by Jillian Neal
“Good,” panted from her.
“I’m gonna taste everything you just gave up for me. Plan on half-drowning myself in your sweet snatch.”
She jerked back but before he could panic her hands landed on his shoulders. She attempted to push him downward. “Do it. Taste me.”
He fell to his knees. The unforgiving tile sent a tremor of pain up his thighs. He didn’t give a damn. “Just hold on to me and breathe. Okay?”
“I will.”
Water flowed freely down his face. Squeezing his eyes shut, he let the perfume of her arousal fill his nostrils. Sweet and spicy nectar, ripe with abandon. He ran his tongue over her lips, bathing her before he opened her with his thumbs.
Her legs spread farther. Her grip on his shoulders increased. Starved for her flavors, he pressed his tongue over her clit. He’d imagined this hundreds of times. Not one single wet dream or stroke session held anything over the heavenly reality of tasting her.
Burying his face against her, he worked his tongue inside her, letting her ride his face this time.
“Oh my God,” she screamed against the pounding water as his whiskers chaffed at her lips.
Still driving constantly toward his ultimate goal, he slipped his tongue out of her opening and spun it around her clit. Dipping two fingers through her swollen tissues, he used more force this time. She ground harder, clawing at his neck and hair now. As soon as he got her through this, his sweet baby was going to like it rough. Perfection.
With each pass of his fingers she slowly stretched open. He worked quickly, pounding his fingers into her faster, sucking harder. Leaning back in, he bathed that warm bundle of nerves with his tongue and let his teeth scrape against her folds. The next moment, she spiraled over the cliff once again.
His own accomplishment and satisfaction rode on her juices as they flowed over his tongue. His muscles throbbed with accomplishment but his own hunger pulsed under his skin as well.
Standing, he returned to his previous position, wrapping her up in his arms, making certain she was still with him in the present, proving to both of them that he’d be both her lover and her protector.
Her hands slicked down his back. She grabbed his ass, seeming to need the moment to explore his strength pressed against her softness.
“That was incredible.” She spoke into his chest.
“I agree. Sweetest candy I’ve ever tasted. Let me take you to bed, baby. We’re not finished yet.”
He shut down the shower as it lost its warmth and wrapped her up in the towel he’d hung on a nearby hook. The flavors of her saturated his every sense. He was insane with need. His cock was strung so tight he hurt. Every muscle in his body was poised to take. The last thing he wanted to do was rush her, but he was walking a fraying tightrope of greed.
Grabbing another towel from the cabinet, he ran it over his back. She squeezed the water in her hair into her towel and then wrapped it around her body. When her hand hesitantly reached out and touched the scars marring his abdomen, he forced himself to let her explore. His eyes closed, sealing away the memories.
“I want to know what happened.” Her voice was a half-haunted breath laced with the desire he’d worked so hard to achieve.
“Not tonight, baby. Come here to me.” Lifting her into his arms, he carried her to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A rush of excitement spiraled down Natalie’s spine as Aaron carried her. Other than feeling as if her bones had been robbed from her body, it was the only discernible feeling she understood.
Every time he’d forced an orgasm from her, she’d flown so high she was certain she’d never reach the ground and now, he was laying her out tenderly in her bed. There was so much more to come.
The worn sheets enveloped her overly heated body. Familiarity calmed her fraying nerves. Glancing down at her own chest, which Aaron couldn’t seem to stop looking at, she checked to make certain he couldn’t actually see her heart beating its way out of her ribcage.
He stood at the foot of her bed over her. His greedy gaze ate her up. Resisting the urge to cover herself, she focused on his cock instead. He could work magic with his tongue and his fingers. What must he be able to do with that?
“Aaron, please,” she finally begged. Drawing it out was unfair. She needed him in every possible way she could have him.
He licked his lips. “Let me enjoy this, honey. You are so fucking beautiful and all for me.”
“Then take me.”
“Plan to.” He lifted her leg and painted tender kisses up her calf. She tensed when he reached her knee. That wasn’t where she wanted his mouth. Why did it feel so good? Impatience made her writhe. He spread her legs and continued kissing a trail of fire up her thighs. Each touchpoint of his lips brought another rush of wet heat to her pussy. The breath swept from her lungs. Her legs trembled. Her body ached.
Put on the condom. Stop making me wait. Let me touch you. Let me feel you. Open me. Fill me. Do something. He stared at her like he could hear the silent frantic pleadings of her mind. He answered only with a dark, sinful chuckle. “When I say, remember, sweetheart?”
“Now,” she demanded.
“So impatient for me.” He made no effort to speed his ascent up her body.
“Please, Aaron.”
“Mm, honey, you have any idea how much I like hearing my name on your lips? Next time I bring you I want to hear my name over and over, but right now, hush.” He leveled her body with his and brought his mouth to hers.
This kiss was somehow different than all the others. His lips demanded more. Pressing her into the mattress, his tongue dove between her lips and tangled with hers. She could taste the greed and necessity. This kiss demanded everything.
He took. She gave as good as she got.
Bracing her foot against the bed, she bucked against him, desperate to feel more of his skin on hers. The rough abrasion of hair coupled with smooth plains of muscle and tender lines of scars. The combination had every nerve ending in her body on high alert.
A low, greedy growl sounded in her ear. He eased down her body and licked the remaining bath water from the underswells of her breasts. Each kiss worked closer and closer to her right nipple but he refused what she so desperately needed.
“Tell me, baby. Tell me you need me to suck you,” he ordered. His index finger circled the raised bumps surrounding her nipple, throbbing out their need for his mouth.
“Please.” She writhed again.
“Please what?”
“Suck me,” she finally managed in a breathless pant. Her back arched pushing her nipple closer to his mouth.
“That’s it.”
A heady sense of power pulsed through her when he complied. Drawing her nipple, so raw it was painful, into the soothing velvet heat of his mouth she groaned out her relief.
There it was again. That knot of need that tightened behind her mound when his mouth was on her breasts. She still had no idea how he accomplished that. All she knew was she never wanted him to stop.
His fingers stroked along her pussy managing to add ecstasy into her bliss. “Yes,” she cried out for him.
“Relax for me, Nat. Just relax. I need you to take a little more from me.” He spoke as his lips travelled from one breast to the other. She couldn’t fully understand his request through the haze of pleasure in her mind until he slipped two fingers back inside her and then slowly, and ever so gently added a third. “Breathe, baby. Let me open you. Just relax for me.”
Relaxation wasn’t an emotion she was capable of reaching just then. The pressure separated into two distinctive camps, pleasure and pain. His mouth latched onto her other nipple and the bands of pleasure working throughout her body vanquished the pain. She gave herself over to the pleasure.
“That’s it.” He continued to stretch her with delicate precision. A half-second later he shifted and she heard what sounded like the pop of a plastic cap. Her eyes flew open when he eased his hand out of her, poured the lube on his finger
tips, and then returned them to her pussy. “You still breathing for me?”
She nodded. Her wet hair drenched her pillow. She didn’t care. He pressed deeper and stroked that spot so deep inside her she could never quite reach it. The delectable pain and pleasure went to war once again. Her body sought both.
“So fucking tight. You’re gonna feel so fucking good.” Intensity weighted every word. Once again he leaned across her body and drew her left breast back into his mouth and once again the pleasure spiraled out from her core, dancing along her limbs and making her feel like she was flying off the highest mountain with no worry of ever falling down.
“Aaron, I think I’m gonna, mmm…” Her teeth sank into her lower lip. Every stroke of his fingers orchestrated the impending climax.
“I know you need to, baby. It’s right there isn’t it, but not yet. Let it build for me. Let me make this feel good.” He pressed deeper, faster. Tearing the breath from her lungs. How was she supposed to stop this? He had to know what he was doing. “Not yet, honey. Not ’til I say. It’s all mine. All for me. You’ll go when I say.”
She whimpered out her need. Surely, he would let her have what he offered her so expertly. Her body rocked against his hand. Please. Please.
The crinkle of the condom wrapper distracted her slightly. She watched him slip it over his cock with one hand and refused to think about where he’d learned that particular skill.
His body loomed over hers, braced on his forearm yet he managed to keep his fingers stroking to the rhythm of her body with ease. Once again she was swept back into the heavenly sensations he provided her.
Her legs tensed against his forearm. She needed more. This fullness wasn’t enough. “Please,” she begged again.
“You ready for me, Nat?”
“Oh God, yes.” She was more than ready.
“You come when I say, understand.”
“As long as you say now,” she whimpered. He pounded. She surged higher. He stroked. She reached the apex. Her body began its spiral toward pure bliss.
Another chuckle sounded in her ear. “All right, honey. Let me hear my name when you lose it. Come for me.” She flew. He catapulted her from the sky and yet she flew higher, singing his name like a prayer on from her lips. The only hymn she’d ever understood.
His fingers vanished from her body replaced by the head of his cock. She gasped as he slowly dipped inside her, inch by inch.
Still in throws of the orgasm he’d made her wait to have, her body guided him deeper, begging for more.
This time he readily gave. She desperately took.
A ravenous moan thundered from his lungs. No part of her was unaffected. All of the missing pieces were found. She was unable to move, too busy trying to understand how every hollow had found fulfillment, every need satisfied. The pain was there. The pleasure was more. The pressure eased as he tenderly withdrew but grew with every thrust.
Her body seemed unable to contain him and yet needed him to make sense of life itself. Her hands sought his back, clinging to the only thing she fully understood, they needed to be together.
“That’s it. Just hold onto me and breathe, remember?” he choked.
She did just that.
Excruciating pleasure consumed Aaron with every tender thrust he made. Stripping away every mask he’d ever worn, every identity he’d taken on under orders that weren’t his own, every person he’d tried to become to keep from being who he was.
He tried so hard to be gentle, but the only thing his body understood was that deep within her lay his redemption. A tidal pool of atonement she freely offered him. Every single thing he refused to forget slipped through his hands like hot grains of the sand that had robbed him of everything. Every baptism of his cock deep inside her made it as if they’d never existed at all. No need to remember. No need to forget. Nothing existed but her and him.
She was so tight there was no room for him to be anything but the man he was put on earth to be, the man who lived to protect and worship her.
“Natalie. Mmm. So tight. Ah, Jesus, so good,” sang from his lips, a feeble supplication to the sins she absolved. His unworthiness washed away as well.
His mind spun, wringing out the memories he’d clung to for too damn long. His body pressed deeper, so needy for her to replace them with her love.
Her love. Holy fuck. The knowledge aligned with the all-consuming ecstasy she flooded through him.
Rapture thundered in his veins. Every carnal need he’d ever had was satisfied. Her swollen folds drew him in, drowning him in her healing nectar.
Another groan ripped from his lungs. He gave her everything he had. Her eyes closed in ecstasy. His name whispered from her lips as she started to meet his thrusts with tiny lifts of her hips.
On her next lift he wrapped his arms around her, clinging tightly to his saving grace.
He rocked his body back and forth. He knew the pain he’d brought had robbed her of another climax and yet she wanted him to continue. Her eyes were seeking. Her body riding the waves of his own. She gave with no requirement that she also receive. Next time, he would make certain she received over and over again.
This time was for them together, not them apart. It existed only between them. He pressed in again. His body on the precipice of explosion. The pressure built.
His sac drew tight. His cock throbbed constantly. He wished he could strip off the condom and soak down the walls of her pussy. He longed to bathe her in him the way her juices washed him clean. He wanted nothing between them.
Another pump. He tensed. A ragged groan shook from him, ridding him of more of the pieces of himself that had never belonged.
“Oh yes.” She urged him onward.
Her pussy flexed against him. That was it. He was done for. All will to fight on was leached from his body. On his next pump, he collapsed against her. Spurts of hot cum filled the condom and hot tears filled her eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Hey, shh, it’s okay.” A slight shudder he couldn’t halt, worked through her body as he withdrew. Working quickly, he shed the condom and disposed of it. He wrapped her up in his arms, rocking her gently. “I’ve got you. I’m right here, Nat.”
She jammed her fists in her eyes and tried to forcefully rid herself of the tears. Aaron had been expecting this. She apparently had not. “Why am I crying? That was amazing.”
Trying to conceal his grin, he brushed a kiss on her head. “It was incredible.”
“I’m not crying because I’m sad. I am not sad,” she finally determined.
“Did I do anything you didn’t like, baby?”
“No. It’s just… I don’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”
“I’m sure this makes me a possessive asshole but I happen to love that fact.”
She managed a half grin before she buried her face in his chest again. Leaning with her in his lap, he turned off the lamp, shrouding them in a cocoon of darkness. The sun would be up soon. He needed to get her to sleep if she could.
When she lifted her head and stared him down he knew neither of them was going to be sleeping anytime soon. “But you do. You slept with other people, people you didn’t really care about, right?”
Every intelligence officer reached the points of no return in negotiations. The place where no amount of lying was going to achieve the goal. The place where you either walked away or told the truth. The moonlight danced in her tear-soaked hazel eyes as she studied him, seeing beyond what anyone else saw, what anyone else had ever looked for. He knew this was the point where only the truth would set him free.
“Yeah, more times than I care to remember. But, Nat, I swear they meant nothing, and you… my God, you mean everything.”
“I know. That’s my point. You’ve had that before with other people and I need to know if this was different. It felt like it was different than I thought it was supposed to be. It…sort of…felt like…more.” She stumbled through her own confusion.
He reclined in her bed and guided her onto his chest. “It was more. More than anything I have ever experienced, more than anything I could ever have fathomed, and you gave me more than I will ever have to give to you but I swear, I’ll be more somehow.” There, the truth, both barren and bold, hollow and hallowed, all he was, and all he ever hoped to be for her.
“But you did. You gave me everything. Thank you for that. You don’t need to be more for me.”
“Trust me, I’m the one who should be thanking you. Are you sore, honey? I can give you a bath. It’ll ease a little of the strain.”
“We just took a shower. I’m okay. I just want you to hold me.”
He strengthened his arms around her. “I don’t ever want to let go.”
“Good.”
He watched her sleep as the sun pierced the darkness bringing a hesitant glow to the deep purple night. Aaron shifted his body to keep it from awakening her. He needed to go read that damned letter but he couldn’t let her go. She needed him and he would never let her down.
Tucking her hair behind her shoulders, he let himself drift on the edge of sleep as her scent and her warmth contented him. A relaxation he had no recollection of ever experiencing before kept him at ease.
The memories he both hated and refused to forget were too far away to be reached that night. She kept them at bay. An angel to pull him from the depths of hell where he’d resided for so long he no longer knew which way was up. She took his hands and guided him home.
The nightmare always started the same way. Natalie tried to shake free from it. The skirt of the dress that matched Holly’s, the ones their grandmother had given them, flew out to the sides as she jumped from hay bale to hay bale. The wind lifted the dress higher.
Uncle Mick leaned against the barn. Three broken beer bottles were at his feet. Another was in his hand.
No.
Her fists collided with something. Skin and muscle. Someone.
“Nat!” His voice tried to reach through the terror. “Baby, wake up.” She couldn’t reach it. Her uncle’s hands gripped her arms. They held her captive. She couldn’t run.