For His Love

by Nya Rayne

  He was her reason for being.

  She sighed in contentment and pushed her thoughts aside at the feel of his hands tracing a slow track down her belly. “I don’t think you should smile at me like that any more.”

  His head dipped, and he trailed his tongue across her abdomen. “Why? I don’t really know how else to smile at you.”

  “If you continue to look at me like that, I think I might melt, and then where would you be?” His fingers tracked over the rise of her vulva, sending jolts of lightning through her body. She rose up off the bed, a moan slipping from her while one of his fingers slipped into her.

  “Too late, it’s already started,” Donté said. He withdrew from her, drawing a sigh from her. He laid his head against her stomach as she wrapped her legs around his back, linking her feet at the ankles, and began twirling one of his russet locks around her forefinger.

  Phia hadn’t thought it possible she would ever feel this way about anyone. She’d hoped, but never did she truly believe it would happen. He made her feel things she had never in a million years expected to feel. He elicited such passion in her that at times as she watched him, she found herself giddy with delight. He brought to her every emotion she’d seen in the old romantic flicks she loved and every aspiration she’d written about in her journal.

  He was without a shadow of a doubt the man of her dreams.

  “Donté, if I asked you to stay with me after we get your friends out of the Zoo, would you?”

  He didn’t answer her right away, and she wondered what he was thinking. Had she crossed some unspoken line? Was she being silly, sharing her feelings with him and asking him such a thing when he probably didn’t know at the moment whether he was going or coming? Time dragged on before he asked, “Why should I stay, because you bought me?”

  “Donté?” Her heart skipped a beat and the churning in her chest began again at the mere thought of not having him in her life.

  He kissed her stomach but didn’t look at her. “I’m joking. I know why you did what you did, and I’m thankful because of it, but I can’t tell you yes because I don’t know how this is going to end.”

  The tears were there before she felt them coming. She wiped at her eyes, trying to brush them away before he noticed. It was too late.

  He crawled up her body and pulled her hands from her face. Gently, he kissed both of her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t like it when you cry?”

  Phia turned her head away from him as the agitation in her chest grew like a living cloud of despair. She tried this time to wipe them away for good, but the more she wiped, the more they fell. She couldn’t ever remember crying so much in her life before he had come into it. Was she simply a weak person? Or was she overly hormonal? Whatever it was, she did not like it in the least.

  “Stop leaking,” he whispered, nuzzling the side of her face.

  “Don’t,” she told him between sniffles. “You can’t make love to me one minute and tell me you won’t stay with me the next, Donté.” He kissed the side of her neck slowly, and she could feel his cock thickening between her legs. She pushed against his chest in a futile attempt to move him as she finished, “You can’t make me fall in love with you and then leave me. It’s not fair, so stop.”

  He grabbed her hands and pinned them over her head as he moved between her legs, opening them wider.

  “Donté, this doesn’t fix anything.” His engorged head pressed against her entrance. Her betraying hips rose up against his, forcing him inside, and she cursed their deceitful actions. “It’s not fair,” she whimpered as he moaned low, his head dipping lower, his tongue flicking out to taste her lips.

  He released her hands and gripped her hips as he delved deeper, causing her to cry out in pleasure while she rose up closer to him. She looped her arms around his broad back, and pulled him down to her. Her body was a miserable, insatiable, conniving harlot. It didn’t care that her mind was screaming for her not to rock back against him and to ignore the exquisite, pleasurable pain he poured upon her. It gave itself to him without qualms and without the need for promises.

  Every thrust of his hips to hers was met with her fingers raking across his back, the surging of her hips, and wanton expressions of desire she herself couldn’t fully understand. How was she supposed to live without him when this was all over? How was she supposed to survive one damn day without him when she was certain her body no longer belonged to her? She thrashed as he slipped from her and turned his attention to her breasts before he sliding farther down her body, tasting her navel. He sank lower and covered her with his hot mouth. She was certain she was going to die without him.

  Phia tried to regain control of her body as he devoured her with such wonderful brutality she felt he was ripping her apart from the inside. She forgot to breathe, didn’t want to think, and tried to immerse herself in this feeling, so she’d never have to face a reality without him. He was her salvation, her beginning and her end. He was her life.

  She rolled up against his mouth as he opened her slit and slipped his tongue inside her. The throbbing pain was mixed with such unbridled ecstasy, she plummeted to her death in a haze of electrical currents and a mass of lights so bright she knew she’d never be able to see again.

  He licked, whispered, and teased his way back up her body while whispering words she couldn’t understand. Donté slid into her again, and Phia brought her arms up to encircle his neck as she latched her legs around his hips. As he dove into her with sweet abandon, he dredged up every emotion she’d ever longed for and ran from.

  “Why are you still crying?” he whispered into her ear.

  She shook her head and tightened her hold on him. He pulled out of her, flipped her over onto her belly, and reentered her, in the span of half a second. She arched back against him, her legs spread wide, her body burning with an unappeasable fire she knew well.

  He pulled her back, rocked into her. “What do you want from me, Phia?”

  “You,” she breathed as she bucked against him, her hand gripping the edge of the mattress.

  He continued his ruthless assault on her in silence a while longer before he pulled her up so she was against his chest and whispered, “What do you want? Tell me what it is you truly want.”

  She shivered as his fingers found her swollen clit again and wove mesmerizing circles. “Everything,” she panted.

  Burying himself deeper into her, he kissed her neck and massaged her swollen breasts with his free hand. “This isn’t enough?” He pushed her forward so she was on her hands and knees and pistoned into her. Phia knew she couldn’t rival his thrusts, so she allowed him to tear her down, and to remake her as he saw fit.

  “Tell me,” he ordered again, his strokes long and smooth, and more powerful than before. “Tell me now.”

  Bolts of white lightning shot up from her core as her body stiffened before him and the world began to tilt in on itself. She shook with the intensity of her orgasm and his. Phia closed her eyes. “I want all of you.”

  After a moment of quiet surrender, Donté moved, bringing her down with him. She could feel her body quivering against his as his dick, which was still buried to the hilt in her, pulsed against her tender walls.

  Phia reached for the blankets, pulling them up around them and burrowed in, mentally and physically exhausted. She slid back a little closer to him, needing to maintain the connection they shared.

  “Donté, I don’t want you to leave me,” she admitted before she could talk herself out of it. She wanted to see his expression at what she said next, but she didn’t want to lose the feeling of oneness flowing from him into her. “I think I’ve been in love with you from the moment I first saw you.” She gnawed on her lower lip before continuing, “I’m asking you to stay with me because I try to envision you not being in my life and it scares the hell out of me.” The tears were back, and she wiped at her eyes and brought the sheets up a little higher. “This all sounds pretty selfish, I know, but I can’t help it. I need you fo
r me. If I am ever to be anything more than what I am now, I need you with me.” The silence in the room seemed so loud and obnoxious Phia peered over her shoulder at him, her dark eyes pleading. “I’ll follow you. I’ll follow you to the end of the world and back if I have to.”

  Donté moved out of her and turned her fully around to face him. He searched her face from cheek to check and brow to chin. “Will you?” He kissed each of her eyes, and then reached up and wiped away her tears.

  “Yes,” she breathed. “You and I can have a real life together. No more lies, no more pain, and no more loneliness. All you have to do is stay with me.”

  He smiled down at her, his blue eyes shining. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It can be.”

  A patient smile spread over his face, though his eyes lost some of their shine. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Love me,” she said, refusing to look away from him. “Stay with me, or take me with you when all of this is over. Be a part of my life and let me be a part of yours.”

  “What if we can’t infiltrate the Zoo? What about the ‘Higher Hussy’? What if she finds out about what the doctor did? What then?” He pushed up a little farther and continued, “You can’t honestly think she’s going to be okay with us being together. I don’t see how we’re going to be able to walk away from this.”

  “Then if we can’t walk, we’ll run, and we’ll do it together.”

  “What kind of life would we have, Phia? No home, running from place to place, always hoping we’re one step ahead of her. Every time we’re out of each other’s sight, worrying whether the other had gotten caught? That kind of life is okay for me, but now for you. Think about it.”

  “I don’t want to think,” she said, her voice laced with desperation. “I just want you.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, as though trying to read her mind, and Phia wished for a fraction of a second they shared some sort of telepathy. Then he wouldn’t have to guess at how much she was willing to give up for him.

  His eyes reflected the pain she could feel in the pit of her belly. “Phia, even though parts of me are rejoicing right now, I could never allow you to give up everything you have for me. You’re destined to be a baroness. You have a place and a name in this society that means change for all of us.”

  “Donté…” she started, but he cut her off.

  “This is so much bigger than you and me. This is about lives being wasted for the sexual gratification of the ‘Higher Hussy’ and her band of Elites.” His gaze dropped from hers. “I’ve seen so many of my friends find favor, and I was happy for them. I cheered them on. But now, I lie awake at night and wonder if they’re dead, if their bodies are being used as nothing more than tools. If they’re alive and off in some far-off corner of this country living as mindless sex slaves.”

  Phia pushed up, her eyes trained on his face. In the time they’d spent together, she couldn’t ever remember him speaking with such conviction about anything.

  Donté laughed bitterly. “What’s sad is I have no idea which version of them is worse, sex slave or mindless drone.” He ran his hand over her partially covered hip. “I know you see me as your one chance at true happiness, but Phia, there are thousands of men out there locked away like animals. They are being fed lies and treated like dogs.” He reached over, thumbing her chin. “As I am your only chance at the type of future you wrote about in your journal, you are the only hope any of them will ever have at seeing the outside world and being aware enough to appreciate it.”

  “So, are you telling me we can’t have both? Don’t get me wrong, I promise I will do whatever I need to do to make sure this stops. But I need you to promise me you’ll fight for change along with me. Promise me you won’t leave me willingly.” She reached for his hand as she finished, “I need to know if you have a choice, you would choose me.”

  Donté shook his head in defeat and sighed as a small, sad grin spread over his face. He pulled her close, leaned down to her ear, and whispered, “My life literally began with you, Phia. If I have a choice, it will end with you as well.”

  “I want the middle, too, not only the beginning and the end.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll see, but you’re entirely too greedy. You do know that, don’t you?” he said with a chuckle.

  She kissed him. “Can you blame me?”

  Stretching out beside her, he chortled, “I don’t suppose I can. After all, I am quite a catch, aren’t I?”

  Phia swatted his chest and sniggered as she settled down beside him, her hand tracing slowly over the X. “Donté, how did you get this?”

  His hand moved to the X reminiscently. “On my fifth birthday, it was given to me as a gift.”

  “What? They would scar a child so young?”

  “At the Zoo, we all get a letter and a corresponding name on our fifth birthday. Before then, it doesn’t matter who we are since outside of the Caretakers, no one deals with us.” He pulled her closer to him and snuggled down into the covers, his large arms wrapping around her slim frame.

  “Does it hold any other significance? Like your place in their society or something?”

  “I don’t think so. In each bay there is only one nurturer who represents a particular letter of the alphabet. For instance, I’m an X, so when I found favor, they picked the next X in line and put him in my bunk.”

  Phia looked up. “Wait a minute. Your name doesn’t begin with an X.”

  “I swear, you’re getting smarter every day,” he teased.

  Narrowing her eyes, she spoke through clenched teeth. “You have one more chance to say something about my intelligence level, Donté, so I suggest you choose it wisely.”

  He tried to hide his amusement, which only served to irritate her even more.

  She growled low and reached out to shove him back, but he caught her hand and pulled it to his mouth. Placing each of her knuckles to his lips, he informed her, “My name is Xavier Donté.”

  He pronounced it with a slow drawl that crawled up her spine and she couldn’t help repeating it. “Xavier, huh? So, Donté is your last name?”

  “No, at the Zoo we get two first names. Not sure why, but we do. All of my friends there call me Xavier. No one has ever called me Donté until I woke up at the facility with the doctor.”

  “I like Xavier, but I think I like Donté a little more, so I’m going to keep calling you Donté, okay?”

  He pulled her closer to him, kissed the crown of her head. “I’d prefer you call me Lover, but I can deal with Donté if it makes you happy.”

  Phia grinned to herself and slipped her arm around his waist. As they settled in for the night, the doctor’s earlier words with regard to his life at the Zoo began to play in her head. “What was it like living there?”

  “Living where?”

  “At the Zoo—what was it like?”

  He sighed in resignation as he ran his fingers through her mussed hair, and for an instant she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

  “Dr. Lobush told me a few things, but I want to know what it was like for you there in the Zoo. How different is it, when compared to here on the outside? Besides, if I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you, I should at the very least know where you came from, right?” Phia pushed up. “I want to know about your friends, too. I think you said Kail, Savior, and…and…”

  “Jarvis,” he finished, his tone reminiscent of times long past.

  “Yeah, him, too.”

  “Well, Savior and Kail were my best friends. We arrived in the bay within a few days of one another. So being the youngest there at the time, we kind of stuck together. Savior is and has always been kind of an unintentional bully.”

  “Unintentional bully?”

  “Yeah. He can walk into a room and shut it down with one look. Crowds part, people refuse to continue their conversations until he’s passed, and some of the nurturers would run in the opposite direction.
He never beat anyone up or anything of the kind. It’s more his sullen personality coupled with his size. I think it gave the other nurturers the wrong idea about him.”

  “He’s bigger than you?” Phia asked, her tone laced with skepticism.

  “Well, yeah. I’m not that big when compared to some of the other guys. I mean, I’m definitely bigger than Kail, but Savior, hell, I think he was born bricked.”

  “Bricked?”

  “Yeah, chiseled, muscular, or whatever it is you women call it,” he clarified. “Kail would tease him and say his dad must have been a Clydesdale. I think Kail saw a picture of one once and from then on Savior was a broken-down, two-legged Clydesdale.”

  “Huh.” One eyebrow quirked higher than the other, Phia pushed up and glanced down at him. She wanted to believe him, but as she looked at him, taking in the thickness of his neck, his broad shoulders and chest, his massive biceps and defined pecs, the narrowness of his waist, she couldn’t fathom how anyone could be bigger. “I don’t know. Now that I think about it, you kind of remind me of…”

  “Don’t even start.” Donté grinned and tugged her down to him. “There’s only one Clydesdale, babe, and you’ll meet him soon enough.”

  Settling back down, Phia stored the conversation away for later confirmation. “Tell me about Jarvis.”

  “Well, Jarvis was the oldest of all the nurturers in my bay and kind of acted as a big brother.” Donté shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what there is to tell you about him. He was Jarvis, everyone’s friend and nobody’s enemy. Even all of the instructors liked him.”

  There was pain in his voice and something told her not to ask any more questions about Jarvis, but she felt compelled to do so anyway. “Is he still at the Zoo?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “He had his thirty-fifth birthday coming up a few days after I left, so he probably ended up on someone’s table.”

  “I’m sorry.”