Confessions in the Dark

by Jeanette Grey

  Good Lord, was he trying to kill her?

  It was so damn tempting to just lie there, head cradled against his arm and let him take her to pieces, but she pushed up, tucking a finger into the knot of his tie and loosening it before opening her mouth against his throat. She kissed a wet line to his ear. Warm and breathy, she nipped at the lobe. “Maybe you should take them off me, then.”

  With a low rumble of a growl, he got a hand around her neck and tugged her to meet his mouth. He kissed her sass from her lips even as he slipped past the elastic of her panties. God, he hadn’t been kidding. The glide of his fingertips was so slick, her flesh drenched. He teased along her slit, dipping just barely inside before taking a glancing stroke across her clit that had her moaning around his tongue.

  “Barely need to, do I? Could make you come just like this. Greedy kitty all swollen and aching for it.”

  That he probably could was the worst of it. His finger slid inside so easily, and it had been so long. She’d wanted him for ages, and her head was spinning that they got to have this. That he wanted to make her come and that he was so good at it. His other hand slid up her side to cup her breast through her dress, and it was another sparkling point of contact.

  But she wasn’t done for yet. Fumbling, she let go of his tie to glide her palm all down the length of his chest, past his belt and—

  “Jesus.” He bucked into her touch, clicking their teeth together as she cupped him, and damn.

  He was hot and hard and long, and she was going to have that in her. Another hot pulse surged through her at the thought, and she nipped at his lip.

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying hard for disaffectedness and missing by a mile. “Two can play at that game, can’t they? Think I can get you to go off like this? Make you come in your pants like a—”

  The “teenager” part got cut off in another shriek, and this time there wasn’t any pretense that the noise in his throat was anything other than a growl.

  “Naughty,” he groaned, slipping his fingers from her to get a hand under her thigh.

  And it shouldn’t be such a turn-on to keep getting manhandled like this, but it was. He tugged and bodily lifted her, and crap, she’d been so aware of his limitations on the crutches that she’d almost forgotten the pure muscle the man was carved from. There wasn’t any forgetting it now. He got her knees settled to either side of his head, strong hands clamping on to the curves of her thighs, and his mouth was right there, red and sinful through the dim, and she felt faint.

  “What are you—”

  “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself,” he said, eyes darkening, “I’ll just have to keep them where I can see them.”

  With that, he grasped both her wrists, dragging her down until her palms slapped against the mattress above his head, and she was still reeling when a hot thumb traced the place where her leg met her hips. When he dragged the panel of her underwear to the side.

  And then he...oh God, he wasn’t going to...he...

  Her knees went weak, her whole body trembling at the first wet lick along the length of her. She pounded a fist into the mattress. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be, except that he lapped at her, again and again. His tongue was hot and perfect against her softest parts, and when he found her clit, she bit back on a scream.

  “No,” he scolded, parting from searing flesh for the scantest fraction of a second, palm taking a barely-there swat at her rear. “Let me hear you.”

  He dove back in, lips surrounding her. He sucked at her clit, only stopping to take fluttering strokes of his tongue over her, and she didn’t try to hold back this time. Slapping at the bed again, she choked out his name, and it was happening too quickly. She never climaxed this fast, and she wanted it to last, wanted to get naked and explore, and—

  And he plunged two thick fingers deep inside, thrumming hard against her inner walls and she was lost.

  She came with a shout, black fire surging through her, blanking her mind to everything except the pulsing warmth, the sweet kiss of his mouth. The fullness of having him inside, but she only wanted fuller. Wanted more.

  When her vision returned to her a solid minute—or possibly a decade—later, she was straddling his face, her mouth and breasts mashed hard against her quilt. Shivering aftershocks rocked through her as he took another slow swipe with his tongue. He pulled away, slipping his fingers free, then patted at her thigh as if that were an acceptable cue to dismount.

  She was still desperately needy, her blood hot, her head dizzy. But she was also filled with a sudden, indignant blaze.

  In a rush, she pushed off the bed, rising to kneel over top of him. Gazing down at him through the dimness, she settled her shaking hands on her hips.

  “I’ll have you know”—she flipped her hair back over her shoulder—“that I put my hands wherever I please.”

  Without further ado, she did just that.

  Really, Cole should have bloody well known. At every turn, Serena had been the one pushing and pushing in this relationship. It wasn’t any surprise that she wouldn’t want to lie back and let him take charge of things here, either.

  Challenge in her eyes, she walked on her knees down his body until she hovered above his hips. She curled those delicate little fingers of hers around the buckle of his belt, and white-hot sparks slid up his spine, his prick jumping, heart thundering. As she pulled the leather through, he reached out, gripping wildly, but he didn’t stop her.

  Forget that she didn’t swear or that she worked with children. This woman was a match burning bright, sexual and confident, and he wanted her so badly he was screaming inside with the ache of it. She’d ridden his face with hardly a moment’s hesitation, had left his mouth slick with her. Her taste and her scent surrounded him, making him wild, and then she was tugging at his trousers and reaching inside.

  “Fuck.” He arched back, baring his throat, his eyes rolling up in his head at the warm touch of soft fingers on bare skin as she pulled him out. It was heaven, absolute heaven, a cool drink in the desert after years of being alone, of never being touched. Of never imagining he would ever be touched again. “Serena, please—”

  What the hell was he even asking for? It didn’t matter. She wrapped her fist around him and stroked, sliding her palm over the slick tip, pulling his foreskin back as she drew down to the base, and then she was—

  “No, oh no—” The words slipped out, but they weren’t a protest. He had to close his eyes against the perfection of wet, red lips pursing around him, of his own hard flesh disappearing inside, but it didn’t matter. The afterimage was burned into him; he’d be ruined by this. He thumped his head back against the mattress, threading his fingers into the soft tumble of her hair. “Yes. Just like that.”

  She found the spot right under the head, flicking her tongue against it as she sucked him deep, and he right near lost his mind. Giving in to it, he tilted forward with his hips, doing all he could just to hold on, to last. His balls drew tight, and he groaned out, “Baby...”

  She pulled off before the feeling could crest, and he snapped his eyes open. Ugh, mistake. She hovered with her parted lips right over his prick, sweet pink tongue peeking out. The vision alone made him throb. After one last squeeze, hard around the base, she let him go. The wet length of him fell against his abdomen, but he only had a second to lie there, bereft, before she climbed her way back up his body.

  “Who’s greedy now?” she asked. Her kiss was just as intoxicating as before except it was better. The faintest hint of his own taste mixed with hers, and he dug his fingers in deep against her hip. She nipped and licked all around his mouth, lapping up what she’d left of herself on his skin, and they were both greedy, apparently.

  They’d both been wanting this for so long.

  Holding her in place with his fingers twisted in her hair, he kissed her deeper, tongue chasing hers. He snuck the hand at her hip back under her skirts, and forget soaked. Her kitty and his mouth had left her wet all down her thigh
s. She got her own hand in there, too, pulling her knickers out of the way again.

  Shifting, spreading her legs, she rubbed all her slick, hot flesh over the bare length of him, and he wanted nothing more than to claim her. To press inside and fill her up, but—

  “Condom,” he grunted out.

  She shook her head. “Don’t need one, I promise. I’m safe. I—”

  His whole mind went white with static.

  Bare. She wanted him to fuck her bare, and he was helpless. Nodding, he got a hand around himself to angle his cock.

  The shout he made was punched clear out of him. She sank down on him like it was nothing, and she was an inferno, slick, hot silk consuming him, burning him to ash, and he didn’t care.

  Why had he been denying himself this?

  Insane with it, he pulled her to his mouth and kissed his gratitude and his pleasure and his absolute adoration into her breath. She rose and fell over him in tiny rocking motions that kept him so goddamn deep, grinding her clit against him with every stroke, and he was breathless, wordless, boneless.

  “What?” she asked, scraping her teeth across his lip. “Not going to tell me how good I feel now?”

  Did he even remember how to speak English?

  “Perfect,” he babbled. “Hot and tight, Christ, you’re so wet, so perfect.” He bent his good knee to get his foot flat on the mattress, and it was enough leverage to thrust up into her. A whole new level of intensity burst through him with the longer slide. He slipped his hand over her breast, and fuck, why were they still clothed, but he could worry about that later. Get her naked later because he was fucking her now, and she was fucking him right back. He curled a possessive hand around her thigh and urged her higher. “Harder,” he begged, “need it, need you.”

  She lifted up and he slammed into her, and then it was both of them chasing the edge of oblivion. She made the same sweet noises against his lips as she had when he’d been licking her pussy—close, she had to be close.

  “Can you come again for me, beautiful? Want to feel you.” He got his thumb between them, digging at the hot pearl of her clit, rough flickering strokes that had her clenching around him. “Come on my cock, let me hear you—”

  She rode him ever harder, and he held his breath. Every piece of him tightened, released a screaming pressure that beat against the walls of his restraint until with a wail she ground down into his thumb. Her whole body seemed to seize, voice breaking into a chanting of his name, and that was it.

  The last thread of his control cleaved clean in two. Holding her in place, he fucked up into her, a half-dozen shimmering thrusts, her hot flesh pulsing through the echoes of her climax, and then the black haze of it was there, right there—

  “Going to...in you...”

  “Yes,” she groaned, “Cole.”

  Pleasure burst across the closed darkness behind his eyes. His every nerve sang with it as he emptied into her. Throwing his head back, clasping her so tightly to him, like he would never lose her, like he could keep this forever, he gave her everything.

  And let himself slip into a world where he could imagine that was enough.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Serena woke up gradually, emerging from the dreamy haze of sleep, rolling over and rubbing at her eyes. Sunlight filtered in from behind the blinds she’d apparently forgotten to close the night before, and the bed was deliciously warm. Burrowing back down, she pulled the covers around her shoulders and closed her eyes, luxuriating in the hint of soreness in her muscles.

  But then it all came back to her in a rush of heat—the reason she’d forgotten to draw her blinds. The reason why she was so sore. She shot up, blinking her eyes open as the too-bright world around her swam.

  Cole. She patted the other side of the bed only to find it cold, and a sliver of ice formed behind her ribs.

  He was supposed to be here. He’d finally broken down, that wall he kept around himself crumbling before her eyes, and then he’d given in. He’d kissed her. Her whole body tingled with the rush of sense-memory, and she dragged her fingertips over her lips just to remind herself it had been real. He’d put his mouth on her and made her come and made love to her.

  She dropped her head into her hands. She’d given him a toothbrush, for God’s sake. Stripped down to his boxers and an undershirt and the brace around his knee, he’d curled around her, holding her as she’d drifted off into the deepest, most perfect sleep she’d had...maybe ever. And okay, he hadn’t actually said that he would stay, but she hadn’t been crazy to assume.

  Unless she had been. Her heart gave a panging little squeeze. She’d pushed again, hadn’t she? The man was clearly still in mourning, and— Oh God. What if he hadn’t been ready? What if he regretted it—or worse, blamed her? She’d just been trying to offer him a little comfort.

  And in the process, she’d taken exactly what she’d wanted from him all along.

  Her eyes stung, and she punched at the mattress hard. Stupid. This wasn’t about her. She should’ve checked in with him more, should’ve asked him if he’d even wanted to stay at all. He’d seemed so into it, though. He’d seemed to want her.

  When her lip threatened to wobble, she’d officially had enough. Flopping back down, she buried her face in her pillow and let herself have one frustrated scream. Then she’d pick herself up and march her way to his apartment. She’d make sure he was okay, and she wouldn’t press, and if he didn’t want this after all, she’d...well. She’d be devastated, but she’d accept it gracefully and then she’d come back down and have herself a good little self-pitying cry.

  Nodding to herself, she dragged her face back out of the pillow.

  And just about went out of her skin at the soft knocking at her bedroom door. A deep voice rang out. “Serena?”

  Or he could totally still be here and she could be having a melodramatic fit.

  “One second,” she called out, racing to catch her breath. She launched herself out of bed, skidding to a stop on the hardwood in front of her mirror. Her hair was a fright, but she raked her fingers through it the best she could. The tank top and shorts she’d gone to bed in were her least unfortunate ones, and he’d already seen her in them at this point, so there wasn’t much sense freaking out about them.

  Turning, she grabbed her robe off the back of the door and slipped her arms into the sleeves. Wrapping the tie around her waist, she squeezed her eyes shut for half a second to try to get some sort of composure.

  Ugh, it wasn’t any use. She was giddy as she flung the door open.

  And there he was. In an undershirt and his dress slacks from the night before, cheeks dark with stubble, his always messy hair a fraction worse than usual, and she adored it.

  “You’re here,” she said, breathless, and she could have slapped herself.

  But the line of his mouth lifted into the most beautiful smile. “I am.” He glanced past her toward the rumpled mess she’d left of her bed. “You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I wouldn’t have minded.” Her face flashed warm. She wouldn’t have minded at all. She was usually an early riser anyway, and waking in his arms, held safe against the warm solid bulk of his chest...

  Maybe rolling over into soft, perfect morning kisses, him hard against her, broad hands sliding up her thighs toward her hips...

  She was snapped out of the fantasy when his smile wavered. “Are you all right? I thought I heard...”

  Right. Because instead of morning kisses, she’d woken to a big fat load of morning panic. Her flush deepened, but it wasn’t a sexy flush, this time. Caught off guard, she cast about for any kind of a reasonable explanation for the noise she’d made, but came up blank.

  Fortunately, she was saved when a whiff of something amazing reached her nose. Her eyebrows rose. “Did you cook?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He passed it off as casual, but the way he said it made it sound like that wasn’t exactly something new for him. She pause
d. Her hand seemed to lift of its own accord, reaching out to touch his chest, and she almost stopped herself. But she could do that now—touch him when she wanted to. After last night, she could probably do a whole lot more. The headiness of it was a rush after so much time spent holding back.

  Watching his reaction, she let her palm settle over his heart. “What about you? Are you okay?”

  Her concerns this morning might have been overblown, but they hadn’t been unwarranted. He’d been through a lot last night.

  Curling his fingers around her wrist, he let out a long breath that made his ribs rise and fall. “I am, actually. Better than, even.” The corner of his lips twitched, like there was more he had to say, but he thought better of it. Taking her hand in his, he tugged her in the direction of the kitchen. “Come on. You must be famished.”

  She was, actually.

  It only struck her as she fell into step behind him that he was using just one crutch. “How’s your knee?”

  “Dreadful,” he said, all cheer, and there was definitely a limp to his step, but he didn’t seem to be letting it hold him back.

  She frowned, but whatever protest she might have made got lost as she turned the corner into the kitchen. Her eyes went wide. “Wow.”

  When she couldn’t sleep, she read or did crossword puzzles. Apparently, Cole power-baked. The little table in the corner was covered in what looked like scones and maybe even some cinnamon rolls and she didn’t even know what else. Half a dozen batches, at least.

  Letting go of his hand, she stepped forward. “When did you wake up?”

  “A few hours ago. I have a hard time sometimes, and...” He trailed off.

  “And?” she prompted, glancing back at him.

  His throat bobbed. “And we may have dredged up a few things last night.”

  She turned around at that, the table full of sweets forgotten. Cole was leaning against the doorway, his one crutch tucked under his arm. There was something tired about him, though the shadows under his eyes weren’t exactly new. But the signs of fatigue weren’t what really stuck out to her.