “Who gives a shit what he thinks? He shouldn’t have been all over you. Anyway, he got the picture and backed off without my fist meeting his face. My…” For once he actually struggled for the right word.

  “Rampaging?” She supplied helpfully and he pinched her ass, making her yelp before he settled her back in against him. Apparently he didn’t appreciate her word choice.

  “My gentlemanly warning,” he corrected, “got the point across. After that I was actually going to take you home. But then when I finally got your half-naked ass away from the general public, you started talking all that bullshit about being undesirable and I just lost it. I had to bring you back here to correct your incredibly misguided self- concept.”

  She lowered her gaze to avoid his eyes, instead focusing on the hollow of his throat and the steady pulse beating beneath his skin. “So if I hadn’t said that, told you that I felt that way, we wouldn’t be here right now?”

  He tilted her chin up to meet his stare. “We definitely would’ve ended up here one way or another. It just might have taken me a little longer to own up to the raging hard- on I’ve been sporting for you for the better part of the last few months.”

  Months? That would mean he had wanted her almost nearly as long as she’d wanted him. But that didn’t add up. “If you’ve really wanted me that long, then why’d you tell Brian you thought of me as your sister?”

  One dark eyebrow quirked, followed by that devilish half-smile of his. “Spying on me, were you?”

  “Not me. Chloe. My ears were more of an unwilling dumping ground for her acquired information. Some facts I could have gone happily on my way without.”

  “You mean like the ‘fact’ that I thought of you as my little sister?”

  It was her turn to pinch him. “Quit evading my question with questions.”

  “Ow, damn it.” He laughed as he rubbed the now-red mark right above his nipple where she had gotten him. “Aim a little lower and this conversation will get a helluva lot more interesting.”

  She growled and he smiled before kissing the corner of her mouth. “I had a feeling when I spoke to Brian that my words wouldn’t stay with him. I love the guy but he can’t keep a confidence for shit.”

  That had her pulling back with a frown. “So you told him that knowing it would get back to me?”

  “You weren’t my endgame. Chloe was. She’d been trying to play matchmaker since the day you set foot in that gym and I didn’t want her sticking her nose into our business. I thought the best way to get her to drop it would be to let her think I didn’t see you that way.” He shrugged, wrapping a piece of her hair around his fingers.

  “You had to have known she’d tell me though, Tyler. That didn’t factor into it?”

  He suddenly seemed to find the strands of her hair in his hand fascinating and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “No, it did. But if you thought that I wasn’t attracted to you, then our friendship didn’t have to change.”

  “That would have been a bad thing?” She didn’t like the way her voice cracked or how melancholy the turn of this conversation was making her feel. So she did something completely out of character, running her hand down his back to squeeze his ass as she rolled her hips into him. “It didn’t feel like a bad thing last night.”

  A soft growl rumbled out of him as he hooked her right leg over his hip and tugged her closer, his already more-than-awake erection rubbing against her slit. “Nothing about last night was bad,” he mumbled before taking her mouth in a slow, lazy kiss.

  They hadn’t resolved anything at all but the way they were going it seemed like she wasn’t going to like the end result anyway. If all they had was this one stolen moment in time, she wanted all the passion he could give her. So she tangled her fingers in his hair and deepened the kiss, transforming it from tender to something rude, wet and open.

  Just as she was about to lose herself completely, forcing the reality of their situation out of her mind, he broke the kiss and pulled back from her, putting about an inch of space between her hungry body and his.

  At what must have been her put-out expression he chuckled and said, “Focus, Mina.”

  It was her turn to sigh as she nodded and willed herself to get through this conversation. Clearing her throat, she said, “So why, if you wanted me as much as you say you did, didn’t you want our friendship to change?”

  All the amusement left his expression as he regarded her silently for a moment, as though forming his words carefully. Though in the end he just blurted out what he was thinking anyway. “Shit, baby, I know this is gonna sound clichéd but I tried so hard not to go there with you because I know that I can’t give you what you want, what you deserve. But you c
aught me off guard last night and I couldn’t stop myself.”

  She swallowed slowly before she asked her next question. “And what do you think it is that I deserve?”

  Though she knew the answer before she asked—hell, she had been mentally preparing herself for this since he first kissed her last night—it still stung when he said it all the same. “A relationship. You’re not the type of girl a guy fucks once and then never calls again. But I can’t do hearts and flowers. I just…I can’t.”

  The steely conviction in his eyes and the agitated muscle twitching in his jaw told her that this went way beyond the two of them, in this moment. For the first time since meeting him, she was seeing a sign of some inner demon that had rooted itself inside him long before she had come into his life.

  It was a bit of a revelation. His simplistic and carefree outlook on life had her assuming that nothing fazed him. That he had found himself a long time ago and had sorted through all his issues to become the most well-balanced person she knew. Of course she should have known better.

  No one has all their shit together like that but he was pretty damn close.

  But she was no stranger to inner demons herself, and figured if he had wanted to tell her about his he would have by now, so she wouldn’t press him about it. There were things she hadn’t told him too. Past wounds that she didn’t share with anyone. Wouldn’t share with anyone. So she understood.

  In a small way, it was a relief that he held parts of himself back from her. She found herself trusting him far more than she had allowed herself to trust anyone in years. That trust, combined with her attraction to him, made her want to go to that emotional level with him—but that would only end up hurting her in the long run. So his unwillingness to go there with her was a much-needed leash to rein herself in and remember all the reasons why she couldn’t go there either.

  “It’s okay, Tyler, really.” She stroked his jaw, trying to smooth out the tension.

  “No, baby, it’s really not.” Covering her hand with his, he brought it to his mouth, tenderly kissing the center of her palm. “After last night, things can’t go back to the way they were, so I think we need to modify our friendship. I can’t give you a relationship but I’m a selfish bastard and I don’t want you to want anyone else either.”

  “So, basically, you just want to be friends with exclusive benefits?”

  He nodded and the seriousness of his expression pierced through her. “Can you deal with that?”

  If she thought about it, really thought about it, as crazy as this situation was and as hopeless as her infatuation with him had seemed, this was actually the perfect scenario. It was amazing to her that he wanted her at all. This way they would still be friends and she would finally have an outlet for the insane lust she felt for him. And he was right—no matter how much they might want to pretend, they could never go back to the way things were.

  But in the spirit of learning from past mistakes, she had to add one caveat.

  “We can do this just as long as you never lie to me about how you really feel. You have to promise that you’ll never spout off poetry about how much I mean to you if you’re only going to rip my heart out later because you never meant a word of it. I always want to know where I stand with you. Don’t spare my feelings. That I can handle. Lying, not so much.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched as she finished her spiel. “That’s right. Be firm with me, baby.” This time she pinched him right above his other nipple.

  “Shit, seriously that hurts,” he half complained as he nipped at her lips. “But I get you and I can do that. You know I’m not much of a poetry spouter anyway. I’ll always be straight with you.”

  “Good. That’s all I ask.” The thought that they were really going to do this made her feel giddy and she only barely held it in. She hadn’t thought she would get to keep being with him like this after one night. But then something else occurred to her and she had to speak up. “One more condition. Once you get the itch to be with someone else, we end this and go back to just being friends. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He nodded and closed the distance he put between them, pulling her leg back over his hip. “Same goes for you. Though you might want to be careful how you word it when you tell me you’re into someone else. It’s possible I could rip his throat out.”

  She snorted.

  “No worries there, bud.” She was almost positive that he would get sick of her first. With a slight bit of trepidation, the thought occurred to her that she probably would never get sick of him. But she would cross that bridge when they inevitably came to it. For now it was all about enjoying herself in the moment with her best friend. A friend who had just granted her the most delicious of added benefits.

  “Mmm.” He rumbled against her skin as he started trailing kisses down the center of her neck. “So we have a deal?”

  It was almost impossible to think clearly with him kissing her like that and running the tip of his cock through the length of her slit with every slow thrust of his hips. Good thing it wasn’t really something she needed to think overly hard on.

  “Deal,” she panted out breathlessly.

  The deviousness of his actions to sway her into giving him access to her body would have made her laugh if an important thought hadn’t occurred to her. This deal went both ways, meaning that she had complete access to his body now too. That thought was dizzying and she licked her lips as her mouth watered.

  “So…this means I’m allowed to play with you then, right?” she asked before she caught and sucked his full lower lip into her mouth.

  “Hell yeah, it does,” he growled.

  “Good.” She insinuated her hand between their bodies and lightly ran her nails down his chest onto his abs, following the trail of hair that pointed to her ultimate destination. “Because there’s something that I’ve always wanted to try.”

  When her hand wrapped around his thick cock and gave it a firm stroke he pulled back and looked at her through hooded eyes. She licked her lips deliberately and watched as dawning realization surfaced in his expression.

  She trailed kisses along his jaw as she continued to pump his cock through the tight fist of her hand. If it weren’t for the way his hips rocked into her touch and the gruff way he murmured the word yeah, she never would have had the courage to then whisper hotly in his ear, “You’re gonna have to show me how you like it, though.”

  As usual, his perceptiveness when it came to her was uncanny. Once again he pulled back to gaze down at her. “You mean you’ve always wanted to try this on me or just in general?”

  God, it was embarrassing to admit to him that she was practically a virgin but she didn’t want to screw this up. She wanted him to enjoy it, to lose his shit like he had last night. Otherwise there was no point. So she had to be honest with him.

  Not quite able to meet his eyes, she mumbled out a barely audible “just in general”. But she was glad that she forced herself to meet his gaze when she saw the range of emotion her admission caused. First came confusion, followed closely by incredulity, which slid right on down into heated lust.

  His hand covered hers around his shaft, forcing her to squeeze him harder as he pumped into her fist. His mouth took hers, the deliberate hot and slow slide of his tongue passing her lips had her groaning. Then he pulled back to graze his lips against hers.

  “You’ve never had these gorgeous, completely fuckable lips wrapped around a cock before, baby?” The low gravelly tone of his voice caressed her body, making her pussy all slippery and slick. She didn’t trust herself to speak so she just shook her head.

  “What else?” he demanded as he moved their hands up and down roughly on his cock. “Tell me what else.”

  She knew exactly what he meant, what he wanted to know and if it weren’t for the way her innocence and complete lack of experience were affecting him she never would have had the nerve to tell him. In fact, she knew she would never be able to admit this kind of thing to anyone other than Tyl
er. He would never ridicule or laugh at her. He would never make her feel pathetic or unsophisticated or tell her that she was a complete unworthy loser. No, he wasn’t anything like them, she thought, and then pushed them from her mind altogether and just focused on this amazing man here with her now.

  “I’ve never had a guy go down on me before last night,” she whispered against his lips. “And until you, no one’s,” she swallowed, then forced the words out, “no one’s ever made me…come before. Especially not the way you did. So hard I actually saw black spots in front of my eyes. I’ve never even managed that on my own.”

  Growling, he nipped at the sensitive spot just below her ear. “So tell me what you want me to do about it.”

  His physical response to her words spurred her on. “I want you to teach me how to suck your cock, Tyler.”

  “Oh Christ, Mina,” he groaned and his dick jerked before he pulled her hand away. Rolling onto his back, he pulled her with him until she sat straddling him.

  The thrill of what she was about to do coursed through her but she had to start with familiar territory before she lost her nerve. So she started at his jaw, licking over his Adam’s apple to kiss the hollow at the base of his throat.

  Remembering how he loosened her up the night before, she thought she would follow suit and see where that took her. Looking up at him, she flicked her tongue over one of his nipples before sucking it into her mouth. He liked the pain she inflicted on him there last night, so she raked her teeth over the small nub, delighting when he arched his back up off the mattress and hissed.

  Smiling to herself at this newfound power she had over him, she trailed over to his neglected nipple to repeat the torture. Threading his fingers through her hair, he groaned, and then applied the lightest pressure to push her downward.

  Eagerly she obeyed, kissing patterns over the muscles of his stomach as she made her way lower toward that beautiful shaft of his.