by Christa Wick
Melanie looked around the room, knowing it had likely cost him a million dollars to customize, especially with the second display on the ceiling.
"I don't think my mom realizes that. I mean, she knows he has some bookstores. She described the one he took her to as 'quaint' when I talked to her on the phone Sunday."
"She doesn't seem like the kind who would care." Rotating Melanie's hand, Declan kissed her palm, his lips staying long enough for her to feel their warmth even after his mouth retreated. "Neither do you."
She thought about what Declan was saying. Not his assessment of her or Nancy but the fact that his father was rich and claimed not to have known about him. She knew from Declan's bio that he'd been raised by his mother, Skye Bain, in South Boston, one of the area's poorer sections.
During filming on the last set, she had tried to look up his mother, wondering what kind of beauty she must have been, but the woman didn't seem to exist beyond Declan's biography and an alumni list for some fancy prep school.
"Is...is your mother still alive?"
His fingers wove in and out of hers. She had been timid in getting the question out, but she knew he'd heard her. Freeing her hand, she rolled onto her side to see his face in the light of the two screens. He didn't avoid her gaze but met it head on, his expression as raw and powerful as always.
"When?"
"The summer following my sophomore year at college."
She would have guessed as much since he hadn't returned for his junior year.
She struggled with the issue of asking him how his mother had died. It was prying and rude and none of her business. Abandoning the idea, she rested her head on his chest, her ear unintentionally placed where she could hear his heart beating slow and steady.
His hand stroked absently at her back, down her shoulder blades to the top curve of her ass, lifted, touched down again at the top of her shoulders and repeated the trip. The rhythm began to lure her into sleep.
If she'd been awake enough, she would have laughed at herself. On a sofa, trading secrets with a man so beautiful it hurt to look at him, and she was falling asleep!
It wasn't his gentle tracing of her curves that pulled Melanie from her stupor. It was the change in his heartbeat, the way it accelerated as hers grew sluggish.
She lifted her head and looked at him. He studied her face for a second before sighing. "You should probably return to your bedroom. It's been a hard day for you. We can talk tomorrow."
Melanie lowered her head to his chest once more, one fingernail tracing the contour of his upper abdominals, the compression t-shirt hugging him so tightly she could see their outline even in the low light from the screens.
"Mel..." he started before he had to stop and swallow something down. "You really should go to your room."
Closing her eyes, she let her finger trace lower and whispered the question that had been knocking around inside her head since moving over to his side of the couch.
"What if I don't want to?"
Chapter Nineteen
Declan didn't answer -- not immediately and not with words when he did. For a few seconds, he did nothing more than stroke one finger along the bridge of his nose, just as he had done in the limo. Then he patted along the ottoman for the remote. Jumping ahead a couple of chapters on the disc, he plunged them into magma traveling deep within an early earth. The sound playing over the speakers was rolling, hot and undeniably liquid in nature.
Turning on his side, he opened up more room between his body and the back of the couch so that she sunk a little into the cushions to be cradled against him. He smoothed the back of his fingers across her cheek then cupped her face while his thumb stroked at the sensitive underside of her chin.
She could only imagine, at that moment, how good his hands would feel elsewhere on her body.
The light from the screens, all dark reds and oranges with flashes of yellow, was to Declan's back, throwing his face in complete shadow. It was better that way, she knew. She wouldn't be able to study his face for clues that this only real for her.
Instead, she had to read his touch and, at that moment, it was slow and tender in a way that soon had her arching her back. He had touched her on the plane, but she had retreated inside, tried desperately not to feel the arousal that had coursed through her. She had retreated during that first limo ride, too, even if his touch had quickly brought her to climax.
This time, she wanted to feel it fully.
Reaching one hand up, she curled her fingers in his hair and lightly tugged at it in invitation. Accepting her offer, Declan lowered his mouth. His lips ghosted across her cheekbone, then down to the corner of her mouth. She could feel his breath, warm and moist, escape his parted lips.
She opened to him, giving his tongue access. Her arms folded around his shoulders, all of her limbs beginning to tremble with need.
Declan was slow and strategic, warming her up with the kiss, one hand wrapped lightly around her throat as his tongue teasingly explored her mouth. He tickled her upper palate with a long, firm lick that rolled through her body like a wave, lifting her breasts and then her hips.
Her fingertips dug against his back for purchase. She needed his touch everywhere at once. Her pussy ached from the way he held her throat, his hand molded around her flesh. Her hips beginning to dance, she whimpered into his mouth.
Breaking the kiss, he rubbed his lips along her neck and ear, lightly pinching her flesh with them as he growled. His hand left her throat to tangle his fingers in her hair, tugging at it as he groaned at her.
"So fucking hot, baby girl."
She felt like the magma churning on the twin screens, her thighs prickling and burning with need, her lower lips dripping wet, her juices spreading out as she squirmed and whimpered some more.
"Help me get your top off," he coaxed, parting from her with another groan to help her into a sitting position. Seizing the hem, he pulled it upward. She lifted her arms, the blouse peeling away.
"Score," he laughed playfully upon seeing light flash off the front closure of her bra.
Hands on Melanie's shoulders, he eased her onto her back once more then partly draped his big body over hers, his thick, muscular thighs wedged between her legs, the position doing nothing to calm the dancing of her hips.
Quite the opposite. Her mound pressed upward against his solid mass, her whole body wiggling with need. Her eyelids were already heavy but tugging upward. She would have to fight not to come before he even had his cock out.
"It's okay to go wild, Mel." He pinched the closure of her bra open then smoothed his hand underneath the fabric to palm her breast. "I want you to be wild with me."
With him, yes, she wanted that, too, wanted to feel him slamming against her, inside her, the fat shaft she'd seen hints of stretching and filling her far beyond the point where her mind splintered.
Reaching between them, she cupped his cock as she pushed her breasts upward with a silent demand. Groaning, a quiver running through him, Declan lowered his mouth to the front panel of her bra and the pouting nipple hiding beneath the fabric.
Squeezing her other breast, he chewed at the nipple, his saliva turning the material dark as light flashed on the screens. She gripped his cock, squeezing when he squeezed. Her moans came faster, stumbling into one another, tangling together.
"Declan," she rasped as she fought against the orgasm already claiming her body.
The few lovers she'd had in her life could struggle for an hour and not have her this feverish. Even her own touch had to work long and hard to bring her to a few seconds of abandon. Declan had her ready to explode and he hadn't even touched her pussy.
Growling, he crowded her hand away from his cock, shifting his hips so she couldn't reach it. Rolling, he covered her, a knee on each side so that she was happily trapped between his legs. Next, he freed her arms and breasts from the thin caging of her bra, then slid his knees down even with hers.
One arm holding his weight off her, he captured
her breast with his free hand and brought his lips to her nipple, slowly sucking the tip and then the whole of the areola into his mouth as his hips began to dance, his cock rubbing at her through their layers of clothing.
More and more of her juices spread, her pussy hot and lubricated. The needy knots twisting inside her left Melanie breathless. She worked her arms free and reached down again, her fingers forcing their way past the elastic band of his running pants and the boxers beneath to wrap eagerly around the long, fat cock stroking so relentlessly against her.
Declan jerked once then bit lightly at her nipple in warning.
"I see I'm going to have to put it out of reach for a while longer, baby girl."
She mewled, the sound a begging apology, but he did not retract the threat. Sliding down her body, he tugged her pants and underwear off.
"I can smell how ready you are," he moaned, his head hovering over her wet pussy. "Now let me taste."
Yes, yes, and hell yes.
Melanie writhed along the couch as his mouth sealed over her clit. He suckled, his head moving in slow circles that massaged her labia while his tongue worked the electric spine of her sex.
She lost herself in the sweet erotic nuzzling of his mouth against her flesh. Her fingers itched with the burning need to wrap around his skull and force him closer. Fighting the urge, her hands settled on her heavy breasts, squeezing them and twisting the nipples until they were as swollen and aching as her pussy.
"Please," she fever whispered, marveling at how he expertly held her at the edge of slamming into the last wall of her release. "Please, Declan."
Reaching down, she pressed her palms against his head, her hips lifting her mound upward as a strangled cry of need clawed and echoed in her throat.
He shook free, his mouth pulling away from her throbbing clit as he hooked three fingers just inside the gate of her pussy. With his grip on Melanie's sex keeping her locked in an upward thrust, Declan positioned himself over her, his mouth coming down hard on hers.
His tongue fucked its way slow and sweet into her mouth as his fingers ventured thick and deep inside her. Lips and hand were relentless. He put his entire body into driving her wild, his hips pushing rhythmically to aid his arm, the thrusting, twisting fingers leveraging the momentum of his rocking.
Melanie moaned into his mouth, her ears assaulted by her own sounds, the slick juices of her pussy, the squelching from how tight and wet she was, the slap of flesh as his body moved against hers. That last sound made her desperate and crying for her cock in him. She wanted to hear the sound of his balls hitting against her as he fucked hard and deep into her pussy.
The non-stop quiver that had vibrated through her built to a roar, her body whipping erratically. Her mouth became dangerous and Declan abandoned it, his lips and teeth seizing on her shoulder, the bite firm but gentle as his fingers plunged one last time and held.
Melanie rode the thick triangle, hips slamming upward at a reckless angle. Her neck arched, freeing the scream that kept her from breaking into a million pieces, and then she went limp.
And started crying.
Chapter Twenty
"Baby...Mel..." Panic crept into Declan's voice. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you? I shouldn't have let it go this far today...not after Strake."
She wanted to hold him, then realized he was already holding her, his hands brushing at her wet hair and the tears flooding her cheeks.
"No," she answered, the single syllable broken even as her emotions started to settle. "I just never felt like that."
"Oh."
The sound came out pleased and cocky and she knew that if she could force her eyes to focus and see past all the shadows in the barely lit room, she'd find a confident grin on his handsome face.
"Wait...you're not saying..."
And BOOM, cocky grin gone.
She laughed. "No, you didn't just punch my V-card."
But he sure as hell had shredded her O-card!
She laughed again then covered her face with one hand.
He pulled her hand away and feathered her cheeks with short, light kisses.
"Good, I want you to have someone to compare me against and know I blow every other guy out of the water with how good I'll make you feel."
Declan chuckled as he finished pressing another kiss to her face. "I swear your cheeks just got hotter."
He couldn't see that she had blushed at his bold claim because it was true, but she had definitely felt her cheeks heating from his words.
"They might have," she agreed.
His mouth moved to her neck. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and it suddenly struck her that he was completely dressed except for the shoes he had left on the floor in her bedroom.
"Take this off," she urged, plucking at the tight compression shirt.
"I will upstairs," he said, the grin back in his voice as he dodged her hands to slide down the couch. He gathered the clothes he had stripped from her as he went and the shoes she had kicked off before climbing onto the couch, then stood with everything cradled in his arms. "Come on baby girl, there's more I want to do with you -- a lot more."
Clutching one of the throws to her chest, she moved to the end of the couch. Wrapping her hand around his wrist, she tugged. "What's wrong with here?"
She didn't want to leave the darkness or the magic that continued to unfold on the screen. Even if the room was a shrine to the wizardry that was Hollywood, she felt like she was in a safe cocoon where the real Hollywood couldn't get in, couldn't judge her so that she felt inadequate in his arms, moving beneath him, offering up her unconditional pleasure to his greedy tongue.
Freeing his hand from her hold, he wrapped it around the back of her head and held her for a slow kiss full of tongues and teeth and swollen lips before he pulled away.
"No condoms down here, Mel," he explained. "Believe me, I want to move fast with you after the long wait, but not that fast."
The long wait?
Her lips pressed together, mashing and rolling. She needed him to not say things like that -- things that suggested his interested had started before Colorado and finding out that Roger had married her mother.
He bent down with a light growl and claimed another kiss.
"Baby, whatever thoughts are bouncing around inside that beautiful head of yours, I promise the things I'm about to do to your luscious body will get them to shut up."
"Yeah?" The growl had sent a delicious cascade of shivers down Melanie's back, their sensations strong enough to chew at the edges of her doubt. "You saying you keep a big ole can of shut the fuck up in your bedroom?"
"No," he shot back with a laugh. Finding her hand, he pressed it against his rock hard cock. "I carry the can wherever I go."
Holy Habanero, did he ever!
Okay, Melanie. Stop thinking and get back to screwing this gorgeous man!
Keeping the throw wrapped around her, she climbed off the couch and followed after him as he led the way to his bedroom.
Declan paused at least half a dozen times to look back, as if he was making sure she hadn't changed her mind and run off in a different direction. Each time he looked back, her cheeks warmed and her eyes instantly went elsewhere except for once, when she saw him crowd the bundle of her clothes and shoes into one arm and stroke that spot on his nose, his cheeks turning as hot as her own felt when he caught her watching him.
"Our destination," he said, reaching the double doors and pushing one open.
He called out for lights and the room was instantly illuminated.
Trusting Melanie not to hang back this time, Declan took her clothes over to his dresser and folded them into a neat stack atop its surface then placed the shoes on the floor.
She took a few steps forward until she was just beyond the threshold. The walls were a stark white. Dark wood flooring and furniture provided a sharp contrast. But all the white made the room incredibly bright, not like the cocoon of the screening room.
"Soon, you won't be th
inking about anything," Declan promised as he walked over to one of the bed's two nightstands and picked up a remote control. "So try relaxing a bit, baby girl."
A few presses on a button and the lights dimmed to a more intimate level. Another button was pressed and the curtains blotted out the night. Even though she knew the tinted windows kept the outside world from looking in, his closing the curtains made it feel more private to her.
"The ultimate bachelor's room," she teased as a few more strokes at the device played what sounded like whales singing to one another deep under the ocean.
"More like a lazy man's bedroom."
"Except you're not lazy," she said as he walked towards her, his gaze fixed on where she clutched the edges of the fur throw to keep it from falling off.
"Neither are you, Miss Sunrise to Sunset." His fingers wrapped around the edges of the throw, but he didn't force it open, just used it to tug her closer. "Heck, you were always on set before sunrise and long after sunset."
"Well, that's wardrobe for you," she tried to joke, the words coming out in little spurts as she fought to keep oxygen coming into her lungs.
She couldn't believe she was in his bedroom, that they had done what they had done and that there was more he planned on doing to her.
"I think we should drop wardrobe for a while," he teased, tugging at the throw again as his mouth nuzzled her throat.
Keeping one hand firmly gripping the two corners of the throw, she pushed at his chest with her other hand.
"Says the man who's still got everything but his running shoes on."
Chuckling, he pulled away and peeled the compression shirt off like a banana sliding out of its skin. Reaching down, he stripped of his socks with a quick one-two lift of his legs.
The pants came off more slowly, the lack of speed clearly deliberate. Shoving his fingers under the waistband at each hip, Declan pushed the fabric an inch downward, then pulled it half an inch upward, the progress so tantalizingly slow Melanie almost lost her grip on her own covering.
The head of his cock came into view, every bit as thick as the outline had promised. Her chest and pussy constricted at the same time as she wondered how she was going to take him in, especially the first time.