by Fowler, Teri
“What's wrong? Are you angry with me because I didn't ask the right way?”
He went to her, lifting her on to his lap when he sat at the edge of the bed. “No, you did everything right. You are perfect.”
“Then why—”
“Because I can't wait another minute to be inside you and to have your hands on me. You've given me so much already, Liv. All I want now is to be with you, the way we should have been together all those years ago. No gimmicks. No games. Just me and you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and he had a moment of panic that he'd said the wrong thing. But when her arms wound around his neck and her lush mouth locked on to his, he understood.
Michael laid her on the mattress and crawled into the space between her thighs to put on the condom. He had to grit his teeth as he stretched the latex over the hardest erection he could ever remember having. Well, maybe it wasn't the hardest ever, but he'd never been so sensitive, never needed to fuck someone as badly as he wanted to fuck Liv. She opened her arms to him, her face alight with something he dared to believe might still be love. He fell into her, bracing his weight over her body and locking his gaze with hers as he pushed into her, one mind-blowing inch at a time.
Her eyelids began to flutter, as if she were fighting the urge to close them, and her teeth bit down on her bottom lip as she jerked in response to being penetrated. Michael's shoulders shook with the effort of holding his weight off her, and the tremors increased as he thrust deeper into her moist, warm, welcoming body.
“Come closer.” Liv wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to lie on top of her. Her legs wrapped around his hips, and her hands locked into his hair as her mouth found his again. Her small tongue pushed its way into his mouth, touching and teasing his as her hips began to move and she bore down to meet him as he rose up to fill her.
Michael saw stars behind his eyes, and his heart began to pound as if it were trying to jump out of his chest. Liv was taking him. She was fucking him, drawing gasps, groans and shudders from him, almost against his will. He wanted to surrender, to let her take his body the way she had his heart and mind, but he knew she was ignoring her own needs to focus on him. He wasn't having that.
He pulled out of her and grabbed her thighs, forcing her legs up and onto her chest. Michael got to his knees and pressed his forearm across the back of her thighs, pinning her in place and leaving her exposed to his touch. He sucked two fingers into his mouth, coating them in his saliva, and went to work on her clit. His hand was nothing more than a blur as it moved over her swollen nub, and he rubbed her as fast and as hard as he dared. He couldn't be gentle, not right now. Not if he wanted her to come again before he did.
Olivia's hands reached for him, but she couldn't touch him, not with his weight pinning her down. She gave up trying to grab him and tore at the sheets, bunching them in her fists as her body went rigid and she began to come. Michael kept up the torture, ensuring he'd drawn every last gasp, scream, and shudder from her before he let her go.
He released her legs and slid inside her before the thought he was being a selfish bastard stopped him in his tracks and deprived him of what he so desperately needed. Olivia disabused him of any idea that he was being too greedy by raising up onto her elbows and greeting his thrust with one of her own. Michael dragged her against him, pinning her body against his chest as he wrapped one arm under the small of her back and slid the other up to her shoulders where his hand locked on to the back of her neck. She was cradled in his arms, her legs wrapped around his hips, and unable to do anything but accept the deep and savage pounding of his dick.
“Yes!” She screamed when Michael intensified the pace and his hand tangled in her hair. He pulled her head back, exposing her neck, and he couldn't resist the urge to bite. Not hard enough to leave a mark but not gentle enough to be ignored. Liv surged up towards him and bit him back, sinking her teeth into his shoulder and clinging on when he roared his approval, and her touch sent him tumbling over the edge.
Olivia.
She was all he could see, hear, feel, and taste, and she'd possessed him, inside and out. When Michael sucked in a desperate, ragged breath to ease the savage burning in his lungs, it tasted of her. She was on his lips, in his hands, wrapped around his cock. Liv was everywhere and everything. He jerked into her, his thrusts erratic, his mind a jumble of wants and desires. Had I said them aloud? He didn't know. He lost the ability to judge where she ended and he began—of what was real and what was just in his head. But, as his body stilled and his hearing came back, he knew for sure he must have told her that he loved her ... because he heard her whisper that she loved him, too.
Chapter Four
Olivia lay on her front with her face squished into a pillow, her gaze fixed on the even rise and fall of Michael's chest. When she raised her head to steal a closer look, checking to see if he was still awake, his eyes met hers. Any idea she had of lying back down, to give her loudly protesting muscles time to recover, was forgotten as soon as she saw the expression on his face. If she'd ever doubted that Michael loved her, she couldn't doubt it any longer. His gaze held a mixture of admiration, hope, and raw emotion, and the half-smile creasing his cheek was almost nervous, as if he was waiting to see what she would say.
His vulnerability took her breath away and, in that instant, turned everything she thought she knew about him on its head. Even in the last twenty-four hours, when she had learned more about him in the space of a day than she'd learned in the whole time they were dating, Olivia felt there was still so much about him she didn't know. She'd gone into this determined to show him he'd been wrong to write her off and reject her all those years ago. But she could see that the only person Michael had ever rejected was himself.
“So, how did I do?” Olivia flopped back down on to the pillows, too afraid to stare into his eyes because she might see that he was about to lie to her.
Michael gave a hoarse laugh. “Can't you tell? I swear to God, Liv. I've never come that hard for anyone. Ever.” He fell silent for a moment, and she watched a muscle tick in his jaw, as if he was chewing over what he should say next. Just as she was about to lose it and give him a good poke in the ribs if he didn't speak soon, he turned to her. “You?”
A sudden shyness made her want to whisper what she was about to say, but she fought against it, aware of how vitally important it was to both of them that he was in no doubt how she felt.
“I always knew sex with you would be amazing, but that was just ... beyond. My imagination could never have conjured anything so, I dunno, mind-blowing is the only word I can think of.”
The tension seeped out of Michael's expression, and he rolled across to rest his cheek against hers, a relieved and slightly cocky expression on his face. “Mind-blowing, eh?”
“Yes, but more than that. It was—”
“It was special,” he whispered against her mouth and moved back to his side of the bed. Olivia immediately missed the feel of his weight pinning her to the mattress. He put a few inches distance between them, just like he used to in the old days, and she knew him well enough to be sure there was a “talk” coming on, much like the kind they used to have when he was about to say something she wouldn't like. Despite everything that had happened over the last couple of days, Olivia tensed, ready for the worst.
“Don't look at me like that. I'm not gonna give you one of my old speeches, where I tell you how much I love you while trying to explain why I couldn't have sex with you. I do love you. Always have. But you were right. I was pushing you away. I didn't know back then who or what I was. I couldn't make sense of how I could love you so much but want to dominate you physically. I thought I was an abusive person who was only managing to keep his vile urges in check because he loved his girlfriend so much, and I came to the decision that I would rather live my life without you than risk hurting or scaring you, or both.”
“You should have trusted me and let me decide for myself if I could handle it or not.”
“How could I? Back then, I had no idea that my urges were healthy and normal and that other people had them, too.” He got up onto one elbow to stare down at her. “Be honest, did you ever think you'd enjoy the kind of things we did tonight?”
His gaze intensified and zeroed in on her mouth, and she could tell he was more than just talking about it. He was remembering it in as much excruciatingly hot detail as she was.
“Okay, so you're right. If some guy had told me he wanted to do those kinds of things to me, I would tell him to go fuck himself. But you're not just some guy. You're Michael. My Michael. The person I have been in love with for half of my life.”
She reached for his face and dragged him closer to kiss him, feeling the need to hide from his scrutiny while her words hung in the air between them. He accepted her kiss but pulled away again, and she knew the “talk” wasn't over. She kind of wished he'd hurry up and get back to showing her how he felt rather than trying to explain it. Olivia let her fingertips trail down over his chest and along the hard ridges of his toned abdomen. She got to within an inch of grabbing the prize she was after when he grasped her wrist and brought her hand up to his mouth to press a kiss against her palm.
“Behave, Olivia.”
“Yes, Sir.” She smiled as innocently as she could, aware that he probably knew she was trying to tempt him into shutting the fuck up and fucking what was left of her brains out.
He grinned. “Good girl. You are not gonna distract me though, not until I say what I need to say.”
She gave up trying to seduce him and sat up to face him, pinning the sheet against her chest with her armpits. “Okay, big boy. Get it off your chest.”
“I really hurt you, didn't I?”
Olivia had forgotten how well this man knew her. She was scared half to death and hiding behind humor to protect herself, and he saw right through it. “I survived.”
Michael grimaced and picked up the hand resting in her lap. “You sure did. You don't need to look so scared, my love. I just wanted to warn you about a few things. I've been through this already and know that you might not feel so good about yourself in the morning. You might feel like some kind of seedy deviant, or a bit of a perv.”
Olivia couldn't stifle a giggle. Michael looked uncomfortable even saying the words. “Charming.”
A flush spread across his cheeks. “You know what I mean. What we did tonight was mild compared to what I want to do with you. And your only experience of bondage and domination might be seeing kinky toys on the site you buy your vibrators from, or from porn films, or documentaries on TV that report the lifestyle in a sensational way. You might not know about the love, the trust, the bond two people need to have to be in a relationship like this.”
“I trust you. And you know I love you.”
“Weird as it seems, it's just as important that I can trust you. I have to know, without any room for doubt, that you will tell me if you like something or not. I have to have absolute trust in you that you won't tolerate something you don't like in an effort to please me, or get hurt trying to impress me. You need to be one hundred percent honest. That's not something everyone can do.”
“But I thought you said I'd have to do things I didn't want to?”
“Yeah, I could have put that better. I meant, once you trust me implicitly, I won't allow you to refuse me out of fear or embarrassment. I will expect you to surrender to me willingly and know that my only motivation is controlling when you have an orgasm, or how many you have, or how hard you come. I get my pleasure from controlling how and when you get yours.”
“And you won't hurt me. Physically, I mean?”
“I'm no sadist, Liv. There's a fine line between pain and pleasure. Pushing you a little way over that line can be very rewarding, for both of us. But I can only do that if your body and mind consent to it. If it's something you really don't like, then I'll be able to tell pretty quickly if you aren't enjoying it and we won't do it anymore.”
“What about you? How will I know I'm giving you what you need?”
“Ah, there's that pesky trust thing again. You will know because you will understand how much your absolute acceptance of who I really am means to me.”
Michael ran a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away the tiredness suddenly etched into his features. “I could have come here tonight and had sex with you without revealing what I really wanted to do, and I would have loved every minute of it, but that wouldn't have been honest. I would have been holding back, which is something I never want to do to you again. I want to show you who I am and how things can be between us. That is, if you think you can handle it.”
Could I handle it? She wasn't sure, but that was more about not knowing what to expect than it was about not wanting to try. The idea excited her, that much was for sure. And if agreeing to at least give it a go meant more time with Michael taking her body and making it feel the way it had tonight, she wanted to try. Had to.
She told him her thoughts, eager to show him that she had every intention of being honest. “It's no different from any intimate relationship I've ever been in, if you think about it,” she said, snuggling into his chest when he lay down against the pillows.
“Is that so?”
Olivia laughed. He'd taken her comment as a challenge; she could hear it in his voice. She had an inkling she was gonna enjoy finding out how he intended to prove her wrong, but there was plenty of time to tease him later. “No, I don't mean it that way. I mean, I've liked some of things my partners have done, others I haven't.”
“What have you liked?” Michael's voice had dropped to that husky whisper again, the one that had the power to make her panties melt. Or would have if she was wearing any. As it was, her pussy got wet instantly, and she became conscious of a small but powerful pulse that suddenly kicked into life deep inside her vagina. Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but Michael stopped her with an all too brief kiss. “No. Don't tell me. I want to find out for myself.”
“Okay.” She had no doubt he would, too. Olivia wished she shared his self-confidence. Does he like to take control because no woman has ever truly satisfied him? Is it the only way he could enjoy sex? Suddenly, she had to know. “What about you? What do you like?”
“You.”
She gave him a dig in the ribs, one he had the good manners to pretend actually hurt. “Be serious.”
“I am, Liv. I'm serious as a fucking heart attack.”
“Forget I asked.”
“Don't look at me like that. I meant it. Don't you know yet how much you turn me on?”
“Yeah, I kind of do.” She grinned to show she was joking, but didn't let him off the hook. “You want me to trust you, right? I want to, but I need to know you aren't still shutting me out, the way you used to.”
“I'm not. And I won't.” Michael got off the bed and stood beside her. Olivia let her gaze drift over him once more until it drew level with his groin and the semi-erect penis dangling inches from her grasp. Her fingers tingled with the urge to reach out and grab it, but he stepped away before she could act on the impulse.
“Where are you going?”
Michael stopped grabbing his clothes up from the floor. “I was going to get you something to drink. Are you still addicted to coffee?”
“Yes, but it's the last thing I want right now.”
“Have you got any wine? Or maybe you just want a glass of water?”
“No, I don't want anything to drink, you dope. I want you.”
He dropped his clothes back to where he'd just retrieved them and held his arms wide. “You've already got me, Liv.”
“Have I, really?” Olivia climbed out of bed and walked over to where Michael stood. Grabbing his hands, she pulled him closer and sighed with relief as her soft flesh yielded around the planes of his heavily muscled torso. “How do I know you're not still shutting me out?”
“Ask me anything. I'll tell you the truth, I swear.”
Olivia stared into his eyes
to watch his reaction as she spoke. “Tell me, in graphic detail, what you've always fantasized about doing to me. Or what you want me to do to you.”
His eyes glittered for a moment, and she could tell he was thinking of something very dark, and, she hoped, very dirty. But then the shutters fell, and he hid his gaze.
“Just standing here like this, with you looking at me like that, is all I've ever wanted.”
Olivia smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, placing her lips against the shell of his ear. “I think I know what it is you really want,” she whispered. “I think you like to get a little rough.”
Michael's hands stopped rubbing lazy, soothing circles up and down her back, and she heard him suck in a ragged, shaky breath. His fingers bit into the flesh of her hips, and he tugged her forward, pressing their already connected bodies closer together.
“I remember when we used to play fight. I knew exactly when it was going to stop, because it was always at the precise moment you got a hard-on.”
“I didn't think you noticed.”
She laughed. “How could I not have noticed? Nothing about you is small.”
“Which is why,” he said, pulling away and putting a few inches between them, “it can never happen. What if I hurt you?”
“I'm tougher than I look.”
Olivia expected him to scoff, but he surprised her by nodding in agreement. “I know that.”
“And I would tell you if you hurt me.”
“I know that, too. The problem is, Liv, it would be too late by then, wouldn't it?”
“Why is it such a big deal if I get a little hurt? I know that sounds daft, but hear me out. Are you saying women shouldn't be fire-fighters, or play rugby, or do contact sports because they might get hurt?”
“No, but that's a whole different thing, and you know it.”
“I'm not some delicate little flower, P.C. Williams. And I expect you to damn well believe me when I tell you that.”