by J. S. Scott
After swiping a hand over her face one more time, she unbolted the door. If he was satisfied that she was fine, he’d go. She swung the door open and the worried expression on his face made her want to throw herself into his arms and cry until her emotions were spent. But instead, she turned her head and told him weakly, “I’m fine. I’ve had a bad day. I’m sorry you had to drive all the way over here.”
Travis easily muscled his way past her and closed the door. He tipped her chin up and assessed her for several seconds before he spoke. “You’ve been crying. What happened? There’s no problem big enough to make you cry. I can fix it.”
Ally looked at him then, her eyes sweeping over his immaculate suit and tie. When her gaze landed on his face, she was taken aback by the fierceness of his expression. But that was Travis. He was a fixer of problems, big and small. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fix her emotional turmoil or her dysfunctional mind. “Rick was here. He wants to get back together.” She pulled away from him and walked into the living room, needing to get away from the temptation of telling him everything. “We argued. It just left me a little shaken up. I’ll be fine.” She would be okay. As soon as she could manage to bury her feelings of worthlessness and guilt deep enough where no one could see them.
Travis caught her around the waist and turned her to face him. “Did he hurt you? Did he touch you? If he did, I swear I’ll kill him.”
“No. We just had a disagreement. It was nothing really,” she answered, trying to keep her voice calm.
Travis grasped her by the shoulders. “What happened? Tell me you didn’t consider for even a moment taking that bastard back again,” he said huskily, notes of both demand and desperation in his voice.
“I’m not. I wouldn’t. It’s just…” Her voice trailed off, Ally feeling at a loss as to how to explain. Tears started to form again, the droplets trickling down her cheeks in frustration and pain.
Travis swept her up in his arms and sat on the couch, keeping her on his lap. “Tell me.” His voice was low and persuasive, his arms comforting.
Ally snapped like a broken tree branch dangling in the wind that had finally given way to the pressure and had fallen to the ground. She told Travis everything between broken sobs, purging herself of the emotions that had been plaguing her for so long. After she told him about her unwanted encounter with Rick, she explained how her mother had been while she was growing up and how inadequate she’d always felt.
“Why can’t I stop hearing her voice in my head? She’s been dead for years,” Ally finished, frustrated with herself.
“Maybe because you chose the asshole as the next voice in your head. Did you think he was all you deserved, Ally? A man who would work you to death, treat you like shit, and manipulate the hell out of you?” Travis asked, every muscle in his body tense. “I know how fucking hard it is to not believe everything you’re told and taught growing up. But believe me when I say that you don’t deserve what you’ve gotten.”
Ally looked up at Travis, his jaw clenched and his eyes wild with anger. “How did you do it, Travis? How did you live through what you had handed to you in your life and not be affected by it?” He’d grown up with a madman, and some of the experiences he’d shared with her made her shudder.
He tucked a lock of hair gently behind her ear as he answered, “I didn’t. It affected me. But I had Mia and Kade. We all knew what was happening wasn’t normal. And I grew up while I was in college. I had to. My father wasn’t able to run the company anymore. The minute I finished school, I had him ousted for incompetency and took his place. Harrison was starting to flounder, and there were too many people counting on us to provide a living for them. The company wasn’t going to withstand his insane behavior and erratic decision-making much longer.”
“Did it make you feel vindicated? Were you free?” she asked quietly.
“It didn’t hurt,” Travis admitted. “I didn’t do it for revenge. I did it to save the company my grandfather busted his ass to build. But I won’t say part of me wasn’t satisfied that I was finally able to strip my father of the power he’d had over all of us for our entire life.”
“When did you stop being afraid of him?” Ally queried curiously.
“As soon as I got big enough to kick his ass,” Travis replied, his hand absently stroking her hair. “He was the monster who had terrified every one of us for years. I finally realized when I finished high school that I didn’t have to be afraid of him anymore. When Kade and I left for college, I warned him if he ever laid a hand on Mia or my mother again, I’d kill him.”
“Did you kick his ass?” she asked hesitantly.
Travis shrugged. “I didn’t have to. By then, he was nothing but a shell with an insane mind. But he never touched Mia after that. Or my mother…until he actually killed her.”
“Would you have done it if you’d needed to?”
“Yes,” Travis answered immediately. “I would have done anything to keep him from hurting the rest of my family.”
Ally reached out her hand and stroked his cheek, letting her fingers wander into his hair. “You were so incredibly brave. I know everything you went through had to be painful, yet you survived intact.”
Travis barked out an unamused laugh. “Maybe not intact, but yes, I survived.”
“I’m sorry I had another meltdown on you.” Ally felt a little silly now. After all that Travis had gone through in his lifetime, her history was mild in comparison.
“Don’t,” Travis said huskily, his arm tightening around her waist. “Don’t minimize your emotions or push them under your skin. Stop being so damn hard on yourself. It’s not your fault, Ally.”
Ally took a deep breath, her gaze clashing with Travis’s. “I need to get my shit together.”
Travis rose, taking her with him. “You need to start listening to new voices. And add your own, too.”
“I’ll try,” Ally told him adamantly, determined to break out of her old habits.
“You look beautiful, Ally.” He took a step back. “Now take off your dress.”
Ally’s eyes shot to Travis’s face, his intense, unrelenting stare making her take a step back. “What?” She knew she couldn’t have heard him correctly.
“Take. Off. The. Dress. Either take it off willingly or I’ll do it for you, and it probably won’t be wearable anymore after I do,” he growled.
“W-why?” She had heard him correctly, and her entire body flooded with heat.
“Because you’re going to start to hear a new voice, and that voice is going to be mine while I make you come.” Travis folded his arms in front of him and waited.
Ally balked as she looked at Travis waiting arrogantly, expectantly. “I’m not taking off my dress. And you’re not going to rip it. It probably cost a fortune.” She crossed her arms in front of her, the two of them having a stare-down.
“You will,” Travis remarked ominously as he slowly unbuttoned his suit jacket and shrugged it off his shoulders. “I didn’t come here tonight to fuck you, Ally. But I’m going to because I can’t wait any longer.” His fingers went to the knot in his tie, and he nimbly unfastened it and slid it from around his neck. “And I don’t think you want to wait any longer either.” He started unbuttoning his pristine shirt. “I’ve waited four goddamn years, and there wasn’t a single one of those days that my cock wasn’t hard for you, that I didn’t want to sink into you and make you mine.” He unbuttoned the small fastenings at his cuffs and let the shirt slide off his shoulders, landing in a heap at his feet along with his jacket and tie. “Tonight you’re mine. Completely. Unequivocally. You won’t be hearing any other voice except mine telling you how damn beautiful you are, how much I want you. And you won’t be feeling anything except pleasure.”
Ally froze, gaping as she watched Travis’s ripped abs and muscular arms being exposed to her hungry eyes. Sweet baby Jesus, the man was beautiful. He was all predatory grace and solid flesh that her fingers itched to touch. “You’ve been attracted to me for that
long?”
He stalked her, moving the few steps necessary to pull her body into his. Lowering his head, he traced her sensitive earlobe with his tongue. “Not attracted, Ally. Obsessed,” he answered harshly, his warm breath wafting over her ear.
Ally shivered, unable to stop herself from putting her hands to his chest, her fingers exploring silken skin over steely muscles. He had a tattoo, a beautiful phoenix flying free of fire on the right side of his chest, which just made him even hotter, more unpredictable. Travis was the last man on earth she could see with a tat. She smoothed down his ripped abdomen and up his back, savoring the feel of his heated skin beneath her fingers.
Travis nipped at the sensitive skin of her neck as he said huskily, “Time’s up on the dress, sweetheart.”
Ally jerked back as she felt his fists tighten on the material. “No! Don’t.” She wasn’t sure if her concern was actually the dress. Really, for the first time in her life, she wanted to be sexually bold. She could see the desire in Travis’s eyes, and she needed to trust it. Reaching up and behind her, she lowered the short zipper and started wriggling the material over her head, revealing the risqué underwear as the silken material moved upward. She was breathless with anxiety by the time she dropped the dress to the floor, standing right in front of Travis in nothing but tiny red panties, a matching bra, a garter belt, and silky stockings. Her stiletto heels were still on her feet, but they barely helped, as Travis was still towering over her.
He must have been holding his breath, and it released in a hiss before he said low and reverently, “My fantasies didn’t come anywhere close to imagining how sexy and beautiful you really are. Christ! How could you not know how hot you are, Ally?”
White-hot bolts of heat streaked through her core, drenching her panties as she watched the torment on Travis’s face, sensed the feral hunger that was almost palpable in the air around them.
Travis finally stepped forward, lowering the straps on the bra to move his mouth over the skin of her shoulders. He unfastened the catch and slid the garment down her arms, careful of the patches of skin that were still healing. He palmed her breasts, his touch becoming rough and possessive and he watched his fingers play with her nipples, grunting with satisfaction as they hardened to painfully sensitive peaks. “Mine,” he rumbled. “Beautiful and mine.”
Ally moaned as he pinched and rolled each tip, his fingers exploring every inch of her breasts like he wanted to own them. “Travis,” she gasped as he slid one hand behind her neck and took her mouth, plastering their bodies together. Ally opened to him, his demanding tongue piercing between her lips in a blatant act of possession. The feel of being skin-to-skin with Travis was exquisite and sensual, her nipples rubbing against his rock-hard chest as he devoured her mouth with erotic strokes of his tongue. He grasped her ass and pulled her flush against him, her pussy flooding at the feel of his enormous erection pressing against her pelvis. She wrapped her arms around his neck and surrendered, her hands stroking down his back as she melted into him.
Travis’s mouth left hers, sliding down her shoulders, his mouth latching onto one of her nipples, sucking and licking it thoroughly before moving to the other. He crouched lower, landing on his knees, his tongue tracing a line slowly down to her panties. “I’m going to make you come with my mouth first, Ally. And then I’m going to fuck you and make you come again,” he said in a low, dangerous voice that was slightly muffled against her lower belly.
Ally looked down at him and the sight of his dark head so close to her pussy nearly made her come just from the erotic image. She put her hands on his shoulders as he gripped her panties and tore them from her body with a violent tug. It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen, and Travis’s desire for her was overwhelming her. She was lost as he grasped her hips hard, parting her legs wide with a hard nudge of his thigh, and burying his face and mouth into her bared mound.
Travis wasn’t gentle or teasing. He used his mouth and tongue to forcefully part her folds, his fiery tongue landing on her clit almost immediately. The tiny bundle of nerves responded, the bud hard and sensitive, reacting to every strong stroke of his tongue. He drank from her pussy like it was nectar, his tongue moving hard against her clit, driving her higher and higher, making her desperation even greater than his.
“Oh, God. Yes,” she whimpered, her nails biting into his shoulders. “Travis, please.” Ally’s entire body quivered, the heat starting in her belly and shooting straight to her pussy.
Travis plundered without mercy, without pause, his whiskered jaw abrading her inner thighs, an erotic sensation that made her spear her hands into his hair and hold his head against her, a silent plea for more.
His teeth nipped her clit, his tongue flicking relentlessly, harder and harder.
Ally came apart with a tortured moan. “Travis,” she groaned, gripping his scalp tighter, holding him against her pussy as her body bucked and splintered into tiny pieces.
She gasped as he continued to lap at her folds, prolonging the exquisite pleasure, as though he was desperately parched and needed to get every drop.
Ally would have collapsed to the floor had Travis not straightened and grasped her around the waist, holding her tightly as he kissed her, allowing her to taste herself on his mouth. The embrace was heady and intoxicating, a new experience since Rick had supposedly hated performing that particular act on a woman, so she’d never experienced it. He’d been her only lover…until now.
Ally fumbled between their bodies, trying to undo Travis’s belt, desperate to give him the same magnificent pleasure that he’d just lavished on her.
Yanking his mouth away from hers, Travis grasped her wrist. “Don’t,” he rasped. “If you put those beautiful lips around my cock, I won’t last more than five seconds.” He stepped back, his heated stare never leaving her as he stripped off his shoes and socks, shucking his pants and his boxer briefs down his legs and kicking out of them.
“God, you’re magnificent.” Ally couldn’t stop herself from letting her eyes roam his sculpted body, her gaze landing on his enormous, engorged cock. His nude body took her breath away. She licked her lips sensually, eager to taste him.
“Fuck, Ally! Don’t do that. There’s only so much I can take,” Travis demanded, grasping her by the hand and leading her to a waist-high table where she had her plants and knickknacks. He placed her palms on the table, making her bend over. “Right now all I need is to fuck you.” His hands cupped her ass, gripping the cheeks and stroking. “Do you have any idea how this ass has tortured me over the last four years?”
She didn’t, but hearing the longing in his tone made her shiver. “No,” she answered tremulously.
“Do you know how much I want you, Ally?” He slipped his hand between her thighs, sliding a teasing finger through her wetness.
“I think so,” she answered on a moan. Probably as much as she needed him right now.
He leaned forward, covering her body with his, his mouth beside her ear. “I want you so much that I can barely breathe. I’ve wanted you for years. You’re hearing my voice, now. Can you understand how beautiful you are to me?”
Ally could feel his erect cock between her thighs as he pulled his fingers away and she gripped it. “I want you, too.”
“Not nearly as much as I want you,” he told her huskily. “You’re going to be mine now, Ally. I’ll sate you until you don’t want anyone else. Nobody will ever need you like I do. Nobody will ever pleasure you like I will.”
“Travis, please,” Ally begged, needing him inside her right now.
He grasped a handful of her hair and pulled her head up. “Look at yourself. Tell me you see yourself as beautiful right now.”
Ally met her own face in the oval mirror in front of her, her face ravaged with desire. Her eyes met Travis’s in the mirror, his expression raw and feral. At that moment, he looked beautiful in his unveiled need, and it made her feel the same way. “I look like I need to get fucked,” she told him breathlessly. She didn’t
really recognize the dazed and wild woman staring back at her.
“Yeah. You need me inside you. And that’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” Travis told her hoarsely.
He held her gaze as he thrust into her, burying himself to his balls with a groan. Ally let out a cry of relief as he filled her, stretched her until she could feel nothing but him. Travis was mastering her body, filling her senses, and she was barely keeping her sanity. “Oh, God,” she moaned, unable to form any coherent thoughts.
“You feel so fucking good, Ally. Tell me what you want,” he demanded.
“You. Just you,” she answered on a pant, moaning as Travis pulled almost entirely out of her and stroked back inside again, filling every empty space inside her.
He pumped his hips again. “You want me to make you come, Ally?” His harsh voice sounded next to her ear.
“Yes, Travis. Please.”
“Ask for it. Take whatever you need from me. You deserve to be pleasured. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes.” Travis made her feel like she deserved the world. “Let me come. I want it. I want you,” she said greedily, her body feeling like she was ready to come apart.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Be demanding. Take the pleasure you deserve.” Travis straightened, keeping his eyes on her face as they stared at each other in a daze in the mirror. “Keep looking at me. Don’t stop.” He let go of her hair and grasped her hips, his cock slamming into her over and over as he grasped her hip with one hand and slid the other down her abdomen, his finger sliding into her wetness.
Ally watched Travis’s face, mesmerized, his expression alternating between agony and ecstasy as he buried himself inside her again and again. She moaned as he teased her clit, her eyes momentarily fluttering shut from sensation overload as she thrust her hips back to meet every stroke of his cock, burying him even deeper.
“Look at me, Ally. Come for me. I want to watch you. Give in to this. Give in to me. Let go.”