“This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.” I press the arrow down button beside the elevator doors. It flashes as I drive the tip of my finger into it over and over, like maybe it’ll come faster if it knows I’m in a hurry to leave. “What the hell was I thinking?”
“Hey, look at me.” Talent pulls my hand away from the button and holds it against his chest. His heart beats like mine. “I’m nervous, too.”
My chest heaves and the hallway tilts as I strive to secure a lungful of air. My face starts to tingle, and I can’t look at him. He’s too perfect, and I’m to be feared.
“Come inside to catch your breath. If you still want to leave once you relax, I’ll drive you home myself.”
I force my eyes to look to his and finally inhale the oxygen I’ve deprived myself of when I melt under the adoration staring back at me. Concern melts into tenderness, and it’s mine. He’s been nothing but sure about me since the night we met, and I don’t understand why.
I’ll try to talk him out of it.
Convince him to see himself clearly.
He deserves better than me.
But for now, I let him hold my hand and lead me to his apartment.
“Don’t you understand this is the problem?” I ask. Talent opens his penthouse door and stands back to allow me in ahead of him. “You shouldn’t invite me into your home.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll take my chances.” Talent smacks my ass as I walk past him. “Get the fuck in there.”
I hover inside close enough to see his space, but not close enough to intrude. He has framed photos here and there, but the faces are unclear from my spot by the door. The television is on, but I can’t see what’s on or hear anything beyond muffled dialogue. Talent’s laptop is open on a table in front of the navy-blue couch in the living area, but I can’t make out what’s on the screen.
Talent’s life is one-dimensional from here. If I take another step inside, the people in the frames will have faces I may or may not be able to put names to, and I’ll know what he likes to watch on television and search for on his computer. His life will have color beyond white walls and dark furniture. I’ll touch fabrics, see patterns, and I’ll know if he dusts his bookshelves regularly.
Talent stands directly behind me. He doesn’t touch me, but he’s close enough that I can sense the warmth from his skin near mine.
“What are you afraid of, Lydia?” he whispers. Talent leans forward and buries his nose in my hair, inhaling before his lips press the softest kiss to the top of my head. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I’m a lot of things—apathetic, disappointed, mighty, resilient—but the last time I was afraid of anything was the day Cricket died.
Talent doesn’t scare me.
He excites me.
I’m quick to forget who I am when I was just so sure.
It pains me to admit, “I don’t know how to be around you. How do I fit in your life?”
Persistence hides his face in the curve of my neck and secures his arms around me, drawing the back of my body flush against the front of his. I feel Talent’s heartbeat, as if destiny itself taps against my shoulder. Now watch this, it says as the slopes, bends, and curves of our bodies connect like puzzle pieces to create an illustration that wasn’t clear before we were joined.
“We fit perfectly,” Talent says with patient awe. “I knew all along, Lydia. I knew when you were only a name on my schedule. When you walked into my office, I knew it. But when I was inside of you that first time, I felt it. Nothing has been the same for me since.”
Turning in his arms, our pieces hesitantly come apart to change position—but the image doesn’t shift when we rejoin, and I’m only staring at the surface of the bigger picture: welcome home, Lydia Montgomery—daughter of a stripper, runaway, and slut.
I don’t cry until he kisses me and a lifetime of bearing floods to the surface. I’m wearing thin. I feel translucent in this truthful light. How is it possible to feel so much and not shatter into a million little pieces? How can I fit it all inside of me at once? The only way is to let some of it go before it kills me, and I don’t choose to let any part of Talent go yet. He’s going to stay until he realizes I’ve stolen his soul.
Talent lifts me off my feet, and I wrap my legs around his waist. The bleached-blue sky shining through the wall-sized windows brightens every corner of Talent’s apartment, but his dark bedroom is a relief from the brilliance I’m not ready to show my face in.
He closes the door without turning away and sets me down. Talent steps forward, and I step back in an ageless romantic dance. He hooks his fingers under the hem of my shirt and lifts it over my head, dropping it to the abyss under our feet. First, only the shape of his body is visible in the dark—where I still yearn for him the most—and then his hands, his lips, and his metal stare break through obscurity.
The backs of my legs collide with his bed. Talent captures me in his arms, so I don’t have to fall to the mattress alone. He cradles me to his chest and crawls to the center of the bed before laying me out like a blooming rose. His shoes hit the floor with a thump before he kneels between my legs and lifts each one of my ankles to rid me of mine.
He tosses my shoes over his shoulder, shattering something made of glass along the wall. I lean back on my elbows, and he curves his body around mine. Our faces are centimeters apart, and we laugh because it’s funny, and we laugh because it’s a relief that we’re not the only things breaking.
Talent pulls his shirt over his head and climbs across me, lowering me onto my back. My hands hover over his bare chest, unsure where to touch first if I can’t touch him all at once. I start where his heart sails with anticipation and slide lower down his chest, and lower over his stomach, and lower to unbuckle his jeans.
“Are you okay?” he asks softly, laying his forehead on mine.
Pressing my lips to his, I kiss Talent with the same ferocity he’s shown me, hoping it translates what my words can’t articulate. He unhooks my bra with a quick snap of his fingers, letting me pull it down my arms myself.
Dark gray eyes search mine before slowly falling to my breasts. It’s not in my nature to feel shy undressed, but it’s impossible not to blush under his tender assessment. Heat rises to my face for a brand-new reason when his tongue circles around my nipple. He pinches it between his teeth and sucks it into his mouth until I gasp. Cupping me in his large palms, Talent kisses the curve of my breast, brushing his lips over my nipples before returning to my mouth.
“Why are you shaking?” I say against his lips. I brush my fingers through his soft curls, and I sweep my nose along his jawline.
“Because I’m nervous.”
“We’ve done this before,” I remind him.
“Not like this.” He shakes his head, closing his eyes tightly. Talent swallows and whispers against the shell of my ear, “This is new.”
I nod, but I don’t have the experience to put these feelings into words. Fucking for me has only ever been the movement of bodies and the quickest way to make it end.
This heat envelops me like sinking into a warm body of water, and I willingly plunge to the deepest part. Drowning is the end of one life and the start of another, and I don’t want to breathe again if it means going back to any version of myself other than the one with Talent.
Talent doesn’t let me sink alone. He follows me to the depths of my awakening, where the light slowly disappears from the surface and what I thought passed as life. The water gets heavier the farther we fall, slowly depriving us of everything but the sounds of our beating hearts. Those don’t waver. They’re strong against mounting pressure. It’s how we find each other in the dark constantly.
I hit the bottom first. Talent follows the drum of my heart, taking me in his arms. He kicks off the bottom and leads me back to the light. It’s blurry at first, but the surface sharpens as the weight of the water lessens. I can see it all: a future where I’m not touched by many men, but only one.
The only one.
All is forgiven.
I open my eyes and blink against the tears on my lashes. Talent kisses the streaks of relief streaming down my temples into my hair.
“If this isn’t real, please tell me now,” I say with vulnerability exploding in my throat. “I won’t survive if it’s not and we don’t stop. It’s … it will be too much this time.”
A small smile that looks like an example and relief all at once curves his swollen lips, and he says, “This is what I’ve been trying to prove to you all along.”
“Talent—”
He dips his head down to kiss the pulse point on my throat. The soft spot below my ear. The corner of my mouth. “Just watch me. Just feel me. It’s been here all along. I’ll show you.”
Lifting my hips as Talent drags my underwear and leggings down my legs, I kick them off my feet and stretch my arms above my head to open myself to him as much as humanly possible.
Take me as I am.
Look at every curve, take in every scar, notice the flaws because I have always and in all ways been a carefully crafted illusion. There’s not a soul from here to the constellations who’s had the opportunity to look this closely for the truth.
I’m imperfect.
I’m as human as you.
I have no excuses.
Talent lifts my leg and kisses the inside of my calf, my knee, the top of my thigh and hipbone. He falls between my legs, and I push his pants down until I can’t reach farther, and then I use my feet to shove the black denim to his knees. Constraint contorts his expression, burrowing his eyebrows and clenching his jaw muscles. His lips are in a tight line, and he falls to his elbows.
Go ahead and fuck me, I’d say to anyone else. But not to him. Not this time.
“Let’s go slow,” I whisper instead. “Let’s make this last.”
Metal eyes unleash the full force of their intensity on me. I’m thin-skinned, thin-veined, and thin-muscled—translucent and exposed with every breath that I breathe. Talent can see all the way through me, and there’s no going back now, sucker. You had your chance for that.
It’s interstellar now.
Holding my wrists above my head in one of his hands, Talent urges my knees wide open. And then he opens wider. Muscle from my pelvic to my femur stretches and burns, but it doesn’t burn nearly as hot as the temperature at my core. Heat spreads through the rest of my body like a structure fire, and I’m feverous and tipping toward delusional.
Go ahead and fuck me, I want to say to him in a way that only he will ever understand—with authenticity and substance. Go ahead and fuck me, please, before I’m nothing but dust and bone.
I try to tug my wrists free from his grip, but Talent drives my wrists farther into the mattress.
“I’m stronger than you,” he says with the grin of a madman on the run. “You’re not getting away from me again. We’re going slow, remember?”
I shake my head as a fiery bolt of lightning strikes and splits me down the middle, catching the bed on fire, too. We’ll go slow next time. And the time after that. And after that. We can go slow forever, but to curb intensity like this is a disgrace.
Or.
Is this what passion feels like? Does passion feel like climbing, and climbing, and climbing? Is passion begging, out of breath, and sweltering?
Passion is a phenomenon.
Passion is sweating in the water, alone together, definitely maybe.
Passion is an open secret.
“Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this?” I rub the bottom of my bare feet up and down his calves before hooking my ankles around the backs of his knees, trapping him against me.
Two can play this game, Ridge.
He laughs, pressing open-mouthed kisses across my collarbone. His cock slides between my folds, close but not inside where I want him the most. He says, “You wouldn’t have believed me if I tried.”
The sensation I lost in my hands from his vise-like grip doesn’t go to waste, seemingly finding a new home in my pussy. He can’t move his legs; I can’t move my arms. I circle my hips, flicking my clit with the head of his manhood and purr at the friction. He’s careful to pull away before it gets further than that, drawing out this cruel and unusual torture.
He’s engorged, throbbing, leaking at the tip.
“What are you waiting for?” I ask. My chest heaves up and down.
The entire room burns.
Mischief wanes from his face, revealing integrity and the whole truth underneath playfulness. “Promise you won’t run away from me again, Lydia. We can make it easy on ourselves and promise not to be away from each other anymore.”
Sweet prince still doesn’t understand what he’s asking for, but I’ve decided to stay until he figures it out.
“I promise,” I say.
“I’ll only chase you forever,” he says softly.
Talent slides inside of me, and my heart absolutely, radically, and truly beats for the first time in my life. Like a hurricane making landfall, sensation flattens everything in its path. But my heart has a bone to pick, deadened for so long.
When sensation and heart collide, the impact is so violent, I’m blinded by the blast. I cry out, and Talent releases my wrists to grip the bedsheets like an anchor under our bodies. I cling to him to keep from being abandoned ever again, meeting him stroke for stroke where our bodies are connected.
I open my eyes when the wreckage settles, and my once bleak and sepia-toned existence is now in color. Brand-new eyes sweep across the room, unfocused as I writhe in ecstasy under Talent. Like braille, I sweep my hands across his back to read the way muscle moves over bone. Dragging my nails up his chest, his hazy features improve. But I don’t really see him until I explore his face with the tips of my fingers, dragging them over his hooded eyelids, down the bridge of his nose, across his lips … inside of his mouth. I hook a finger into his cheek and pull. He captures my finger between his molars and bites down before sucking and swirling his tongue around the tip of my pointer finger.
Passion is painfully beautiful.
Amazingly awful.
A loud whisper.
I pull his face closer to mine and kiss him as a familiar stirring I’ve never felt before stirs in the pit of my stomach. I gasp for breath against his mouth; my stomach heaves, pushing against his with every harsh pant.
“Has it ever been like this, Lydia?” he asks in a sex-thick tone as we trade inhales and exhales. “With anyone but me?”
“Never,” I moan. I grip his hips and pierce his skin with my fingernails. “Only you. Only this. Only us.”
He hides his face in my neck and groans, triggering a shiver from the top of my head to the very tips of my toes. My heart beats like wild, spreading lust-blood through my wide-open veins, and the head rush dazes me. Pinpricks and tingles dance across my sultry skin, lifting me higher in the room, and this time I bring Talent with me.
“What do I feel like from inside?” I ask, flicking his earlobe with my tongue. “Has the man who has everything fucked like this before?”
Talent tries to lift himself up to his palms, but the magnetic pull between us won’t allow more than millimeters between us. Brushing my lips across the top of his shoulder, I hold steady on his sides and roll my hips as he strokes harder and deeper inside of me.
“Do you want to know what your cock feels like to me? It feels like you’re tearing me wide open. Like you’re digging a spot only you’ll ever fit again.” I hum as he ups his tempo, driving harder into me. “It feels like retribution. Like a takeover. You’re so hard inside of me—nothing compares, Talent. Nothing, no one, ever … only you.”
My stomach winds up like a twisted chain, turning, and turning, and turning until the pressure is too much and it snaps.
And so do I.
Euphoria is better in color.
It’s ultra-bright like I’ve climbed a flight
of stairs directly to the center of the sun. Talent’s eyes aren’t just gray, but they’re flecked with blue, green, and lavender. My skin burns crimson not pink under their stare, and it’s not opaque when my eyes fall closed and my head tilts back. Behind my eyelids is a kaleidoscope of brilliant streaks, lurid hues, and vibrant splashes that portray a picture of what I expect forever looks like.
Hopeful.
I wake up to a world where I don’t feel alone for the first time ever.
There’s no way to know the time. Talent’s bedroom is as dark now as it was when I arrived and the sun was up. An hour could have passed since I fell asleep, two hours, five—a week. For a person who lives her life in one-hour increments, I find myself unconcerned by the passing seconds.
Talent sleeps with his back to me, and as naked as I am. A thin white sheet lazily covers his body from the waist down, and a mischievous smile crawls across my face as I gently pull it away. The steady rise and fall of his shoulders stops and his next breath comes out as a soft chuckle.
“I’m not going to lie,” Talent says in a sleepy voice.
He turns onto his back, and the hummingbird in my chest bursts into flames and is reborn a fucking vulture. I’ve seen thousands of naked bodies in my life, but there’s never been a single cock I’ve craved.
Until now.
He woke up hard, and he’s unashamed.
Talent doesn’t have one reason to be.
“Lie about what?” I ask, swallowing. My cheeks burn, and I’m grateful we’re in the dark.
“I was afraid you’d leave when I was sleeping.” Talent turns his head to look at me with hooded eyes and messy hair. I tuck my hands under my head and try to keep my focus on his face and not his impressive manhood. “I almost tied you to the bed.”
Laughing out loud, I squeeze my thighs together under the sheet to relieve some of the longing I feel. “Kidnapping is punishable by law, Ridge.”
My nipples harden, and I curl my toes. The luxury sheets tucked around my body feel like sandpaper compared to the memory of Talent caressing my skin with his hands, his mouth, his strength. There will be bruises on the insides of my thighs from his size and power. I look forward to wearing his marks on my skin like a badge of honor.
Tramp (Hush Book 1) Page 20