Sebring

by Kristen Ashley

  “Who burned you?” he pressed.

  I stared into blue.

  “Who burned you, baby?”

  “I can’t be with you,” I told him.

  “Who burned you, Livvie?”

  “I can’t be with you, Nick.”

  “Who burned you?”

  “I can’t be with you because my father is a piece of shit and I care about you too much to have his stink settle on you.”

  Nick went silent.

  But the room went wired.

  He heard me and he got me.

  Every word.

  He got me.

  He knew who burned me.

  He knew, my father burning me, there was no me. There was just Vincent Shade’s daughter, and me not even having me, I couldn’t give myself to someone else.

  I felt the electricity snap against my skin, but for Nick I had to force out my plea.

  “Let me go.”

  Nick didn’t move or speak.

  I slid my hands up and curled them around either side of his neck.

  “You need to let me go, sweetheart,” I whispered.

  He moved then.

  He slammed his mouth down on mine and kissed me.

  I didn’t bother fighting it. It had been weeks since I’d seen him, touched him, heard his voice. If I couldn’t fight it to stop something from starting that I knew for the both of us was unhealthy, the need I had for him after weeks without him was impossible to beat.

  So, no.

  I didn’t fight it.

  I kissed him back.

  He moved us toward his bed.

  On our way we tore at each other’s clothes. I heard ripping. I knew I popped some buttons off his shirt. I didn’t care about either.

  I just needed him.

  We fell to the bed partially clothed. We made frantic but light work rectifying that.

  If before sex had been a battle for control for us, now it was war.

  It wasn’t hungry.

  It was wild. Frenzied.

  Abandoned.

  I had no thought. Not one. Not about anything but what I was feeling and what I could make him feel.

  In return, Nick’s intensity cocooned me. The world melted away. There wasn’t even his bedroom. His bed. These were incidentals. They existed without existing.

  It was just him. The noises he made. The feel of his body. His smell. His hands on me. Mine on him. Our tongues. Our teeth. His cock. My pussy.

  Reduced to that, safe in Nick, trusting in that moment that was just him, only him, nothing else existing, I eventually gave in and gave him everything.

  I gave him the real me.

  Safe with Nick, I submitted.

  Relaxing into the position he’d earned, his hand wrapped around the back of my neck, my cheek pressed to the bed, arms under me, ass in the air, taking his cock, he felt my capitulation and drove in faster.

  “You mine?” he grunted.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  He had me.

  So he claimed more.

  I felt his thumb invade my ass.

  My eyes drifted blissfully closed and my body started trembling.

  “You mine?” he growled.

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  His hand at my neck held me down while he fucked my ass with his thumb and my cunt with his cock.

  “You mine?” he bit out.

  “Yes,” I repeated. “Yes, Nick. Keep fucking me. Please. Keep…fucking…me.”

  He kept fucking me and my trembling turned to shuddering, the violence of it growing more and more as I felt him take me and listened to our noises fill the room. The sound of our fucking. His low grunts. My heavy breathing.

  Suddenly, I knew I was going to lose hold on it, my orgasm was going to overwhelm me and I couldn’t let that happen. I had to keep it together. I had to live that moment for eternity. It couldn’t be over. I’d never have it back. I’d never be nothing but Nick’s. I’d never have him all to me.

  “No,” I whispered, the word breaking, trying to lock against his thrusts so I could freeze us in time, keep my climax at bay, have what we had right then forever.

  “Livvie?”

  “No,” I whimpered. “Don’t…wanna…lose you,” I panted.

  His thumb slid gently out of my ass and his hand at my neck moved in, around and down until he had it hooked at my chest.

  He pulled me up as he kept powering up inside me, his lips now at my ear.

  “I’m right here,” he said.

  I closed my eyes.

  He pulled away, turned me, dropped me to my back in the bed and grasped my hips, yanking them up and into him so he was crouched back on his knees, again inside me, taking me.

  I opened my eyes and his gaze held mine.

  “Right here, Livvie.”

  I felt the tears rise in my eyes as I reached out, planting a hand in a slap against his abs, feeling them work as he drove into me, his gaze locked to mine.

  “Nick.”

  “Right here, baby.”

  I threw my other hand back, pushing it against the headboard and driving myself down on him as he took me.

  “Fuck,” he grunted, his face darkening.

  He was close.

  My hand at his abs curled in, my fingernails scoring flesh.

  I was closer.

  His cock rammed deep.

  “Fuck,” he groaned.

  “Nick,” I whispered then arched uncontrollably as my body shattered while Nick kept fucking me, doing it gripping my hips hard, yanking me to him, sighing deep, all while shooting inside me.

  Simultaneous orgasm.

  Beautiful.

  If I was going to lose him, lose that moment, that was the perfect way for it to happen.

  I was just coming down when I felt his warmth cover my torso and I realized he’d fallen into me, his face in the pillow at my side.

  I put my hands to him, moving, stroking, memorizing, feeling my frame jerk lightly with the aftershocks, my lips parted, eyes closed, breath steadying.

  “You’re fucking spending the night,” Nick growled into my neck.

  My body had felt liquid.

  At his words, it turned solid.

  He lifted his head.

  I opened my eyes. “We can’t—”

  He cut me off. “We’re gonna figure it out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out.”

  He looked over my head, muttering, “I’m not findin’ this part of you bein’ a fuckin’ nut cute.”

  “Sebring,” I called quietly.

  He looked back at me, a mixture of sex and irritation on his face.

  I liked that look so much I felt my pussy convulse.

  He felt it too.

  “Christ,” he bit out, his hips bucking into mine.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “Don’t apologize for milkin’ my cock,” he ordered.

  I pressed my lips together and tried not to convulse again at his words.

  “You came here tonight thinkin’ I needed you.”

  I decided not to answer and not just because I’d made that clear earlier so he already knew the answer.

  “All I did was kiss you and now I gotta take my shirt to a tailor to put new fuckin’ buttons on it,” he carried on.

  I continued my silence, again not just because that did indeed happen and there was no point denying it.

  “And now you finally get it that your body is mine, your cunt is mine, your ass is mine, your everything is mine and you can trust me to give you what you need because,” he dipped closer, “you can just fuckin’ trust me and you say in the fucked-up mess we’ve built we got nothin’ to figure out?”

  “I—”

  “Shut it,” he growled.

  I snapped my mouth shut not because he told me to but because I was getting angry and I’d been taught not to speak when I was angry.

  “You’re spending the night,” he repeated. “Now, have you eaten?”

  Have I eaten?
<
br />   Was he crazy?

  I glared at him.

  “Olivia, have you eaten?” he asked impatiently.

  “We are not doing this,” I declared.

  “We are,” he shot back. “And that discussion has been had. Now, tell me, have you fuckin’ eaten?”

  “The discussion hasn’t been had considering I said one word during it before you rudely interrupted me.”

  “Did you come here thinkin’ I needed you?”

  “Did you text me to trick me into thinking you did?” I returned.

  “No, I texted you because I wanted your ass here so I could ream it for givin’ me that fuckin’ amazing painting but writin’ that just fuckin’ fucked-up note, makin’ it clear you weren’t gonna search for your own happiness which meant I had to do somethin’ about that shit. Which, even if it pissed me off, was good since I was lookin’ for an excuse to do that and you gave me one. And then after I reamed your ass, I intended to tag it. That’s all done. And you don’t gotta bother answering. I know like you know I know that you came here thinkin’ I needed you. Which says it fuckin’ all.”

  “Sebring—”

  He got so close the tip of his nose brushed mine.

  “Livvie, we’re gonna figure this out.”

  Nick on top of me, his cock still inside me, I started trembling but for a different reason this time.

  He felt it. I knew it when I saw the rage flash through his eyes before he buried it and forced his arms under me so he was holding me.

  “You toe his line,” he whispered.

  “Sebring—”

  “He burned you. You toe his line. You don’t ever step over it. You did and you earned his lesson. So now you don’t ever step over that fuckin’ line. Am I right?”

  Caught in his eyes, I let the blue close me in and it was just him again for me.

  “He owns me.”

  The flash of wrath shot through his gaze again before he slid out of me and rolled us to our sides, keeping me close in his arms.

  “I own you,” he decreed.

  “Sebring—”

  “Livvie, not ten minutes ago, you gave yourself to me. He can’t own you when you belong to me.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t feel the burn but I see the scars so I do understand, baby. But that’s done. It was done the minute you walked to my chair in the club. I owned you then. And you own me.”

  I closed my eyes and dipped my chin into my throat.

  God, I wanted to own him. I wanted him to be mine.

  And I wanted him to own me.

  I felt Nick’s lips at the top of my hair.

  “We’re gonna do this right. Take it slow. Build the trust. Figure it out. And do it smart. You with me, Livvie?”

  I tipped my head so my lips were at his throat but I didn’t open my eyes when I whispered fervently, “He can’t know. It isn’t about me. But he can’t know. I can’t go through it again. Not it happening to me. Watching.”

  Nick slid his arm up my spine and curled it around the back of my neck.

  “Leary,” he said quietly.

  I pressed my lips deeper into his throat, murmuring, “He can’t know.”

  “He won’t know, honey.”

  “He can’t know,” I repeated.

  “He won’t touch me.”

  “He can’t know.”

  “Shh,” he shushed me, his hand at my neck shifting to sift through my hair.

  It took a while but eventually it worked. I turned my head so my cheek was to his throat and relaxed in his arms.

  “I need to keep you safe, Sebring,” I whispered.

  “I’m safe, Livvie.”

  “You need to let me keep you safe.”

  “If that means letting you go, that’s not gonna happen.”

  I sighed and said, “They watch my house.”

  “Okay,” he replied slowly.

  “They have a tracker on my car.”

  I felt his body grow taut.

  “Fuck,” he clipped. “Do you—?”

  “I take it off before coming here.”

  “Goddammit,” he muttered, then, “Lavish cage,” but said no more.

  That was when I took a chance and gave him some more of me.

  “They don’t know about the club. When I go, Harry drives me.”

  “Harry?”

  “A leftover from another time. He’s loyal to me. He also knows the drill. He’s the one who showed me how to find a tracker on my car and remove it without them knowing.”

  “Right.”

  Nick again said no more and I didn’t either. I just lay in his arms trying to get back that feeling of just Nick and me.

  But the fear kept invading.

  Nick felt it.

  “He’s not gonna hurt me and he’s sure as fuck is not gonna hurt you, Olivia. You got no reason to trust that but we work this out, we build it, you’ll eventually get there with me.”

  The fear started choking me and to release some of it, I shared, “He won’t let me go easy.”

  “I don’t give a fuck how hard it is on him.”

  For some reason, I expected there to be more.

  There wasn’t.

  That was it. Simple.

  To Nick, it was a foregone conclusion.

  No, not even that.

  To Nick, it was done.

  I was Vincent Shade’s no longer.

  I belonged to Nick Sebring.

  With some surprise, on that simple thought, I felt the tension ebb from me.

  He felt it too.

  “Now, babe, this time answer me. Have you eaten? Because I haven’t and I’m fuckin’ starving.”

  “No,” I answered. “I haven’t eaten.”

  “Right,” he muttered. His arms tightening around me, he dragged me up the bed so we were face to face. I opened my eyes and caught his just in time for him to finish, “Got nothin’ in the fridge. So we’re ordering a pizza.”

  Nick was ordering us a pizza.

  I was a girl with her guy, spending the night at his place, fucking and ordering pizza.

  Normal.

  Simple.

  Real.

  The last of the tension shifted out of me.

  “I hope you have beer.”

  His concentration shifted and he muttered, “I’ll run out and get some.”

  “Sebring?” I called.

  His attention focused again on me.

  I had something to say but when I got those blue eyes, I couldn’t get anything out of me.

  So I did the only thing I could do.

  I moved to him and touched my mouth to his, my eyes open and I hoped communicating.

  I had a feeling he read me because one hand glided in my hair, the other one glided down to cup my ass and he rolled into me, taking my lip touch and turning it into a hot, hard, rough kiss.

  He ended the kiss by rolling us again, him to his back, me on top of him, whereupon he immediately smacked my ass and muttered against my mouth, “Now go get me the pizza menu. Famous’s. Top drawer, left back of the kitchen.”

  I heard not a single word out of his mouth.

  “You smacked my ass,” I declared, eyes narrowing.

  “Do it again, you don’t get me the menu. And grab my cell on the way back. It’s in my slacks.”

  I pushed up.

  He came up with me and brought me down, twisted so my torso was pinned under his, back to the bed, lower body on its side so he could smack my bare ass again.

  I felt my eyes get round before they went squinty.

  “You gonna do as you’re told or you gonna fight me?” he asked.

  He looked like he was struggling against smiling.

  “You’re getting off on this,” I accused.

  “You’re getting off on it too, Olivia, and don’t deny it ’cause I’ll just have to prove it and that’ll delay pizza which would be annoying.”

  “I—” I began to snap but his hand cracked against my ass again righ
t before it soothed it sweetly and his mouth came to mine.

  His deep voice was gentle and just as sweet when he asked affectionately, “Livvie, go get your man the pizza menu and his phone. Okay, baby?”

  He ended that request sliding his hand in, his fingertips gliding between my legs, one whispering across my clit.

  “Okay, Nick,” I breathed.

  His eyes smiled and he gave me a short, rough kiss before he let me go.

  I got him the menu and his phone.

  Holding me in his bed, Nick ordered pizza.

  He left me in his bed when he got dressed and went out to buy me beer.

  He came back and we ate pizza, drank beer and then fucked, slow and long and beautifully.

  And I fell asleep with Nick in his bed.

  I woke up there too.

  Both the falling asleep and the waking up I did with Nick holding me.

  Normal.

  Simple.

  Real.

  And terrifying.

  Chapter Seventeen

  No Limit

  Nick

  7:28 – The Next Morning

  After their shower, Nick lost track of Olivia when he was in his closet pulling on trousers.

  He found her in his kitchen, wet hair just as it was dry, straight as a sheet, bangs spiky against her eyebrows, wearing his shirt from the day before barely buttoned up because there weren’t many buttons left.

  She was doing something and he hoped it was making coffee.

  But he saw her purse on the bar where he put it after he retrieved it the night before from where she’d told him she’d left it in her car.

  “Got your phone on you?” he asked, moving toward the kitchen, his eyes to her purse.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Gonna take it today, honey. Have one of my guys look at it. Make sure they got nothing on it to track you.”

  He felt her gaze and turned his from her purse to see panic etched in her features.

  Like last night, he beat back his response not only to having the knowledge confirmed her own fucking father burned her, but also the asshole kept tabs on her to control her.

  Instead, he swiftly moved around the bar and pulled her in his arms.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” he told her.

  She rested her hands on his biceps, her head tipped back, her expression not assured.

  “Do you think they know I’m here?” she asked.

  If they knew that she was visiting him, now or before, they both would be very aware of it.

  “No,” he answered and gave her more, “And even if they did, if they got that info just off a tracker, they wouldn’t know who you were visiting. I own this unit ’cause I own the building. A company I’m a partner in did the renos. But the unit, the building, my car, nothin’ is easy to trace back to me. For business purposes, I erased myself a long time ago. Just makes shit easier. Only people who know I exist are the IRS but even that’s a juggernaut I pay three CPAs to straighten out so they don’t audit me. So, unless they’re standin’ outside watchin’ and see me open the door, they won’t know who you’re seein’. And I got security on this building, watched twenty-four seven, so if we had company, I’d know that too.”