Lost In Between: Finding Me Duet #1

by K. L. Kreig

  She eases back, eyes bouncing between mine. “I want that do-over,” she announces roughly. “Now.” She grabs my hand and tries pulling me off the floor, but I yank her back to me.

  Face between my palms, I tell her, “You’re spending the night tonight. No excuses.” I don’t want her to go home like she’s just a passing moment. She’s not, and I’m tired of her pretending she is. I’m not sure what we are yet, but we are more than either of us intended.

  I watch the war her mind wages like a movie, the questions coming in rapid-fire.

  No or yes?

  Defend or surrender?

  Play it safe or take a risk?

  My entire body sags in relief when she answers so soft I strain to hear, “Okay.”

  Finally. One fucking barrier down.

  And after tonight? After seeing another man’s hands on her? After I hold her naked body against me for hours on end? Game over. I intend to tear down every single one that remains standing because I can finally admit that I want more than her time or her body or for her to help me keep the press out of my family life so my father can win his election.

  I can finally admit I want her heart.

  And I want to keep it, even if I’m not yet sure I won’t break it.

  32

  My stomach cartwheels as I slide the key card inside the door. Shaw’s exhales tickle the back of my neck with each feathered kiss, and I have to try again, keeping my eyes open this time. He chuckles lightly, knowing exactly how he’s affecting me. The light turns green, and I shove the handle down, letting us inside.

  As predicted, Jo secured us all hotel rooms in the Alexis, along with an invitation to party with Errow, one of the premier bands rocking Emfest this year. I was actually looking forward to spending the evening with my friends. Gossiping, drinking, dancing, and laughing. Things I don’t do enough of anymore.

  But the second Shaw’s arms came around me, that disappeared. All I wanted to do was get him naked and lick him from head to toe. He looks so fucking sexy in his dark-wash jeans and slim-fit charcoal button-down that my mouth actually watered.

  I should be mad he showed up on my evening out with my friends, but I’m so far from mad I’m scared. I knew I felt him there. My skin tingled from the moment I stepped foot onto the VIP level. I felt his presence. I felt watched, protected. Desired.

  Once we’re over the threshold, steel bands wrap around from behind, pressing me into a solid masculine body. I hear the soft click of the door closing before his husky statement trickles over me. “I want to fuck you, Willow. So goddamn good and hard you never forget me.”

  You’re utterly unforgettable. Those words balance on my tongue before I let them tumble away, afraid to voice them, afraid to scare him away.

  “I want you,” I whisper instead. My head swims and my blood buzzes with the alcohol I drank. That, and sheer, raw need. I want Shaw, but on my terms tonight.

  I don’t know if it’s the buzz or the ticking clock that gets louder every day, but tonight I want to be the one in charge. I want to unravel the coiled power he holds tightly to. I want to bring the measured, dictating Shaw Mercer to his everlovin’ knees. I want to fuck him so hard he never forgets me, my memory haunting him when I’m gone.

  Leaning my head back on his shoulder, I slide a hand between us to cup his rigid cock. My grip is firm, my strokes are sure, and I know I have him when his guttural voice grates, “I love your hands on my cock, Willow.”

  Spinning in his arms, I pull his head down and kiss him with every feeling inside me. It’s desperate need and wild hunger I’ve never had for another human being. His hands grip my waist as he leads us back into the spacious suite. I know exactly where he’s headed, but I don’t want to go there.

  This is my night.

  My show.

  My stage.

  I pull my mouth from his and dig my heels into the carpet to stop us. Shaw looks down at me with undisguised lust in his hooded eyes. The way his chest rises and falls quickly makes my womanly pride swell.

  With a slight smile, my hands reach for his shirt buttons. I undo the small discs with quick efficiency, and the raw groan that leaves his throat when I suck a flat, manly nipple into my mouth makes me moan. I make my way to the other side, repeating the action.

  “Fuck, Willow.” His sexy growl gasses my fire.

  His jeans are next, and I have the button and zipper open before I fall to my knees and pull his thick length from black boxer briefs. He’s steel encased in velvet. Smooth and hard and so thick my fingers barely touch. Gazing up the taut, flat plane of his torso, I ask, “And how would you like my mouth on your cock?”

  His answer is to grab a fistful of my hair in one hand, his cock in the other. Stroking himself a few times first, he taps my mouth with the mushroom head, and I can’t stop my tongue from darting out to lick the droplets of pre-come coating the tip, drawing a low curse from him.

  “Open up.”

  His throaty command is primal, stirring the submissive part I didn’t know I had in me to obey. I do, letting him think he’s controlling this. But he’s not. I am. He will do everything I want and won’t even realize it.

  And I want this.

  When he slides inside my mouth, I moan around him. God, I’d do this every day of the year. He tastes like sweet musk and virile man. He tastes like mine.

  I flatten my tongue as I take him deep. When I ease back, I hollow my cheeks and suck hard. I grasp the base and squeeze, letting my fingers tickle his balls before twisting my hand as it follows my mouth back up.

  “Holy Christ.” He tugs on my hair until my eyes sweep up to catch his. They’re burning. Crazed. “Again. Just like that.”

  Smiling around my mouthful, I swirl my tongue around the underside and play with him until he’s panting before I take him to the back of my throat again and repeat.

  “So good, Willow. Jesus, don’t stop.”

  I don’t, until all the signs of climax appear.

  His eyes drop.

  His head falls.

  His grip tightens.

  His breaths pick up.

  His thighs tense, his cock swells, and he starts pulsing before thrusting faster, rougher, need dissolving control. More saltiness coats my tongue. I want nothing more than to finish this, finish him until he roars and his knees weaken, but I have other things in mind before I take him over.

  The next time I come up, I let his dick fall out with a loud pop. Shocked, he loosens his grip on my hair, and I take the opportunity to jump to my feet and walk backward before he can grab me again.

  “Get back here,” he rumbles, stalking after me.

  I hold my hand out before he gets too close. “Stop.”

  “Willow, what the fuck? Get your mouth back on my cock and finish what you started.”

  He sounds desperate, needy.

  Uncontrolled.

  Finally. Mr. Cool is melting under the pressure.

  He takes another step until his heaving bare chest pushes against my palm. My eyes travel over his perfectly honed body. Tanned flesh, taut muscles, a smattering of hair in just the right places. Jesus, the man is sin walking. Lucifer’s angel.

  “I want to do something for you,” I breathe, almost losing my nerve.

  “I want you to do something for me, too.” His voice holds little amusement. He’s really peeved. “I want you on your knees sucking my cock bone dry.”

  “God, Shaw.” My eyes close briefly, his wicked words nearly luring me down before I shove him back. I nod to the chair behind him. “Sit down. You’ll like this. I promise.”

  His eyes darken and his jaw clenches. For a split second, I don’t think he’s going to. I think he’s going to grab me, push me back to the floor, and shove his angry, bobbing cock back inside my mouth. But with a heavy sigh, he takes a few steps backward and eases into the overstuffed armchair, pinning me with a quiet stare.

  Jesus, he looks good. With his chest bare, legs spread wide, and cock standing at attention fr
om the denim still encasing his hips, he looks like some sort of hedonistic king in his throne.

  Taking a few steps back, I never look away as I begin to slowly drag down the zipper on the side of my blouse. I’ve never stripped as much for a man as I have for Shaw, but it’s something he loves, and I want to please him.

  I loosen the ties on the halter and shimmy the cloth over my head, letting it fall whisper soft to the ground. I want to drag this out. That was my plan. Strip and tease, but the second I free my swollen, aching breasts from my strapless bra, Shaw palms his cock and starts leisurely stroking it. The sight is so damn erotic I throb everywhere. I want to straddle him, sink, and ride until I forget who I am.

  “Don’t stop now, Goldilocks,” he prods with a smirk when my fingers hesitate.

  Eyes sweeping up, I know my smile is sultry when his lips thin and his gaze turns positively ravenous. Unzipping my pants, I turn and bend, peeling them down my lean legs with purpose. I want to keep my heels on, but I can’t slip my pants over them, so I quickly unbuckle and remove them, hyperaware the entire time that the only thing separating my soaked pussy from Shaw’s view is a one-inch-wide scrap of lavender silk.

  “I could stare at this vision every day until I’m dead and never tire of it,” he rasps thickly.

  God, when he says things like that...

  I remove my thong and straighten, peeking playfully over my shoulder before turning around. Shaw’s face is pinched tight, and he’s fisting his cock faster than a minute ago. I smile, knowing I’m about to blow his mind.

  Bending my knees, I sit on the edge of the square coffee table and spread my legs wide. We didn’t turn the overhead light on, but the moonlight shining through the opened balcony blinds spins the perfect sensual ambiance, rays of bright blue acting like my very own spotlight. There’s no way he can miss how much I want him.

  “Jesus, fuck, Willow,” he grunts when I palm one breast and tweak the hardened nub on the tip, gasping at the slight pain I inflicted on myself. Running a finger through my slit, I drag the wetness up to my throbbing clit and round it slowly before plunging two fingers inside.

  “Tell me how you taste,” he demands, voice full of gravel.

  Tasting my own desire isn’t something I’ve done before, except on the lips of a man, but I already know what the answer’s going to be before I suck the thick fluid from my two middle fingers. “I still taste like you.”

  His dark eyes fall shut on a harsh sound. When they open again, he’s absolutely wild. The lines of his face are sharp, wolfish. Every muscle is coiled and ready. He wants to fuck me so bad right now I can taste it.

  The upper hand is mine.

  My hand slinks back down my stomach and slides through my wetness once again. I circle the highly sensitive bundle of nerves lightly at first, increasing the pressure with each rotation. “You do this to me, Shaw,” I whisper on an honest breath. “You make me wet, ache, want things.”

  You. A future. Happiness.

  I left every inhibition I had outside the hotel room door and couldn’t care less that I feel my juices coat the table beneath me, making it slick.

  He leans his head against the cushion, his lids drooping so he can keep watch on my gyrating fingers and hips as his own keep time with mine. The fingers of his other hand fondle his sack and the harsh, ragged breaths leaving his lungs echo mine.

  “You make me feel beautiful and desired.”

  “You are. So damn beautiful and so fucking wet.”

  “For you,” I pant, nearing the goal line. “Only you.”

  “You’re close.”

  So are you. His hips thrust violently with every jerky sweep of his closed fist. He’s losing it.

  “Yes,” I agree raggedly.

  “Come, Willow. I want to watch it, watch you let go wishing my fingers were on that honeyed cunt right now instead of your own.”

  I was wrong.

  I never had the power. Shaw always did, because at his hoarse, raunchy command, I do his bidding, my body helpless to stop its surrender. He held the reins and I held his stormy eyes until I couldn’t anymore. Until the tidal wave of pleasure my fingers created but that he owned swept me away and I lost myself murmuring his name, ecstasy cleaving and crashing inside me like whitecaps.

  “That’s it, beautiful,” he urges quietly.

  Letting my head drop back, I come.

  Hard.

  Brutally.

  Beautifully.

  My muscles shudder uncontrollably as the addiction that is Shaw Mercer ravages its way through my body, obliterating everyone before him.

  I have no idea how long it takes before I’m aware neither of us has moved. When I can right my head back up on my shoulders, there he sits. My powerful, handsome, hedonistic king. Thick, erect cock still in his hand and pure awe on his face.

  “I’ve never witnessed anything more beautiful than that, Willow. Thank you.”

  If I wasn’t liquid before, those reverent words totally melted me. I didn’t think I was going to be able to move until smugness tilts his lips and he bosses, “Get on my cock. Right now. Your next orgasm belongs to me.”

  “That one belonged to you, Drive By,” I declare with my own satisfied smile. I close my legs and glow when his starving gaze follows.

  Grin widening, he curls his index finger, motioning me over.

  I could play coy, hard to get, use a few more smart retorts to rile him up, but why? The game is finished. He’s the leader and I’m the follower.

  And I’m okay with that.

  Standing on wobbly legs, I make my way to him, my blood hot and my wet fingers tingling. While I was in my postorgasmic coma, he must have shucked his jeans and shirt because he’s gloriously naked. When I reach him, I silently climb onto his lap as he rests his hands on my hips. I hover above eight inches of solid length, anticipating his next instruction.

  He knows.

  “You’re so fucking perfect, Willow.” Palming my nape, he pulls me down for a whispering kiss against my mouth. “Sit down.”

  Holy shit, I love how this man talks to me.

  Coating him with the remnants of my orgasm first, I line him up and sink, inch by inch until he’s fully seated. I whimper at the exquisite fullness.

  “Ride me. Don’t hurry. I want to feel every ridge of that scorching pussy when you lift up and down.” With one hand securing the back of my neck and one on my hip, he’s the maestro. He directs. I move. The Earth shifts.

  The Earth shifts.

  I thought that was a bullshit line made up by Hollywood or romance authors. But with Shaw’s intense eyes locked hot on mine, I feel something significant transform in the atmosphere, once again changing our relationship somehow.

  “Willow,” he whispers softly. “You are mine.”

  My hands cup his face, and I lean my forehead to his, shutting my eyes so he can’t see the water or uncertainty now filling them.

  “You’re mine,” he rasps again on lazy thrusts and tender kisses. “I want you to be mine.”

  “But the contract…,” I choke. That fucking contract hangs over our heads like a storm cloud, and it clearly says I am not his after the next few weeks pass.

  “Fuck the contract. Fuck the contract,” he repeats again with more force, his body reacting the same way as his temperament. His drives are no longer lazy and languid; they punctuate his point with savagery. His kisses are no longer delicate and soft; they’re rough and scorching. His touch is no longer gentle; it’s harsh and bruising.

  And moments later when we tumble headfirst into the blinding vortex of bliss together, his sweet lyrics convince me I could be his and there’s a possible future together, regardless of how we started.

  When I willingly fall asleep wound around him that night, after another round of wicked and dirty sex against the shower wall, the darkness of dreams isn’t the only thing that pulls me under. That last sliver of light I had been focusing on fades into nothingness and I know, without a shadow of doubt, that I
am his.

  I did what I swore I wouldn’t do.

  I went and fell head over heels in love with Shaw Mercer, a man who I also know, without a shadow of doubt, will shatter my heart beyond all repair.

  33

  Love.

  Four simple letters, one single syllable.

  Seemingly straightforward in its definition, but it’s far from that. It’s complex and confusing. It’s contradictory, paradoxical if you stop to really think about it.

  On one hand, so much warmth and happiness fills you, you’re sure your skin will split and sunbeams will pour out. Your heart is full, your life right. There’s a comfortable peace that surrounds you that you don’t realize is there until it’s shattered into a million pieces, lying in the dirt around you.

  On the other hand, though, is sheer, raw terror at losing the one thing in the world you can’t fathom existing without. The thought of not seeing that person’s face or hearing their voice is simply incomprehensible until you’re faced with the stark reality the one you love is gone for good, and the only place you’ll see them again is in faded memories and sad dreams.

  Whether it’s a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, or the love of your life, we all love, we all fear, we all eventually lose someone. I think I’m particularly sensitive to this conflict because I’ve lived it. Many times before.

  So, if loving someone—anyone—eventually leads to heartbreak, loss, and mourning, why do we do it? Why do we continue to let people into our lives, our hearts? Steal our very soul out from under us before we realize a vital piece of us is forever missing?

  Simple.

  No matter how hard we deny it or push it away, love is inevitable. We fall in eyes wide open, the pain of loss well worth the beauty of everlasting memories, no matter how fleeting they are.

  That’s where I’m at right now.

  Memory building.