I was safe in her arms, but she was not safe in mine.
25. Need
Snuggling was all we were good for, at first. Even though I stripped down to nothing but my baggy borrowed t-shirt and Devon stripped down to nothing but … nothing, we did not in fact start humping like bunny rabbits as soon as we climbed under the covers – instead, somehow, we both fell asleep within minutes, spooning together like an old married couple. Behold the mighty sleep-inducing powers of emotional meltdowns and ice cream, huh?
I woke up less than an hour later.
Devon slept on, folded around me from behind, his arms holding me safe against the hard planes of his body. Now and again he shifted in his sleep, murmuring words I couldn’t make out and tightening his hold on me before drifting away again, somewhere where I couldn’t reach him.
What was he dreaming about? Was I with him in there, protecting him from his demons?
I nestled against his warmth, layered my arms over his, and listened to the steady rhythm of his breathing. I ran my fingers over the rough black hair coating his forearms. I felt the slow, thumping beat of his heart against my back.
In this small, sweet corner of the world, everything was drowsy and safe and warm and perfect – so why couldn’t I relax and fall asleep again?
My body commented that while it would much prefer a vigorous session of wild monkey sex with the beautiful weird guy pressed up against me, it could deal with getting some more sleep first instead.
Then my brain sputtered to life, and it hit me.
Devon never did tell me about his panic attacks.
When and how did they begin? What set them off? Why hadn’t he told me about them, instead of just letting me discover him drenched in sweat and hyperventilating like crazy?
I asked for all those answers, and he never gave them to me. Sure, he’d found the courage to tell me how his life first ran off the rails when he was torn screaming from his mother’s arms, but he hadn’t said word one about the panic attacks – and while I supposed it was possible for a five-year-old to develop something like post-traumatic stress disorder, complete with full-flip-out panic attacks, my instincts told me that wasn’t how it happened, and that wasn’t when it happened.
The panic attacks came later, when something even worse messed with the guy’s head – but what could have been worse than being ripped from the only comfort he’d ever known straight into a terrifying new life where everyone hated him?
Did I want to know?
That was what kept me awake. I had no evidence to point to, no facts I could be sure of, but I was certain beyond doubt that an even worse story hid in his past – a story he was so scared to tell me, he’d done a bait-and-switch, throwing me off the trail by telling me instead about that terrible long-ago day when his five-year-old world shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.
Would I ever hear that other story, the hidden story?
And was all of the truth in the past? Was the worst truth of all hiding here in the present, right in plain sight?
That last question was the one that outlasted all the others, the one that spiraled down with me as I fell back into a sleep filled with restless dreams.
We came together in the small hours of the night, somewhere between dreams and waking.
I sprinted through a forest in some dark, sleeping corner of my mind, a night-time forest lit by the moon and full of howling creatures, creatures that ran nipping at my heels but were never there when I turned to look back at them.
I hurtled through the trees, my bare legs flashing in the darkness, and the thing was, I literally went through the trees – I smashed into one gnarled trunk after another, passing through the bark and into the heartwood in a blur of splinters and booming sound before rushing back out into the open air.
I never took a single scratch from the impacts, not a bump or a bruise or a scrape – and neither did the trees, because each time I stared back over my shoulder, looking for the red-eyed things that chased me, I saw the last tree I’d crashed through standing unbroken and unmarked, as if I’d never so much as touched it.
After seconds and years of running, I sped clear of the trees and passed onto open ground. The creatures that ran snapping and snarling just behind me picked up speed, closing in, and then flew past me as I stumbled to a stop on the brink of a cliff.
I watched their bodies plummet like stones through an endless gulf of air, an ocean of space and darkness that went on forever. I stared as they spun away below me, stared until their howling passed into silence and their bodies shrank down into dots and then disappeared in the distance.
Shivering with sweat, I stood just inches from the edge, staring down into the nothingness that had swallowed my pursuers. I kept staring into the abyss for a long time after the creatures vanished, because the sight was fascinating. I leaned forward for a better look, craning out over the edge, creeping closer to non-existence, staring down, expecting to see the glint of a river far below, or the tumbled rocks of a canyon, or more trees. Instead, I saw …
… stars.
The ground whipcracked beneath my feet, jolting me forward, throwing me toward the edge. I lunged back, trying to get away, fighting the earth that wanted to shake me loose into space, and fighting the part of me that wanted to plunge over the brink and soar down to the stars that hung burning in the darkness.
I slid forward, pebbles turning beneath my feet. I was losing traction as I drew closer to the bare edge of the cliff, losing the fight. I stared at the stars waiting to claim me and I lurched, swaying on my feet as I tried one last time to step away from the edge, away from nothingness – and slammed against an unyielding wall at my back.
My dream turned sideways and left me as I jerked awake, lunging against the solid wall of Devon’s body behind me as my feet scrambled for purchase beneath the silk sheets.
Gasping for air, sweating and shaking, I stared at the glint of a mirror on the far wall for several endless minutes before I could accept that Devon’s body and bed were real, and that the cliff existed only in my fading dream.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Devon whispered those words into my ear, and then he spoke to me with his hands and his mouth and all the length of his body.
He caressed my curves with his right hand, his fingers bunching in the fabric of my t-shirt and then sliding underneath. He stroked over my ribs and onto the soft spread of my stomach, his fingers splayed wide, as my breathing slowed and I settled back against him, relaxing into the strength and protection of his powerful body. He moved his palm in easy circles over my hip, and then he reached down and pressed his fingers into the round swell of my ass.
Once I would have cringed at that touch, convinced that no man could find beauty and pleasure in generous curves like mine, not really, even though I knew better – but now I treasured Devon’s touch. I reveled in the feeling of his large, tender hand gliding over me, the gentleness of his fingers, and the warmth of his skin against mine. I wanted him to explore every dimple, every curve, every inch of my round, soft body.
I trusted his touch.
Sighing with contentment, I closed my eyes. The lingering hold of the dream slipped away as I stretched and purred like a sleepy kitten, warm and safe in Devon’s arms.
Then his mouth settled onto my neck, and a different kind of warmth flared to life inside me.
He licked and kissed along my neck, taking his time, until he found a place where my pulse pounded just beneath the skin. There he fastened his lips against me, kissing like a starving man, sucking and nipping until I knew his mark would burn there by morning.
The warmth of arousal flashed through me like a summer thunderstorm. A moment before, I’d been relaxed and drowsy, needing nothing but his arms around me – but in an instant, I needed so much more.
Desire pulsed between my legs. My heart sped faster, sweat broke out on my skin, and just how did he manage to take me from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds?
&
nbsp; I lifted my head and pushed up against Devon’s mouth, leaning into the sweet pain and wetness of his kiss – and then, while his mouth worked against the tender skin of my neck, his left hand eased inside my t-shirt and cupped my breast.
He held the warmth and weight of my left breast in his palm, and I whimpered as his long fingers closed on the tender flesh, stroking and kneading. I gasped, lost in the delicious sensation, and he responded by giving my breast a gentle squeeze before brushing his fingers over the nipple.
He brought my left nipple to instant, aching hardness, rolling it between his fingers and rubbing gently over the sensitive tip. Wordless little sounds of pleasure came out of me as I twisted in his arms – and then before I knew it, his other hand moved up from my hip, slid under the thin, clinging fabric of my shirt, and closed on my right breast.
He held the swelling mounds of my breasts in his hands, and I moaned as he fondled my aching nipples. He didn’t pinch them, he didn’t pull, he just rolled and rubbed and teased them with a delicate, maddening touch, sometimes only barely brushing the skin, until with each gentle caress, an answering ache of need surged through me, like the beat of a desperate heart.
It was sweet, but it was torture. “Please, I just want …”
I wanted so much from him in that moment, but he didn’t answer. Devon usually spoke to me when we made love, even if only a few words – whispering my name as he moved inside me, murmuring filthy, thrilling suggestions as he kissed all my secret places, or telling me with a grin just what he was going to do to me when we, um, did just a little bit of naughty role-playing now and then – but not this time.
This time, he was silent and strong and in absolute control, pleasuring me with his sure, gentle touch until I wanted more than anything to scream.
I tried to slow my breathing, tried to think – but thinking when Devon’s hands were on me was next to impossible.
As he rubbed my hard nipples and nibbled down to my shoulder, I felt his powerful erection pressing against me from behind, hard and hot and demanding. I reached back for it with my right hand, trying for a little control of my own – but he caught me.
One second his left hand was on my breasts, and in the next it was clamped onto my wrist like an iron vise; he was the one in control, and I lay pinned against his body, helpless to move and helpless to stop the fresh flush of wetness and desire deep inside me.
Then he eased his right hand away from my breasts, traced his fingers down my ribs and over the curve of my hip, and reached between my legs.
He slipped one finger, just one, between my moist folds, as I opened my legs to make the way easier for him. Up through the soft valleys, circling my opening without quite entering me, he stroked and teased through my wetness until without warning, he rubbed his fingertip over my clit.
I jerked and shuddered, eyes closed. I waited, breathing hard, desperate to feel that shivering thrill of pleasure again, any second now – and then he pulled his hand away.
I loved him and I so wanted to kill him.
Before I could yell or hit him or just beg him to get on with it, Devon sat up. In one swift motion, he reached down and pulled my sweat-drenched t-shirt up my body and off over my head. He tossed it away into the darkness, and turned me onto my back with his strong hands. I opened my legs, welcoming him, and then he was on me, the weight of his body pressing me down into the mattress.
He pulled back, moved lower and lower, and planted a kiss on my mound, just above the one spot where I absolutely, more than anything, needed to be kissed. I pushed up toward him, trying to draw him in, trying to get some special attention for my neglected clit, but nothing doing.
Instead, the big adorable tease kissed and licked and nuzzled his way back up my body, running his powerful hands over every one of my curves and tasting me in sensitive spots I didn’t even know I had.
After his sweet, endless journey up my body, Devon laid his head, just for a moment, on the center of my chest. Was he waiting, drawing out the suspense and testing my nerves? Or was he just resting, resting and listening to the thundering beat of my heart?
I felt his ear and his stubbled cheek pressing against me, and there was something so strange and intimate and sweet about feeling the tiny brush of his eyelashes against my skin as he turned his head and kissed me in the deepest part of the valley between my breasts.
Then I made a sound I’d never heard before as his warm, wet mouth fastened onto my right nipple.
He sucked gently at first, working his tongue over and around the sensitive tip, his lips pressed to the areola, his mouth drawing me in as I whimpered with pleasure, pleasure and the need for him to do so much more.
He answered me. He answered me by bearing down and suckling hard, pulling my swollen nipple deep into his mouth as I bucked and moaned beneath him. His mouth worked at the stiff, aching peak, demanding and hungry, and every time his rough, wet tongue rubbed over the tip, I felt an answering pulse in my clit.
I could have cried with frustration and need when his mouth left my breast and I felt the cool air of the room on my wet nipple – but before I could make a single sound or even take a single breath, his mouth was on my other breast, and I forgot everything.
He drew the flat of his tongue all around the swell of my left breast, leaving a warm, moist trail over my skin. When he came around to the nipple, he just teased it at first – blowing on it, flicking it with just the tip of his tongue, barely brushing his lips over it – until I decided that was all the torture I could take. I grabbed a handful of his hair and I pulled his head down, forcing his mouth to my nipple, because there’s only so much teasing a girl can stand.
And just like before, he answered me, giving every bit of what I wanted. He sucked and pulled and worked on my left nipple, probing and tasting with his tongue while I whimpered, helpless and needy beneath the power of his mouth and his body. He suckled, long and deep, and I groaned; he nibbled the hard tip with just the lightest touch of his teeth, and I fisted my hands in the sheets, pushing my hips up to him and moaning for more.
I needed him inside me.
He needed that too, needed to bury himself deep within my body; I could feel it from the way his massive cock stirred against my thigh, hard and hungry, ready to take me.
It happened so fast, and it could never happen fast enough.
Devon’s mouth left my breast. He sat up, leaned past me, and I heard the drawer of a bedside table slide open in the darkness. The sound of ripping foil followed, and I knew he was pulling a condom down over the length of his cock, the cock that would soon possess me.
He reached down between my legs, slipped a finger through my folds, and rubbed my own wetness over the round bud of my clit. Desire lanced through me and I spread my legs wide, wanting him; then he kneeled between my knees, I felt the head of his shaft press against my opening, and with a single powerful buck of his hips, he was inside me.
It was a single perfect moment, and in a just world, it would have lasted forever. I reveled in it, lived for the feeling of every inch of his strength sliding into me, stretching me wide as wordless moans of pleasure came from my throat. He took me, surging deeper with each thrust, burning down into my core, until I shattered beneath him.
I came like someone who was drowning, gasping and shaking as release tore through every nerve in my body. Exhausted, I clung tight to this man who meant more than anything to me, burying my face in his neck and quivering in his arms as each rippling aftershock of pleasure ran through me.
Endless seconds passed, and then I felt one final spasm as deep within, I tightened around his thrusting cock. He responded with his own helpless, shuddering release, bucking his hips against me and groaning as he spent his seed inside me.
Devon sank down onto me, and I accepted his weight with a sigh. My breasts flattened beneath his broad chest, he murmured something I couldn’t make out into the hollow of my shoulder, and I cradled him with my body, content beyond words. Sure, it wasn’t the
easiest thing in the world to breathe with that much man sprawled over me, sated and utterly relaxed, but so what?
As he drifted deeper into sleep, he tightened his arms around me.
I’m not going anywhere, big guy.
26. Ask Me Anything
Breakfast happened at noon, but that was Devon’s fault.
Hey, I got up at ten, okay? I sat up, I swung my legs over the side of the bed, all ready to get dressed and organized and awake – but then a certain tall gorgeous slab of sleepy man slipped his arm around me and pulled me back against his fabulous array of muscles that wouldn’t quit. His hands started wandering around my curves, and … um, yeah.
I tried again around eleven-ish, and that time I got as far as the shower – but a few minutes into the lathering stage, someone who shall remain nameless but sexy as hell appeared behind me, pinned me against the tiled wall, and ... well, let me just point out that there was enough room in there for an entire football team to take a shower, and we made use of every inch of the space.
We ate our lunchtime breakfast in a small staff break room near the third floor kitchen. The room was pretty similar to the one where we’d had our impromptu ice cream confessional the night before, and as a sixty-something woman with an accent I couldn’t place put heaping plates of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of us, I wondered about that.
“Devon, do your household people resent it at all when you keep invading their personal space like this? What with my being an actual employed person and all, I can testify that people usually don’t like it when the boss shows up in whatever safe little corner they use to escape from work for a while.”
“Well, let’s ask Masina, shall we?”
Devon set down his glass of frosted orange juice and turned to the woman who’d served us. She was now sitting at the far end of the table with a cup of steaming black coffee, a stubby little pencil, and a sudoku magazine. She barely glanced up when the big guy spoke to her in a long stream of fractured syllables belonging to some language that I couldn’t even begin to identify.
Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance Page 29