by Serena Bell
He couldn’t tear his eyes away. Her fingertips rolling, pinching, tweaking—he reached, and she backed out of his reach, crawled off the bed, and then they were up and he was chasing her around the room. He caught her near the door and backed her against it and pinned her, then ducked his head and took a nipple in his mouth and teased it until she whimpered. Then the other.
“Don’t fuck with me,” he said.
Another whimper, this one from the soul. And then she whispered, “What if I like fucking with you?”
He scooped her up and carried her back to the bed. Set her down, pushed her onto her back, climbed over her. Was in her in one long, deep stroke, her body just as she’d said, so wet, so hot, so ready for him that she offered no resistance, just the slide home, and then her tight around him, clinging to him, rocking her hips to meet him thrust for thrust. And for each time he filled her, she made a small, distinct sound, half moan, half victory yell, her cries rising in volume and intensity until it was that, the sound of her taking what she wanted and owning it that pushed him over the edge.
—
“What I don’t understand,” she said, millennia later, “is if you were driving back, how were you texting? Were you driving and sexting?”
He shook his head. “Pulled over a few times.”
“Oh, really. So, like, side of I-five, hand in your pants?”
They were lying side by side, facing each other, and he was grinning at her.
“Yep. Because you’re hot. Because sexting with you is hot. And fun. You’re fun, you know that?”
And then his expression changed completely. Got serious, and a little—almost harsh. “So tell me. The instant messages. MenInUni242. You-being-Becca? Or you-being-you?”
Ohhh. This.
If she told him the truth, she’d be as good as saying, That was me getting totally carried away, forgetting that I was supposed to be helping Becca. That was me, totally into you, lusting after my sister’s boyfriend, getting lost in what I needed and wanted for a few minutes.
“I don’t see—what difference does it make?”
“It makes a huge difference.” He stared at her, long enough that she had to look away. “Okay, let me ask you this. I don’t remember everything about that IM exchange, but I do remember a few choice phrases. Such as, ‘I want your cock in my mouth. As much as I can hold.’ ”
Oh. Yup. He held her eyes till she had to turn away, blushing.
“You got my cock in your mouth earlier—was it all you’d hoped for?”
Actually, better. As in bigger, thicker, harder, more velvety against her tongue than her imagination had been able to conjure.
“I think you also said, ‘I want you to pin me down.’ ”
He remembered. He remembered everything she’d said. Because it had mattered to him. She’d mattered to him. She—the woman he now knew to be Alia.
“Nate—”
“I did that just now, too. How did it compare to your fantasy?”
“Can’t we drop this?”
“No. Were you pretending to be Becca?”
He speared her with his gaze, and the intensity of the way he’d watched her face during sex had nothing on this. “You know I was.”
“But were you really? I mean, you were sitting there thinking, Now what would Becca say? Because not to be crass, but when Becca and I were making out, that whole side of her didn’t really come out, if you know what I mean.”
Being reminded that he’d kissed Becca felt like being punched in the stomach.
He rubbed his forehead. “Damn. I’m sorry. That was dickish. Look…we never…Becca and I never. Partly because…because she didn’t seem that into it. And I never wanted to drag anyone kicking and screaming. I like a woman who…who knows what she wants. I need to know, Li.” He looked straight at her. “When you wrote that stuff, who was that?”
She closed her eyes.
I like a woman who knows what she wants.
She did, at least when she was in the same room with him. She’d known exactly what she’d wanted when she’d climbed on top of him last night, exactly what she’d wanted when he’d interrupted the meditation to kiss her. Exactly what she’d wanted every step of the way. And yet putting it into words…
“Alia.” His voice was very quiet, a low rumble. “You’re not very good at saying what you want, are you?”
An ache began, to the left of her breastbone. She took a deep breath.
“It was me,” she said quietly. “Me being me.”
When she opened her eyes, he was still gazing at her. His eyes warm, a slight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I thought so. I hoped so.”
He gave her that same wicked look he’d worn when he’d made her come against her will.
“So you meant that other part, too? When you said, ‘I want your tongue all over me?’ ”
Chapter 21
He didn’t wait for her to answer. He lay down next to her and drew her close and kissed her. Well, really, he licked her. Because that’s what she’d said she’d wanted, so that’s what she’d get. His tongue on her upper lip, following the curve of it, savoring the taste of it. His tongue sliding across hers. His tongue on her lower lip—he had to make himself not use his teeth, because she made him want to dig in and hold on. Then he went on a very delicate exploration of her face. More lips than tongue, really, except at the edge of her jaw and her ears, and then only the tip. Tracing and tasting.
Her skin was unbelievably soft. She thrashed when he drew a line from beneath her earlobe down to her throat. She moaned when his mouth found the pulse at the base of her throat. Her whole body arched under him when he nuzzled her neck.
So good. So gratifying.
The whole point here was to spend an eternity getting to his final destination. To make her spend that whole eternity thinking about where he was going and what he was going to do when he finally got there.
When his pain had been so bad, he’d thought a lot about how much he hated his body. How weak and easily broken bodies were. He’d seen so many bodies broken, so many lives bled out on rock and sand, and his pain reminded him of all of them.
Right now, he loved his body. He loved his hands (which were holding her immobile under him) and his tongue, which had found the upper curve of her right breast, and his cock, which was pressed against her leg in a way that was supposed to be casual but which utterly failed at casual because it kept throbbing and jumping to get more contact. He loved his body because it wasn’t causing him pain but giving him pleasure, but mainly he loved his body because it was giving her pleasure.
And her body was so receptive and so honest with him about how much pleasure he was giving it. All those quick indrawn breaths and little sighs, moans and groans and whimpers and squeaks, and those low, dark sounds she made, barely voiced breaths. Her nipples hard and tight, the salt scent of her rising arousal, goosebumps and shivers, a tremor that ran all the way through her. He wanted to thank her for it, for all of it, because no one had ever really given him that much before. That much yes.
He circled one nipple, then the other, making sure to linger when she shivered and moaned, when his tongue teased underneath her breast and around the outer curve, when his nose accidentally touched ticklish skin under her arm—he stayed all those places and made sure he drew all the possible pleasure from her. He traveled down the planes and slope of her belly, slowly, so slowly, and dipped into her navel and lingered there, too, because it made her squirm.
“You’re killing me.”
“That’s the point.”
“Lower.”
He laughed wickedly and went on finding all the little spots on her abdomen that were ticklish and sensitive. Meanwhile, his hands moved lower and pinned her thighs, his thumbs so close to her center that he could feel her wetness on her leg.
And then he licked his way right down to the edge of her curls and stopped, to mess with her head. Because it made her all wiggly and pissed off, and that tu
rned him on.
She smelled so good. Dark and secret and clean. He spent a while enjoying that. And enjoying the way she shifted her hips as his breath brushed her curls. He blew deliberately, cooler air across the damp, and she made a sweet little broken sound. He got closer and tried to see how hot he could make his breath, and how cool. How broad and soft he could puff air, how directly he could blow it like an arrow against her clit, which had stiffened enough to peek out.
She was impatient now. She was raising herself up to get closer, tilting and rolling for the sake of the motion itself.
He withdrew his breath and then gave it to her again, to see what she’d do, and she let out a gust of a sigh and tried to push herself into his face, but he pinned her hips hard with his hands and wouldn’t let her move. Then he savored the strength in those hips, the way she tried to lever herself back into favor.
“Something you want?” he inquired idly.
“I hate you.”
He laughed. “You might hate me,” he said. “But I know you love this.”
With the tip of one finger, he began tracing lines. The top edge of her curls. The junctures where her thighs met her torso, one on each side. And the seam of her sex. But so lightly he was only touching hair, brushing it so she’d feel the tickle of his touch. All the way down, skimming where her curls were damp and parted to reveal her, pink and glistening.
That line, over and over again. This time, skimming her clit with his finger so lightly he could barely feel it himself, but she bucked. And then dipping his finger so he could feel how slick she was. She was so wet that his touch could only just have registered, but there her hips went again, wild for contact.
He parted her painstakingly slowly, letting his thumbs glide over her slickness. Opening outer and inner folds to unveil her. He leaned in and touched the tip of his tongue to her swollen clit. Flicked. Then put the flat of his tongue against her and held still, to see what she’d do.
“Ohhh,” she said, and rocked her hips to slide her clit across his tongue. He held still and let her. “Don’t move,” she commanded.
Yes. Tell me.
He obeyed her for long enough to let her start to feel the tension build, then drew back. She groaned deep in her chest.
He spread her open again and licked her.
Unh.
So wet. So slippery, saliva, lube, one eager surface sliding against another, the glossy satin of her slick against his tongue. He was losing control again—she did this to him. It made him want to pin her and punish her, to constrain and control her so he could get his own control back, but she was moving under his mouth and his hands so frantically that he couldn’t keep her still, rising up to get more of him, wiggling against him, and finally the only thing he could do to master her was to draw her clit into his mouth and suckle it until she came, yelling and thrashing.
Whereupon he lifted his face and said, “If I don’t get inside you in the next three seconds, I’m going to come all over you,” and she said, “I want you to come all over me,” and he said, “Oh, God, Li,” which got lost in a groan, as he lurched to his knees and came all over her belly, barely aware of her hands joining his to squeeze and stroke the last drops onto the smooth pearl of her skin.
Chapter 22
“I’m sor—”
“If you apologize, I’m going to kill you,” Alia said. “First of all, I asked you to do it. And like you said, I’m not good at asking. Well,” she said, reconsidering. Because it seemed that things had changed. Most things. Maybe everything. “I wasn’t good at asking before you. And also—it was hot. I liked it. It’s going in the porn library.”
“Well, good,” he said. “Because I seem to have very little control when it comes to you.” He went to the bathroom and came back with a washcloth and began to clean her up.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice and warm.”
Another thing to like about Nate. It had occurred to him to warm up the water to wash her. There were way too many things to like about him, actually. She didn’t want to like all those things about him, not when she had so little idea how he felt about her.
And right. She owed him—owed herself—a conversation. About what this was. About where this was going. About whether it could go anywhere at all.
A conversation that could have only one outcome that wouldn’t leave her heartbroken. Particularly after what had just happened. Not so much what he’d done to her—although, oh, God, what he’d done to her! But what he’d said.
You’re not very good at saying what you want, are you?
And what she’d said. What she’d admitted to.
It was me. Me being me.
Which was, in effect, her admitting to having loved him all along. So, really, there weren’t too many secrets left, were there?
“Nate,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She hesitated, because she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. What she needed to ask.
“I don’t want to stop. Doing this. Being with you.”
Startled, he turned to face her. His expression softening. “Oh,” he said.
Just that. Oh.
It held so much in it. His surprise, and his pleasure, too. How much he liked that she’d said that—she could see it, right there in his face. And the moment drew out and wound tight around them and she was suspended in it. Joyful and terrified.
“I don’t want to stop, either,” he said.
He pulled her close. Kissed her, not hard the way he had when he’d come into the room earlier after they’d edged each other up into madness, but so sweetly.
“But I have to.”
That had been in the Oh, too.
“I’m going to this super-small town where there’s nothing. Nothing for you. And you’re staying here. Where there’s nothing for me.”
“I don’t have to stay here. I—we—could go to Seattle—”
There was an edge of desperation in her voice she didn’t like. Didn’t like at all.
And he was shaking his head.
“I never told you. Why it matters to me. The store, and Braden, and the trip, and Suzy and Jim—those are J.J.’s parents.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You never told me.” And suddenly it seemed an enormous omission. One that she should have noticed. That she should have asked about. That she should have demanded he remedy.
“I want to tell you now. If you want to hear.”
Too little. Too late.
But yes. She wanted to hear. She wanted to know. She wanted every last bit of him he would give her, even if it made the heartbreak worse later. Because that was how things were now.
“Tell me,” she said, and tried not to think about how they’d used those words in another context earlier.
“When I first got here, I had this conversation with the guys. About promises. The ones you say out loud and the ones you keep to yourself. Like this guy who promised his buddy he’d take all the dangerous missions so the guy could get home to his wife and kids.”
He didn’t have to tell her how that had turned out. She saw it behind his eyes.
“And I was thinking about how even when you don’t say them out loud, some things are promises. Like when a guy leaves his wife to go off to war, there are promises. He’s saying, I’ll come home. She’s saying, I’ll be here.”
He looked into the far-off distance. Farther away than she’d ever seen him look, even in those early days when he’d been in so much pain. That seemed like forever ago already. Just a few weeks and he was a different man. Stronger. Sounder.
He didn’t need her anymore, not the way he had.
It made her happy, and it made her very, very sad. Because it had been how much he needed her that had made this all happen. And now that he didn’t—
“Anyway, I made a promise. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
She could feel dread pooling in her stomach. Because even when he’d told her the story of what had happened to J.J., and she’d known ho
w much guilt he was carrying around, even when she knew that guilt was causing him actual physical pain, she hadn’t seen, not clearly, how inextricably tied he still was to the past. Now she could see it. Hear it. In the far-off look. In the word “promise.”
“It was a couple weeks before the RPG hit the tower. We were doing guard. Near the end of a four-hour shift, both of us tired as dogs. J.J. didn’t—he wasn’t the kind of guy who wanted to talk philosophy. More, we’d just be both playing video games, and then he’d want to talk about who was hotter, Megan Fox or Kate Upton.”
She didn’t ask him who was hotter. He was serious, terribly serious now. Not the guy who’d wanted to play, who’d egged her on. This other man, someone she didn’t—
Someone she didn’t know.
“All of a sudden, he says, ‘It’s not what I thought. I thought I’d feel like I was seeing the world and having adventures, and instead it feels like I’m in a cage.’
“It’s J.J., and I’m still not taking him too seriously, so I gesture at the windows of the guard tower and say, ‘We are in a cage.’ But he gives me this look, and I shut up. He says, ‘I wanted so bad to get away from that store, and now all I want to do is get back there and run it. Hang with Braden, be a dad, take care of my parents. All the stuff that felt like a prison sentence before feels like freedom now. Everything’s upside down, and the adventure is the prison. You know?’ ”
Her throat was choked with it. With J.J.’s pain, and Nate’s. Her own felt very small and unimportant in comparison.
“I knew. I knew—”
A rift in his voice, and she knew he’d be silent until he could cover it, that he wouldn’t cry for her, not now. When he was pulling away from her, telling her why this couldn’t happen.
“I knew what it felt like to think your reasons were the right ones, or at least good enough, and to discover that—that they weren’t. So I said—I said—fuck.”
She put her arms around him, but he pulled away and put his self-control back on like a mantle, and said, “I said, ‘A few more weeks, dude. Just hang in a few more weeks, and you’ll be back there.’ ”