Journey: A Cariad Romance Three Book Bundle (Cariad Collections)

by Grace, K D

  Oh God. Oh God. He’s too good at this game. This is supposed to be what I’m saying please for, but I’m pretty sure it’s exactly what he wants. And then I jolt beneath the weight of this theory – this revelation – because in truth I’ve never been sure of anything he wanted, before. Not when it comes to me, anyway.

  But for once, I really know.

  He wants to touch me there. He wants to see me. He can’t even wait for me to do as he’s asked – he just rips the shorts right off, when they’re at the halfway mark. And then once I’m completely naked – once I’m spread open for him – he sits back on his heels and takes everything in, in a way that should make me feel acutely self-conscious.

  It doesn’t.

  I’ve no idea why.

  ‘Ohhhh yeah. Look at that beautiful cunt.’

  OK, maybe I have some small idea why.

  ‘You usually get this wet when you fuck someone?’ He pauses, closes his eyes. ‘Don’t answer, don’t answer. Lemme just think it’s all for me.’

  It is all for him, but sadly I can’t say, now. Mainly because he’s told me not to answer, but also because he’s currently sliding one thick thumb through my slippery folds, stroking and exploring and just generally making me utterly mute.

  When he sinks one finger into me, I move my lips around a sound that won’t come.

  But that’s about it, in terms of vocalisation.

  ‘Ah, man. That’s so, so good. You like it, huh? You like me fucking into you, like this?’

  I nod in reply, though I can see it’s not going to be enough for him.

  And I’m right too – if in a really scary way.

  ‘Tell me you like it. Tell me you want me.’

  For a second, I feel like the room has revolved. Like he is me and I am him. How many years have I spent aiming those same words at him, in my head? Too many to count. Too many to ever admit to, consciously or otherwise.

  And now he’s saying them to me, as though they were on the tip of his tongue, all along. It almost makes me angry – like I should pay him back, for all the times I’ve longed to hear it and never have. But then, when I think about it, what am I paying him back for?

  He never knew.

  He still doesn’t know.

  He’s just holding his breath, waiting for a no I’m never going to give. But it’s that possibility in his mind – that I might not, that I don’t, that I’m uninterested – that makes it easy to answer.

  I’m not some fat chick he’s taking for granted. I’m something else. Something I’ve never even contemplated before.

  Something worthy.

  ‘I want you so much,’ I tell him, and the look of insane relief on his face opens up a whole world for me. A great big worthy world where I’m beautiful and desirable and not the one who has to wait, or pretend I don’t have feelings.

  It might just be for now, but I don’t care.

  I’m taking it with both hands.

  ‘Do you want me?’ I ask, without the slightest doubt that he’ll answer me in a way that doesn’t hurt. It’s a startling sensation – this lack of fear, this ability to say whatever’s on my mind – but it’s a welcome one. It rubs against all the excitement and the arousal, until I’m a dirty-mouthed ball of flaming fire.

  When he nods in this deliciously desperate, near mute-way, I counter with this:

  ‘Do you want my hot little cunt around your cock?’

  Even though I’ve never used the word “cunt” before. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken it aloud, and it sounds alien and near-brutal in my mouth.

  But brilliant, at the same time. It makes his eyebrows jump almost into his hair, and his body does this little weird jerking thing. As though the word came out of me and punched right into him. And once he’s processed what I’ve just said, he shoves out his own words.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Fuck yeah.’

  Though that doesn’t quite cover how he sounds, when he says it. He sounds like he would punch a bear, if a bear got in the way of this happening. He sounds so fierce I’d be frightened, if I wasn’t so turned on.

  As it is, all I can manage is more lusty rambling.

  ‘Come on then, baby,’ I say. ‘Come on and have me.’

  Though I’m not sure I expect him to actually do it. It feels like a dare, I think – until he produces 700 condoms from the back pocket of the shorts I recently yanked off him. And then it feels more like something that’s really going to happen. He’s going to fuck me, I realise.

  I’m going to fuck Steven Stark.

  But first, I get to watch Steven Stark put a condom on – which is actually much sexier than it sounds. Usually I get one in the eye before the whole thing’s done, or maybe the guy’s too anxious, and three hours of wrestling with latex sort of puts him off a bit.

  This isn’t the case with Steven. Of course it isn’t. He’s some sort of condom expert, obviously. He’s put on so many of the things in his long, lurid sex life that he could do it blindfolded during a doomsday countdown. I think he actually does it one-handed, and so quick I’m not sure it’s happened.

  I have to hold him off with one foot on his chest, just to double check.

  Though doing this has some unintended consequences. Let’s put it this way: he isn’t pleased that I stop him in his tracks. His lips part and those eyelids of his get even heavier, until he’s looking at me like I’m a gazelle trying to leap away from him, on the plains. And then he says, ‘Oh, so you want to play it like that.’

  Which isn’t all that good for my libido.

  I think my libido swoons, and slides right off the bed.

  ‘What do you want me to do? Beg you?’

  Oh God, wake up, libido, wake up! He’s saying things you’re gonna want to hear!

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Please, baby,’ he says, but oh, that’s not the best part. The best part is when he turns his head on the word baby, and bites at the ankle that’s far too close to his mouth. He bites at it, and then he works his way further down and licks.

  The inside of my knee goes absolutely insane.

  ‘Just let me touch you …,’ he says, and as he does he runs a hand across my hip, and down over my leg. ‘Let me kiss you …’ For that one he presses his mouth to the inside of my thigh, though I confess I have no idea how he got there. Aren’t I supposed to be holding him at bay? I think I am, but I’ve completely forgotten why.

  ‘Let me make love to you …’

  It’s hard to remember, when he says things like that. I mean, I know he probably says it to all the girls. He’s likely got business cards, with make and love written all over them. But for right now, I can easily pretend that he means it. The kiss I eventually let him have says he means it. And the way he holds me in his arms … That says it too.

  He holds me so tight I can feel his heart, thudding through his chest and into mine – like in the water. His hands seem to span every part of my body, all at once … But that’s not the best part. The best part is that he does these things right the way through this long, slow slide into my body, and well into the sex, which isn’t like any other kind of sex I’ve had before.

  It’s so easy, for a start. So soft and syrupy and easy. I’m used to fighting for every bit of pleasure and comfort I can find, but the only thing he makes me fight are the various parts of his body that pin me in place. I strain against the heavy weight of his chest, and the push of his amazing thighs.

  And when it’s so good I can’t quite take it, he makes me take it with arms like iron bars. ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘Stay with me, stay with me.’

  He can’t possibly know that staying with him is all I want to do. I might squirm and gasp and be unable to believe that something can feel this good, but the sane part of me knows I don’t really want to escape.

  I’ll never have it better than this. He doesn’t plough into me. He rocks, in this insistent, deliberate sort of way. Like he knows just where all of my sensitive parts are. He knows how to fuck harder when I
don’t want him to and grind to a halt just when I’m desperate for him to give me more, until I’m such a fucking mess I’m incoherent.

  ‘That good, huh?’ he asks me, and I answer by waving my hands.

  I just hope he understands me.

  ‘Or maybe you need a little more of this …’

  I don’t think he understands me. I definitely don’t need a little more of his thumb, on my clit. It’s bad enough that he’s fucking me with his enormous cock, while looking the way he does – practically gleaming with perspiration and absolutely covered in taut, flexing muscles – but to touch me there, to touch that little swollen too sensitive thing …

  ‘No not that,’ I tell him, but of course he does it anyway. He kneels over me like some golden, glowing god, face a picture of heat and excitement, cock still thick and swollen inside me … And then he just eases his thumb over my stiff clit.

  Just a little. Just enough to make me cry.

  ‘Oh yeah. That’s it, baby. Give it up.’

  He’s such a bastard, honestly.

  ‘You gonna come on my cock, huh? Yeah, do it. Do it. I want to feel it.’

  So do I, in truth. I don’t think I’ve ever come on anyone’s cock, before. I’ve come on other things, of course, like my own fingers, or a vibrator, or the contents of the salad drawer in my fridge … But never a cock.

  It’s a brand new experience for me – one in which I feel compelled to say his name, over and over again, and maybe struggle to get away for the second time. Luckily for me, however, he keeps right on holding me in place. He’s got one hand on my hip, and that’s pretty much all it takes to glue me to him.

  While my orgasm rattles through my body like a runaway freight train.

  Seriously, it’s the most intense sensation of my life. I think I kick him, in the middle of it. I know I try to squeeze the mattress into a pulp, with my forehead. And my back arches at such a funny angle I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to walk again.

  But the best bit … Oh, the best bit is just what he talked about, a moment ago: the feel of him fucking me, through it. The feel of his big, fat cock easing in and out of my pussy, as my pussy shivers and tightens under the pressure of it.

  It’s unbelievably good. Like squeezing a stress ball or punching an arsehole in the face.

  And even better: he totally agrees with me.

  ‘Ohhhhh God,’ he says, followed by a bunch of other things that aren’t really words. And then he spreads himself back over me, and gives in to whatever he’s feeling in a great rush of fucking and feeling me and hot wet kisses that drive me insane.

  He’s close, I think, then thrill at that thought. I’ve never known something like that so clearly, before. I’ve never seen it on someone’s face – in the way his brow is furrowed and his eyes are half closed and his mouth, oh God, his mouth – or felt it in the frantic way they’re fucking me.

  And, most of all, I’ve never heard them gasp it in my ear, after the hottest 30 seconds of sex of my entire pathetic life.

  ‘I’m gonna come so hard,’ he tells me. ‘Baby, you make me come so hard.’

  He says the last bit like a sob, like he can’t believe it … But that’s fine, because I can’t believe it either. He actually digs his nails into my hip, when it happens. And he groans, oh Jesus he groans so loudly. It’s almost like he’s panicking, though I can’t say I’m in any rush to calm him down.

  I want to remember this for ever, and remembering it for ever means grinding the memory of him choking his way through orgasm right down into my mind. I want it so deep I can never dig it back out again, and as it turns out, that instinct is the correct one.

  Because a second after he’s done with the sex and the seemingly sincere and oh so tender kiss at the end … The second he’s stroked my hair and started to say something I’m sure I’m going to treasure for ever … He hears a sound from up on deck, and does exactly what he did the last time.

  He throws on all his clothes like a stripper in reverse, and darts for the exit.

  Chapter Six

  He doesn’t talk to me for the whole of the next day, so I know the way this is going to go. I think things almost went that way after the surprise oral sex, which makes it a little easier to take. I’d nearly gotten used to the idea. Now I just have to push myself the whole way. Pack up the evidence of my fling with Steven in a box marked that was awesome, thank you, and then go on with my life.

  I can do that. I’m accustomed to doing that. Marvellous things I really want almost never come my way, and if they do they’re usually only doled out in half measures. If I want a promotion, I get a small end of year bonus, instead. If I’m expecting a surprise birthday party, I’ll come home to find the dog has pooped on the carpet.

  Everything kind of works out in the end, in my tiny life of almost pleasures.

  So it surprises me a little, how bitter I feel when he sidles up to me on the deck. Of course he waits until Jason and Kimberley are in the town centre, watching the fireworks decorating the night sky – probably so they won’t witness the scene he thinks I’m going to make. After all, there’s no point in secretly fucking someone if you have to discard her in public. Then everyone will know you did this terrible, disgusting, shameful thing.

  God, why is it surprising me that I’m so bitter?

  I should be more than bitter. I should kill him with the laser eyes that I don’t have.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, as though everything is cool. Like he just went for a jog on top of me the other day, and now we can vaguely hate each other again.

  We can’t even get back the friendship we once had, as I’d been hoping. Now it’s all smashed to smithereens because he’s an arse and I’m an idiot who really wanted some sex. Lord, why did I want sex so badly with him? And brain, don’t you dare answer “because he’s hot and you love him and also he’s fantastic at it” either.

  It just makes you sound like a 16-year-old girl.

  As I still am, inside.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  Ugh.

  ‘Sure.’

  Why am I saying sure? I should noogie him.

  ‘Good, because if it wasn’t I probably couldn’t do this.’

  In all fairness to him, the above piece of speech is some warning. The word “this” implies something is coming, so I should be prepared. And yet, somehow, I’m completely not. It’s really the last thing I expect him to do, despite the past week and all of its really obvious clues. I mean, he’s kissed between my legs.

  Why is it a shock when he kisses me on the lips?

  He doesn’t do it like it’s going to shock me. He just leans in as though it’s the most natural thing in the world, and presses his mouth to mine. His arm goes around my shoulders; his hand goes into my hair. It’s the real thing, even if I spend the next 30 seconds trying to tell myself otherwise.

  Maybe he fell, I think, but if he did then why aren’t I helping him up?

  He’s probably skinned his knees on my lip. I should definitely do something, but what? I can’t do anything while he’s still attached to me in this gentle, heated sort of way. I have to wait until he’s finished, but even after that happens I’m finding it hard to know what the best course of action might be. Now he’s looking at me in this confusing, unfamiliar manner. And touching my face.

  And he’s saying things.

  ‘You look so beautiful, tonight.’

  I’m wearing a poncho, and I plucked one eyebrow more than the other eyebrow.

  I think he might have gone insane.

  ‘Steven …,’ I start, because I’m going to have to say something to him about this whole insanity thing. He needs to hear it from a friend, before they cart him away. ‘Here’s the thing …’

  ‘Oh God, there’s not a thing, is there?’

  He looks genuinely disgusted by this idea. He even winces, like he tastes something bad.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Is the thing that you’re still in love with your ex?’

/>   ‘What? No!’

  ‘Is it that you’ve realised I’m not boyfriend material, and you want to let me down gently?’

  ‘Oh my … That’s even more bizarre than your first question, just –’

  ‘It’s the sex, isn’t it? You hated the way I did the sex. I did it weird. Was it the noises I made? I know I make a lot of noises, but I swear I can tone them down for the next time.’

  ‘The next time? Steven – please, stop guessing. You’re hurting my brain.’

  I can tell by his eyes that he’s deeply amused by all of this, but he at least has the decency to fold his hands one over the other, and appear in general like someone who’s taking everything seriously. He even gets the corners of his mouth to turn down.

  And he says this:

  ‘Guessing totally stopped.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Unless you want to hear the one about you being an alien who needs to return to her home planet.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘It has aliens in it. You like aliens, right?’

  ‘I do, but that’s beside the point – Steven, you just said, like, a million things that make no sense whatsoever. We can’t talk about aliens, right now.’

  It’s true. We can’t. Talking about aliens is almost impossible, when your heart is trying to beat out of your chest and your best friend just kissed you and there are goddamn fireworks bursting over your head like a giant sign: This is a Romantic Moment.

  The sign is wrong, however. People like me don’t have romantic moments, and even if they did, I doubt they’d contain snippets of conversation like the following:

  ‘Right, but it’s awesome when they come out of the ceiling, huh? I mean, you can admit that much. When she’s all like “oh my God the bleepy thing says they’re in the room” and then suddenly blargh rargh!’

  I don’t know what’s worst about all of this: that he makes angry alien hand gestures when he says blargh and rargh, that he does Sigourney Weaver’s voice when he talks about the bleepy thing, or that I really want to join in and have a fun conversation with my best friend about the movie Aliens.