by April Lust
“I’m so sorry.” I hugged him a little tighter. He knew the pain I felt, then.
“Yeah. A drunk driver hit them. I was at school.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“Jeez. That’s terrible.”
“So I joined the club as soon as I was old enough to get through the door. Or, not joined. I told you about it.”
“Yeah. They sorta let you hang around.”
“I guess you could say they raised me, for the most part. Spike’s like a father to me.”
“I’m glad you had something, at least.” Even if it was a bunch of criminals who made you a criminal, too.
“Yeah, it could have been a lot worse.” I wondered how, exactly, but I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut.
“My dad died a while back. It was very sudden. I know how it feels to have somebody you love with you one day, and then all of a sudden, they’re gone. And you wish you had known when you woke up that morning that it was going to be the last time you woke up when your life was normal.”
“Whoa. That’s exactly how I used to feel.” His arm tightened a little.
“It’s so hard to move forward, even when people tell you that you should.”
“I know what you mean. People either expected me to keep breaking down or cheer up. It was either one or the other, all the time. They wouldn’t just leave me the hell alone and let me figure it out for myself.”
“I get it.” I thought about my mother again. I would have to go through that with her after she died. Nobody would know how to act around me. Everybody would either try to cheer me up or want to weep and wail on my shoulder—Mom had lots of friends. They would bring food, and they would want to share stories of her life. They would think it was helping me somehow, when I would just want to be alone with my thoughts and my memories. I had already gone through it once. I knew how my grieving process went.
I didn’t want to talk about that out loud, though, because I didn’t want to bring up the subject of the money again. We walked such a thin line together, Dane and I, and I didn’t want to disturb the delicate balance we had going on. The last thing I needed was for him to get angry with me and tell me to get the hell out of his bed.
He wouldn’t do it, though. I had a feeling about him. The man who saved me wouldn’t kick me out of bed. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me when I’d already come so close to being hurt. He only wanted to protect me and make me feel good and safe. He didn’t have to say it. I could feel it with every beat of his heart just next to my ear.
The rhythm of his heartbeat must have lulled me to sleep. Before I knew it, I was dreaming. In the dream, I was a princess, trapped in the uppermost tower of a castle. I wore a short dress and dangerously high heels, and I waited by the window for a prince to save me. I knew he was out there somewhere. The land stretched on for miles all around me.
Suddenly, a door burst open behind me. I turned around with a small scream, and my eyes widened when I saw the man from the van. He had long, greasy hair, and he carried a gun. He grinned at me like he wanted to tear me into pieces.
“The boss wants to see you,” he snarled, and he advanced toward me. I considered for one brief, horrified moment throwing myself from the tower rather than facing the boss he spoke of. I was desperate, and I screamed for help.
A figure filled the doorway. It was my prince, only he wasn’t wearing a suit of armor or princely epaulets. He wore a white t-shirt and black leather vest, jeans and work boots. His shoulder-length blond hair was swept back off his forehead. I swooned.
“Leave her alone,” he growled, and before the other man could react, Dane lunged at him.
I jumped up, scampering over to the bed to watch them from a safe distance. They tussled over the gun, Dane throwing punch after punch to get control of the weapon.
Finally, he did, and he pushed the villain from the window. I heard him hit the ground with a satisfying splat. I turned to Dane, my heart bursting with gratitude.
“How can I ever repay you?” I asked.
He didn’t reply in words. Instead, he walked over to the bed, pulling off his clothes as he did. My stomach fluttered in anticipation, and I leaned back against the pillows while he climbed on top of me.
I must have moaned in my sleep or something, because the next thing I knew, Dane was shaking me. “Michelle? You okay?”
I opened my eyes, blinking against the light from the lamp. “Oh. Sorry. I was dreaming.”
“I know. It sounded like a hell of a dream, too. You kept saying something about jumping out of the window.”
“Was that all I said?” I would die if I had said his name.
“No.” The way he said it left me wondering, though. I had a feeling I might have moaned something.
I made a decision. There was only one thing he could do for me, one thing I wanted more than anything. I needed it. I needed to feel him on top of me, inside me.
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course. What do you need?”
I looked him in the eye. “Make love to me?”
Chapter Nineteen
Dane
“What?” I had to be hearing things.
“I need you. I need you to make love to me. Please, Dane.”
I wanted to pinch myself. Was I dreaming?
“Listen, Michelle. It’s not that I don’t want to. I do.” Oh, did I. I was getting hard just from her asking for it. “But it feels sorta like…well, like I’d be taking advantage of you.”
“Taking advantage?” She frowned like I was rejecting her.
“Yeah, I mean, you’ve been through a lot. Would it be fair for me to sleep with you after that? It might just be the stuff inside you, like fear or anger or whatever. Or you’re feeling something because of what I did for you.”
“Dane. Are you saying you don’t want me?”
“God, no.” I said it a little too loud, and she giggled.
“Then why don’t you take what I’m offering you? I mean, you did buy me.” She got up on her knees and pulled the nightshirt over her head. Her tits were just as perfect as I remembered.
“Are you sure?”
She took my hands and put them on her body. “I’m sure. Take me, please. Make me forget everything but you.”
I didn’t need to hear it again. I was already ready to go. I pulled her to me almost violently and took one of her nipples in my mouth. She sighed like she had just won some big battle or something, and took my head in her hands. She ran her fingers through my hair, whimpering while I sucked the little bud between my teeth and flicked it with my tongue.
Then I lowered her to the bed until her head rested on a pillow. I stretched out next to her and stroked her face with the tips of my fingers. She sighed, turning her head toward my hand, wanting more. I nibbled her earlobe, and she gasped, then sighed softly.
My hand left her face, sliding down her body. I skimmed her tits again, then her stomach, then the swell of her mound. She moaned, rocking her hips upward to meet me. I cupped her heat, rubbing my fingers along the satin of her panties, imagining the satiny skin underneath. She opened her legs, giving me better access to her. I stroked her entire cleft, from ass to just over her clit, and she groaned, asking for more.
“Please…please touch me…” Her eyes were closed, her head moved from side to side. She wanted to get lost in pleasure, and I wanted to help her get lost. She needed to. She needed to feel something real, something good. She had already been through enough pain without the shit I brought into her life. I slid my hand beneath the smooth satin and she gasped. I twitched, dying to get out and burying myself in her.
My fingers glided through her slick wetness until I found her hot, swollen button. I ran two fingers in circles around it, while my tongue lapped again at her tits. She writhed around, her hands clutching the sheets, twisting them in her fists. She let out a steady stream of moans, getting louder all the time as I worked her clit. She humped my hand, going cr
azy as she got closer and closer. I held my breath, knowing she was just about to burst, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth to keep myself from exploding in my pants at the sound of her orgasm.
And when she did come, she came with a scream that sounded like it came from her toes. I didn’t know a little girl like her could scream like that. Everything came out of her, everything that happened that day and in the days before that. I felt it somehow. When she finished screaming and shuddering, she turned her head toward me and buried her face in my neck.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“What are you sorry for?”
“For being so loud.” Her words came in between little gasps for air. “I know it must be too loud.”
“Are you crazy? I fucking love it,” I growled, licking her earlobe. She shivered.
“You mean it?”
Instead of answering, I took her hand and placed it over my throbbing, straining, dripping cock, still trapped in my shorts.
“Yeah, I mean it. This doesn’t lie. It’s hot when a woman enjoys herself. And when I know I’m the one doing it for her? Holy shit.” I groaned as her hand slid along my length.
“So it’s sexy, then?”
“Yeah, when it’s natural. Not when it’s fake. It’s…it’s pretty ob-obvious when it’s fake.” I could barely get the words out, she was driving me so crazy. I ached with the need to be inside her.
But first I wanted to taste her. I got between her legs and slid her panties over her hips and down the long, smooth, firm thighs and calves. She was so perfect, so soft and toned. She glowed in the soft bedroom light. I twitched again and ached to bury myself.
I buried my face in her instead. She gasped when my tongue flicked across her button again and again. I held her glistening lips apart to give myself better access, then devoured her soft, swollen folds. She was so wet, and the scent was like the sweetest perfume. All it did was make me want her more.
“Oh…oh, Dane…so good…” she whispered, moving like a wave above me. Her hips kept flexing, rolling up to meet my face. I held her steady, still licking and sucking on the pink button, hearing the way she called my name and cried out like an animal as I drove her closer and closer to another orgasm.
I couldn’t resist sliding my fingers into her, increasing the pleasure. She jumped like she was struck by a bolt of lightning, then her entire body started shaking as I pumped my fingers in and out in time with the motion of my tongue.
“Oh…Dane…I’m coming…Oh God!” She screamed, her thighs closing in around my head as the muscles in her tunnel clamped around my fingers. I waited until she relaxed to get up, sliding down my shorts, letting my poor, trapped cock spring free.
She opened her eyes halfway, looking up at me. She was already spent, but I knew I could get one, maybe two more climaxes out of her. She wasn’t finished yet.
I knelt between her legs, picking up her hips to position myself. Her feet were on the bed, like she instinctively knew what to do. I slid inside, and her tightness almost overtook me at first. I had to wait a second until the urge to come passed, then I slid out and back inside. It was too good
She moved against me, using her feet for traction. She met my thrusts with slow, grinding thrusts of her own. We went together slowly, sensually. I felt every inch of her gripping me so tight, practically begging me to empty myself inside. I held on, wanting to make it last as long as I could for both our sakes.
She was the sexiest thing I ever saw. Hair a mess, eyes closed, mouth open. Her tits swung back and forth just a little as she rolled her hips in slow circles. She was hypnotic, and totally lost in sensation. I let go of her hips, running my hands up her body to fondle her tits, then down her stomach, then around to her ass. She moaned and writhed, asking me for more, begging for more. Whimpering and pleading for me to let her come again. She was so close.
I found her button again, still sensitive from the last two orgasms, and applied just the tiniest bit of pressure with my thumb, then rolled it in circles over her. She gasped and arched her back, the muscles gripping me tighter until I thought I might explode. Then she shrieked and let out a long, sobbing cry before falling back onto the bed.
“Are you all right?” I asked. I was too worried about her to think about coming, which was probably the only reason I managed to hold off.
“Yes,” she whispered. She was shaking all over. “I’m fine. Really. It was just so intense.”
I knew what she meant. Still inside her, I leaned forward until I was on my forearms, just above her. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, her legs around my waist. I smelled the scent of sex, and sweat, and her shampoo, and the natural sweet smell of her skin as I moved closer to kiss her. She kissed me back gently, softly, tenderly.
My heart opened to her. I couldn’t help myself. She was there, underneath me, trusting me, needing me. She was the only beautiful thing I knew, the only thing I’d ever known. After all the shitty hands life had dealt her, she was still warm and loving and able to be loved. I would have moved mountains for her.
My pace sped up. I drove myself into her the way I wanted to drive myself into her heart. I wanted to be part of her, so deep inside her she could never leave. I wanted to make her mine, all mine, forever. Her body and her mind and her heart, mine.
“You’re mine,” I grunted, thrusting faster and faster. “Say it.”
“I’m yours!” She gasped, jerking her hips up to meet me. “Oh, Dane! I’m yours!”
Something inside me roared with approval as we both went faster and harder. I rode her roughly, pummeling her with my hard length, slamming into her again and again. She only loved it more the harder I went, until we finally strained against each other and cried out together as the end came for both of us.
When I came to my senses, I remembered what I said to her. More than that, I remembered what she said back.
Did she mean it? I was still on top of her, still trying to catch my breath. I was almost afraid to look at her because I didn’t know what she was thinking. If she regretted saying it, I would act like I didn’t care. I didn’t mean to say it. I felt it, but that didn’t mean I had to say it.
I couldn’t stay that way forever, so I pushed myself up and rolled off of her. Her eyes were closed, her breathing still a little raspy. I kept my mouth shut. Things got really uncomfortable, really fast.
“Thank you for that,” she whispered.
“Anytime.”
She giggled. I guessed we were going to forget what I said.
It was just as well.
Chapter Twenty
Michelle
How the heck was I supposed to act after that?
Not after the sex. After the sex, I fell asleep. He didn’t hold me anymore, though. I slept closer to him than I did the night before, but still not touching.
It was for the best because I had no stinking idea how to come back from the little slip up toward the end. I told him I was his. What the hell was I thinking?
And he said it first, which was even more mind-blowing. I thought about it as I was falling asleep, and I remembered what Mac said about guys feeling protective toward women. He probably thought I was his in that he had saved me from danger. Hey, if that was what it took, more power to him.
But it didn’t mean I was his going forward. Did it?
How did I feel, anyway? I reminded myself not to fall in love with him just because he’d rescued me. It was easy to fall for a guy when he got you out of a jam. I remembered one time when a stranger pulled over to the side of the road to help me change a flat. By the time the spare tire was firmly fixed to the car I was convinced we were meant to be. And that was just a measly tire change, not saving me from rape and murder.
I was still thinking about it when I fell asleep, and it was the first thing on my mind when I woke up. How was I supposed to act around him?
It took a moment to realize I was alone, and I rolled over and sat up in surprise. “Dane?” I called out, clutching the b
lankets to me. I heard the fear in my voice and reminded myself I was a grown woman, not a scared little girl. There was nothing that could hurt me, not when he was around to protect me. I was sure of it.
I just needed him actually to be around.
I heard his voice, and relief flooded my body. “In the kitchen!” I sighed, holding my hand over my thumping heart. I couldn’t believe how scared I was just being alone in his bed.
I dressed quickly, spent a minute in the bathroom, then went downstairs. I wondered what could possibly be happening in there. He certainly didn’t cook.
And he wasn’t cooking when I found him. He was seated at the table with three other men. One was much older, with a long white mustache to match his white hair. I knew instinctively he had to be Spike. I had no idea who the other two were—younger, handsome enough, both solidly built with dark hair and dark eyes.