by Renea Mason
Fighting him was pointless; I didn’t have the strength to resist anymore. I’d save the battle for later when my need no longer waged war with my anger.
He captured my mouth, and I embraced his kiss, sliding my lips over his full ones.
Sensing the moment I surrendered, he breathed against my mouth, “Oh Elaine, yes...that’s it. Succumb to me.”
I did. Even though his seduction would make things harder should he disappear again, I no longer had the will to refuse. I’d end up hating him, but even more so, I’d hate myself.
His fingers plunged and retreated over and over again, while his thumb circled my clit. My climax was imminent.
“I love you, Elaine. No matter what happens, no matter what you feel for me, and regardless of what we’ll have to endure, my love will never change.”
“Shut up, and don’t stop.” I wished I could believe him. But my frustration with his meaningless declarations had left me raw. He needed to stop setting expectations he couldn’t meet.
His thrusts grew frantic and the pressure more acute on the place I needed him most. I arched against his hand.
“Let go. I want to feel you.” He leaned in, grazing his teeth against that sensitive spot behind my ear, and my battle was lost.
I cried out, “Xavier.” My legs quaked around his hand as he drove me harder. My body tightened, and my bound arms throbbed with pain.
“Say my name, again,” he demanded, his voice raspy.
This time, with my forehead resting on his shoulder, I released his name on a sigh, “Xavier.”
He slowed to a caress, stroking and teasing me inside and out. He whispered in my ear, “Tell me you still love me... Please.”
I paused. Careful not to let the words he didn’t deserve escape, I responded, “I want to. I want to be able to deal with all of this. But I don’t know that I can.”
“You can. I have no doubts.” He placed a tender kiss on my lips, removed his fingers from inside me, and he rose from his knees. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a tiny set of keys and moved behind me. “You seem to be in a more reasonable mood now. I think we can do away with these.”
With each click I stretched my arm, and before I could stand, he was once again in front of me, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me to my feet. He rubbed the stiff muscles of my arms, coaxing them back to life. He grabbed the throw from the sofa and wrapped the woven spread around my waist. With a kiss to the top of my head, he took my hand and led me to the bedroom.
My moment of embarrassment at the scattered items strewn across the dresser top passed when he pulled back the black and white comforter on my bed and patted the pillow. He guided me to the bedside, but before allowing me to sit, he grasped my shirt and began to undo the buttons. “Elaine, it’s hard for me to be what you want. I’ve spent so much time alone. I’ve never dated, so incorporating someone into my plans is an adjustment. Yes, I had Lydia, but for the most part, ours was more like a relationship one might have with their cat. There was love with no dependency, but for the barest of needs. I’ve never had a conventional relationship, so I don’t always know the rules. But if anything makes me want to try...it’s you.”
I swallowed hard. He pushed the shirt off my shoulders, sliding it down my arms and back. He gripped my shoulders, urging me to turn around.
Facing away, I allowed a tear that had gathered beneath the rim of my eye to slide down my cheek. Would he tuck me in and leave? Could I do what he asked? Did I even want to?
With the snap of each bra hook, my anxiety grew. Nothing would ever be easy with Xavier. The straps fell down my arms, and the garment landed on the floor. He lowered a hand to my hip, unwound the throw, and then urged me onto the bed.
He tossed the throw across the bottom and pulled the covers up, covering my bare breasts. He stared at me. “You are so beautiful, have I told you that tonight?” Gripping his shirt in large masculine hands, he tugged the fabric loose from his pants, and began undoing his own buttons.
“What are you doing?”
He paused. “Undressing. Is that a problem?”
“No. I just...”
He shot me a wicked grin. “Did you think I was done with you?”
“No... I guess... I just never imagined us having sex in my bed.”
The shirt hit the ground, and he unbuckled his belt. “Why?”
“Honestly, I barely had time to warm up to the idea of being with you before you were gone.”
He stepped out of his pants, thumbed off his shoes and socks and then bent down to kiss me on the forehead. “I’m sorry. I’ll be better, I promise.”
Once he walked to the other side of the bed, he slid his boxers over his rounded ass, each side flexing as he stepped out of them. He was so beautiful. When he turned, any doubts about his intentions disappeared with the sight of his erection.
“In fact...” He dragged back the covers on his side and slid into bed, wrapping his arms around me. So comfortable. So normal. “You’re not going to be able to get rid of me now.” He placed a soft kiss on my lips. “Careful what you wish for, Elaine.”
With that, he crawled over me, nestling his hips between my thighs. When his cock nudged my entrance, a new wave of heat flooded my body, flushing my skin.
“Let me make love to you.” He waited, searching my eyes for what seemed like permission.
I didn’t answer him with words, but instead encircled my legs around his hips and invited him closer.
He eased into me and stilled, his eyes wide. “I was a fool to think I could live without you.” He lowered the weight of his body onto mine.
The feel of him didn’t help my resolve. His skin against mine, his low throaty moan, his shaky breath in my ear, his scent, all chipped away at the fortress I’d tried to build around my heart. His hips moved, sinking in and gliding out, in slow, languid motions, allowing me to savor the feel of us.
Us? Could I do it?
“God... I’ve missed you.” The declaration escaped his lips on a breath just before he captured my earlobe between his teeth. He squeezed me tighter. His pelvis pressed against mine, pinning me to the bed as his crescendo built with deep, rhythmic thrusts. “Forgive me. Please... Let me hear you say it isn’t over.” He sucked in a breath. “Tell me I haven’t lost you.” He exhaled.
Overwhelmed with the feel of him surrounding me, with his emotions laid bare, he was impossible to deny.
“I’m right here.”
He moaned. “Yes, I know, but that’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
I drew my legs around him tighter and dug my fingers into his shoulders. When he raised up on his arms, lifting his head to gauge my expression, I surrendered. “I’m yours, my king.”
“Oh...God.” His kiss was brutal and his grip crushing as he drove himself deeper into me, punishing thrust after punishing thrust. His movements felt as though he were trying to fuse us into one being—one soul.
I reached down and placed my hands on his ass, urging him impossibly closer. He kissed my neck, sucked the tender spot behind my ear, and then growled, “Prove it. Come for me.” He shifted his hips and set a pace sure to conquer me.
Between his moans of pleasure he whispered, “I love you, Elaine. I’m never letting you go.”
His reassurance was my undoing. I quaked in his arms, gripping him, driving him deeper. My head swam in euphoric delight, and my worries from earlier seemed miniscule in the moment. He was the only thing I needed.
He rode me through my pleasure and his stamina never eased.
I lifted my head and kissed his neck, clutching him to me tighter.
“Go ahead, Xavier, let go. Give me all of you.”
He groaned. “Oh, Elaine... Let me hear you say it. Say you love me.”
The words had always been important to him. I had already lost the war. One last defeat would make no difference to me, but to him this concession meant everything. Could I put my pride and anger aside to give him what he needed?
; I ran my hands up his smooth back, over his shoulders, and cupped his face, forcing him to look at me.
He did not relent, withholding his release until he heard the words he needed.
“Yes, Xavier... I love you. I wouldn’t have been so angry if I didn’t.”
“Oh, Elaine...” He tossed his head back. I gripped his arms, and they stiffened, the muscles trembling as he rose above me. His pelvis slammed against mine and he bit his lip as he came.
I squeezed my muscles around him.
He tossed his head back and released. His cum, hot and wet, filled my depths. His eyes went wide and he stared at me. His chest labored with heavy breaths. Nearly panting, he said, “Please don’t ever deny me those words.” Sadness laced his expression. “Please.”
I found his request perplexing since he, of all people, should know how meaningless words could be. I held back my sarcastic chuckle based on the intensity of his stare alone. “OK. But...why are they so important to you? People lie so easily.”
Propping himself up on one arm, he placed his hand on my cheek and stroked the skin with this thumb. “But you don’t. I know when you tell me you love me, you mean what you say and to have gone a lifetime without ever hearing those words...”
“No one has ever told you they loved you?” I tried not to sound rude in my disbelief.
He lay against my chest and rolled us onto our sides. He slipped out of me in the process, but stayed pressed against my body, then grabbed my leg and draped the exhausted limb over his hip. “Who would tell me, Elaine? Not my original parents, and I was almost an adult when I was adopted. Lydia...she wasn’t one for sentiments.” He closed his eyes. “There was one person...”
“Who?”
“Samantha.”
My heart broke for him. I was always torn between the force he was in the eyes of the world and the human being he allowed me to see in these rare moments. To think, the only person to have ever told him she loved him was the same person he’d thought he’d killed. Had I not gone to Paris and discovered the truth, he’d still be punishing himself.
“I’m sorry, Xavier.” I cupped my hand on his face and traced my thumb along his lower lip. “Please understand, I don’t withhold my words to punish you. I feel vulnerable saying them when I can’t trust yours.”
He squeezed me tighter against him. “No more. You don’t have to worry anymore. You gave me the fright of my life today. You don’t have to worry.” He pressed his lips against my forehead.
But before we closed the book, I still had a few questions.
“Speaking of the restaurant. Who was the blonde? You obviously didn’t just bump into her.”
“I think she’s my sister.” He brushed the hair off my shoulder.
Now that was a surprise. Boy, did I feel foolish. “You think she’s your sister?”
The smirk that pulled at the corner of his mouth told me he wasn’t going to relent. “Yes, I think. I have no proof. In Lydia’s journals, she spoke vaguely of what The Society called breeders. Women either recruited or selected to bear children with a certain desirable genetic make-up. My real parents are part of the Society, and I was not their only child. Other than that tidbit, there wasn’t much else written. I was obviously given up for adoption, so I had to assume the same was true for my siblings. So I searched early admission records at the universities in and around the Society House and started narrowing them down.”
“But why do you think she’s the one?”
“Well, if you hadn’t been so angry, you might have noticed a resemblance. We have a similar facial structure, the height, etc.” He grinned. “And she’s not a real blonde.”
I raised an eyebrow. Surely, he hadn’t...
“Settle down, it’s not what you’re thinking. I could see the roots in her hair. God...Elaine. What can I do to restore your faith in me?”
I stared into his eyes, all the while knowing the answer. I couldn’t resist him. Even when I wanted to push him away, something connected me to his complexity. Curiosity? Challenge? Love? Whatever the magnetism was, frustration diminished my control with him. I looked up into his eyes. “I don’t know, Xavier. I’d do anything to make the doubt go away, but I can’t. When will you know if Monica’s your sister?”
“I’ll know for certain when the DNA test comes back this week.”
“Does she know you suspect the connection?”
“No. She’s an attorney. I approached her as a client.”
“Then how did you get her to give you her DNA?”
“The same way as I was able to determine you didn’t suffer from any communicable disease and were taking birth control before you came to Paris.” He winked.
“Other doctors will do anything for you, won’t they?”
“Yes, being me does have privileges.”
“What will you do if you find out she is your sister?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. The facts are all unraveling so fast; just when I think I’ve figured something out, the scene changes. But now I know who some of the players are.”
“So what are you...” I cleared my throat, not sure if I wanted to know the answer. “I mean, what are we going to do now?”
Tracing a finger along my jaw, he smiled. “We’re going to stay here tonight. Just like this.” He molded his body to mine. “You’re going to tell me again that you love me, and in the morning, I’ll make breakfast before you pack. Then we’ll leave.”
“Where are we going? And for how long?”
“You can’t stay here. If they saw me with you, then you are in danger. I can’t risk them coming here like they did the gallery or Sebastian’s place. Speaking of Sebastian, he’s at a cabin upstate. I’d like you to stay with him.” He ran a finger from my throat to my shoulder, making a trail down my arm while he seemed to gather his thoughts. “I want you to stay with him for your protection. No one will think to look for you there and...”
His wrinkled brow conveyed concern.
“What’s wrong?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s Sebastian.”
“What about him?”
His brow furrowed. He inhaled deeply. “He hasn’t been the same since Miriam’s death. The first week, with the arrangements, the family, and the constant attention, he was fine. But since then, he hasn’t talked about his grief, and he’s changed.”
“How do you mean?”
“He’s withdrawing more and more. I think you might be good for him right now. Something for him to focus on. Plus you saw things about me I couldn’t see in myself. You get under the skin and become impossible to ignore. In less than a week, you made me question everything I had ever felt. He needs someone like that. Someone who will push at just the right time, but let him grieve in his own way. He needs you.”
My heart ached for Sebastian. The love between him and Miriam had been clear. Losing a spouse had to leave unimaginable scars. I wanted to help him but... “I don’t know that I’m the most qualified person to do that. I’m not a doctor, like you.”
Tucking the stray piece of hair behind my ear, he smiled. “I think you’re just what he needs right now. You don’t know much about him, and with your natural curiosity, you’ll get him to open up without much effort.”
“I can try, but you have far too much faith in me.”
He kissed me, allowing his lips to linger as he breathed, “Never.” Pulling back to look into my eyes he said, “Think about helping. If you don’t want to, it’s fine. You’re my first priority. But the fact that you’ll consider helping him makes me love you more. Right now, besides you, Sebastian and Marco are the only people I trust.”
“How is Marco?”
“He’s Marco.” He laughed. “He’ll be joining us after he finishes up a project in Denmark.”
A million things flooded my mind at once, with the least pressing, but most consuming issue focused on how the two men figured into our new relationship. In Paris, I’d had sex with all three, but that was intended to be a fling
. Now that things were...longer term...what did our relationship consist of?
I must have paused too long in my contemplation because he used a finger to raise my chin. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I guess... I didn’t think... I didn’t realize that Sebastian and Marco would still be so close. There’s a lot I didn’t think about. I thought they were only part of the equation for the week and then...”
He peered deep into my eyes.
I searched his for the answer, hoping I wouldn’t have to verbalize the question, but no such luck. “Since you claim that you are mine and I am yours, what does that mean?”
“What do you want it to mean?”
“That’s not fair. You need to tell me what you want.”
“Oh, Elaine, I want whatever makes you whole. Happy. Satisfied. I’m not selfish enough to ask you to go back, to pretend our time in Paris didn’t happen. Marco and Sebastian are part of my life too. I won’t ask you to forget what we’ve done. Asking you to deny our time together isn’t fair to you or them. As far as I’m concerned, you make the rules. As long as you love me, you’ll get no objection from me if you want to include them in our bed.”
Our bed. So normal. But four of us? So strange. But wasn’t that exactly what Dr. Vincent embodied? The unusual with a touch of hope for normalcy.
“Won’t they want their own lives?”
“Maybe someday, but right now, until we get through this, you need all of us. And we need you.” He kissed me.
My lips parted reluctantly.
“You will always belong to me. As long as you always love me, that’s all that matters. I won’t contain your love, Elaine.” He rested his hand on my cheek. “For now, you need sleep. Close your eyes.” He brushed his hands across my eyelids, closing them, and then whispered, “Did you know that that last morning in Paris, I stood by the bedside and stared at you before I left for my regretful jog? I watched you sleep...in my bed. You were so beautiful. All I could think was I never wanted to spend another night without you.” He swallowed hard. “Then you were gone.”