His Lady: The Wounded Souls

by Leah Sharelle

  “No, you haven’t, for God’s sakes— Wait, what do you mean ‘at first’?”

  Lord, men were dense! “Mannix, I haven’t slept with another man since the first time we had sex. You never considered that a possibility?” I said, exasperated with him. Was I giving the male species too much credit here? Was it too much to expect that I could be faithful, or did he really think that Rainn Storm, the dancer, and Rainn Marcus were the same person?

  “You said ‘at first.’ I don’t understand, Rainn, so you have to be clearer,” he said, his eye narrowed at me. I could see the tick of his jaw, which was Mannix’s tell that he was holding on by a thread.

  “Yes, at first, we made an agreement about other people, and then we had sex. But after that—” I stopped and took a deep breath. Here we go. “After we made love for the first time, and you made my body soar like no one ever had, there was no way I could let another man touch me again. It has just been you, Beast. Only ever you,” I admitted in a soft voice. How long I had waited to tell Mannix this. This huge secret I carried with me, told absolutely no one, not even Vegas, my closest friend other than my beast.

  My heart started thumping uncontrollably in my chest. How was he going to react? My answer came just a few seconds later when Mannix stalked around the bed and wrapped me in his embrace. Warmth engulfed me straightaway, and my whole body wilted in his arms. Without conscious thought, my arms found their way around his waist, and I sagged against him, pressing myself into him as close as my huge belly allowed.

  “Thank fucking Christ.” Mannix breathed into the sensitive part of my neck, sparking shivers through me. His mouth was warm against my skin as his lips spoke the words I didn’t really understand. What was he talking about?

  “Mannix?” I tried to pull back so I could see his face, but he held tight, not letting me go. Was his body trembling? “Beast, are you okay.” I tried again to get him to move or speak—both would be nice. I wanted him to explain what he meant.

  “I hated that fucking agreement. The minute I was inside you, I wanted to take those words back and demand I be your only one.” The confession shocked me. What on earth? If that was the case then what was with the no exclusive thing and the other women?

  “You hooked up with other women, Mannix,” I said, voicing my last thought.

  “Not as many as people think. Most of them were with you, too.”

  Our threesomes? There were only two that I remembered. Was he saying— Surely, not?

  “Mannix, we participated in just two of those together.” This time, I gave him no option. I pulled out of his arms so I could see his face.

  “That’s right. We had sex together with another woman twice.” He repeated what I had already said. Did he want me to knee him in the balls?

  “Mannix, now is not the time to push my temper. What exactly are you saying? What about the others?”

  “Rainn, nothing much happened with the others. I went for a ride on my bike with one of them. Took one back to the compound, and she sat at the bar while I played pool with Darth. A couple of them we got into a bit, but it felt wrong, so I stopped at the crucial point and took them home. There was only one I went the distance with, but I was so fucking drunk I couldn’t remember a fucking thing—other than waking up the next morning with her in my bed. There had been a condom wrapper on the floor, so I guess we did,” he said so matter-of-factly I almost laughed.

  Mannix Steel just admitted the conquests he was famous for were really just bike rides, pool games, a handful of uneventful petting sessions, and one drunken fuck? I knew the look on my face was one of astonished shock and wonder because I was astonished and shocked.

  “Rainn, babe, the day you walked into my strip club and demanded I give you a job, you mesmerised me. The night we made love for the first time, you bewitched me. The day you disappeared, you fucking crippled me.”

  Tears filled my eyes as his hands left my waist and came up to cup my face.

  “The day you told me you were pregnant, you owned me.”

  Mannix continued to rock my world with yet another confession.

  “Deep down, I believed you, but I let my past cloud my trust of you and fucked everything up. I can only hope that I have shown you how sorry I am for doing that to you, to the babies, to us. Can you forgive me, Lady? I just want to move forward with our lives together and leave all that other shit behind us.”

  Everything he was saying was right, but there was just one more hurdle before we could move forward with our lives together.

  “Mannix, I won’t pay for Alannah’s sins anymore. Tarring me with the same brush isn’t fair to me. You have to put that part of your life to rest, once and for all. We can do it together, or you can do it by yourself, I don’t care, but you need to sort that out and sort out things with your kids, too. They need to see their dad and see that he doesn’t give a shit about paternity tests. They are your children, Mannix, and siblings to these two in here,” I told him, taking his hands and placing them firmly on my belly. Suddenly, I realised this was the first time since my fall that I had allowed Mannix to touch my pregnant belly.

  The surprised expression he sported made me feel lower than a snake. These were his children, too, and my actions over the last few weeks, keeping my distance from him by staying in a separate room, must have brought up bad memories for him.

  We had both acted appallingly. It was no way for us to act. We were Mannix and Rainn, best friends. He was more than that. I knew I loved him. I love these babies. It was time for the games to stop and start being honest with each other.

  “I know, Rainn, on both accounts. I have wasted enough time hating. It’s time to start loving again, and, Lady, I fucking love you so much. You smile, and my knees buckle. I fucking love you.”

  And there were the words I had been waiting to hear. The sweetest words that were ever spoken in a way only my beast could say them.

  “I fucking love you, too, Mannix Steel.”

  Then his lips crashed onto mine. Teeth clashed, tongues tangled and sucked. Our moans mingled along with our breaths, and it was perfect.

  “I need you, Lady. I need to be inside you. Feel that you really are mine,” Mannix whispered between hot kisses. Letting my lips go, he trailed his mouth and tongue down along my jawline to that sweet spot on my neck he knew so well.

  Oh God, he is so good at that.

  The way he nipped at my flesh then soothed the mark with his delectable tongue.

  I want his tongue on my pussy.

  “Oh, I will put my tongue there, don’t you worry, Lady. I’m going to eat you until you are hoarse from screaming my name.”

  Wait, did I say that aloud? Oh God, not again. Seriously.

  My mortification at my word vomit turned to something else when Mannix deftly started to unbutton my shirt.

  “First, I am going to reacquaint my mouth with your tits.”

  Panic started to set in. My breasts were once wonderful and perfectly shaped. Now they were like my waistline, much bigger and heavier.

  “Mannix, wait, stop,” I cried out, louder than I had meant to.

  My worry about my changing body took over my common sense as I pushed his hands away from their exploration of my buttons and stepped back from his reach. I could see from his expression that I had shocked him.

  “Sorry, Mannix, I didn’t mean to shout. It’s just that um, can we—do you think we could maybe turn off the lights?”

  I felt like a real idiot, stammering my words and sounding like a silly teenager instead of a twenty-five-year-old woman with experience.

  I couldn’t help it. My body was what attracted Mannix to me in the first place. My sultry dancing enticed him, and my skills in the bedroom kept him coming back for more.

  Now?

  I leaked, had stretch marks, waddled when I walked, and getting out of bed was a comedic scene. How was I going to stand before him naked the way I was?

  I watched in stunned silence as Mannix ripped his shirt
over his head, a pissed off growl leaving his throat.

  “Fuck that shit.” He grunted as he pushed the shirt from my shoulders. He reached behind me to unhook my bra, and within seconds, his mouth latched onto one nipple.

  Sensations, like I had never felt before, overtook me. The deep suction of my man’s mouth on my sensitive, engorged nipple sent ripples of heat down to my pussy.

  “Mannix.” I groaned his name like a prayer, all thoughts of stretch marks and duck waddling momentarily forgotten.

  “Don’t you ever try to hide this body from me, Rainn. You are the sexiest woman I have ever seen. I know every inch of you, and I have worshipped your body for more hours than I can remember. Being pregnant with my babies makes you sexy as fuck in my eye, and I’m the only one who matters. Get me, Lady?”

  Oh hell, the things his filthy mouth did to me. All I could do was a nod in response. If he expected a worded response, he was out of his mind, especially with him so close and rolling my nipples between his fingers. My need for an orgasm overrode my need to cover myself. If Mannix was okay with what he was seeing, then why shouldn’t I be?

  Finding my inner sexy self, I brazenly took one of his hands, moved it slowly down my torso, between my breasts, and when I tried to bypass my belly, Mannix shook his head.

  A grin replaced his displeasure at my outburst as his hands lovingly roamed my belly, over the ugly red marks, and the weird brown line down the middle that appeared as my stomach got bigger. Even my popped out bellybutton received his attention.

  Tears sprang to my eyes when he leaned closer and pressed tiny open-mouthed kisses to each mark, each imperfection.

  “Thank you for giving me this, Rainn,” he whispered, repeating what he’d said to me at the hospital and distracting me as he hooked his fingers into my panties and slowly pulled them down my legs to my feet where I kicked them off.

  Fierce need tore through me again. I wanted to come.

  Chapter 21

  MANNIX

  The woman was crazy.

  How she thought her body was anything less than fucking perfect was a mystery to me. I had to stop myself from burying my face in her sweet cunt and devouring her with my mouth and tongue.

  That was what I wanted to do, but Rainn’s obvious discomfort being naked in front of me gave me pause. Rainn wasn’t the kind of woman who needed her partner continually reassuring her with compliments because she knew what she had. She was usually confident in her sexuality, so this apprehension and anxiety over her changing body concerned me. I needed to take my time. This wasn’t just about my desperate need to be inside my woman again. No, this was about Rainn. I had to make her see the small red marks on her belly meant nothing to me. I loved them because they showed she was growing my babies inside her, and that selfless sacrifice fucking brought me to my knees.

  “Nothing about your body turns me off, Lady, fucking nothing,” I told her as my lips and tongue traced one mark. “Oh God, baby, your skin is still so soft.”

  I groaned as her fingers sifted through my hair, the slight pull from her fingers sending shivers through me. Ignoring my hard as steel cock and the pre-cum leaking from the tip, I continued my exploration with my mouth. Using my hands, too, I made sure not one bit of flesh was left untouched. I dragged my tongue across to her bellybutton and lathed it. Goose bumps popped up everywhere I administered my attention, telling me she was okay with what I was doing. Of course, her hair pulling and moaning was also giving me a pretty good indication that she was enjoying it.

  “Mannix, please touch me.”

  Her groaned words heightened my need for her, and my plan to take my time was fast going out the window. I let my fingers trace her belly one last time, and dropped to my knees, feeling my children safe in their mother before travelling down until I hit her pubic mound. I chuckled to myself when I felt the hairless skin. Only Rainn, who didn’t like hair on her pussy, would worry about her maintenance down there despite having a belly to contend with to get the job done. Personally, I couldn’t give a fuck one way or the other. However, I did appreciate Rainn’s attention to detail as I looked at her pink lips wet with arousal just for me.

  “All mine,” I growled, then leaned in and took my first inhale of the sweetest scent in the world.

  Too fucking long.

  I gave her bare mound an open-mouthed kiss, sucking gently before licking a trail down to her pretty wet lips. The groan that worked its way up my throat echoed in the bedroom as I latched onto her glistening clit and sucked it into my mouth, my tongue swirling around it just the way I knew she liked.

  “Oh, yes, Beast, more. Lick me all over, please,” Rainn begged, her pussy grinding against my mouth, urging me to do exactly as she asked.

  I did, of course. I would do anything for her, and this was no hardship.

  “That’s it. Dance on my face, Lady. Come for me.” My eyes looked up to see Rainn lost in the dance, her mouth forming an O as her pink tongue peeked out taunting me to do something.

  With one last swipe down her pussy, savouring the taste that was all Rainn, I jumped to my feet and slammed my mouth down on hers, the taste of her still on my lips and my tongue.

  Rainn moaned as she cleaned my lips. Tasting herself from my lips always turned her on.

  “Lady, I’m not going to last much longer. My cock is aching to be inside you,” I said between kisses.

  “Then take me, Mannix. Make me remember,” she answered.

  I shed my clothes in record time, tossing each piece over my shoulder, not giving a fuck where they landed. The painful throb in my cock drove me to get him back to where he belonged. I looked at Rainn, completely naked in front of me, and my breath caught in my throat. Her long hair fell over one shoulder, hiding her glorious breast except for the nipple, which peeked out like a sexy prize. I gave myself time just to enjoy the view of her belly, her slim, long legs right down to her pink painted toenails. Everything about Rainn was sexy.

  “How do you want to do this, Lady?” This was about her, and my pleasure would come just from being with her.

  She took my hand and pulled me closer to the bed. “Lay down, Mannix.”

  Doing as I was told, I found a place in the middle of the mattress. I was nervous all of a sudden, which was ridiculous because I was not a nervous man. Rainn and I had been right here a thousand or more times before, but this time felt different. Like the first time, only better.

  “I think if I’m on top, it will be better,” Rainn whispered as she climbed on the bed and swung her leg over my lap. “Will you give me control, Mannix?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked.

  Words weren’t possible, not when the woman of my heart was in seductress mode. Over and over, she pushed back and forth on my hard erection, her wetness coating me.

  “Stop teasing me, Lady. Please, I need you,” I said again. Goddamn, I was going to come just from her doing that, and I didn’t want to come that way. I wanted to be deep, deep inside her heat.

  “Put yourself in me, Beast. Hold your cock so I can slide down on you, feel you fill me, claiming me.”

  I was lost. Her sexy orders and sexy voice was my undoing. Reaching between us, I grabbed hold of my shaft, squeezing the tip to stop the threatening orgasm.

  “Hurry, baby,” Rainn said with a moan when my finger tickled her clit.

  I did just that, I held my cock at the entrance of her weeping hole, and Rainn slipped down, not slow and easy, not my Rainn. She slammed herself down hard, taking all of me in one swift motion.

  “Oh, Jesus, fuck me.” I groaned at the heat engulfing my cock. “Rainn, you are so fucking hot, so fucking tight.”

  My hands gripped her waist, and I rocked her against me, trying to slow it down, but Rainn was lost in our passion.

  “Harder, Mannix. Deeper. Please, deeper.” Her hands grabbed hold of the rail on the headboard, and she used that to give herself more motion.

  The sight above me nearly did me in. My fiery, redhead dancer was dancing
on my cock, her tits bouncing enticingly above my face. Her hips undulated back and forth, not lifting up but just rocking, and her clit dragged against my pubic bone, leaving a trail of wet.

  “You are so fucking sexy. Yes, that’s it. Oh fuck, is that it,” I chanted, making no sense. Only the sensations taking over my body did. This was what I had missed—this connection only Rainn gave me.

  “Mannix, I’m coming,” she cried from above, her head thrown back and her long hair tickling my thighs.

  I felt the inner squeeze on my cock, and fuck if it didn’t feel like coming home. Raising my head, I took one nipple into my mouth and sucked hard.

  “Oh yes, Mannix.”

  “Fuck, Rainn.” My balls drew up, and I erupted with the longest and strongest orgasm of my sexual life. I grabbed hold of her hips and held her tight, grinding her on me as I tried to draw out the pleasure, never wanting it to end. I pumped my hips three more times, enticing another sweet orgasm from her, and I felt her core clench around me again.

  “Oh, my word.” Rainn gasped as she slumped, her head against my chest, her big belly resting on mine. It was then one of my daughters decided to let her presence be known with a hard kick that I felt all the way to my heart.

  “I think we woke them up.” Rainn chuckled against my pec.

  The warmth of her breath tickled me.

  “We probably just traumatised them,” I joked, a lightness I hadn’t experienced in a very long time washing over me.

  I pulled Rainn down so she lay next to me, our bodies still joined. The evidence of our coming back together was probably going to make a wet spot on the bed, but I couldn’t muster the energy to give a fuck. In my arms, I was holding my whole world. The only thing that made this sad was two missing pieces to the happy picture.

  “Rainn, are we okay?” I hated that I needed to even ask the question, that I doubted myself as my woman’s man, as a father. I held my breath for what seemed like forever as I waited for Rainn to answer. To either make me the happiest man in the world or break my heart into a million pieces. Pieces I feared I would never be able to piece back together.