by Paula Cox
“Are you sure it’s worth it?”
Alyssa heard the real question loud and clear. The real question was: “Are you sure I’m worth it?”
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him.
“Look at me,” she said when she saw that he was avoiding her gaze and staring absently up at the ceiling. He didn’t move, and she repeated her request. “Prince,” she said firmly. “Look at me.”
Eventually, he did. There was a vulnerability in his green eyes that belonged to the boy she used to know, and not to the jaded man he had become.
“Yes,” she said. She locked eyes with him to make sure he heard her. Really heard her. “I’m sure. It’s worth it. You’re worth it. You have to trust me with this.”
“I trust you,” Prince said immediately, and the easiness with which he said it tore at her heartstrings.
“Good,” Alyssa said. She bent down and kissed him tenderly.
She settled back against him and listened to his breathing even out. It was touching the way he just let go of everything whenever he was around her. It was the second time now that he had fallen asleep with her in his arms, and Alyssa didn’t believe that was a coincidence.
She snuggled closer. “I love you,” she whispered quietly, unwilling to wake him.
She knew that the fact that Prince still had any trust to give was nothing short of a miracle. She knew that trust was the most precious thing he had to give, and she knew she had to guard it fiercely. And she swore she would do just that. She would guard his trust. And she would guard him. No matter the cost.
Chapter Twenty-Three
To Alyssa Kelley, the world was red-hot passion.
There was something especially and fundamentally erotic about having sex first thing in the morning. Movements were still slow and sluggish from sleep—kisses were drawn out, touches lingered. Bodies were warm under the covers. Skin still smelled like slumber. Eyes were still dulled with the night’s dreams. No one was yet awake enough to put on their mask for the day, and emotions were raw and in the open. Sex in the morning was sleepy and honest and tender.
And passionate. It was always passionate with Prince. Their lust had all but exploded over the past few weeks, with them basically unable to keep their hands off each other for very long. They craved each other’s body like the lungs craved air.
Alyssa liked to go down on Prince in the mornings. She liked to take his pleasure literally in her hands while he lay sleepy and compliant underneath her. In the mornings, Prince tasted like warm honey. His skin smelled of sunshine, and Alyssa spent long, sating half-hours exploring every inch of it with her lips and tongue.
That morning was no exception. Alyssa could think of no better way to start her day than with the rush of power that came from making Prince moan and climax with her mouth alone. Presently, he let out a low moan, as she ran her hand slowly along the length of his shaft through the soft cotton fabric of his boxer shorts. She ran one hand up his side, fingers brushing over the sensitive skin there, tickling the nerves underneath. As always, Prince tensed and gasped at the sudden, electric jolt of pleasure that shot straight down to his groin.
Sleepily, Prince fumbled around and found her hair. He ran his fingers through her long locks and tugged gently at her nape. Alyssa grinned and just as gently pushed his hand away.
“No touching,” she all but purred, knowing the quality of her voice would add to his arousal.
His groan of protest filled her with satisfaction.
Prince lay back down, and Alyssa decided she would have her fun with him. She would take full charge and drive him as wild and crazy as he drove her on an almost daily basis. That purpose alone filled her with an exciting, thrilled form of anticipation. She hooked a finger in the elastic band of his boxer shorts and pulled them down slowly, freeing his erection. His hard-on was well on its way to be the powerful thing Alyssa had long since fallen in love with, but it wasn’t quite there yet. It would be her job to lead Prince to that place of glory.
Over the past few weeks, Alyssa had learned exactly how to touch Prince to send him quickly and surely over the edge—or, at the very least, hovering precariously on the brink. She let her fingers and palm come into play, touching and teasing. She kept the contact light, just the way Prince liked it in the beginning. Her fingertips barely grazed at his sensitive skin, making him gasp and shiver. She took her sweet time teasing him, touching him near his cock but never quite getting there. He was becoming impatient, and it made her feel powerful to know that she was the one responsible for driving a man like Prince insane.
Alyssa finally gave his waiting cock the attention it craved so badly. She ran her palm along the length of the shaft and teased the crown with a fingertip, tracing small circles along its perimeter. Prince gasped and arched his hips up in response.
Little by little, Alyssa felt him harden underneath her touch. It was a sensation that excited her to no end and brought forth her own arousal. When he was finally as hard as he could get for the time being, Alyssa let her mouth replace her hand. She ran her lips along the shaft first, her breath ghosting over the skin and nerves there. Prince gasped. She kissed him everywhere then, worshiping his rock-hard abs, his hipbones, and his testicles.
“I love the way you taste,” Alyssa murmured against his warm skin.
“Oh God,” Prince moaned. “Aly, please. You’re driving me crazy.”
Alyssa smirked. “Good.”
Deciding to finally sate both of their mounting desires, Alyssa ran her tongue all along the glory that was Prince’s cock. She licked him and kissed him, worshiping him and satisfying her lust at the same time. She worshiped his whole length, from base to head to crown and vice versa, alternating between fast little flicks of the tip with her tongue and long, languid strokes.
Prince was getting harder and harder—because that was the thing with Prince—just when you thought his erection had reached its peak, he surprised you. But Alyssa knew what the real peak was by now, and when she felt him get there, she finally took him into her mouth.
Prince moaned, and Alyssa smiled around him. This was the moment she liked best, the connection. As powerful as the act of giving Prince oral pleasure made her feel, she also knew there was no act more intimate than this, and reaching this intimacy with the man she once thought was lost forever always astounded her. Alyssa didn’t take any of their intimate acts for granted, not even this one.
She kept her pursed lips always in contact with his warm, sensitive skin, and she circled the base of his cock with her thumb and forefinger, her fingers following the movements of her mouth along the expanse of Prince’s penis. Soon, the double contact had him all but writhing underneath her.
She alternated between long, slow, sensuous sucking motions and hard, fast ones, making her actions utterly unpredictable in their varied rhythm. Soon, she was tasting pre-come, and soon enough she could feel the tremors in Prince’s body that told her he was trying very hard to hold back.
She pulled back ever so slowly, teasing him even with that one motion, and she looked up at him. The darkening of his green eyes was enough to renew her own arousal.
“You can let go,” she said.
She didn’t give him time to reply before she went back to minister all of her attentions on his erection.
It wasn’t long before Prince complied. Alyssa took him in readily, and when all was said and done, he pulled her in for a long kiss and flipped them over, taking her in his arms to do so. When she looked up at him then, all traces of sleep had left his eyes and had been replaced with the hungry, devilish twinkle that she loved.
They made love for a very long time, both of them completely ignorant and uncaring of the passing of the time. Gloriously enough, they had nowhere else to be that morning but in each other’s arms. Alyssa let Prince have his way with her, because his way was also her way. It was tender and slow at times, and at times it was urgent and fast and furious. Alyssa rode her own sexual energy wi
th a passion and an awareness that she had never possessed before Prince.
When they both finally lay sated next to each other on the rumpled, wet sheets, Alyssa felt blissful. She always felt that way after having sex with Prince. It was yet another miraculous aspect of her relationship with him; the universe could be ending outside and her world might be slipping away from underneath her feet, but after Prince touched her, Alyssa always felt at peace.
“I’ll make breakfast,” she said, kissing him thoroughly before getting out of bed and slipping into her robe.
“Toast and scrambled eggs?” Prince requested, with a childish light in his green eyes. He always looked happy whenever the talk was about food. Alyssa found it incredibly endearing.
She smiled. “Sure.”
As she walked downstairs, she heard Prince get up, and a moment later the rush of the shower reached her ears.
There was something domestic about preparing breakfast for the both of them while Prince was in the shower. It had become sort of an after-morning-sex routine, and while comforting, it was oddly at odds with the precarious quality of their situation. Coming to think about it, their whole relationship was at odds with their predicament.
While they worked to create the right circumstances that would allow them to flee to Canada and away from the Devil’s Fighters and their horrid illegal fighting rings, their relationship was strengthening. It was disconcerting how, even in these very abnormal circumstances, their union was taking mundane steps. The first date. The first time they slept together without doing anything. Going to the movies. Talking, getting to know the adult version of each other after they had separated in their early twenties.
Their relationship was blossoming. They were learning intimacy, the kind that comes from domesticity as well as from under the covers. Alyssa loved it, but it also terrified her. It wasn’t the sort of commitment that that kind of relationship brought along that scared her; it was how attached she was becoming. She would have been a fool not to admit that their plan, whatever it would be, could backfire. She would have been an idiot not to take into consideration the possibility that they might fail and that they would end up being forced to separate again—if not worse. Prince could end up getting himself killed. She could get herself killed, too. These were all very real possibilities when dealing with Benedict Lenday and the Devil’s Fighters.
By logic, Alyssa would have been wise not to get too attached. She would have been wise not to let herself savor this intimacy that they were creating and get used to it. There was a very real chance that this happiness that she felt mounting inside of her whenever she stopped to reflect on her relationship with Prince might be snatched away at a moment’s notice. And yet, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t help but dive deeper and deeper into it.
Because the thing was, if she didn’t let herself feel it all, then what was she even doing still in Pinebrook? If she didn’t allow herself to really build something with Prince, then what were they fighting for?
By the time Prince emerged from upstairs, Alyssa had breakfast ready. She placed the mugs and plates on the table and sat across from him, watching him as he happily dug in. As odd as it may sound, she liked to watch Prince eat; he savored every bite. He applied the same rule to his life in general, savoring every little thing about it. Alyssa thought Prince’s appetite for life was nothing short of miraculous, considering the life he had led.
She would have thought eight years of fighting in the rings to pay up his father’s gambling debt to the Devil’s Fighters would have robbed Prince of all of his light. Instead, the dark world he was immersed in seemed to make him strive even harder to hold on to his true self. He hid it well enough from the outside world, knowing that he couldn’t afford to appear weak or, sometimes, even human. But, much to her relief, Alyssa had learned that the Prince she had fallen in love with back when they were teenagers was still there. She had learned he wasn’t all about the fight and the gang. Prince was still Prince, and she loved him all the more for it.
“What are you thinking about?”
His voice startled her from her reverie. Alyssa shook herself out of it and smiled, taking a long sip of coffee.
“Nothing,” she said. Then, when he kept on staring at her, she amended: “You.”
“Ah.” Prince grinned, pleased with himself. “That good of a performance, huh?”
Alyssa laughed. “Yeah.”
“Seriously, what were you thinking about?” Prince asked again when silence fell over them.
“I told you,” Alyssa said. “You. Us.”
Prince frowned. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“What?” Alyssa blinked at him, surprised. Sometimes, when it came to being with someone, Prince could display astounding lack of self-esteem. “No,” she said, calmly but forcefully. “I’m not having second thoughts. I was just thinking that I love where we’re heading.”
“Where are we heading?”
“You know what I mean,” Alyssa said. His thickness on the subject could be infuriating at times. “The way our relationship is going.”
“Oh.” Prince shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. It always made him uncomfortable to discuss these matters openly, mostly because he didn’t quite know how to express himself. “I really like where we’re going, too.”
Alyssa beamed. She knew she wouldn’t get anything better than that from him, and she was okay with that. In fact, in Prince language, those words meant a lot more.
“What are you up to today?” he asked, changing the subject.
Alyssa was okay with that, too. “Not much,” she said. “I’ll probably go over to Lynn’s later and hang out.” She hesitated. “You?” She was always afraid to ask, but she was also learning that if she wanted to get Prince out of that world, she would also have to get to know it.
“Rick has a fight later today,” Prince said. “I’m going with him; make sure he’s okay.”
Alyssa nodded. “You don’t have to fight today?”
“No,” Prince said, “not today.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “I could come over tonight if you’d like.”
“I’d like that.”
Prince grinned playfully, pushing all thoughts of the ring away from both of their minds. “We could have another go.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Alyssa laughed. “Not a chance, stud. I think I’ll be getting my period sometime today.”
Prince scowled. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Yep. And you might want to stay clear, too. I get very irritable.”
“I’ve fought worse,” Prince said, smirking.
Alyssa arched an eyebrow. “I’m not so sure you have.”
Prince laughed. “Seriously, I’ll come over with food and movies. We’ll make a quiet night out of it.”
Alyssa looked at him. “Are you sure? Won’t that be too boring for you?”
“Aly, trust me; I love boring.”
The unspoken words were clear to both of them. With the kind of live Prince was forced to lead, it was no wonder that a quiet night watching movies would sound like heaven to him.
“All right then,” Alyssa agreed easily.
Prince beamed and nodded happily, then he turned his attention back on his breakfast. “Any preference on the movie?” he asked, munching around a mouthful of eggs and toast.
“Nope. You pick.” Alyssa thought about it for a moment. “But no action flicks.”
“Promise.”
Alyssa thought about the evening ahead. Takeout, a movie, and sitting on the couch without actually having sex on it. Domesticity. She was really coming to adore it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alyssa stared into space, the house’s cordless phone still in her hand as she sat on the couch in the living room as if transfixed. The more she replayed the phone call in her mind, the more confused she felt over whether or not she had just gotten good news. The realtor had just struck a deal to sell her parents’ house. There had been a f
ew open houses in the past few weeks, but the possibility of her childhood home really selling had never quite set in—until today, when it had sold. Now, all Alyssa had to do was to give her approval to the deal, and the paperwork would be processed. She wasn’t about to say no; it was a good deal. But she also couldn’t bring herself to be happy about it.
One would think that selling the house would be one thing off her plate, but it didn’t feel that way; it didn’t bring her any relief. If anything, it made her parents’ absence all the more real and all the more permanent. As long as she had the house, she still had some concrete, living memories of her parents. Now, she would have to box up their lives and put them away forever. It was almost more than she could bear just to think about it, and now that the new owners wanted to settle in next month, she had a little over four weeks to muster up the strength to actually do it.