Lost In Between: Finding Me Duet #1

by K. L. Kreig

  And what if he wants revenge or, God forbid, still has a thing for her?

  No. Nope. That won’t work for me. I don’t care what my father says or what mystical political powers Reid Mergen wields. He’s out.

  I kiss her hard and fast. “I’ll take care of it.” I start toward the door when she grabs my arm, stopping me.

  “Shaw, don’t. Please just leave this alone.”

  “Willow, he could fuck everything up here. For my father’s reelection. For us. Hell, he could go to the papers with this. If that happens, we’re all ruined.”

  “But he won’t. He’s not like that. You even said it. It was his idea, but I think we’ve managed to convince everyone our meeting was coincidental. Whatever he thinks he knows, he can’t prove a thing.” I open my mouth to tell her she has no idea what someone filled with spite or infinite love is capable of, but she talks over me. “I’ll talk to him. See what he thinks he knows. Make sure he won’t cause waves.”

  My head starts shaking. “No. I don’t want you anywhere near that fucker.”

  I expect her spine to straighten and fighting words to skewer me from her sometimes-forked tongue. When she steps into me and places her small hands around my cheeks, I’m totally caught off guard.

  “Trust me. Please.”

  “Willow…,” I groan. “I do trust you. It’s him I don’t.”

  “Please,” she whispers right before pressing her lips to mine. I immediately harden, going from zero to sixty in two seconds flat. My overwhelming need for this woman is explosive and insatiable, bordering on fanatical. It’s more than desire or passion. It’s unfettered neurosis.

  And it has nothing—and I mean nothing—to do with the competition outside this room and everything to do with what’s been churning inside me.

  Angels didn’t sing when I met Willow Blackwell. I didn’t hear organs or choirs or melodic humming. No. What I heard the instant she opened her clever mouth was the Devil Himself chuckling, whispering almost sympathetically, “Good luck with this one. You’re gonna need it.”

  It wasn’t a warning. It was an invitation I couldn’t ignore.

  She’s nothing I wanted, but everything I need.

  Snaking one hand in her hair I forget where we are and grip the strands hard, tilting her to the side so we fit perfectly together. Our tongues duel and our teeth clash in an attempt to win the upper hand. I press her flush to me and let my fingers slip underneath the band of her skirt and thong and down between her cheeks, rimming her tightened rosette, absorbing her gasps and moans. Each declaration of want stacks on the other until I reach my breaking point.

  Her hand leaves my face and wanders down my torso. Sliding between us, she wraps it around my throbbing cock. Tightening her fingers, she slides upward in one slow, fluid movement.

  And that’s the end. I snap. Fuck restraint.

  I am going to take her right here, in the bathroom of my childhood home with about thirty-five people twenty feet away. And no one will stop me. I unleash the beast in me that salivates constantly for her, feeling free and alive.

  Unzipping her skirt, I let it fall to the floor in a heap. She gasps when I snap the flimsy silk from her hips and throw her thong on the cool tile below. I easily lift her slight frame onto the countertop and watch her desire-drunk pools shimmer, egging me on as I slide her silky fuchsia blouse over her head and drop that on the counter.

  She’s left in the sexiest black heels that clasp around the ankle and a black, lacy bra that serves her tits high and perfect.

  The counter in this bathroom is unusually deep, which I’ve never given a shit about until this minute. Bending her knees, I lift them up, setting her feet wide, which opens her up for me and forces her to lean back on her elbows. The back of her head leans flush against the mirror while she watches me pull down the cups of her bra. I step between her legs so I can lean over and suck an already-pointed bud into my watering mouth.

  I expected her to deny me, given where we are. What I didn’t expect was such sweet surrender. It’s almost as if she needs this physical connection between us as much as I do.

  “Shaw…” My name is a husky moan when I snag her nipple between my teeth and clamp down. I run my tongue around the furrowed skin that’s hard as a diamond and red as a cherry, soothing it before nipping my way around the fullness of her breast.

  My gaze floats up to hers as I work my way between the valley of her breasts and down her quivering stomach. “Be quiet, Goldilocks, or the entire house will know what we’re up to in here.”

  “They’ll know the second we walk—” She doesn’t get the last word out because she’s now writhing under my tongue, which I’ve shoved as deep into her pussy as it will go. I want to take my time with her, but time is not a luxury we have right now. Pretty soon my mother will come looking for us, and while I’d actually like Mergen to know I’m in here fucking Willow, I certainly don’t want my parents to.

  “Come in my mouth, Willow,” I groan. I’ve never tasted a woman sweeter than Willow. She’s like fine Bordeaux, smooth and rich.

  “Shaw,” she whispers brokenly, her hips surging beneath my tongue. “More.”

  “Tell me what you need.”

  Looking down her lean length, soulful eyes bore into me, seeing into me. It has to be one of the most erotically intimate moments I’ve ever experienced. “Put your fingers inside me. Everywhere.”

  Jesus Christ.

  Okay.

  She watches me with heavy eyes as I make sure she’s ready so I don’t hurt her. With my thumb, I drag her juices down to the crack of her ass and gently push inside the tightest hole imaginable, pressing deeper each time until I have it buried as far as I can. Her breath catches and her eyes slam shut when I thrust two fingers inside her warm pussy, hitch them at just the right angle, and hold.

  Slowly opening her lids, she begs on a whisper, “Please make me come.” Her plea undoes me.

  “This is the one and only time I’ll ask you to be quiet.”

  Then I start moving, her supple body following suit. I watch her mind yield and her body strain. I want to bring her up, balance her on the brink, and keep her there for as long as I can before she tips. Then I want to do it again and again so I can swim in her sweet submission.

  But we don’t have that kind of time, and this is not the place. Leaning down, I suction her rock-hard clit between my lips. It takes two swirls of my tongue before she’s coming around me, squeezing and pulsing and biting her lip to keep her sounds of pleasure inside.

  Before she’s all the way down, I’m already releasing myself. Grasping her hips, I drag her to the ledge, and, like a savage, drive inside her in one brutal thrust and still.

  My eyes roll back in my head and I groan at the tightness encasing my cock.

  “Goddamn, Willow,” I grit. “I will never get tired of you.”

  It takes me several beats to figure out why she feels so fucking amazing. More than the last time I was inside her sweet heat. My hips start thrusting of their own accord, each drag across her thousands of tightly swollen nerve endings feeling better than the last. Then it hits me.

  No bubble wrap.

  Fuck.

  Red light.

  “Willow, I…need…shit. I need a condom,” I pant. And, shit, I don’t have one on me. A new box sits in my glove box, a mighty inconvenient place for them to be about now.

  She wraps her lean legs around my hips, the spikes of her heels digging into me like daggers, and locks me in place as I start to reluctantly withdraw. “It’s fine. I’m protected. Don’t stop.”

  We share a moment of no return.

  I’ve fucked a woman without a condom before. When I was young and foolish and too drunk to wrap it up. But I have never made a conscious decision to forgo that extra layer of protection, regardless of whatever birth control the woman I am with is on.

  It’s a flash of indecision that weighs heavy and long and with more importance than my sex-addled brain can comprehend given a
ll the blood has rushed to the place where I’m now joined snugly with her.

  But as she watches me with her tempting blue eyes and choppy breaths, my resolve wanes. I want this with her. I feel as if it’s another piece she’s giving me that she doesn’t freely give just anyone. There’s no fucking way I’d throw that back.

  For several swirling, dizzying seconds, I simply stare at her. With underwires shaping her round breasts, sex-glossed eyes, and her velvety-pink pussy swallowing me whole, even contorted in a tiny space, she is a living goddess.

  And she is mine.

  All. Fucking. Mine.

  It’s only then I notice the fingertip-shaped bruises dotting her upper thighs. Pride swells inside when I realize that my marks grace her skin.

  “You’re sure?” I prod, shifting my hips until her eyelids close on a low moan. I won’t regret this, but I don’t want her to.

  “Very.”

  Knowing we’re likely seconds away from being caught, I pull her up and crash my mouth to hers. Her hands wind around my neck, dive into my hair, fuse me to her.

  Dragging my length out slowly, I slam back in.

  Sharp. Quick. Urgent.

  Again. Again.

  I fuck her like she’s my new religion and I’m her devout worshipper.

  All too soon, she’s crying softly into my mouth as she milks me dry. I stop my own groan in the back of my throat and pump twice more before fire shoots through my balls and I’m forced to let it out, emptying everything I have into her welcoming temple.

  For only the second time in my life, my seed coats the inside of a woman instead of a sleeve of rubber.

  And for the first time ever…I want to do it again.

  27

  The air seems thin. Hard to drag in.

  My stomach feels as though I swallowed a handful of glass that I’m going to vomit any second. I’ve matted the carpet beneath my feet with my continual pacing.

  Sierra insisted she stay. I insisted she leave.

  I haven’t even told Shaw. He would flip a fucking wig. He didn’t like that I needed to meet with Reid, but he understood. All he asked for was a heads-up. Probably so he could sit in his car outside my house counting down the minutes until he thought it appropriate to bust in and start marking the home range. And not that I need Shaw’s approval or permission but I should have at least had the courtesy to tell him.

  But this is about much more than Shaw’s jealousy or Preston Mercer’s campaign. This is about Reid and me closing a book that has remained open for far too long.

  I met Reid Mergen when I was nineteen years old in my sophomore year of college. I’d just won the lead role in a play called The Long Way, about a woman who was on the brink of a breakthrough in her career, but the rest of her life was going to hell in a handbasket. She puts her career on hold and meets a man on her journey to discover her true self. She ends up falling for him and walking away from a life of unlimited professional potential for a chance at true love. Herman changed Summer in ways she never anticipated.

  That’s what I thought about Reid and me at the time. He was cast as Herman, my—Summer’s—love interest. I didn’t immediately fall for him; it was more a slow, gradual roll, but he grounded me. He was good for me. Good to me. Despite the fact it was hard for me to let him in all the way, he loved me unconditionally anyway, changing me in ways I’m still feeling today. And I repaid him by sneaking out in the middle of the night two weeks before our wedding.

  For months after I left him, Reid didn’t give up trying to get me back. I refused all his calls. I waited him out when I’d find him lurking outside my condo or workplace. I never talked to him after I left him a note that was nothing but a lie.

  Our wedding date came and went, and as time passed, his outreaches became fewer and farther between until I received a text one day that told me he was leaving Seattle. I didn’t even have the courtesy to reply.

  I hurt him badly, but at the time I was stuck in quicksand, still reeling from the death of my father. I needed space, time to breathe. To find me for maybe the first time ever.

  I haven’t seen Reid since, until two days ago.

  I thought he’d never want to speak to me again. So, when I heard from him yesterday morning suggesting we get together, it was a surprise. I was trying to work up the courage to call him, and he beat me to it. He wanted to meet at a café, but I convinced him to come here. The last thing I need is to be seen in public with Preston Mercer’s campaign manager when I’m dating the mayor’s son. Talk about fodder for the gossip rags.

  The doorbell rings.

  Oh God.

  I freeze.

  It rings again.

  I pace.

  To say I’m nervous would be the understatement of the century.

  Third time. It’s a double pump someone does when they know you’re home and just not answering.

  Fuck. This is hard.

  Time to face the music, Willow.

  “Coming,” I manage to push through my constricted airway.

  I stand with the doorknob in my hand and peek through the peephole. Yep, it’s him. His stark green eyes stare right at me as if he has x-ray vision and can see through this big block of solid maple. God, he’s even more handsome than I remember.

  Taking a giant breath, I twist and open. When our eyes meet, tears instantly spring up. I held it together the other night pretty damn well, not breaking down once. In fact, I haven’t shed one tear in the last forty-eight hours. But now that the shock has worn off and it’s just the two of us, I can’t help the rush of emotions engulfing me.

  “Hi,” I choke out, averting my gaze. I step aside, allowing him to come in.

  He enters silently, stopping just a few feet in to look around. After what seems like forever, he says with that deep, spine-tingling lilt of his, “This is a little like déjà vu, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I agree quietly, remembering all the nights we spent vegged on that exact couch watching sports or a movie. Or...other things. Jesus, Willow. Stop. “You, ah, want something to drink?”

  I walk past him into the kitchen and open the fridge for something to do. “We have iced tea, Peroni, Bud Light, water. I have a half bottle of white wine, but I think it’s been in here for more than a week, otherwise—”

  “Summer.” The closeness of his voice and that name—fuck, that name—shuts me up. I calm my breathing, and when I spin around, he’s not even a foot away.

  “Please, don’t call me that,” I can barely whisper. For some reason, I can stomach everyone else calling me that, but not him. It’s too… intimate.

  “I’m sorry. It’s habit. Coffee is fine if you have it.” The hurt on his face kills me. I resist the urge to turn away.

  “Flavored okay?” I ask, knowing it’s not his favorite, but he’ll drink it in a pinch. There are so many things I know about him, that I still remember about him. It makes me sad about us and reminds me how little I really know about the other man I’m falling in love with. I don’t even know if Shaw likes coffee.

  “It’s fine. Thank you.” I relax a fraction when the corner of his mouth slopes up ever so slightly.

  “Sure.” I busy myself popping the K-cup into the Keurig. Grabbing a mug from the cupboard I tap my fingers in a fast rhythm, my back to him, waiting for the brew to slowly filter. Trying not to think about how damn good he looks.

  His dark hair is trimmed short. A day of growth lays nicely on his jaw. His eyes still sparkle like liquid jade, framed by the longest lashes I’ve seen on a man. He has a few more lines on his face than I remember, but he’s still traffic-stopping beautiful. And he still fills out a pair of jeans better than most anyone I’ve known. Except maybe Shaw.

  God.

  Stop.

  When the coffee is done, I place a teaspoon of sugar in it and stir before turning to face him once more. I carry it over to the table where he’s sitting and set it down. “I hope you still take sugar.”

  He doesn’t take his watchful eyes off me
. “I do.”

  We don’t speak. Rubbing my lips together, I twist my hands in front of me until he reaches out and pulls them apart. He hangs on to three fingers of my right hand while the other drops to my side. My gaze falls to where he’s touching me. I fight to hold my shit together.

  “Willow, you,” he pauses and takes a breath, “you look good.”

  A million butterflies take flight from my stomach to my throat. They stick there. If I open my mouth, maybe they’ll fly out.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  “How is your mom?”

  “Worse,” I say, still staring at our joined hands. I don’t make a move to pull away and neither does he. A flashback of the first time he told me he loved me almost buckles my knees. He was sitting at this very table, holding my hand just like this to calm my nerves. Just like he’s doing now.

  “I’m so sorry, Willow.”

  “Me, too.”

  His hand slips from mine and I feel…lost. Alone. And sad.

  Reid knows everything about me. He knows what I gave up to stay here. He’s felt my heartbreak, my loneliness, my joy. He knows more about me than any other person walking this planet, except maybe my own mother, though she doesn’t remember most days.

  Only for all he knows about me, when I look back I don’t think he knew me at all. But that’s not his fault, it’s because I wouldn’t let him. And now there’s a chasm of hurt between us that won’t ever be forgotten. That makes me incredibly sad. Because I put it there.

  When I get the nerve to raise my eyes to his, he’s staring at me with an indecipherable expression. My teeth sink into my lower lip so hard it hurts. I pivot and grab a Peroni from the fridge, popping the top before taking a seat across from him.

  “So…” I leave the open-ended word hovering between us. So…do you hate my guts? What have you been doing for the past four years? Are you happy? With someone? Did you move back permanently, or is this just a temporary stop?