The Tornado

by Missy Blue

  I opened my mouth slightly, inviting his tongue in. A moment later, I felt that wonderful soft, moist warmth of his tongue as he slid it around mine, a little farther along its length this time than before. A strange, warm, prickling heat spread through me. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt his lips close gently around my tongue and pull. I was so surprised at the intensity of the flare of pleasure I felt from it, I let out a soft gasp.

  I wasn't sure how long we slowly and leisurely feasted on each other's mouths. And aside from the sublime things he was doing with his lips and tongue, his hands were stroking and squeezing me, one hand in my hair and one at the small of my back. He stroked my back soothingly, slowly, before squeezing gently at my waist and then starting over. The hand in my hair massaged and tugged, my sensitive scalp tingling at his touch.

  Slowly, he gradually closed his lips around my tongue once more and suckled gently, the pulling sensation odd but pleasant. His lips pulled down the length of my tongue, releasing it at the very tip, before his lips immediately latched onto my bottom lip. He gave me another slow, moist, brushing, pressing, pulling kiss, before his teeth nipped gently at my lip and he pulled away.

  “Do you trust me?” he panted.

  “Yes, with my life,” I heard myself saying, with no control. I did. I did trust Asher, wholeheartedly.

  “Then trouble me,” he said, hoarsely. “Make your burden, my burden. I want to carry it with you.” He said it as if he himself felt the pain inflicted inside me. As if he saw me bare my soul, my wounds, in the dance.

  It felt impossible. It felt real.

  It was too much for me, and I lost my voice in that moment, but he carried on, as though knowing I was struggling with the storm of emotions. “I want to be the man who sends you off to sleep feeling safe and loved, Jewel. Wake up feeling safe and loved. But I can’t do that unless you let me know where the hurt is,” he said, brushing his hand down the side of my face. “So that I can fix you.”

  “I’m unfixable,” I said, breathless.

  He shook his head, and his eyes blazed into mine. “They call me The Tornado. But for you, Jewel, I want to be the shelter to your storm.”

  My whole body shuddered then. From fear. I could see it in his eyes what he wanted from me. What he needed from me. It was primal. Raw. It shook me to my very bones. Not because I feared him, but because I feared feeling the same way in return. And I knew there was no going back.

  “I saw you, really saw you, when you danced. It’s your turn to watch me,” he said huskily. He gingerly lowered me down to the floor, and lay me on my side, facing the mirror. He lay behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist. “Watch me in the mirror, Jewel,” he ordered softly.

  Watching each other’s reflection, I felt warmth starting to flood through me, little pinpricks of heat that started deep in my belly and blossomed outward. I'd realized with a start that Asher was turning me on, waking my body up, as I felt his body, his heat, pressed up against me. And when I'd realized that he was getting turned on, it made those pinpricks of heat shoot downward and pool between my legs, making my flesh twitch and crawl there.

  I could feel his arousal, see the fire in his eyes, at simply touching the bare skin of my legs, and it frightened me, intimidated me—but turned me on all the more. I wanted to run. Instead, I was surrendering.

  I heard a low guttural moan escape his lips then, and he turned my head toward his so he could kiss me again. He was moving his lips along mine in that extremely slow, sensuous way I could never seem to stop thinking about, drawing in deep breaths to take in his deliciously spicy, clean scent I couldn't get enough of. When I felt the tip of his tongue slide along the seam of my lips, a new desire flooded through me. I began to return his kisses, my body overruling my mind and forcing me to kiss him back hastily. But he gently cupped the side of my face and feasted on my mouth with his own.

  I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt such want pound through my veins like this, blood surging to sensitive areas that had long since been disregarded as pleasurable body parts. They were now coming to life in a slowly delicious way. I was nervous. I was slightly anxious. But I was on fire. Asher Prince had managed to do the impossible. He aroused me. Made me feel like a real woman.

  Pulling back from the kiss, he ordered me to watch him in the mirror again. I watched his hand trail down my cheek to my neck, over my collarbone and down my breastbone. The mere thought of what it would feel like for him to touch my breasts made my sex start to ripple, and liquid heat gushed to my panties.

  I felt like I was positively aching from the excitement throbbing between my thighs. His hand rested lightly on my tummy, but began to smooth over it slowly and sensuously as his lips and tongue caressed my neck. My head was swimming, and between what his mouth was doing to me, and the innocent places his hand touched, I felt like I could explode.

  I sucked in a noisy breath when his lips slowly moved down to rest against the pulse in my neck. I knew he could feel how fast and hard it was pumping, and saw his lips curl into a smile against my skin as he watched my reaction in the mirror. He moved his lips to the middle of my throat, and moved them down in a line of firm, slow, and slightly moist kisses, until he reached the hollow spot at the base of my throat. I couldn't keep in a tiny sigh of pleasure when I felt his tongue swirl slowly there.

  His lips continued down languidly, grazing the sensitive skin over my collarbones before moving down my breasts. He stopped at the edge of the slightly low neckline of my top and followed it to each side, moving over the tops of my mounds. He returned to the middle and moved his lips to my breastbone, and even through the fabric, I could feel his mouth burning there. Suddenly, I watched and felt his hand move lower, touching my thigh. I froze, feeling an even stronger wave of the confusing mixture of panic, fear, and raw desire.

  "Asher," I whispered to his reflection, and in reply he gently stroked the skin of my thigh, running his fingers from the middle of my quadriceps, down almost to my knee and back up. He swept his fingers from my outer thigh inward and he gently pressed his fingers there, pulling my top leg back toward him slightly. It opened me up slightly, and allowed me to feel more of his arousal. I gulped. I couldn't tell much through the fabric of his pants, but if I wasn't mistaken, he felt large. Intimidatingly large. I wasn't at all sure I was ready for it. Or rather, my body was ready; my mind was on the fence.

  I jumped when his fingers slid up my inner thigh and panic sent alarm bells going off in my head. "Asher," I whispered again, grasping for his hand.

  He squeezed my fingers gently before capturing my lips in his. The panic melted from my mind at the feeling of his lips and tongue.

  "I will never hurt you," he whispered against my mouth. "I just want to touch you. That's all."

  I lay very still, my breath hitched in my chest as my heart kicked into an impossibly high gear, and after a moment, he returned his fingers to my inner thigh and stroked the flesh there. I shut my eyes as the heat between my legs turned into tingling hotness and the throbbing, aching sensation I'd felt earlier, returned with a vengeance. “No, Jewel. Open your eyes. Watch me,” he said hoarsely.

  I bit back a gasp when his fingertips brushed over my core through my panties, and a surge of pleasure forced my eyes open. He continued to stroke me through my panties, light feathery strokes that made me jolt every time I felt them, every time I watched his eyes burn with desire while he watched my reaction from his touch. His fingertips brushed the top edge of my panties, wedging under them slightly next to the flesh there.

  "Trust me," he said, his gaze still locked with my reflection, his voice making me shudder with want. I hesitated for a moment, my mind whirling, and I was tempted to pull away and say no, that it wasn't okay with me. Instead, my body quickly won that battle, and after a second, I nodded my permission. His fingers moved slowly under the edge of my panties again, farther in, until the tip of his finger brushed me.

  I could feel my own wetness glide with his finger a
nd couldn't suppress the gasp that burst out of my throat. He dipped the tip of his finger inside me, ever so slightly, then stroked his finger upward to my hot little center, my wetness gliding him along. “Christ you feel so good,” he whispered in a low guttural tone, his eyes blazing into mine through our reflections. He slowly circled the hard tiny pearl at the top of my core lightly, over and over, until I felt the slow, tight heat in my pelvis begin to coil even tighter and tighter, and a very strange sensation I hadn't felt in so long came over me. I tried to tell him with my eyes that something strange was happening to me, tried to tell him how good it felt, when that coil wound just a little too tight, and with a final swipe of his finger, it broke.

  The tingling hot, hot heat, burst deep and low inside me, and I came in a shuddering, gasping rush, my eyes never leaving Asher’s—who looked so aroused by my climax, that he looked like he was coming too—as waves of pleasure slammed into me and I shook and convulsed in his arms, gasping, “Ash…” I whimpered as my mouth fell open.

  After a moment of lightly touching me to bring me through my aftershocks, he slowly withdrew his hand, pulling my panties back into place and pulling my skirt back down. He returned his fingers to the skin of my thigh as his lips moved against my neck. His hand ran languidly up my abdomen, stopping at my breastbone to press lightly there as his lips moved to the pulse in my neck. It was still beating fast and hard, but starting to slow as a deep, satisfied sleepiness settled over me. I could still feel his hardness pressing into the back of my thigh. If it was possible, it felt even harder than before.

  I wondered shyly if I should return the favor, wanting him to experience even a taste of the pleasure I'd just had. I met his eyes, and swallowed, biting down into my lip. His smoky eyes moved over my face and a little smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth, almost as though he knew what I was thinking. He tilted his head and pressed his mouth to mine firmly, and sensuously, doing nothing to help slow the beating of my heart or extinguish the slow burn of desire between my legs.

  He gave the tip of my tongue a little flick with his before chastely pressing his lips to my temple and wrapping his arms around me tightly, pulling me into his chest.

  He looked back at me, through the mirror. “You’re my girl.” It was a proclamation, like he was claiming ownership. But it was almost said as a question, and his eyes were telling me that it was up to me where we went from here. I didn’t second-guess my choice.

  “I'm your girl.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Him

  SHE LOOKED BEAUTIFUL.

  Which was the cause of my sudden difficulty with the English language. I'd never seen her look quite this way—in a soft, sweet dress, with her hair styled into silken waves I longed to touch. I'd seen her look cute in her workout or dance clothes, pretty in her street clothes, hot when she'd worked at Trinity’s, and goddamn sexy when I made her come, a week ago, in the dance studio. And all of it had been awesome because I'd always thought of her as a beautiful girl. But before tonight, I'd never seen her look this...stunning. And it took my breath away.

  She was still chatting away, as we left the restaurant Elements. I was half-listening to what she was saying, but it was hard to focus on anything but her legs. To me, she had the perfect pair of legs. They were curved and shapely, like a woman's should be, but defined with sleek muscle from years spent honing her craft. And in her short dress, they were set off to perfection. I'd noticed the first night at Trinity’s that her legs were great, but they were driving me to distraction now.

  Walking down the street, we saw several groups of people dressed up in fancy clothing. I heard a sigh and glanced over at Jewel. "They're probably headed to Giselle tonight," she informed me with a small smile. "That's why they're so dressed up."

  "Or maybe they're just going to fancy dinner, like we did," I replied.

  She gave me a half-smile and shrugged. "Maybe," she agreed.

  “Let’s take a walk together.” I ignored the outright stares that I received from some of the passers-by, but when a few young men practically stopped in their tracks to stare at my girl, their heads turning, I looked at them steadily and narrowed my eyes. They got the silent message—threat—and kept it moving.

  "I want to show you something," Jewel said suddenly and pulled me around the corner of the block and down the street. She stopped in front of a small front-store space that had a ‘Lease available’ sign up in the window.

  "This is my studio," she said. "Well, my dream studio."

  With new interest, I regarded the building before cupping my hands around my face to peer inside the window. It was pretty gutted and needed quite a bit of work, but it was in a good location.

  "I've spoken with the bank, and they know I'm interested," she went on. "But until I make my down payment this place is still considered available. I'm sort of in a race against the clock to get my shit together. But I'm close. I'm really close."

  "Nice little space," I commented. "Could definitely watch you dance in here... and other things." I winked.

  She beamed at me, her cheeks becoming a darker shade of pink, and turned her attention back to the window. "I'm working on it," she said. She rapped her knuckles on the glass. "This will be mine one day. I'm determined to make it happen." She sighed and let her fingers trail down the window before resuming their place on my arm again. I continued to walk her down the streets.

  "I, uh, I wanted to tell you that I decided to testify."

  I let a small, proud smile cross my face. "I’m glad to hear that," I said. "I'm proud of you."

  "My family is going to be there," she said. "And Ruby. I finally told her what happened… But, not in the courtroom with me, just at the courthouse. It would be awkward to recant what happened in front of them, and, well, I wouldn't want to put my family through that again. Uh, anyway. It, uh, it would mean a lot to me if you came, too."

  I blinked in surprise. "You want me to be there?" I asked quietly.

  "It's the Monday right after the weekend of the Ithaca tournament, in the city," she said quickly. "So I know you'll be really tired and it's like a seven hour drive from Buffalo which is really kinda far for a favor. So if you can't make it, or you don't want to, I totally—"

  "Jewel," I said, lifting a hand in the air. "Stop. You want me there, I'm there. That's it."

  She caught her breath from her verbal torrent and bit her lip. "Thank you," she said. "I hope it's not weird that I asked you. It's just—well, outside my family you're the first person I've told what happened to me. And, well…" She blushed and dropped her gaze again.

  She was doing it again, so I reached over and slipped two of my fingers into the little fist she didn't know she was making, to get her attention. Her eyes shifted to our hands and then to my face. I stared intently into her eyes.

  "'Nough said," I said quietly. "You had me at 'it would mean a lot to me if you came'. And I’m yours now, Nutcracker. Yours. That means you can ask whatever the hell you like from me." I smiled, and she returned it. “Just don’t ask for something, you know, way too kinky.”

  "Okay," she said, softly laughing.

  "Since we were on the subject of favors," I began, "what do you think about coming with me to the tournament?"

  Jewel looked up at me in surprise. "Um, really? You would want me to come? You know I don't know anything about that."

  "I'd like you to be there," I said. "Bailey and his wife, Tess, are going. It'd be cool to have you there, too. I don't care if you don't know much about MMA."

  "Anything," Jewel corrected with a smile. "I don't know anything." She paused and then glanced up at me. "Could I…do you mind if I think about it?" She bit her lip. "I know that makes me sound like a bitch, since I asked you to come to my thing, and you said yes right away, and now you're asking me to go to your thing and here I am asking to think—"

  "Jewel, it's okay," I said. "Take all the time you want." I paused. "Well, not all the time," I amended. "I'm leaving in a few weeks. Thursday
morning. So I'd need to know before that to make hotel room arrangements for you."

  "Okay," she said. "I'll let you know soon."

  "Good," I said. I looked at my watch again and was surprised to see that a half hour had flown by. "We should probably get going," I added.

  We made our way to the movie theater and Jewel started to turn in toward it, but I kept moving us.

  "Asher," she said in confusion. "The theater's right here."

  "Do you trust me?" I asked calmly.

  “Yes. More than anyone.”

  She let me lead her on. I glanced both ways before crossing the street. The Harmony was to our left and there were scores of people walking up and into it. Jewel looked up at me like I'd lost my mind.

  "What are we doing?" she asked in utter confusion.

  I stopped on the sidewalk and looked up at the brightly lit marquee with ‘Giselle’ on it in huge black letters. I turned and smiled down at Jewel as understanding began to dawn in her eyes.

  "Did I say a movie?" I asked casually. I shook my head. "Sorry. I meant a ballet."

  Her mouth fell open in surprise and she turned her eyes up toward me, their warm chocolate brown depths filled with wonder and gratitude. She sighed before a slow, sweet smile spread across her face and shadows creased her cheeks deeply where her dimples were on full display.

  I couldn't help myself. I leaned down and brushed one of them with my lips. I pulled away, looking into her still smiling face. She was shaking her head slightly and seemed unable to come up with anything to say, but the look on her face said enough. I took her hand in mine, feeling her give me a tight squeeze, and led her inside the theater.

  "Showtime," I murmured against her ear.

  I groaned inwardly and had to laugh at myself as I thought about what Bailey, Connor, Leon, even Gable, or any of my Marines would say, if they knew I’d gone to a ballet. I’d never hear the end of it, but screw it.