Recompense For Love: Book Three of the Against All Odds Series

by Gemini Jensen

  Lyra, however, can pull off anything. My eyes reluctantly drift from her breasts, down her flat and toned stomach—I need to ask her what she does for exercise later—and to the apex of her legs, where there’s only the tiniest line of trimmed hair. In the past, about every girl I was with followed the Brazilian method for waxing, but I’m strangely not disappointed in her choice to deviate from the whole “pussy fresh off the assembly-line”. In fact, I kind of dig it.

  When I glance back into her jewel-toned eyes, I see heat above all else but that heat is also overshadowing the anxiety that lurks beneath the surface. She’s being brave, a pillar of strength on the outside—but just because someone is brave doesn’t mean fear is nonexistent. It’s my job to put her at ease, and the best means is through distraction.

  “C’mere.” I curl my index finger to motion her my way, wanting—no, needing her to take this leap with me.

  And she does, following my command blindly.

  As soon as she’s within reach, I pull her the final few inches.

  “You’re trembling.” I gather her hair up in my fist, pulling back gently until she’s forced to meet my eye.

  Her gaze burns into mine and she swallows, giving a shaky nod. With my free hand, I lightly trail the backs of my knuckles over her ribcage, pausing when I reach the side of her breast.

  “And why’s that?” The pad of my thumb traces languid circles around her nipple and an involuntary sigh breeches her lips.

  “Because I want this. But I feel…” she pauses to find the right words. “Scared. Nervous. All of it. I feel everything at once.”

  “Nah, Stars. You haven’t felt anything. Not yet.” My lips curl into a cocky grin, before I offer some sage advice. “Just let it all go. Just be here with me. Worry about everything else later. Can you do that for me?”

  She processes my words, her brows furrowing just a little before determination settles over her features.

  “Yes.” She gives the one-word answer like it takes every bit of her energy to do so.

  “Good girl. Besides, the Stars I know isn’t scared of anything.” I drop a kiss to her lips. “She’s the first one in the water at the swimming hole.” Another kiss. “She hops on the back of a dirt bike knowing it’ll get her in trouble.” A longer kiss. “And she walks through hell with her head held high.” I allude to her experiences in high-school, and her brow arches in question.

  “And this is experience will be Hell?” She challenges, her palm sliding up my forearm and settling at my wrist.

  “Nah. It’ll be the best of both worlds,” I reply huskily. Dropping her fistful of hair, I take hold of her petite frame, finally calling a ceasefire on all teasing. I palm her tits, my thumbs skating over the two sensitive peaks as I kiss from the curve of her shoulder down her body. My teeth latch onto her nipple just enough to make her tense, but I follow up the slight tinge of pain with a flick of my tongue, wrapping my lips around the tip and sliding them off until she gasps loudly. I continue to kiss down her body, but as soon as one knee hits the floor of the shower, I’m suddenly reminded of the inconvenience being such a big guy can sometimes be.

  I’m quick on my feet, picking her up and pinning her against the wall until she’s forced to wrap her legs around me. The shower knob is turned off with a knock of the elbow, and the cheap plastic curtain is knocked to the side a second later.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she shrieks as I carry her across the bathroom and toward her bedroom door, taking care to avoid slipping with her in my arms.

  “I don’t want to fuck you in a shower the first time,” I grunt.

  “So, you yank me in the shower with you and now you suddenly don’t want to have sex there?”

  “You’re sharp as a tack.”

  She glares, then suddenly her eyes go round as if something has just occurred to her. “We need a towel first.”

  “You have more sheets in the linen closet. I saw them.”

  “But…” I silence her with a kiss, which I’ve found is the only effective way to do so.

  “I want you wet—in more ways than one. I’m taking you on your bed this first time,”—I kick her bedroom door open the rest of the way—“because I want to worship at the altar of Lyra, and I can’t do that crammed into the shower.”

  “But…” she starts again.

  I cut her off. “But… I’m too fucking impatient to waste another second by drying off.”

  Tossing her wet and naked body right in the center of her bed before she has time to protest again, I wrap my hand around her ankle and in one swift pull, her pelvis is at the edge of the bed. I drop to my knees and sling one of her legs over my shoulder, allowing the other to dangle freely for a moment. I turn into her leg, brushing my lips against her until my mouth is on the bend of her knee. “Your legs were the first thing I ever really noticed about you. You walked down those steps at your dad’s house wearing a pair of shorts so tiny, Daisy Duke would have been shocked.” My tongue peeks out to lick the sensitive spot behind her knee and she squirms toward me.

  “What else did you notice?” Her breathless voice asks in earnest, causing me to chuckle.

  “Besides everything? If I list all that out, we’d be here the entire night—without much action.”

  “Oh, I want the action,” she agrees.

  My mouth inches a little higher before I bite her playfully, simultaneously hooking her other leg over my opposite shoulder. My hands grip the back of her thighs and slide upward until the globes of her ass are sitting in my palms.

  “I definitely noticed this part of you.” I squeeze her cheeks so she knows exactly what I’m talking about. “This ass has starred in some of my dirtiest fantasies.”

  She’s looking down her body at me, biting her lip and it’s so fucking sexy. The fact rosy blush blooms across her cheeks from my admission only adds to her innocent appeal, further spurring on this bedside confessional. You can add tattoos, a nose piercing and crazy hair colors to a girl but you can’t cover up that innocent-sweetheart personality.

  “But you know what I’ve always obsessed over the most—even after everything that happened, when I had no business thinking about it?”

  Her head gives an uncertain shake.

  “You’ve always had that pure, girl-next-door appeal to you.” I flick my tongue out, running it along her thigh until I meet the crease of her leg. “Such a sweet girl…Like cotton candy,” I murmur into her skin, and she writhes against the bed. “Which begs the question—is your pussy just as sweet?”

  Still gripping her ass, I pull her to me, my thumbs sliding around and opening her up to me like a flower in bloom as my tongue slides up her center. A groan of appreciation rumbles from my chest as I lap at her, and she gasps at the same time.

  “So fucking sweet,” I acknowledge the fact out loud—just in case she was wondering—before latching onto her clit.

  “Oh, God.” Her fingers curl harshly around the sheets, pulling them loose from the mattress. I continue to tease her with a relentless combination of flicking my tongue, then flattening it, throwing in a little nip here and there. Her back arches off the bed and flattens in a back and forth pattern—her inability to be still alluding to the fact I’m doing something right. When she grows more vocal, one of her hands threading into my hair and holding my lips hostage to her pussy, I know she’s close.

  I slide two fingers into her slick heat and work them in and out in a slow, steady rhythm, and when I’m finally convinced she’s sitting at the precipice of the cliff, I curl my fingers against her G-spot and suck her clit into my mouth at the same time.

  “Nash…fuck.” Her voice is raw and strangled as she shudders, grinding herself against me uncontrollably and giving my ego a nice boost.

  Her fingers squeeze the strands of my hair when she comes down from her high, her body sagging boneless against the bed.

  “Come here,” she pulls upward insistently, not giving me any choice but to comply unless I want my hair yanked
painfully.

  “Okay, woman, geez.” Her musical laugh filters through the air as I crawl onto the bed, kissing my way up her body as I go. Her hold on me loosens when we’re eye to eye, but her palms slide to each side of my jaw as she peers up at me, a solemn expression on her face. A delicate crease forms on her forehead as her eyes bore into mine, her penetrating gaze telling me she has something imperative to disclose.

  She surprises me by leaning up and capturing my lips ferociously, her hands sliding down my chest exploratorily, one of them pausing there as the other continues on down to my abs. Her touch isn’t much more than a flutter, but a sizzling trail is left in her wake. I groan when her palm fists around my cock, pumping up and down slowly.

  She breaks the kiss, panting as she asks, “Do you have a condom?”

  “Fuck. No,” I grimace. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t planning on you seducing me when I came by,” I reply unhappily.

  “Check the bedside table.”

  I’m back within seconds, bringing a whole conjoined strip of them with me. Then, irritation sets in at the thought she’s prepared for sex in the first place.

  “Why do you have these?” My voice is taut, jealousy showing up when it isn’t welcome—much less warranted.

  She arches an eyebrow. “Uh, practice safe sex is like the life motto nowadays.”

  My jaw locks as my teeth grind together. Why is this bothering me so much? Other than when I lost my virginity as a teen, every chick I’ve ever been with was sexually active before me. And I sure as hell know she’s not a virgin.

  Her face softens as she stares up at me. “Chill out. Not that it’s any of your business, but I dated a guy for a while, okay? I’ve not slept with anyone since we…ended things, like two years ago or so…”

  Deadweight lifts off of me with her words, my chest squeezing with…happiness? What the hell is going on right now?

  Before I can dwell or obsess over it, I rip open the condom wrapper and sheath myself. But I do get caught up on one thing she just said… “Why do you say ‘ended things’ like that?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Stars. Don’t bullshit me. I know all your ticks when you’re lying. You look away—like you just did, then you slide your lip between your teeth for less than a second like you’re contemplating something. You’ve already done that too…”

  “Because he was married, okay? I don’t like talking about it.”

  “So you were boning a married man?” I arch a brow, because it doesn’t sound like something she’d be okay with doing, being a hopeless romantic and all.

  “I didn’t know. He met her after me and him started dating, then they got married and he kept it from me…I found out when I walked in on them fucking—on the blanket I’d gifted him for Christmas,” she snaps out angrily. “His name was Marcus and he was just about everything someone could want in a life partner. He was charming, handsome, and smart. Plus, he had a well-paying job as a lawyer, which caused me to overlook the fact we didn’t get to spend a lot of free-time together. It just proved to me that he was career-driven, but I figured he’d eventually focus all that energy into our family—should we ever plan to have one—on down the road.

  “My family thought we’d eventually get married. Ha! What a joke. Two years into our relationship, I found out he’d started dating another girl around the time we got together—which, thinking back on it now, explains all the weekend trips and weird behavior.

  “On one of his little out-of-town excursions, I decided to go over to his apartment. I wasn’t being sneaky or anything considering I’d been given a key. I wanted to surprise him by installing a surround sound system I’d bought and maybe doing some of his laundry and tidying up the place since he invested so much time working on his cases; a lot of times he’d have papers scattered all over his living room.

  “Imagine my surprise when I walked in on him fucking some girl doggy-style in front of the fireplace like she was a porn-star. The throw blanket showcasing his favorite team was spread over the carpet, the gift being used to save his knobby knees from carpet-burn.

  “They’d eloped a month beforehand, and he apparently falsified some story to her about being so busy with his big-wig job, he didn’t have time to move all his stuff into the home they’d jointly purchased in a nearby town. Marcus and I had just had sex the evening before, so basically— and this is all according to her, although, I guess if we’re going to get technical about it, it’s true—I was the other woman. I was the slut. I was the home-wrecker—despite the fact we had started dating before they even met, and despite the fact I hear they’re still together.”

  “Hey,” I smooth her hair out of her face affectionately. I really know how to bring up some mood-killing subjects apparently. “Fuck him. Forget about him. I bet he was a selfish lover…I bet he never made you come like I just did.” I waggle my eyebrows, attempting to lighten the moment.

  Her lips twitch. “Oh, that? That was nothing. A fluke. I’m sure it won’t happen again.”

  “Is that right?” My husky voice replies, and before she can form I response, I slide into her—leaving no time to ready herself for what’s to come. But I pause once I’m to the hilt, giving myself time to adjust to her tight heat because—fuck, I wasn’t expecting her to fit me like an undersized glove.

  After a few seconds of recovery I struggle to speak through a strained voice. “A fluke would be a coincidence, a stroke of luck.” I begin to move inside of her. “Hmm,” I muse. “Stroke of luck. I like it. But my stroke is more like the stroke of ecstasy.”

  She rolls her eyes, but her nails dig into my shoulder. “Nash. Shut your cocky ass up and kiss me.” She pulls my head down to hers, effectively silencing me for the time being. After a few minutes, I flip her over, keeping myself inside of her as we slide to the edge of the bed.

  “What. Are. We. Doing?” She asks between breathless kisses.

  “Shhh.” I silence her need to question every single move I make. “Just trust me, Stars. At least in the bedroom.” I plant my feet on the floor, sliding her legs into position on each side of my thighs. My hands land at her hips as I urge her into a controlled rhythm. “I need to see as much of your body as I can. At all times. That’s what I’m doing.”

  I move her hair neatly over one shoulder, kissing her naked neck as she rocks against me. When she unexpectedly slams down on me, my teeth seek her shoulder with a groan.

  “Slow down,” I grunt, before she makes me end this way too early. She ignores the instruction, defiantly doing the same thing over and over again until I’m hooking my hands around the back of her thighs and standing, taking away all her control. I hold her suspended in the air, unhurriedly grinding in and out of her as I glare into her heated eyes.

  “Fucking listen,” I growl. “Stop fighting everything I do or tell you. I don’t want this to end.”

  Pulling out of her, I toss her back onto the bed, her stomach hitting the mattress. Sliding my hands up her legs, I knead my way upward, using the deep tissues massage as a diversion to slow things down. I don’t discriminate, massaging every inch of her body I can get my hands on—from her feet, to her calves, to her thighs, to her ass cheeks. I pause at her bubbly backside to sink my teeth into her ass—because it’s just too fucking enticing not to—allowing my fingers to skate down her pussy from the back, toying with her clit as my bite progresses over to a firm suck. I don’t know why, but the need to mark this woman is overwhelming—even if it’s just in an intimate area for my special viewing only. From the way she’s sighing, I’d say she doesn’t mind.

  I slide my finger in her slit, kissing my way up her spine and across her shoulder. My lips slide over her earlobe, pulling the skin between my teeth as I exhale. She shudders, the tiny signs of goosebumps arising on her arms.

  I add another finger and she arches back against me. Kissing her neck just below her ear, my other arm curls beneath her abdomen, sliding down until I reach her clit. A series of
slow circles and she’s gasping for more.

  “You wanna come, Stars?”

  “Yes,” she replies without thought, one long drawn out moan.

  “Then be a good girl.”

  I halt all ministrations, backing off of her until on my feet. I grip her hips and yank her along with me, pausing to grab a pillow just in case it’s needed.

  “Do what I say, and I’ll make you come. Do anything to oppose me, and I’ll take you hard and rough. I’ll get off, but you won’t.”

  A lie, but a necessary one considering her rebellious attitude. She turns to look over her shoulder with a heated glare.

  “Don’t look so angry, Stars. If you behave yourself, I’ll make you come so hard it’ll bring tears to your eyes. Now, spread your legs and arch your back.”

  Her eyes go round. “What? No.” She shakes her head frantically. “I’m not comfortable with that.”

  Pulling on her hips, I move her into position myself, placing my knee between her legs and forcing her to spread them.

  “Nash,” she protests. “I—”

  I drop to my knees again, because obviously I haven’t done my job if she’s still in a state to be arguing about what positions we are and aren’t allowed to fuck in.

  I drag my tongue along her lips, sucking them into my mouth before reaching her clit and doing the same. When she tries to move away from me, my fingers dig into her hips punishingly, holding her in place like it’s my job. In less than a minute flat she’s leaning back against me instead of trying to escape me. “Tell me again I can’t have you like this,” I order, before rolling my tongue over the sensitive knot of flesh again. “Do it. I dare you. Just be aware, if you do, I’m keeping my mouth off you the rest of the night.”

  “F—fine. Just…don’t stop.” She stammers.