by Lynda Aicher
“What?”
V sighed. “There are things in his past, but you’ll have to get the details from him.”
“But he is a Dom, right? Or is he just dominant? Is there a difference?” Liv was so confused. She rubbed her forehead, but it didn’t clarify anything.
“There is a difference. A big one.” V glanced at the clock on the wall and started to scoot off the bed. “I have to get to work.” She slipped her heels on and motioned for Liv to follow her. “I’ll send you some links to websites that you can read, and then we can talk more.”
“Thank you,” Liv said as V locked the playroom door. It was strange to think that room had always been there and no one had ever known. Did Noah have one in his basement?
“For what?”
“Everything,” Liv finally answered when they returned to the kitchen.
V stopped while filling her briefcase and came to stand in front of Liv. “I’m here for any questions you have, but you really need to talk to Noah about this, too.”
“You’re right. But he’s already stressed with everything that’s going on. The last thing I want to do is add to it.” Or be a cause for more.
“Then he shouldn’t be doing anything with you at all,” V repeated again.
“I really don’t want that to stop either.” She grinned at her sister and waggled her brows.
V slapped her arm and turned back to her briefcase. “Just be careful, okay? Promise me that.”
“Always,” Liv answered. Her standard reply whenever V got all protective gave her a sense of comfort. “You be careful, too. Keep those vultures off your scent, and Holden’s, too.”
V slung her bag over her shoulder and shot Liv a predatory grin. “That’s my job, sis. Those amateurs have no chance against me.”
“Is that why they’ve uncovered so much about the others then? Because they seemed to be doing a pretty good job of digging up dirt.”
Kendra was still in a coma, and her entire past regarding her family and their social status within Chicago society had been aired a few nights ago. Cali’s kids weren’t speaking to her after the vultures had dug into Jake’s history in the BDSM community. And Tyler’s one record of being arrested for solicitation had been waved like a red flag of proof that the lifestyle was a hideaway for illegal sexual acts.
V whipped around, expression fierce. “I can’t block police reports and I can’t remove names from public documents. But I can keep information from leaking to the wrong people. I can bury stories before they surface and I can spin bad ones to make them look good. I’m doing everything I can to keep the damage to a minimum, but I can’t do magic.” She pointed a finger at Liv. “Don’t you think for one second that I’m not doing everything I can to keep the rest of us safe.”
The venom of her conviction cracked through the air between them, and Liv eased in to pull her sister into a hug. “I know, V. I do,” she whispered. Noah and V were both doing whatever they could to protect them all. “The stress is getting to everyone. Sorry.”
That statement summed it all up nicely. Too bad that stress didn’t appear to be going away any time soon.
Chapter Nineteen
The soft sense of being engulfed in safety was nudged aside by the moist trail that tingled down the side of Liv’s neck and the slow caress that skimmed over her abdomen. A brush of a palm over her nipple had a low moan tumbling from her lips as she slowly surfaced from the slumber that held her.
“Hey,” she murmured and reached back to rub her hand over Noah’s hip, where he spooned behind her. A sleepy smile curled over her lips when she found only skin. She arched her neck and blinked at the clock. It was just after midnight, which was early for him.
He kissed a line down her shoulder then up to nuzzle her ear. He found her breast again and tweaked her nipple, sending an instant flash of heat skittering through her chest on a straight-shot to her sex.
“I want you,” he said, voice husky. He rocked his erection into the crease of her ass then up the ridge of her back. She automatically rolled her hips, spine arching to press her breast into his hand. “I want to be buried deep inside of you and feel you come all around me.”
“Yes.” Her agreement was barely more than a breathy whisper, but it was exactly what she wanted, too. She urged him on, gripping his thigh and grinding her bottom against his hardened length.
Her panties were slipped from her body in a single swipe of his hand down her stomach and over her legs. His oversized T-shirt that she wore as a nightshirt was shoved over her head and tossed aside as he rolled her onto her back.
He loomed over her in the darkness, a shadowed outline with dips and planes she now knew by heart. She cupped his face, his beard stubble coarse against her palms, and tried to guide him down for a kiss, only to meet his stiff resistance. Undeterred, she leaned up to nip along the curve of his neck and over his throat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked against the soft juncture of his neck and shoulder. It’d been an intense two days since the press conference, and they’d both been swamped keeping up with the demands placed on them. She dropped back and traced a line over the soft skin of his cheekbone. “I’ve missed you.”
He took her mouth in an aggressive kiss that drove her head back and left her limp and gasping for air. There was an edge of desperation to him that was a bit wild and at the same time tender. She clutched his back and wrapped her legs around his hips to hold him closer. Skin against skin, his hard lines pressed to her softer ones.
“Liv,” he rumbled at her throat, his kisses taking him down to her nipples, where he sucked and played with each one in turn. His mouth was hot and wet and drove her crazy with each teasing nip and longer bites that pushed to the point of pain before easing back.
He shifted her hands from where they’d drifted to hold his hair and lifted them over her head. The darkness hid his eyes, but she felt his intensity through the strain on his arms and the way he studied her. She didn’t fight him or resist. She never did. Giving this to him was heaven to her, too.
She grabbed the headboard slats without being told. They’d done this before, but its significance was honed sharp in her mind after her talk with V. Her submission to him in this way meant more now, and that was what this was. She was giving herself to him, and the conscious knowledge had her floating on a wave of expectation and satisfaction.
Her legs fell open next and she sucked in slow breaths, anticipation buzzing beneath her skin as he kissed his way past her breasts to tongue her belly button before finally reaching his goal.
He slid his tongue through her sex in a slow pass that took time to swirl around her opening, dip in then travel up to flick her clit. She moaned and gave no resistance when he shoved her legs open wider, her knees bending when he tipped them up. Everything was open to him to take and plunder.
He snatched a pillow, shoved it under her hips then dove back in to tease and tempt and drive her to a writhing mess. She clenched the bars tighter, the hold her grounding point as she floated higher.
She was lost in sensation, her entire body on fire as he pushed her to the edge and back, over and over. He filled her with his tongue and fingers, plunging, stroking and grinding down until her hips rolled in reflexive jerks for more.
The hot lap of his tongue over her anus yanked her from her hazy cloud with a gasp. She jerked and tried to pull away from the unexpected intimate touch on a taboo area, but he held her firm and continued a slow circle and pressed on that spot.
“Noah?” Her voice was a shaky croak that communicated her hesitation and only some of her embarrassment. “What…”
He didn’t answer, just held her still and licked swirls over and around an area that had never experienced anything like that. Every lap sent shots of pure heat through the entire area. How? Her thoughts stuttered and shorted out when he wormed the tip of his tongue into the hole. It felt wrong and right at the same time, and she didn’t know how to process that.
He shifted up and tappe
d her hip. “Roll over.”
Her eyes flew open when she hadn’t realized they were closed. She couldn’t read his expression in the darkness and had a brief wish that she could until her thoughts connected. She didn’t want him to see the confusion that warmed her cheeks.
She did as he instructed, if only to bury her face in the pillow. He bent her legs under her and spread her butt cheeks. She had only a second to tense up before his hot mouth was back on that spot. Her moan tore from the depths of her gut to expel in a muffled rush into the fluffy pillow.
The nerve endings around that hole seemed to fire to life with every touch and lick. His grip was steady when she squirmed, holding her exactly as he wanted until his tongue penetrated the rim once again. How could he want…
Her doubts and questions were shoved away by the rush of pleasure that burned through her. The pressure wasn’t painful, only odd in a completely foreign way. But somehow it was good. So very good that she forgot about what he was doing and got lost in the thousand different sensations flooding her.
Heat, wetness, tingling awareness of an area she’d never thought of as sensual or sexual. And that awareness connected to her other areas in a completely unexpected way. Her vaginal walls contracted and flexed with each penetration of her anus.
He slipped in a finger, and she arched into it, loving the feel of it rubbing against the amazingly sensitive outer rim. Her body moved on reflex, a roll and press timed with his movements. When one finger became two, she almost balked. The burning stretch pushed the pain scale, but a few rubs on her clit had the muscles easing, the discomfort retreating behind the rush of sensual pleasure.
There was a sharp pinch on her bottom, and her dazed mind processed the bite as the sting faded to dull throbs. Even that shifted into enjoyment in a rapid pace that matched the accelerated beat of her heart.
“Have you ever had sex with a plug in?” He stroked her oversensitive clit in time with the withdrawal and plunge of his fingers in her.
It took more than a second for her to process his throaty question. “No,” she finally panted, the simple answer seeming to take more effort than she had energy for.
“Mmm.” His rumble of appreciation was almost a purr that tumbled into her chest to squeeze her heart. “I’m going to do that. I’m going to fill you up until all you can think about is me.” In direct opposition to his words, he pulled his hands away, leaving her empty and wanting. Her muscles clamped around the loss with the need to be filled again.
She wanted to say he’d already accomplished that task, but words wouldn’t form. All she could do was move her head and hope he got it. She barely processed the next moments with the snap of a lid then the slick of liquid before the pressure on her anus returned. The object was blunt and hard, but he eased it in slowly so the stretch never went past an acceptable point.
“That’s it.” He rubbed around the rim before plunging his fingers into her vagina. The dual penetration had her gasping and clutching at the pillow for something, anything to hold on to. “Let it in. Feel how good this is then imagine me filling you, taking every inch of me as I drive into you with this in you, too.”
Just the thought was enough to turn her to mush. When the wide brim of the plug slipped past the outer ring to settle into place, she inhaled a gulp of air, her body clenching around it. He rolled her back over, every movement seeming to draw attention to the foreign invader shoved within her. Again the briefest inkling of doubt crept in as he put on a condom then he was over her, kissing away any thought but him.
His tongue played with hers, distracting her from the plug and the strange fullness that somehow pointed out how empty her vagina was. When he finally eased into her, it was like an entirely new experience.
She groaned into his kiss, grabbed his arms and mentally processed the slide of him over the tender nerves in a channel that was more compressed and sensitive than normal. He separated just enough to stare into her eyes before he pulled out and thrust back in.
“Ohmygod,” she said, the sound a shade over a whisper.
His lips curled in a focused snarl as he repeated the motion in almost agonizing slowness. “You feel so good.” The rough cut of his words was another aphrodisiac to her already overloaded senses. “I’m going to take you hard.”
He snapped his hips in an almost brutal drive into her that lurched her toward the headboard. Shocking and rough, it had her begging for more. “God, yes. Please.” She locked her ankles around his hips and her arms around his neck, the position so natural, like they’d been doing this for years.
Every driving thrust was accompanied by vocal sounds that amounted to little more than grunts, groans and whimpers that filled in the slap of skin and random squeak of the bed. There was nothing for her to compare the experience to except plain ole vanilla sex. Why in the heck hadn’t she ever used toys with a past lover?
And this was only one small butt plug.
But it was more than the toy. Noah made it so much better. His touch, his control, his demands of her that allowed her to simply go with it. That was what the experience was really about.
Their skin was slick with perspiration and she swore her blood was boiling. He ran a hand up her thigh, groping behind him until she released her ankles and he hooked his elbow around the crook of her knee and pulled it toward them. He braced both hands on the bed, her leg stretched to wrap around his arm so the plug pushed on the sensitive rim in a way that had her squirming to get away and seeking more at the same time.
His next slide in seemed to go even deeper when she thought it was impossible. She’d never been so full or so aware of every stroke of him inside her.
“How do you feel?”
His question was simple to answer, hard to voice through her dry throat. “So good.”
He kept the pace controlled and steady, just short of enough to drive her over the edge until she wanted to scream, beg, grab hold of him and force him to go faster, but she didn’t. She focused on the sensations, the slick slide of him in and out of her, the rub and pull on the nerves around her anus and how it all blended into one fantastic experience.
When his hard thrust finally came, there was the same wild element to them she found she craved. He grunted with each plunge, his rhythm increasing until he let her leg fall down and dropped onto his forearms to pump harder. She clung to his back, his face buried against her neck, rushing with him to her orgasm that sizzled in her system, waiting for that final crest.
He shifted again, the pressure somehow increasing on her clit. She gasped and tensed.
“Yes. Come, Liv,” he growled. “Let it go.”
And she did. Her cries echoed in the room as her world exploded in light and color and that incredible flood of sensation that left her tingling from head to toe. Noah came with her in a series of deep, grinding drives and inarticulate sounds. It drove her own emotions past the physical to seize her heart in a gripping closeness she’d experienced only with him.
She lay there, sucking in air and savoring the weight of him surrounding her. Too soon he pulled out, took care of the condom, then gently eased the plug out of her. She winced at the stretch over the wider base, but the sting evaporated to leave nothing more than the lingering sense of attention received where she wasn’t used to it.
She was too sated to be embarrassed now. Too content to care how he’d made it happen. Sex with Noah was hands-down the best she’d ever had, on so many levels.
He returned from the bathroom to ease the pillow she’d forgotten about from under her hips and toss it on the floor, then tug the blankets over them. She curled into the crook of his arm without thought. The scent of sweat and sex clung to them and brought a smile to her lips.
He lifted her chin to pepper small kisses over that smile until she was kissing him back and falling into the spell he was weaving. A bite to her lip sobered her up and she pulled away, frowning as she sucked the injured edge into her mouth.
“I’d go again,” he said, amuse
ment in his voice, “but I really need some sleep.”
His words seemed to invoke her yawn of agreement. “So do I,” she said once her jaw stopped its stretch. The lazy consistency of the repeated brush of his hand over her lower back lulled her into the comfortable state she now missed when he wasn’t in bed with her.
“Was that okay for you?”
His clear but almost hesitant question brought another frown to her brow before she pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “It was different,” she said. “But amazing.”
“I didn’t push too far?”
She lifted up to press the next kiss to his lips. “No. I’d tell you if you did.” His continued concern about his actions in bed also made more sense after her talk with V. It touched her and had that warm glow blooming even stronger in her chest. “Trust me on that, okay?”
He skimmed his fingers along her jaw, the moment heavy with what wasn’t being said. “I’ll try.”
She resettled into her spot along his side and let the edges of sleep lull her. She drew an undefined picture over the smooth planes of his chest and collarbone with her fingertips in a habit she barely recognized. “Has the press stopped hounding you?”
His hand stalled in its grazing path across her lower back. His sigh lifted his chest with the preceding inhale before he resumed his caress. “For the most part. I don’t trust that they’re done though.”
“Why?”
“Experience.” He didn’t elaborate, and she let it go. There was no predicting what the vultures would do.
“Noah,” she whispered when his breathing had evened out. His leg twitched as his body shut down to sleep, and she carefully lifted up to confirm that he hadn’t heard her. Still in shadow, she mapped his softened image into her mind. This was the man who’d snuck in to warm her heart in ways she hadn’t expected. “I trust you. Maybe more than I should.”