by Sophia Gray
God, she hadn’t been this aroused in years. And no one had ever brought out this same molten fire in her; there had been little sparks here and there, but this feeling was all-consuming. She just wanted to drown in it without thinking—only feeling.
Kyle was on top of her in seconds, straddling her midriff, the fabric of his boxer shorts tickling the sensitive skin just below her belly button. He trapped her wrists in his hands and held them pinned at her sides, a predatory grin on his lips.
“You feel so damn good under me,” he groaned, grinding his erection against her stomach.
She writhed, half in pleasure and half in need, trying to dislodge her hands so she could touch him.
Kyle held her pinned, though. He’d always had a dominant streak in him, and she didn’t mind that so much. But he had the self-control to go agonizingly slow, and while she couldn’t argue with the end results, the wait was an exquisite kind of hell.
His warm mouth slid down the most sensitive part of her neck to her collarbone. He sucked and nibbled at her for a few seconds as she squirmed, bucking her hips a little in hopes of meeting his groin and getting a little relief from the friction. But he had her positioned so she could only lay there as he worked his way down her body, lavishing attention on each sensitive patch of skin.
He dipped his head to her breasts next. He caught her right nipple between his teeth, nipping just hard enough to cause a little delicious pain, but not enough to break the skin. He eased the pressure immediately and swirled his tongue over the sensitive, erect nub. The sensation was enough to cause a shiver to run down her spine. He repeated the treatment for the left. She bucked beneath him as his teeth grazed over her areola.
“Shit, Kyle,” she moaned, “stop teasing me.”
He laughed. She felt the deep vibrations through her chest as he planted kisses all the way down to her navel. “You need something, baby?” he asked her huskily in between kisses. “Want me to speed things up a bit?”
He shifted smoothly, moving a knee back between her legs so she couldn’t close them. He released her left wrist and slipped a hand down to her slit with astonishing ease. She moaned in pleasure as his hand traced down her wet folds, teasing the puffy lips of her labia. She tried to grind against the movements of his hand, to get him to rub her sensitive nub and send her over the top into ecstasy, but he wouldn’t let her dictate the pace.
Kyle pushed a finger inside of her. She clenched around the invading digit, trying to pull him in deeper. He obliged, pushing in and out steadily, generating a maddening friction that stoked the fire in her to a fever pitch. He increased the tempo, slipping a second finger into her.
She was so close to coming, to hitting that white-hot peak of ecstasy. She just needed a little more. She slipped her free hand down to rub her clit, but Kyle stopped her. She felt his fingers pull out of her, and the sense of emptiness in their absence was almost painful.
She felt him shift on top of her, repositioning his head so it was between her legs. The sight of his thick black locks between her thighs sent a spike of desire coursing through her. She twisted her hands in the sheets and flexed the muscles in her legs as she braced herself.
He swiped his tongue along the entrance to her slit. She arched against him, forcing her legs wider in an automatic response. He lapped at her in long, slow strokes, tracing her folds with the tip of his tongue and circling around her clit without actually touching it.
She was climbing higher and higher, past the point that she thought she should have climaxed. She was vaguely aware of her hips pumping against him reflexively. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, that she would burst at the seams if he continued on any longer, his mouth slid to her clit, enveloping fully. He sucked hard, and that was it for her.
She came, dislodging from everything but the waves of ecstasy that washed through her.
He pressed kisses against the inside of her thighs as she drifted back down, rocked by pleasurable aftershocks as her orgasm subsided.
As the carnal need subsided, she was left to face the flood of thoughts that she’d pushed away in the moment. What was she doing? He hadn’t been back in town for two full days and already she was crawling back into his bed, ready to let him screw her again?
She didn’t even know if she believed him yet. Hell, she wanted to. She wanted to just give into this and let the chips fall where they may, but she didn’t have that luxury. She didn’t want some one-night stand with her ex, and she sure as hell didn’t need to start anything with her daughter’s estranged father. Especially not one who claimed to have gotten under the skin of some local drug lord.
“Kyle,” she murmured, pushing herself up and dragging the sheet over her exposed body. “Kyle, I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have started.”
Kyle looked pissed. He pushed himself back up so the bulk of his body overshadowed her. “What the fuck do you mean you can’t? You just did. Don’t you fucking tell me you didn’t like that.”
“Shit, you don’t get it,” she snapped, dragging herself out of the bed and bringing the sheet with her. She wasn’t letting him keep the upper hand in this. “You think things are simple? That if we’re good in bed together, we’re good together? How many goddamn times do I have to tell you I have a kid now? I have a life. And I want to believe you, I really do, but I’ve got your word and nothing else right now. You could fuck me tonight and be gone tomorrow, and I’m not going to put myself through that, not again.”
Kyle jumped out of the bed, chest heaving. She could make out a few veins bulging in his neck. “I told you what happened,” he snarled, advancing a few steps toward her. “I had to leave then. But I’m back now, and I’m not going anywhere, you hear me?”
Bridgette just clutched the sheet around her more firmly. She was going to stand her ground. “I want to believe you. But I can’t just think about what I want right now. If I get involved with someone, I have to know he’s going to be good for my baby girl. Best case scenario, you’re tangling with a drug lord who would’ve used me to get to you. I don’t want my daughter on his short list, too.”
Kyle stayed tense for a moment, looking for all the world like he was fighting to stay angry. But after a few seconds the tension faded, giving way to grudging acceptance.
Protecting loved ones—that was a language Bridgette knew he spoke.
He kept advancing, though now there was no intense energy in his movements. When he stood just before her, he placed both hands on her face and held her there. He didn’t hold her tenderly; his palms crushed against her face with restrained strength—not painful but solid enough for her to know she wasn’t going anywhere. To feel like he wasn’t going anywhere either.
The thought brought with it an unexpected swell of tenderness. God, how long had it been since she’d been able to lean on anyone else like this, even for a second? She’d been fighting so hard to stand on her own two feet for so long that she’d forgotten what it was like to have someone prop her up. She felt the traces of tears gathering in her eyes—a bittersweet mixture of gratefulness for his strength now and grief for the years they’d spent apart.
“I get it,” he told her in a low voice. “You need time. Space. I’ll keep back as much as I can. But I am going to prove to you, Bridge, beyond the fucking shadow of a doubt, that I can keep you safe, that you can trust me.” He pressed a forceful kiss to her forehead, then let her go.
Bridgette drew a trembling breath into her lungs. She lifted her arm to her eyes to swipe away all traces of her tears. “I’m going to go take another shower.”
Kyle grinned crookedly at that. “I thought you might need one,” he teased her, his suddenly lewd gaze dropping to the apex of her thighs.
She smacked him in the shoulder and turned quickly to hide the flush that rose to her cheeks.
She really didn’t want to stop this, she realized. She wanted to turn right around and pick up where they’d left off.
Why did doing the right thing have to
be so hard?
Chapter 8
Bridgette
Bridgette lay beside Kyle, staring up at the ceiling. It was early in the morning, and daylight was just beginning to filter through the window.
She’d slept beside him last night, even if she hadn’t slept with him. There was a second bedroom and she’d initially settled herself there after a goodnight phone call to Gabby. But it had felt too cold and empty beneath the sheets, especially when she knew he was just down the hall.
She’d eventually crawled into bed beside him. He didn’t say a word, and she didn’t either. It was nicer that way—less complicated. She didn’t have to tell him what it meant, or rationalize to herself why she felt better under the covers next to him. It simply was.
Kyle was still sleeping next to her. He lay on his back, his chest half-exposed, head turned toward her on the pillow. His mouth hung open, and he snored softly. She would shift her eyes back to watch him on occasion, letting herself become mesmerized by the easy rise and fall of his chest.
If only they could stay like that forever. Nothing behind them, nothing in front of them. Just their two bodies sharing heat beneath the covers. It would be perfect.
But she couldn’t stay there beside him. Not now. She’d woken up hours ago, inundated by thoughts of what she should do about everything.
She’d promised Kyle she wouldn’t go back to the bakery, and at the time she’d meant it. She’d believed in the danger he’d described, and she had no desire to risk her life for a few cupcakes, as he’d put it. She’d seen what those goons had done to her basement. The memory of the blood on the walls was still vivid in her mind.
But that didn’t mean that she could just sit by idly, either. She’d built that place from the ground up. She’d first moved into the building when it had been just a vacated space that had been on the market too long—busted windows and graffiti tags on its brick front.
She’d put the elbow grease into it, doing most of the dirty work herself. She’d given up weekends while working her other jobs in order to rip up the rotting flooring, repaint the walls, scrub the interior.
Even all the equipment inside the bakery was uniquely hers. She’d spent hours shopping on eBay and Craigslist to find used models and save money wherever she could. Every dime she didn’t waste could be reinvested in other crucial elements—décor, advertising, extra ingredients for experimentation.
She wasn’t going to let her business sink just because there was a chance of danger. She hadn’t let those creeps scare her off before, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to now.
But if something happened to me, she argued with herself, what would Gabby do? How could she forgive herself if her recklessness endangered her daughter’s life, or even made it more difficult?
She pivoted between staying and going for too long, until the cold of the night began to creep away and the new day started to filter in. Staying seemed reasonable, but going seemed essential, and she could not for the life of her make a decision.
After much internal deliberation, she arrived at the decision that she could at the very least scope the place out. If everything seemed fine, then she could go into work and start sorting through the debris of her storeroom. If not, then she could just calmly turn around, sneak back into the house, and slip back into bed before Kyle had noticed she had gone. It was perfectly sensible.
She slid out from beneath the covers carefully. Kyle used to be a heavy sleeper, but she didn’t know if that had changed over the years, especially after going on the run from Martin. She swung her feet as quietly as possible over the side of the mattress and placed them on the floor, sneaking a glance back at him to see if he’d noticed.
He was still out cold, snoring quietly. She heaved a small sigh of relief.
She stood up slowly, carefully shifting her weight forward to minimize the decompression of the mattress. Then she backed away, feeling each step out with her foot behind her to be sure that nothing was blocking her path.
As she watched Kyle, she felt the urge rise in her to plant a kiss on his cheek. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and there was a thin smattering of stubble ringing his mouth. She wanted to feel the tickle of those prickly ends against her cheek, to move her lips down to his mouth and taste the sleepiness in him.
He had always been the one to wake her that way on the weekends. She’d loved to sleep in, but he’d come to at seven every day, operating by an internal clock. He’d always said the best part of the day was watching her wake up slowly, knowing he was the first thing she felt and saw that day.
Now she had the chance to turn the tables, to see if he was onto something there.
You can’t, she reminded herself. There were a thousand reasons she couldn’t. She needed to check on the bakery, for one. He would never let her. And that wasn’t even getting into the can of worms she’d open up by that little gesture.
They couldn’t be together—she had to keep reminding herself of that. No matter how badly her body wanted it.
She forced herself to keep moving backwards toward the door. She had to get through this crisis first, she told herself. Once Kyle had straightened things out and taken care of the drug lord and his men—assuming he could do that—then she could step back and reevaluate. Saying no now wasn’t saying no for forever.
She made it to the hall without waking Kyle. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief, but kept moving. She had to get dressed and get herself put together quickly. There was no telling when Kyle would wake up.
She managed to get herself ready fairly quickly. Her hair was a little wild when she glanced at it in the mirror, but she decided it would have to do and hustled to grab her things and get out the door.
# # #
Thankfully the nearest bus stop was just a block and a half away. She kicked herself for agreeing so easily to riding with Kyle back to his place. He’d insisted it wasn’t to keep her trapped, just to keep her from running off on him. She’d disliked it at the time, but she’d told herself she was resourceful enough to work around it.
But now the inconvenience was adding unnecessary time to her trip. She’d have to catch the bus to the stop closest to the lot where she’d parked her car, then drive from there to the bakery. She would definitely be opening late that day.
She reached the bus stop quickly, and luckily the next bus wasn’t too far out. It was just a short loop around the town and neighboring residential areas, and usually there wasn’t much of a wait time, but every second counted now. Kyle wasn’t going to be happy if he woke up to find her gone.
She couldn’t stop herself from fidgeting nervously as she rode the bus. It was a short enough ride, less than ten minutes, but it felt like forever, especially since sitting alone in the near-empty interior left her too much room to think.
She started to question her decision again. So what if she fell a little behind in her business. She could always bust her ass to make up for it, right? One day wasn’t going to sink her. She was taking unnecessary risks here.
But there were too many dangers of getting just a little behind. She knew that too well. Desperation didn’t look good on anyone, especially her—a single mom in a small town. And being in a difficult position financially meant she would have less control over her life.
She needed her bakery to be a success because it was the only way she could keep control over her life and her daughter’s.
Bridgette kept repeating that to herself like a mantra all the way to the bakery. She chanted it to herself as she descended down the bus, as she crossed the parking lot to her car, as she drove down the lonely streets toward the downtown area.
She rolled up onto the street slowly, stopping at the four-way kitty-corner to the bakery and scanning the empty sidewalk for any sign of movement. There was no one she could see. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be out and about. Still, she wasn’t going to jump to any conclusions just yet. She was taking a calculated risk here, not blindly j
eopardizing her welfare.
She cruised slowly down the length of the street, shifting her gaze from the left to the right. Everything from the streets to the narrow alleyways between building groups was deserted. She turned around, came back up the street, and paused before her storefront.
It was still dark inside, and empty as far as she could tell. She peered inside for a while, idling in the street since she wasn’t holding up traffic. Even after ten minutes had passed, she couldn’t detect anyone inside. Satisfied, she drove around to the community lot where she normally parked.
There were a few familiar cars there, she noted, but nothing out of the ordinary. She did a few loops around the lot, senses on high alert, but even after that everything seemed kosher. So she parked up in the top left corner, her usual spot, gathered up her purse, and slid out of the car, locking it behind her.
She kept her eyes wide and her ears open as she walked her usual route to the bakery. Once she thought she heard the scuffle of footsteps behind her, but when she whipped around it turned out to only be a fat city squirrel scampering over the pavement, searching for abandoned scraps. She kept one hand on her phone and the other laced through her keys, though, just in case.