She was truly astonished at his attitude, her eyes wide. He was mad at Kurt – a man he didn't even know – because he'd hurt her years and years ago. She could barely believe it.
"Sorry." He looked a bit embarrassed by his own reaction. But if you want to point him out in a crowd sometime, I'd be glad to kill him for you, slowly. Painfully."
She chuckled nervously, but he didn't look like he thought this was a funny situation.
"He's in Boston, where I went to college – well, he was then, anyway. I have no idea where he is now. We didn't keep in touch."
"Pity," he growled, then he looked down at Taren and really saw her. She was looking tense and nervous, and that was not at all what he wanted to inspire in her.
Bruce kissed her temple. "Well, darling, he doesn't exist. He never existed. There's only you and me, and I'm going to treasure every little thing about you, the way he should have."
Chapter Six
Where did this guy get this stuff from, she wondered. Sometimes, when he spoke to her, he sounded like something out of a poem or a Hallmark card or something like that. No man had ever spoken to her the way he did. As far as she could see, no man spoke to anyone quite the way he did – it was definitely a part of what People Magazine referred to every year as his 'irresistible charm.'
It was kind of overwhelming to have all of that considerable intensity focused on her, although she knew he was doing his best to make her feel good.
His big finger weaseled itself under the waistband of her panties. "If we're going to make love, you're going to have to lose these, you know. I have it on good authority, anyway," he teased gently.
She smiled and almost laughed, and his heart lightened considerably.
"Okay if I take them off?" he asked, already tugging them down, but just a bit, looking to her for her okay.
She barely nodded and then heard them drop onto the floor, his fingers trailing slowly up the outsides of her calves. "You have beautiful legs."
Taren clapped her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from snorting again and getting into trouble, and he stopped dropping kisses on her knees to catch her eye. "Smart girl." Then he reached beneath her to squeeze her bottom, which made her arch up against him in a manner that had his cock dancing.
He slid all the way up to kiss her greedily, wanting her to know he desired her, although how could she possibly miss the straining length of him pressed up against her hip?
His lips found her neck, and her cries and moans tested his resolve, but he held himself in check for her – he had to, but he wanted more from her, much more, and he wanted so much more for her, too.
Without asking or checking with her, because he'd done it before, and she'd seemed to like it, he dipped his head to one of the hard points he'd been feeling against his chest all night, surrounding it, breathing moisture on it and boldly flicking the tip.
"Bruce," she moaned in a very satisfactorily breathy way that emboldened him to go on to its companion and do the same thing. She arched her back, pressing her nipple further into his waiting mouth.
"Ah, Taren, you are a marvelously wanton lass," he murmured against her breast with a smile. Her eyes found his, a bit tentatively at first, biting her lip, then he watched her relax under his gaze.
His hands were next. He didn't ask her to remove her shirt, just sent his hands beneath it, up to her breasts, moving her bra up away from them then putting his hands in its place. The blouse had ridden up naturally around his wrists, but she didn't seem concerned with that at the moment.
The second his hands molded themselves to her, squeezing firmly, causing her nipples to rise even further and be abraded by her shirt, then by his fingers and thumbs, her eyes – that had sought his nervously when he'd begun delving beneath what she considered to be the safety of her blouse – glazed over. Just a bit at first, then rapidly becoming completely unfocused as he pinched a bit harder than she probably expected, but she didn't object.
She keened, and he continued to do it.
And Taren continued to keen. Loudly, wordlessly encouraging him.
Then he stopped, and she continued to arch and moan as if bereft of the loss.
Swallowing dryly as he watched her undulate, he whispered huskily, "Would you like to remove your bra? It must be uncomfortable for you to have it up around your neck like that."
Whether she did it or not was entirely up to her, but he considered it a very good sign when she did that thing that all women seemed to know innately how to do – to get out off a bra without taking off your outer garment, and soon it fell to the floor, too, completely disregarded.
"Excellent. If your breasts need holding up – although I can't see that they do – I will be only too happy to volunteer to act as bra."
His silliness helped her to relax further, as was his intention.
An index finger that had been well-manicured when he got there but was much less so now, slid down her neck, feeling her shiver beneath his touch. He deliberately brought it down over her breastbone to where the first button resided.
"May I?" he asked softly, his eyes on hers.
He had hoped for a resounding yes, but she paused.
"No worries, darling. There's more than enough time for that," he said, moving down to kiss her belly.
"Bruce?"
His head snapped up because her tone was so tentative and soft. "Yes, love?"
"You…" She bit her lip, and then continued bravely, "You may."
It took him but a second to decipher what she meant, and then his fingers flew back to that first button, slipping it open quickly, but not grabbing at her or even folding the material open.
He was amazed – and incredibly grateful – when she put his fingers on the next button down.
"Are you sure, Taren? I don't want you to feel any pressure from me about it, you know. I'm truly happy just to be wi'you."
She nodded. "I'm sure."
He slipped them all free, and then Taren reached down herself and brought first one arm out, and then the other, holding her arms across her breasts as he threw the shirt over the edge of the bed
It was then that he saw that he had, sadly, been right.
The scars on her face were not the only ones she bore from that night.
There were marks all over her back and shoulders of varying sizes, all the same kind of keloided, rough red tissue.
He didn't ask her permission – he couldn't have even if he'd thought of it – his voice was choked in his throat along with what seemed like a lifetime's worth of tears. He simply began pressing his lips to each one of the reminders she'd carried alone for so long.
Taren hunched over herself, partly in modesty for the nakedness of her breasts, partly because she wished that would cover her flaws, too, although she was incredibly touched by his reaction to the field of blemishes that dotted her back, and then she heard him murmuring soothingly as he did so, his lips and his voice unbelievably tender.
"There's my braw lass."
Finally, she could stand it no more, and she turned to him rather than away from him for the first time since he'd laid her on his bed, cupping his face in her hands as tears streamed down hers. "Please? Make love to me, Bruce?" came her soft, plaintive request.
And he melted, his eyes already damp and his hard-on a distant memory from imagining the pain and terror she had gone through, doing what she'd done.
He pressed his lips to her palm. "I cannot think of anything I want to do more, wee one."
When he lay her down again, her hands returned to cover her breasts, and she peeped up at him, as if she thought he'd be mad that she was doing that, but he merely smiled down at her. He was on top of her, her legs naturally parted around his bulk, and he began to kiss her belly, trailing drastically lower until those hands left her breasts and reached down to block his path to his ultimate goal, this time cupping herself.
In answer, he ignored her hand as much as possible, kissing and licking his way around it. He coul
d feel the heat coming off her, could smell the potent scent of her arousal and felt himself rising from the dead.
But when it came down to it, her little fingers were interrupting his quest to reduce her to Jello with his lips and tongue. He allowed his teeth to very gently nip at the tip of her index finger, and then his head shot up with a thought, confusing her unintentionally, but he was finding that kind of worked to get her out of her own head and into his.
"Have you ever had an orgasm?"
The look on her face – her wide eyes and that beautiful blush – told him everything he needed to know, he thought, but then, as his head dipped down again she answered him shyly, "Yes," and it popped up again.
"You've touched yourself?" he practically groaned the question because of the dirty, nasty thoughts that were filling his head at that idea, and he made a mental note that he wanted to watch her do that as soon as possible.
"Yes."
His eyes narrowed. "But not that night after I'd spanked you for the first time, right?"
"No." Her answer was immediate and emphatic, and he was inclined to believe her.
"Good, because if I ever find that you've lied to me, woman, I'll take my cane to your backside and make you regret it."
A cane! She was going to have to make damned sure she never lied to him – or at least that she never got caught…
Her hands had drifted away from where he most wanted to be, and he leaned forward immediately to cover her with his mouth. She arched her hips in surprise, first towards him, then, as she realized what he was doing, away. But he wouldn't allow it, his hands on her hips keeping her pressed into his mouth, suckling her swollen, tender bit past his lips to let his tongue glide over and over her, pressing it fully over her so that not even the tiniest part of her could avoid what he was doing.
Holding her bottom in one hand, like a waiter would hold up a dessert tray full of sweets, he let his other hand follow the trail of moisture that he was very glad to encounter to its gushing source.
One finger lingered at her entrance, and he could hear her catch her breath, but as he began to slowly introduce it into her, she didn't show any signs of discomfort at all. None.
In fact, she seemed to have the exact opposite reaction, her hips naturally following the rhythm he established with that one finger, which slowly, carefully became two.
Her guttural groan as he stretched her quite a bit more had him growling in return. She would be so tight around him – he wondered if he'd even survive.
Although he didn't want to rush her, he knew he couldn't wait any longer to replace his fingers with himself. Watching his fingers disappearing into her had more than done it for him. He had to have her.
So he rose and knelt between her legs, looking up at her, past that almost too flat tummy, to swollen tipped breasts that rose and fell with her erratic breathing, to lips that beckoned him to find and lock her gaze with his. "Taren, I want you."
She noticed that his accent became much more pronounced when he was aroused. "I-I want you, too, Bruce."
She watched, rapt, as he reached down and pulled her towards him, feeling the unfamiliar pressure of him, and trying with only some success, not to let her muscles tense, not to deny him access, not trying to keep him away from her but just in anticipation of it hurting.
Bruce could tell that she was apprehensive, and he bent down to lick a nipple, which served to distract her nicely – she wasn't quite sure which she should worry about, but he could hear her soft mewls and feel her open around him as he slowly possessed her. It took every ounce of control he'd ever mustered in his life to keep from simply leaning forward and burying himself within her to the hilt, especially when her head began rolling back and forth on the pillow as she trembled and shuddered beneath him.
And it wasn't from fear or pain.
He didn't stop. He would have if she'd seemed uncomfortable at all, although it would likely kill him to do so, but she hadn't, and he continued to press himself into her, watching her avidly at first for signs of even just the slightest discomfort. But then it rapidly became that he was watching, instead, for signs of pleasure, and she was definitely showing those. She even lifted her hips a bit to him, letting him have her more completely.
"All right, baby?" he asked, his voice more guttural than he intended it to be, bringing her legs around his waist.
"Bruce, please!"
The urgency in her tone surprised him, and he wondered if he'd misread a signal. "What, love?"
"Please – fuck me – hard – I'm – I'm so close – I – please!"
He was only too happy to oblige, but carefully left his finger on her clit as he leaned over her and began to plunge, slowly at first, then with more surging power.
Taren knew she was going to die. The combination of being filled so completely, his finger gliding insistently over her with every move he made, and the way he looked at her, as if having her like this would never, ever be enough for him had her body coiled so tightly she figured she was, at the very least going to faint when that spring finally let loose within her, and she wasn't too far off.
Watching her cum beneath him made him flat out crazy. Her fists grabbed the comforter fit to rip it, she slammed her hips into his, and her own fingers caught her bobbing nipples and pinched them as her breath hitched and gasped and hissed out of her.
Seconds later, her eyes flew open wide and she reached for him, grabbing onto his shoulders. "Bruce – ahh – God – Bruce!"
Those strong contractions around him were much more than he could bear. Her wave of ecstasy – that never seemed to end – milked at him fiercely, until he could resist no longer. Giving over to the ecstasy that she brought him with a loud roar, fucking himself into her hard and deep, driving his cock further into her with each powerful thrust until he could give no more and he collapsed to one side of her, his arm still around her waist, his hand still buried in her pussy.
When he'd come around a bit – but it didn't look as if she had at all – he flexed those fingers experimentally, crooking his finger over the tip of her still-pulsating clit.
"No, Jesus H, you can't…" Taren tried to reach that errant hand, but he was still on top of her from the waist down and she couldn't get to him, and no amount of bucking her hips helped, either, because she couldn't lift him up.
He held her there, helpless, suckling almost lazily on a nipple, as he pleasured her again, and then a third time, wanting to be sure that she got her full share.
"Stop, please, stop!" she begged, and he could feel how her muscles were spasming and trembling with the movements of his finger, and he took pity on her.
They lay together for a few more long moments, and then she tried to sit up, much, much too soon. "I need to sleep in my own room."
"I don't think so."
There was no room for argument in his tone. "But Sam…"
"Sam doesn't know you're a grown woman?" he asked.
"Sam's never had to deal with me as a grown woman," she admitted. "I don't sleep around, remember? Let me up, Bruce."' She gave him the order in what she had come to think of as her most dominant manner. Then he'd shown up, and she'd come to think of dominance as having a distinctly Scottish tinge.
Instead, he amazed her by sheathing himself within her again, firm and fully capable.
She looked out-and-out shocked.
"You okay?" he asked, just to be sure, but barely able to get it out.
"Yes, but – you – wow?"
He dropped his mouth to an impudent nipple, trapping the tip with his teeth and beginning a not-so-slow or gentle rhythm as he did so. "I'm no young boy, but you inspire it in me – and if I'm going to have to let you go, I want all of you that I can get before I have to."
And he was taking it.
It was well after midnight before he would allow her to go, and she knew she was getting away by the skin of her teeth as it was. She knew him well enough already that she could tell he was inches from not allowing her to leave
him at all.
As she made her way up to her room, she shivered at the thought – a whole body shiver that would have had her moistening her underwear – if she'd been wearing any. As it was, she stripped and showered, although it was an exercise in frustration because everywhere her hands touched as she soaped her body she thought of him and how much she'd rather it was his hands on her.
For the first time in her life, she went to bed nude because she couldn't stand the idea of anything else rubbing against her over-sensitized skin.
And when she fell asleep, she dreamt about being held in his arms. Nothing more than that, but that was well more than enough for her.
Friday morning, the morning of the day he was supposed to take her out on their first official date, she came down to begin to fix breakfast – Texas-sized French toast, bacon, eggs, and hash browns, freshly squeezed juice and, of course, hot, strong coffee – fully clothed, which was becoming a habit because she did not want a repeat of Monday.
Well, the truth was that she definitely did want a repeat of Monday, but not in the kitchen where anyone might wander in.
He'd been there, like clockwork, every morning since their fateful early morning encounter, having made her a cup of coffee as soon as he heard her tromping down the stairs, just as she liked it with two creams and two sugars.
Yesterday he'd been so sweet, rising, as he always did, she'd noticed, whenever a woman entered the room, to come to her and slip his arms around her waist.
Taren was feeling more than a little shy with him. What they'd done in the relative darkness of his room was easier to deal with than him hugging her tight and kissing her deeply in the light of day.
What if he reconsidered? It would kill her. She had to guard her heart against what she couldn't help but think of as a distinct possibility – that when he left, he would simply be gone, and she'd never see him again.
That was the most likely outcome of their involvement. She had to face that fact. Men like Bruce didn't fall in love and find their happily ever after with women like her. It was simply a bare fact of life.
But it was damned near impossible to face facts while he was fondling her so freely, his hand finding its way to the skin of her lower back, then around to her front and up to cup a breast greedily.
Beauty's Beast Page 7