by Wyatt, Dani
Her green eyes flickered in the crease of dim light that streaked through one window. The near full silver moon had reappeared from behind the clouds. The storm taking its chaos and moving on. He felt his gut clench and as though some damn alarm clock went off, his cock decided to wake the fuck up.
“Sit.” Flynn’s fingers stayed steady around her arm as he gently edged her back onto the sofa.
It took her a good fifteen seconds, but she finally moved, Flynn’s hand still in place.
Just then, as she took her seat in front of him, he thought of the conversations he’d had with himself in the last week. The ones that told him he didn’t feel anything for her. It was just a mirage. A lapse.
Now, he realized that deciding not to feel something was very different from not feeling it. Telling yourself you don’t feel and turning that shit off are two very fucking different things.
“All right, no bullshit. Why’d you come here?”
Flynn gripped the top edge of the blanket, raised it up and tousled some of the rain from her hair.
He could feel his muscles tightening as he leaned into her, lowering himself to crouch in front of her, eye to eye.
He wanted to consume her, to let her know how it felt so wrong to be away. He wanted to scream and tell her everything that swirled like a hurricane inside.
How could she have him so tightly wound? One look and all he could think about was binding to her, protecting her and taking everything that was bad from her life.
“I just — I don’t know.” She tugged on her sweater, her arms moving around her waist. “I didn’t want to go back there and — I just needed to be here, I guess. I know what happened between us couldn’t last. I did. It was stupid of me to start it. But, you did something to me and as much as I tell myself there’s nothing, it’s still there. Something gnawing – itching -- telling me I caught a glimpse of something I’d never known or even thought about before. And, I guess I wanted to come here because this place was almost something for us, something that would have been special. It’s stupid.” She shook her head and shrugged.
“It’s not fucking stupid; you know how I know?”
“No. How?”
“Because my ass is here too, isn’t it?” He flashed a perfect, white smile and had to shift his position because when she smiled back, the discomfort inside his pants went up a notch.
“But, I don’t know what you want from me. I mean, I’m what I am and you are you. You can’t tell me there is not a mismatch there? Oh, and Gideon told me something, that you did this just to get at your dad. So, I knew it wasn’t real.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Did those fucking words just come out of your mouth?”
The hurricane inside him whipped up and his eye started to twitch.
“Well? Did you?” Lilly’s voice was crisp. “Was I just some way to get back at your dad? I mean, be honest, if you were me, it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
When he got like this, it usually meant someone was going to end up on the floor with blood coming out of at least one orifice. His hands started shaking, and he forced himself to take a long slow breath.
Lilly’s eyes didn’t waiver; she was taunting the beast.
“Are you done?” Flynn finally felt enough in control to speak.
Take the high road, man. Breathe, focus. Discipline. You’ve got it, and she needs it. Give her what she needs, not what she wants. She wants a damn fight, and she needs so much more. Don’t fail her and retreat. Tell her she belongs to you and this shit isn’t going to fly.
“No, I’m not, because you aren’t answering my question.” She squared off, and Flynn’s cock got in the game, screaming from below as she bit down on her lip.
Fuck, I don’t know whether I should fuck her until the only word she knows is ‘harder’ or get her ass over my knee. Probably both.
“That’s fucking enough.” Flynn felt the throb of her pulse as his hand cranked around her neck. “Don’t talk to me like that. Look me in the eye and tell me you honestly think I would have been with you just to get back at that fuck. Look. At. Me.”
“Let go.” Her dove soft hands raised to grasp onto his wrist as he held steady around her throat. Only she didn’t try to pull his hand away, she showed no fear.
“I’m not fucking hurting you. I’m focusing you. Answer the damn question. I’m not backing down. Answer.”
He watched her eyes blink twice, she looked away, then back. Her tongue tracing out across her lips, and he felt her shift under his grasp. Within those ten seconds, she turned from granite to supple flesh.
Hold. Give her the time. She’s coming, give her the freedom to tell you the truth. Easy, steady on this one. She’s fragile but she needs you. Don't let her down.
“No. You wouldn’t do that,” she whispered, and her hands loosened, then moved from where they gripped his wrist to lay warm on his forearm.
He kept perfectly still, breathing in time with her as he felt the increase in her pulse under his palm. His ravaged hands were still able to feel her subtle changes in heat and pulse.
Down south orders were being called out but it wasn’t about him. It was going to be about her, and then, when she realized that it was, she would come to him willingly and on her knees.
“That’s right. We are more than the sum of our parts, Lilly. I’ve fucking known that since that first night. I don’t know why, but you’re here now and I’m not letting us go again. I’m not. But you’ve got to promise me…”
He moved his thumb under her chin, reveling in the translucent softness that was her. Watching as she raised her head slightly, her breath taking a low gasp and Flynn angled his body and moved closer until he felt the warmth of her exhale.
“Promise what?”
“Don’t ever fucking lie to me. I know you, Lilly, and you are more than I ever dreamed of having with someone already. But, if you lie, you break that — we will have a big damn issue, got it? I’ve lived my entire fucking life with liars and cheats, and I won’t have it. Understand?”
Her eyes darted over his face as he moved his hand to the back of her neck, the soft waves of her hair still damp from the storm.
She breathed, and finally her head moved ever so slightly up and down in agreement.
“Good. No secrets, ever. Yes? You have to say it.”
“Yes. No secrets, no lies. Ever.”
“Good girl. We can work through anything, move forward. But I can’t live with lies. With you hiding things from me.” He locked his fingers in her hair, jerking her head back softly to take her mouth, tongue opening her lips without asking and letting her know she belonged to him again.
For a moment, he realized he needed nothing but her breath.
He walked a fine line between wanting to fuck that golden green from her eyes and taking her with a slow hand, guiding her and professing to her all the ways he would make her scream and how much her soul felt like his responsibility. His mantle.
Thinking with his brain right now was near impossible, but he fought his base urges and tried to think of what she needed from him.
Her tongue wound with his until their breath and the sound of the wetness of the kiss drove Flynn into a near rage. Both his hands worked to the roots of her hair and tugged her back, biting her lip until she yelped.
“Owwww.”
“I’m staking my fucking claim, do you understand what that means?”
“You’re a gold miner?” Lilly’s eyes sparkled, and Flynn fought back the laugh.
“Stop. No fucking around.” He loosened his grip in her hair; this moment was too important. He needed her willingly, without negotiation, without her little smartass defenses.
His gut felt like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Her face was warm and blushed, and his head and dick were fighting for control of the moment. But what he needed right now was her mind not her body.
“Think of that night when we had dinner, and my dad invited the Henderson’s? You came down the stairs in that go
wn and heels?”
“Yeah. I felt like an idiot. I’d never dressed like that. Your dad made me.”
“You’d been here, what, four weeks, maybe?”
Lilly nodded as Flynn let her hair go then stood over her, looking down, then as he moved the dust-covered coffee table closer and took a seat. His knees opened around hers, scooting as close as he could, staring right into the melting green of her eyes.
“Yeah. Probably.”
“You and I, we both knew there was an ‘us’ back then. Neither of us were ready to admit it, but we knew. That night, when you came down those stairs, I’ve never fucking felt anything like that in my life. It wasn’t just that you blew my fucking hair back with your beauty -- because you did. But you had this desperation in your eyes, something that said, ‘I feel fragile, someone help,’ and it tugged at me like I couldn’t fucking believe. I wanted to run to you, put my arms around you, whisper in your ear how beautiful you looked and walk you around the whole damn night as your protector. I couldn’t, but it changed my fucking world. That feeling.”
“Yeah, then you remember how that glorious evening ended.”
“He’s a fuck. I don’t know if he was fucking born that way or what, I honestly don’t give a shit. I really don’t. Sociopath doesn’t even come close.”
“I wanted to disappear into the floor.”
“He was the one that should have wanted to disappear.”
“If you weren’t there, I don’t know — it would have been so much worse. I was so embarrassed.”
Even now as Flynn flashed back to that moment when they all walked to the dining room to take their seats. Colin telling the Henderson’s that Lilly would not be eating the same dinner as the rest them because he had her on a strict calorie restriction he felt the bile rise in his throat.
“Don’t be. Don’t fucking ever, ever be embarrassed about who you are. Everything about you is beautiful, honorable, special. You’re spectacular. Like a force of nature that somehow I’ve been lucky enough to have the honor of knowing. And, I intend to make you even more mine.”
Her eyes snapped away from Flynn’s face toward the window, the little glimmer gone and the curve of her lips going in the wrong direction.
“What? Babe, what?”
“Maybe there was some truth to what he said. I mean, look at me. The only thing I’d be the cover girl for is the Frumpy Nerd-Girl Times.”
Flynn’s hackles went up. That was about enough of that shit.
“Listen, right fucking now. Are you listening?” He raised his eyebrows and took her chin. Her eyes came to him with a roll.
Okay, I’m done. She needs more than just words right now. She needs an attitude adjustment and right on her ass.
“Jesus. Okay, first of all. Stop that. I’m not going to have it. Don’t fucking insult me with talking about yourself in the negative. That shit is done. Done. Second, what he said to you was the biggest kind of bullshit that exists. Nothing he says is about you. You are sexy and amazing, and I’m a lucky fuck to be able to have what I’ve had with you. What he said? That was about him. No real man would insult a woman — let alone the woman who was supposed to be his bride — like that. Not in private, not in his head, and sure as shit not in front of anyone else.”
There went the eye roll again, and both Flynn’s dick and his ire were ready to raise the damn roof.
“Stop that, too. That shit is disrespectful. I’ll never hurt you, I’ll never do anything to fucking hurt you. But, I’m going to tell you, sometimes you need a smack on your ass.”
“Oh really? And you intend to give that to me?” The sarcastic drip almost sent her over his knee right there.
Instead, he smiled with a knowing ache as he gently curled his fingers to push her hair behind her ears.
“Yes,” he answered softly. “And you’re going to appreciate it, and it will be what you need, and it will never be in anger. But, it’s going to fucking happen, so start getting your pretty little head around it.”
“So, what? You think we’re like — together? Like just because we both ended up here tonight, everything is just re-set, and we’re a couple? Because, I’m not sure we’re on the same page, and well, honestly, it’s just impossible. Nothing’s changed. Nothing. We are still just as stuck and screwed as we were a week ago.”
“No, we’re not. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because, we can figure it out. NO, strike that, like I told you before, I am going to figure it out. And from this second, you are going to trust me. I’ve told you over and over to trust me; now you are going to fucking do it, because it’s no fucking accident we’re here, now. I don’t believe that so I’m taking control, and you are going to give it, get it? Understand?”
She licked her lips, and he could see she fought back another eye roll.
“You’re mine. Your problems are mine. So, just give it up.”
“If I decide I want this…” She fluttered her hand between where Flynn leaned into her, his arms locked into iron beams on each side of her legs. “Then, can I just have some time?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t trade for obedience. I don’t trade for acceptance.”
“God.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Why does this have to be so hard?”
All right, bullshit talk is getting us exactly bullshit nowhere.
Flynn tasted her sweet lips, engulfing her grinding his teeth into hers.
He could hear muffled protests, but he was fucking done with the dance.
Chapter Twenty-six
In a single heartbeat, one of his arms swooped behind her, the other under her legs, throwing her off her seat and pulling her to him like a victim being carried from a burning building.
“You’re done. I’ve got something to say to you, and it ain’t gonna be with words.”
“God! Put me down.”
Her protests didn’t mean a whole lot when her arms went around his naked shoulders and her hands locked in place.
“I’m going to put your ass down. Just hold on.”
His dick was as hard as nails with her against him. The tendons in his shoulders stood up and moved as he walked, every valley and line of his upper arms danced in the dim light as he strode toward a back hallway.
He’d vowed when he was young never to drink.
He’d never shot-up or snorted or smoked, and as far as vices went, his only one was violence — the taste of his own blood and reveling in releasing his vitriol on anyone who got in his way.
But, with her, his head spun, and he imagined what it would feel like to never taste her again. Never consume her with his body and his mind.
And he understood the craving of an addict.
The blackness of being without.
Inside the first bedroom stood an enormous log bed, covered with faded quilts just beginning to wear at the edges. Here where a pile of pillows waited, he would take the next hit of his personal heroin.
Her.
She gathered herself farther into him as he took the few steps. There was no doubt where they were going and what was going to happen, and Lilly fell silent in the power of his calm control.
His mouth came down as he lay her waves of fire onto the pillows. His tongue taking her deep, probing and showing her even now who was in charge.
Flynn’s lips lowered to feel her pulse, trailing down with his tongue as he felt the soft, warmth of her skin, felt the way her body tensed then released, her breath coming in small whimpers when he pulled her sweater away from her neck and bit down at the soft curve of her nape, teasing that little mole with his tongue first.
“Owwww. Does that spot taste extra good? ‘Cause it seems to be your favorite.” Her back arched into his hand and his cock started to weep at the thought of breaching her again.
Her protests gone.
“That’s nothing; I’m done playing. You are mine, yes?”
His teeth found home again, and she yelped and whimpered her agreement.
“Good. Because I’m going to taste you. All of you. Because you are all mine. And before I’m done, you’re going to scream until your voice is raw, and it better fucking be my name, you understand?”
With that — he yanked the hem of her sweater up. Jerking it off her head in one swoop.
“Shoes off,” he ordered as he buried his head into her neck again, working down with lips and tongue and teeth until he foraged at the wondrous crease between her magnificent tits.
There had always been this simmer inside him.
Something that called for control and dominance. He’d never felt it ignited in quite the same way as when she was close. But, it now felt like an inferno, and in the deepest part of his soul he knew it was what she needed and it was the truest part of who he was.
“God.” Lilly tensed under his mouth.
If it took him all night, his tongue was going to savor every supple inch of her. There would be no sleep, no other sustenance other than locking their lives together by virtue of his will.
He gathered the swell of her into his mouth, sucking and pulling her inside without regard. Flynn could hear little yelps and yipes, but between those were the breaths and the stifled moans he craved.
Flynn’s own rumble came from deep.
“Babe, god, you’re beautiful.” He raised up to look at her face as she stared down at him — mouth open, teeth on her lip — and his cock started doing roundhouse blows trying to get free.
She is mine. From the bottom of my fucking soul, I’ve never felt anything like this. Damn, that lip in her teeth. She’s trying to kill me right here between these tits.
He climbed above her, straddling her body and covering it like a bridge; elbows locked, hands flat next to her head, her legs straight between his. There was still drying blood on his ribs and the cuts over his face, and he looked like a dog that just won the final fight but took a damn beating in the process.
Even his teeth were bared as he stared down at his property, imagining all the ways he wanted to make her scream, to show her what it meant to be owned.
They’d only spent two nights together, but he knew her, and even the little innocent cherub liked it a little rough. It wasn’t the pain she craved; it was the control. The dance of give and take and then the utter release of yourself into the power of another.