Suddenly, the only thing that mattered was getting inside her—claiming her. He’d worry about her heart later because he couldn’t think straight with her grinding her hot pussy up and down his shaft. Their kiss grew frenzied—nipping, biting, sucking. His grip on her ass tightened and he was sure he’d leave his fingerprints behind. The thought of marking her, of taming and possessing this wildcat, made his cock weep with anticipation. His balls ached from the building pressure and he bucked his hips with restless need.
Her desire coated his cock, slicking the friction as he worked her over him in a steady rhythm, setting the pace that was growing as demanding as their kiss. It would be nothing to drag her a little higher and position himself at her entrance. The urge to thrust inside her drove him mad.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one. Breaking contact with his mouth, she whispered urgently, “Do it.” Her demand was a hot, desperate plea against his lips. She didn’t have to tell him twice. As he dragged her up, he lifted her a little higher and then slammed her down as he thrust his hips.
Her broken cry filled the air, sounding of both pain and pleasure as her tight glove mercilessly squeezed him. The hilt of her channel pressed against the sensitive head as he filled her beyond capacity. Planting her hands against his chest, she pushed herself upright and tossed her head back, grinding her sex against the base of his shaft.
“Yes.” Her voice was a sexy rasp that teased his nerve endings. Goose bumps prickled his flesh as the ends of her long hair brushed his thighs. His cock pulsed inside her, priming for release, and a moment of panic seized him because he did not want this to be over yet. Too good…she felt too good. And then he realized, as his mind struggled to regain that connection with his body, why exactly that was. No condom. Fuck…he was inside her without a condom.
He meant to stop her, to warn her he was bare. Honestly, he did. But she had to know, right? And then she began to move. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. She felt incredible. Every tight, silky inch of her. It took all his focus, all his control, not to come. He could do this. He would enjoy her just a little and let her find her release. Then, he’d stop and put a condom on. This was his rationale and a reasonably good plan. Until it wasn’t.
Pain never felt so good. As Pen’s body yielded to the urgent demand of Kyle’s, she repositioned herself to take him deeper. Her clit ground against the base of his cock and little darts of pleasure arrowed into her core. Her muscles contracted and he must have felt the early tremors of what would be a swift and hard release, because he inhaled sharply. His catching breath confirmed this was just as wonderfully torturous for him as it was her.
She felt a fleeting moment of regret at her decision not to leave the bedroom door open. She wished she could see him. Every part of this man was a feast for the senses and her eyes felt robbed their due. But what she lacked in sight, she more than made up for in touch.
Her hands made an exploration from the hard rise of his pecs and over the flat discs of his nipples, lightly dragging her nails over them. A rough curse tore from his throat in response, his erection bucking inside her as his fingers sharply bit into her ass. There was no doubt in her mind she’d be wearing his prints for days. Oddly, the thought of it excited her. She’d never wanted the reminder of a man’s touch on her before, but something about this was different—Kyle was different.
Her need to emotionally distance herself from him had been the driving force that brought her to his bed tonight. She was falling for him and it scared her. She hated the vulnerability, and the closer they became, the more she feared her growing dependence on him.
Having sex with Kyle was about re-establishing that balance of power, maintaining the order she needed, and to take the control back. Here…like this…she could disconnect from him, turn off her mind and her emotions. In the morning, everything would be back to normal. Or so she told herself when she made the decision to climb into his bed.
Wow, he was magnificent. Her sense of touch filled in where her sight was lacking as she followed the roadmap of muscles down his stomach. Her fingertips traced over ridges, thumbs following the valleys, all the way to the delectable divots near his hips and then lower, into the coarse curls that teased her clit as she ground down on his impaling shaft. He was perfect. Not one identifiable physical flaw.
“Penelope…”
The low timbre of his voice gave her shivers. She could hear the strain in it and sensed she was quickly bringing him to the limit of his control. She didn’t want him to lose it because she knew the moment he abandoned his, she’d be forced to forfeit hers. She brought her hands up to his chest, fingertips curling, nails anchoring into his flesh as she began to move up and down.
She preferred this position; it gave her the greatest sense of power. In fact, with all the others, she demanded it. But Kyle was different. Making demands challenged his dominance and he was a man who loved a good fight. No, the best way to control him, she’d discovered, was through his pleasure.
She leaned further back, shifting their position, and gasped when he hit a particularly sensitive spot deep inside her. She braced her hand against his thigh to balance herself at this new angle. It was like gripping a rock, and her nails bit into his flesh for leverage.
“Yes… Right there… You feel so good…” she panted, certain he wouldn’t take the reins from her when she was this close, and if she could get him to come with her then all the better. She wanted control of his body as well as her own. And she could feel the balance of power shifting in her favor. The fear inside her receded as she sequestered her emotions, closeting them away as she quickened her pace to chase after her orgasm.
“Kyle…” She rode him harder—faster. The heightened pleasure from his painful grip on her bottom was an unexpected twist. She’d never allowed anyone to touch her like that, never trusted them to know where that elusive line between pain and pleasure lay, but she would cede this small control to him. Mete out this micro level of trust. Not because she had to, but because it felt so good to experience his power and his restraint. She could almost feel his body humming with it.
“I’m so close,” she moaned softly. Pen dragged her nails up the inside of his thigh and reached between his legs, cupping his heavy balls, already drawn up tight—proof of how close he was to coming. This was his trust-fall. She held the most sensitive, vulnerable part of him and now…now she truly had all the control.
The groan that rumbled in his chest was more of a growl, and she felt it all the way to her core—that intimate place deep inside her that had never been touched before this man. That deep chortle was a mixture of warning and pleasure. His hands shifted to her hips, his grip no less forgiving than before as he began to lift her up and down, taking over the pace and force of his thrusts as he slammed his cock inside her over and over. He wasn’t a gentle lover and that was the way she wanted it. Tenderness was too close to emotion, and emotion equated to intimacy.The tension building inside her coiled tighter, her heavy breasts bouncing with each jarring impact. “Don’t stop!” she cried. She could feel his cum priming as she shifted her grip from his balls to squeeze the base of his cock and stymie his release—building the pressure, the pain, and ultimately the pleasure when she’d finally let him go and the sudden release would force his orgasm from him.
“That’s it, baby,” he growled, her grip on him tightening. “Come for me.”
His pounding grew frenzied and a shiver of alarm skittered through her. She was losing control. He’s too strong, too powerful… The thought skittered through her mind that perhaps this balance of power was all an illusion, but before she could think on it any more, he slammed her down on his cock one final time and his thumb swept down to her clit, pressing hard against that sensitive bundle of nerves. Pleasure exploded inside her, her core detonating as he wrung her orgasm from her. Pen’s grip on his shaft fell away as she was swept up in a tide of pleasure, spasm after delicious spasm wracking her body—milking his.
“
Oh, fuck!” His shouted curse coincided with the hot blast inside her core. Every pulsing jet of heat heightened her pleasure, drawing out her orgasm as his thumb never stopped working over her sensitive clit. She’d never allowed a man to come inside her before, and she wasn’t particularly keen on reasoning out why she was suddenly fine with it now—or the implications of that revelation. His release, the feeling of him coming inside her, was more intense and pleasurable than she’d ever imagined.
As the last tremors of her orgasm slowly ebbed, she fell forward in exhaustion, blanketing herself over his chest, glossed in a fine sheen of sweat. She could feel his heart hammering against her breast and smiled at discovering she wasn’t the only one overwhelmed by this moment. Basking in her post-orgasmic bliss, she lay on top of him, her mind grappling to reconcile what just happened. This wasn’t the first time they’d had sex, so why was it so different?
“That was… That was…” she panted, struggling to catch her breath. There were no words really.
Only Kyle had a few. And they were not the ones she expected to hear coming out of his mouth.
“A mistake.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her, his words backhanding her right across her heart and she recoiled because that was not the part of her she’d expected to feel the blow. Her pride, yes. But her heart, no. Between her eyes adjusting to the darkness and the pre-dawn transition of the midnight sky, she could see him more clearly—clearly enough to recognize the regret staring back at her. Before she could tell him to fuck off and haul ass back to her room, he added insult to injury by apologizing to her.
She couldn’t believe it. First, he called her a mistake, and then he apologized? What an asshole. And to further compound her humiliation, he was still inside her—and hard.
Guess what, Prick of the Year, one part of your anatomy disagrees with you!
“I’m sorry,” he repeated when she didn’t respond.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” she snapped, shifting to get up, but he clamped his hands on her hips and held her in place—impaled on his massive erection. She couldn’t move. She was trapped. And that was the wrong thing to do because his invasion of her body was no longer wanted or welcomed. The skitter of panic that flickered through her veins was the matchstick that lit her powder keg of a temper, and released a floodgate of memories she worked hard to keep stuffed away.
Boom goes the dynamite…
“Get your fucking hands off me!”
He looked surprised by her outburst, which further proved what a typical male-idiot he was, because what the hell did he expect would happen? His hands immediately fell away from her hips and she leapt up, uncoordinatedly scrambling off his cock and heading toward the edge of the bed.
“Hey, Pen, wait…”
There it was again, that regret in his voice. Boom… He reached for her again and caught hold of her wrist. Boom…boom… His grip tightened. Boom…boom…boom… She jerked her arm back and broke free, the momentum sent her tumbling off the edge of the bed. She hit the ground and skittered to her feet, but her legs were numb and uncoordinated from the panic flooding her system. She stumbled back, crashing into the open closet. Boom…boom…boom…boom…
“Shit!” Kyle bailed off the bed after her. But she was fast—she’d had to be—a lot of good it’d done her in the end. Before he could get to her, Pen was on her feet and running past him. She bolted down the hall and into her bedroom, slamming the door and locking it behind her as if the devil himself were after her. And in her mind, he was. In her mind, Pen was thirteen years old again.
Pen’s heart raced, lungs heaving as she struggled for breath, choking back bile. She couldn’t get air fast enough to stave off the suffocation blanketing her. It had been a long time since she’d had a panic attack this bad. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head back against the door and tried to concentrate on something tangible like the cool wood pressing against her spine.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Slowly, the panic began to recede, her demons retreating to their secret places where they’d lie in wait to torment her again. A knock sounded on the door. She yelped at the vibration against her back, leaping clear of it, expecting it to come crashing in on her. Her mind was still hazed, caught somewhere between the past and the present. She subconsciously gripped her right wrist, gently sweeping her thumb back and forth over the ink-covered scar—tetelesti –taking comfort in the word that was not only a reminder, but a promise of her salvation. It is finished… It is finished… It is finished…
“Come on, Pen. Open the door. I know I fucked up and I’m sorry. It was careless and I take full responsibility, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to talk about what happened.”
“I think you’ve said enough. I’m quite aware of your stance on what happened.”
“I don’t think you are.” The knob rattled. “Pen, unlock the door. Shit, I’m not going to hurt you.”
But he already had hurt her. Her chest ached, each beat of her heart was a crushing pain. Pressure built behind her eyes, warning her tears were imminent. Dammit. “Just leave me alone!”
“You know I can’t do that. If you want me to go, the best way to make that happen is to talk to me, because I’m not leaving us like this.”
“There is no us.”
“I disagree. Now open the door.”
“For having raised a teenage girl, you certainly have a lot to learn about women.”
“I learned that when they tell you to leave them alone, the worst thing you can do is leave them alone. Now—open—the—door.”
She didn’t want to see him, but he was making it clear he had no intention of leaving until he had his say. All she wanted was to climb into bed and burrow under the covers where she could be alone and lick her wounds. Well, if he wanted to talk so bad, then so be it. Only she was pretty certain he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. Marching over, she turned the lock and flung the door open. “Let me give you a little advice, Casanova. When you get done fucking a woman you probably shouldn’t tell her that it was a mistake. And if that’s the way you like to roll, then you should at least have the courtesy to take your dick out of her first!”
He grimaced, his azure stare darting to the floor as he roughly dragged his hand through his hair. At least he had the decency to look remorseful. Bringing that gaze back to hers, he held her angry glare. “You might tell her that if you didn’t put a condom on and you lost control and came inside her. That’s why I apologized, Pen. It wasn’t because we had sex. What I did to you was reckless and irresponsible.”
“Oh.” Well, he might have led with that in the first place, rather than calling it a mistake.
“Yeah, oh.” The fighter seemed to be copping an attitude with her now and he filled the doorway wearing nothing but a scowl and a pair of shorts. “And why aren’t you nearly as concerned about this as I am?”
He sounded suspicious of her. Angry even. Did he think…did he think she’d done this to trap him? If she wasn’t so upset she might have given him the benefit of the doubt because, granted, he was a world-famous fighter who would have to be careful about women pulling shit like pregnancy scares on him, but this was her they were talking about. She wasn’t some starry-eyed cage-banger, and if he couldn’t differentiate that then they had more serious problems than a forgotten condom in the heat of the moment.
“Do you think I did that to trap you? Coaxed you into having unprotected sex with me?”
“Did you?” he challenged.
“No. But your faith in me is astounding. FYI, I’m on the pill, asshole.”
A flicker of relief crossed his face, relaxing his handsome features. “I don’t do this, Pen. I don’t have unprotected sex—ever.”
“Well, neither do I.” And yet isn’t that exactly what they’d just done?
“It would have been nice to know you were on the pill before I freaked out. I’m sorry I upset you. Now, do you mind telling me what’s really going on here?”
He didn’t need to elaborate. She knew exactly what he was talking about. And yet denial seemed the preferable course of action. “With what?”
“Oh, come on, Pen. Don’t play games with me. I saw the look in your eyes when I tried to stop you from leaving. You were fucking terrified of me. Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Kyle.” She retreated farther into her room, but instead of leaving, he followed her inside.
“Well, that’s too bad, because that’s not an option.”
Her mind scrambled for a reasonable explanation. Anything but the truth. “It’s not you, okay? I’m not afraid of you. Now, let it go. It’s this whole thing… This whole situation has got me freaked out.”
He studied her with an assessing stare, as if weighing the truth of her words and finding them lacking. After a moment, he shook his head, resuming that defiant stance, muscular arms crossing over his chest. “Nope. Nice try, though, but that’s not it. But I’m willing to bet it has something to do with those nightmares you keep having. The ones that have you screaming out in the middle of the night and clinging to me like you’re desperate to crawl inside my skin. Well, congratulations, sweetheart. You’ve succeeded. Now what the hell are we going to do about it?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A deer in the headlights would have looked less terrified than Pen did at that moment. Kyle wasn’t sure what freaked her out more, his admission that he had feelings for her, or his push to uncover what the hell was really going on. He knew demons—he’d been living with his own long enough to understand they didn’t just go away. No, those bastards had to be purged, and then there were still times they came back. Not that he knew from personal experience, because his own still had a tight grip on him, but he’d been through this and more with Willow. He’d seen her battle through the darkness, been there with her every step of the way as she struggled to get her life back.
This wasn’t just about keeping Pen safe anymore. Maybe in the beginning his desire to help her had been more about helping himself, because she was right, he needed to be needed, and he wasn’t ready to deal with the fallout of facing his own repressed shit.
In for the Win Page 20