by Marata Eros
That means warmer rain instead of cooler.
It falls softly now as I sling my leg over the side of my bike and light a cigarette. Inhaling deeply, I watch the red tip sizzle at the misting rain that falls. The cherry trees that line the street are filled with tight buds in the deepest hot pink, waiting for permission from Mother Nature to burst into bloom.
My eyes travel to the flaming red door of Carlie’s parents’ condo. A spot of brightness in the gloom that permeates the day. I take another drag, deciding in that moment not to put off the inevitable.
I don’t need to. Suddenly Jewell is standing in the doorway, all that deep scarlet framing her, and I stand, flicking my cigarette into the water that runs along the concrete curb. It makes a small hiss when it lands.
We watch each other for a pregnant moment of time that slows down, then I feel my feet move. I bounce onto the curb, my smooth stride bringing me to the stairs, and I take the six in two steps.
Suddenly I’m face-to-face with the woman I’ve been tailing. To physical therapy, to follow-up appointments from the surgery to repair the scar I gave her with the bullet meant for Thad.
To a therapy that is not physical at all but emotional.
Does she tell her therapist about the closet? I wonder randomly. Me?
Those questions pose themselves in my mind in seconds, the internal process as seamless as my external one isn’t. People require words, and mine always come with great effort.
“Cas,” Jewell says, and I lock down on my urge to touch her.
I see the damn break on her face as her eyes move over every crevice of my own, leaving nothing behind, my soul in my eyes, my heart in my throat.
My body . . . hers.
She owns me and I can’t breathe for knowing it.
Jewell moves into the shadow of my body, and my jaw flutters as I tense with her nearness. The rain is soaking my shirt, dampening hers, but my body heats despite the coolness of the weather, her nipples pebbling against her shirt that’s getting wetter moment by moment.
Silently, we move inside. I wait. This needs to be on Jewell.
All. Her.
Time narrows like acute vertigo, and I’m captured in the timelessness that descends on the moment, like a fly in Jewell’s web.
She reaches up a tentative hand and runs it down the stubble of my jaw, and I swear I draw blood to keep still, to not react to her hesitant exploration of me.
“I miss this,” she whispers, her hand moving with delicate insistence to my throat, and I tremble underneath her gentle touch.
Jewell holds the power over me that only a woman can hold over a man. The fairer sex is the cleverer sex. Any man who believes differently hasn’t been under that power.
Jewell moves her hand lower, running fingertips over my pecs, my own nipples standing at attention in response. When her hand reaches the waistband of my pants, I grab it, though it’s the last thing I want to do.
Her luminous green eyes rise ever so slowly to reach mine.
“I can’t . . . if we do this . . . I can’t . . . I won’t do halfway.” My tone is apologetic, my words aren’t. I’m only hardwired one way.
“I know,” Jewell answers. Leaning against me, she puts the side of her face against my damp chest and something eases inside me. A deep and abiding hurt loosens, and I take a sharp shuddering breath.
I have to be sure. I can’t go through this cannibalization of my heart again.
“Jewell . . .”
Jewell leans back. “Shhh,” she says, pressing her finger against my lips.
We look deeply into each other’s eyes.
Please save me while I drown in you, Jewell.
I lead her to the couch and set her on my lap, turning her legs between mine, my hands on her waist, holding her against me. I search her eyes, cupping her chin. “I’m so damn sorry. I’ve been stupid . . . blind.”
Jewell smiles. “We’re all a little blind sometimes.”
I hang my head. She’s so good, even now . . . after everything I put her through, justifiable deceit just makes it a prettier lie.
“I’m sorry I blamed you for Faith.” Jewell sucks in a breath, holds it beautifully for a moment, then blows it out in a rush. “It was my fault all along,” I finish.
“Oh, Cas,” she says, putting her hand over my own, her eyes are so green, so vital as they lock with mine. Our masks are gone, our faces bare to each other—finally. “It’s nobody’s fault . . . don’t you see? It was the fault of two other people.” Her eyes move over my face like a caress, and that tightness in the back of my eyes burns. I don’t even blink. I don’t dare. “Thad and Mitch are dead now because of you. You protected who you could . . . when you could. Now they can’t murder ever again.”
We sit quietly like that, my arms moving over her, one hand stroking her back . . . soothing myself as much as her.
“I miss Faith,” I admit so softly I’m sure she can’t hear.
She does.
“Me too,” Jewell answers. “She wanted this, Cas. She wanted us . . .”
I smile, because talking escapes me, I’m full to the brim with everything.
Jewell’s lips lift into a heartbreaking smile. I feel it from her before she says it, love is the deepest cut of all.
“I love you, Blaine Steel,” she says, her voice unwavering. Solid. Certain.
Jewell heals me.
“It’s Cas,” I whisper against her finger.
Then I suck it inside my mouth in a hot wet pull, sweeping Jewell against my damp body as I walk us inside her borrowed bedroom. Our wet clothes cling to our bodies while our mouths move against each other like two people who haven’t eaten in a week. In my case, it’s been two months.
Jewell is my banquet.
I kick the door shut behind us.
23
I don’t ask if Carlie’s home. Because I don’t give a shit. Jewell’s in my arms, and each breath I take, each step with her riding my toes is closer to her being beneath me.
Her small arms wind around my neck, and I groan, remembering so much: her smell, her touch, the way her hair winds around us while our mouths lift only for air.
“Cas . . .” Jewell breathes my name. Need pulses deep inside me, the heat of her breath searing me.
I feather kisses along her temple, one hand on her lower back, the other holding her neck steady. “Yeah,” I answer, distracted to hell . . . lick, suck, peck . . .
Jewell gasps and I go harder on her.
“No . . .”
“Yes,” I reply.
She told me she loves me. But does she mean it? My eyes flick to the bed, claiming it for us as I move toward it. Mindful of her knee, I lower Jewell gently.
Then I just look at her.
Jewell’s face is sad, and my libido tanks.
What’s this? I solve things, it’s what I do . . . it’s what men do. Every problem starts looking like a nail and my only tool is a hammer.
Right now, Jewell needs a gentler tool, one I never use.
I put a knee on either side of her, grabbing Jewell’s face. “What is it, babe?” I kiss her lips, and they stick to mine like two halves of the same piece found.
She tastes like my favorite meal.
“You didn’t tell me . . .” Her lip trembles, the one that tastes like candy made for my palate.
I love her. Jewell must know.
I see in her eyes she needs to hear it.
Instead, I say how I feel, it’s a rats’ nest but it’s mine. I own it. I rub my thumb over that lip that I’ve been sucking on. “I watch you every day . . .”
Jewell’s eyes widen.
“I have been for two months. Every day.” I kiss her forehead, breathing in the scent of Jewell, who no longer smells like coffee, her job at Java Head only a memory.
She still smells like the woman I love.
“I would kill anyone who touched you.” My eyes meet hers. “I have.”
A tear slips out of one eye, and I catch it wit
h my thumb.
“I’ll never lie to you again.”
Jewell’s chin dips and I stop it with my finger, raising it gently until our eyes are level.
“Let me love you,” I say with an urgent intensity, my voice like gravel falling.
Jewell opens her mouth, and I kiss the words she has for me, her answer swallowed by my passion for her.
I pull away and search her eyes. “I can’t stop it. I’m not in control of it. I never have been . . .”
She puts her finger on my lips again.
“Does that answer your question?” I ask.
Jewell nods.
“There’s not a word for how I feel, Jewell.” “Love” is too small a word for how I feel.
She moves up to meet me, our knees touching on the bed, our faces almost pressed together.
“So it’s not love?” she asks, her lips tipping up.
I shake my head. “No, it’s not love.”
Jewell begins to smile.
“What is it, then?” she asks in a low voice full of heat.
“It’s more.” I gaze intensely into her stare, never breaking contact. “Much more.”
We fall softly in the bed together, and like an excited boy at Christmas, I unwrap Jewell from her clothing.
But I’m not. I’m a man and she’s the woman I want inside so badly my hands quake with my desire.
As I take off her clothes, Jewell unplaits her hair from the braids she always wears, and the soft waves spill all around us like bent copper. The sun comes in from outside and caresses it like a sinking sunset against the white sheets. I kneel between her knees, spreading them with my own, and she lies before me. Open . . . vulnerable . . . absolutely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, like living art.
I cage my arms around her, sliding my hands into the hair that she’s let down, and in a semiworshipful pose I press my mouth against her nipple, blowing out the lightest heated breath. The small nub of flesh hardens into a tight light pink peak and Jewell moans beneath that touch, as my hands become fists in her hair.
“Please, Cas . . .” she begins, and I tighten my hold in all that hair, and she groans at the pleasure of being held and not escaping, of giving trust while vulnerable. It’s a heady balance when achieved. Even more so when two people come together and it happens naturally.
I luxuriate in the wonder of being with her when I thought it might never happen again.
I rise and kiss those lips that make eatable sounds from my borderline rough attention.
I remove my hands from her hair and strip off my shirt, watching her eyes roam my tat. She begins at the Aztec-style sunburst at my shoulder and chest and moves down the length of my arm to the band that encircles my wrist. I chuck the shirt in the corner and slowly lick my finger. Jewell’s eyes break from her scrutiny of my ink and move to what I’m doing with my mouth.
I press that wet finger on her pleasure bud, and Jewell’s hips buck instantly. I grin, moving that wetness with precision over her and she squirms with the attention, her head thrown back, her hair like a waterfall of red against the pure white of the sheets.
I bend to spread her legs farther.
“Cas,” she says in a breathless whisper.
“Hmmm,” I say as my face presses against her inner thigh and I blow warm air on the center of her and she shivers.
“Please . . .” she says.
“No,” I reply. This is like the dream I’ve had for two months, of being right here, in this very moment, and I don’t want to wake from it. There’s no stopping, it’s all about consuming . . . a slow devour of Jewell. My speed, my pace. My worship of her. It’s all I can do. Show is always better than tell with me.
I scoot down until I’m at her feet and look up the long line of her body, her small hands clutching the sheets in fists of tension, her body flushed from my touch. Her green eyes never leave my brown ones and I grin as I begin kissing my way up her body, her leg serving as an erotic ladder.
I hesitate when I get to her knee, where deep contusions still fade, a small scar from surgery rides the side of her knee like a lightning strike.
My gut twists at it.
I bend my head over the injury, licking and sucking at the proof of savagery, letting her know with my mouth:
That I love her, every part of her.
That I’m sorry I couldn’t stop this part of what happened.
Trying to ease the memories with my tongue, my lips, my love.
When Jewell is panting, I keep licking, pecking, and lavishing her knee with seductive attention while my other hand walks up her opposite leg. I begin to explore her wet folds, and when Jewell’s breathing deepens, I push a finger inside her and she cries out, “Cas!” She half yells in a hoarse shout, her channel giving a single hard pulse that clenches around my finger.
I know that reaction. I get harder, my dick an aching divining rod, seeking the spring within Jewell.
Her hands go to my head, and as my cock throbs I move as she does and we meet in the middle, my finger inside her, buried deeply as she spreads and pulls up her knees, and I place my other hand at the naked small of her back, jerking her forward even as I plant a second finger inside her and begin a slow pump in and out of her dripping heat.
“Oh . . .” Jewell croons softly, lips parted as she meets my fingers in a dance of motion. I sweep in and out, and when she stills, I know she’ll come and I’m not missing being inside her for anything.
I slowly withdraw my fingers, her pussy latching on to them in greedy reluctance. I unbutton and kick off my jeans onehanded. My other hand keeping her against me.
When I meet her eyes again, Jewell gives me a smile of such radiance it stops my heart as she jerks my boxers off. I would’ve gone commando if I’d known this is the talking she has in mind.
Jewell pops my prick with a roll of my underwear and winds them down my ass like a reverse tube. Bending her head, Jewell gives a lick at my sensitive tip. Her beautiful eyes roll up to meet mine and I groan at the sheer unexpectedness of the move, her unnerving gaze, all of it.
My nuts tingle and I swear I just about go right there.
My hand hovers over her head, wanting to push all that red goodness down on me, feel her mouth sheath my cock in one stroke of wet glory.
But this is about Jewell, about our mutual ownership.
I take her head off my dick, fisting all that hair, the silk knotting around my hand as I cup my other hand around her ass and lift Jewell until her spread legs are on either side of mine, my cock pointing at her entrance.
“Yes,” she gives in a whispered purr of permission, a knowing smile turns the corners of her mouth up.
And I don’t so much move as dive inside her. Jewell’s back arches as I drive my cock inside her, the walls of her heat expand at that hardness I stab her with, both of us groaning with the impact, our flesh sinking into each other.
I jerk pillows from the headboard and pile them behind Jewell as her eyes widen, her breathing getting shallow. I grasp her hips and move inside her, stopping every few strokes so I won’t end it all. She’s that tight, that wet.
That everything.
Then she shatters me by making those little primal noises like come and get it, and my body moves without my permission. Jewell’s hands are planted behind her, head thrown back, all that hair moving as I rock inside her body like I always have, seamlessly . . . naturally.
I feel the inside of her become plumper, ready for more, and I take my arms and pull her against me, her tits pressed against my pecs, and I feather kisses along her collarbone as I slowly pump inside of her.
“Please . . . Cas,” Jewell begs, clinging to the nape of my neck.
“Please, what?” I ask, my dick begging for liftoff.
“Fuck me,” she tells me in a guttural command.
Hearing those rough words out of her soft mouth brings me like nothing else and I grab her hips, no choice about continuing, and move her up and down on my dick. Once, twice and
. . . liftoff. I think I come from my toes. We shout as she trembles against my release, her insides clamping and pulsating around me in great, rhythmic sweeping waves as her own crashes around us.
We cling together for moments that are at once over too quickly and last forever.
Jewell’s hands grasp my shoulders, our breath mingling in excitement and decompression. If I were standing, I’d have weak knees. Jewell’s breathing slows and her head lulls against my shoulder. She peeks up at me through ginger-colored eyelashes, a subtle blush staining her cheeks.
There’s a moment or two of staring.
Then we laugh, my dick slipping out of her, and I lay her down, moving in beside her, my ankles dangling off the bed, her body fitting perfectly against mine.
Custom-made. Mine.
We lie quietly like that for a few minutes, my hands restlessly moving over every inch of her. My softened cock gets semihard.
I smile. Old fucking faithful.
“So?” Jewell says, our earlier laughter leaving a smile on her face.
“Hmmm?” I say, kissing her shoulder. It smells like sex and Jewell. Fucking bliss.
“We didn’t really talk, Cas . . .” she begins, then giggles when I kiss her at the bend of the neck.
Hmm, ticklish. Ammunition for later.
It’s the kind of talking I like best. My body says it all.
“I said what I needed to . . .”
Jewell turns in my arms and my dick gets soft again at her expression.
Serious, thoughtful . . . talkative.
I tuck a sheet over our nudity and lace my hands behind my head. “So let’s talk.”
“So Brad is . . .” she begins.
“Agent Decatur Clearwater,” I say simply, playing with a lock of her hair, I can’t get over the texture. I run my hand down her side, the lay of the land, Jewell’s body, like a sexy hourglass in this position. That simple shape makes a man take a look.
Or two.
I’m way past that. I stare at Jewell, her ivory skin like polished stone, so smooth . . . but never hard, never cold. I kiss her hip.
“You’re not listening.” She laughs, grabbing a handful of my short hair. I growl and she bursts out in a gale of giggles.