by Ranae Rose
Grey leaned back in his chair, rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. “Obviously, you’ve forgotten all that stuff I told you about me being a badass.”
His mouth curled at one corner, and Kerry breathed an exasperated sigh. She loved Grey’s easygoing nature – the polar opposite of Brad’s – and sense of humor. But this was no time for jokes.
“Come on, Kerry.” He leaned forward and seemed to sober up. Before she knew it, he was holding her hand. “Don’t try to push me away out of fear. You’ve been dealing with this alone for so long – let me go through it with you. Let me keep you safe.”
Her heart melted. There was no other way to describe it. She wanted so badly to accept his offer, to curl up in his strong arms. But the past summer had overdosed her with reality, jaded her.
“I know you’re tough,” she said. “And I know you’re the kind of person who’d save someone else from their demons, just because. But look what happened this summer – look how our friends barely made it out alive, all because some freak got them in his crosshairs.
“Brad is a lot like the Levinson brothers were: always angry about something and willing to do anything to get revenge. His temper is on a hair trigger, and when he gets mad, there’s no stopping him. There’s nothing he won’t do if he feels he’s been wronged or slighted.
“In a way, he’s even worse than the Levinson brothers were, because most people think he’s a normal person. He’s charming when he wants to be, but it’s just a veneer. He’s the worst person I’ve ever known.”
Grey placed a second hand on top of the one he’d already taken one of Kerry’s in. “Kerry, listen to me: I believe you. And I’m not backing off. I don’t care what the risks are – they just make me want to stick even closer by your side. I made up my mind about wanting you a long time ago, and I’m stubborn – nothing’s going to change that.”
A thousand thoughts swirled through her mind, many of them horrified, a few of them inappropriately happy. What he was saying was so kind, so selfless – so utterly loveable. But she knew the stakes better than he did, whatever he said. And she realized now that she’d drawn him irrevocably into her mess.
She felt bad. And good, at the same time, even though she knew she had no right to. She’d taken the best person she knew and placed him in the path of danger, all so that she could indulge the selfish longing she’d felt for him for so long.
And he wasn’t even mad at her for it. The realization had her close to tears.
At that moment, she could hardly believe how much he cared about her, what he was willing to risk. But she didn’t want to surrender to doubt, didn’t want to examine it too closely. Not right now.
All she wanted was to be close to him, to recreate the high of the connection they’d had the night before.
He wanted it too – they’d stopped at the drug store on the way home from the wedding to buy a box of condoms. They were sitting on the table in a little bag now, tempting her, tempting both of them.
She knew he wanted her again, physically. As if the night before hadn’t been proof enough, he’d told her a dozen times throughout the day, whispering in her ear at the reception, making her blush as their friends and dozens of strangers stood nearby.
And her worries, as vast and consuming as they were, weren’t enough to keep her physical desire at bay. Everything inside her felt hot and tight, coiled and ready for release. Remembering how good it had felt to forget about everything with him the night before, she raised her head and kissed him.
If he was going to insist on endangering himself, she might as well try to make it worth it.
CHAPTER 14
Grey’s response was immediate and electric. He made a gift of his hot lips and delving tongue, opening Kerry up and teasing her until her panties were damp. They hadn’t moved from their seats at the kitchen table, but she was so turned-on it was agony to sit still.
Shifting in her seat, she reached for the box of condoms.
His hand was already there.
Their kiss disintegrated into tangling fingers and limbs, hard breathing that had them moving toward Grey’s bedroom.
Kerry had never been there before, but he showed her the way, guiding her by the hand.
It was a typical-looking room with white walls, a dresser and a bed that would’ve been too small for the two of them, if they’d been any less close. As it was, they were tangled too closely for the limited mattress space to matter.
Their clothes came off more quickly than they had the first time. There were a couple awkward moments when her bra straps got caught on limbs, but Kerry couldn’t have cared less, and she knew Grey felt the same way. In that moment, she felt every ounce of the burning, overwhelming desire they’d had to curb the night before.
Thank God they had the condoms now – as fantastic as his mouth had felt on her body, she ached to actually have him inside her.
By the time they were both naked, the comforter was askew and the sheets were crumpled. A pillow had gone overboard too, but Kerry hardly noticed these details, because she couldn’t look away from Grey.
She’d known for ages that he had a great body. You couldn’t so much as glance at him sideways without noticing. His frame was tall and broad and every muscle had been deliberately shaped. She’d been to the beach with him half a dozen times over the past few months and had admired him every time from behind the safety of her dark sunglass lenses.
But now she could see all of him – every inch – including where his hips and thighs faded to a faint shade of fawn, shielded from the light by his swim shorts, unlike the rest of his suntanned skin. He was hard, and although she’d seen him – touched him – the night before, the sight of his cock still made her heart speed.
He was thick – really thick. That was the first thing she’d noticed, before she’d even seen him naked, when she’d pressed her hand against his jeans. Trying to imagine how all that hardness would feel inside her made her pussy clench up tight, already wet. The exhilaration, the longing, was a thrill in and of itself.
She’d never ached to be with anyone like this. She’d rarely ached to be with anyone at all.
Feeling this way about Grey – wanting him so bad – was like stepping out of her own skin and being someone else. The kind of person she’d secretly longed to be, the kind she’d thought she never could be.
Now, she saw that she’d been wrong, that her perceptions had been warped by fear and past disappointments. She could have this kind of magic with someone, the kind that turned desire into something so pure and palpable that it was like the rest of the world didn’t even exist.
Right now, it was just her and Grey, and she wanted it to stay that way, despite everything. Her chest felt too tight, her heart too big. It almost seemed too good to be true.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her against his naked body. His lips skimmed her neck and his erection pressed against her belly, making butterflies spring up inside as another wave of agonizing longing hit her.
She vividly remembered the way friction had warmed her palms when she’d wrapped her hands around all that heat and thickness, and the way he looked when he came. Seeing him with his head tipped back and his eyes squeezed shut, hearing him moan as his come rushed hot over her fingers – it’d all given her a thrill like she’d never felt before.
A sense of power. A sense of choice. She wouldn’t have been able to explain it to anyone else, and she hoped Grey had no idea that everything she did with him seemed like a first.
She was no virgin, but she’d never been able to enjoy sex like this before, had never been able to revel in the details of giving and receiving pleasure without the whole thing being overshadowed by some degree of fear or shame.
It was liberating. It was like stepping into the light after years spent in darkness.
All that, and so far, they’d only fooled around on the couch. If one could call the mind-blowing things Grey did with his mouth ‘fooling around’, that
was.
She knew that what they were about to do would be even better, knew without having to even think that it would be the best sex she’d ever had. And she couldn’t wait.
When she whispered that into his ear, he groaned and tensed against her, his hands skimming down her back and settling on her hips.
He pulled her against him like that, so that her hips were pressed to his and his fat shaft pressed against her bare pussy, causing little stars to dance before her eyes as her clit bore the brunt of the pressure. Rocking against her for a few moments, he had her halfway to a climax, and then he stopped, grabbing the condom box and tearing it savagely open.
The sight of him tearing open a square and rolling a condom over his dick, fingers gliding quickly against the thin sleeve as it stretched over his stiff flesh, was mesmerizing. He moved like he could hardly wait, could hardly stand it.
When he was sheathed he pressed his mouth hard over hers and eased her down that way, pressing her against the mattress and the one remaining pillow. As he slipped his tongue far past her lips and teeth he squeezed her breasts, played with her nipples. Then he settled between her thighs and let her bear just enough of his weight that she felt consumed, unable to focus on anything but how achy her pussy was and how incredibly close he was to being inside it.
When she felt the head of his cock pressing against her clit she arched and gasped, ruining their kiss.
He raised his head but kept his dick where it was – she could see now that he had a hand on the shaft. He used it to guide himself, not inside her but up a little, then down, rubbing himself against her clit, taking her breath away.
She couldn’t hold still. The delay was unexpected, and while she wanted him inside her, she didn’t want him to stop what he was doing, either. The friction generated by the head of his cock against her clit was the ultimate tease, but it’d also be enough to get her off if he kept going. She could already feel pressure building low inside her, making her yearn for it.
It was different than when he’d used his mouth. The stroke of his tongue had felt good, and the way he’d sucked… But this – the blunt force, the pressure and the maddening fact that he was barely keeping from slipping inside her – was something else entirely. Something that had her rocking her hips too, without thinking.
He seemed to know when she was about to come. He leaned down low, pressing his lips against her neck, kissing and biting lightly as he kept massaging her with his dick. The scrape and heat of his teeth and breath against her skin were all she could take – she slipped over the edge, pulled under a cresting wave of pleasure.
Everything inside her drew tight and pulsed, burying her in bliss while also reminding her how empty she was, how badly she still wanted him inside her – all of him, now.
Things got hazy, and after a few breathless moments, the all-consuming sensations of climax started to fade away. She was left panting and anxious, still too expectant to pause to catch her breath.
Grey didn’t hesitate, but rather went slowly – so slowly Kerry could hardly stand it. One moment he was pressing up against her pussy lips, then he was almost inside her, and then he was, but not nearly deep enough.
He was stretching her. Reminding her of how long it’d been since she’d been with anyone at all, and that she’d never been with anyone like him. He must’ve known it, must’ve been holding back on purpose. Because no way would anyone take the first stroke so agonizingly, deliciously slowly otherwise.
Not if they wanted this as badly as she did, anyway, and she knew that he did.
Her pussy seemed to stretch and shrink at the same time, drawing tight around his hardness. How was that possible?
She couldn’t think, could hardly breathe, could only focus on the way it felt to finally have him inside her, halfway now, destroying the feeling of emptiness he’d made her so aware of.
A sound came from deep in his chest and his breath rushed through her hair, making her shiver in a good way. His groin pressed against hers, plying pressure on her clit as he finally settled balls-deep inside her.
She was so full she didn’t know what to do, other than cling to him, arching against his chest, her short nails dragging a little on his back.
He groaned, teased her hair with another hard breath. “Jesus, Kerry.”
A bolt of something hot and buoying hit her along with the sound of his voice, sharpening the edge of her pleasure. “It feels so good, Grey. I mean, you feel so good.”
She was anything but well-versed in dirty talk. In fact, she wasn’t used to having anyone she could really talk to at all. But she meant what she said – meant it, maybe, more than she’d ever meant anything else.
“So do you. You’re so tight I can hardly stand it.”
His voice came out strangely rough, and hers weirdly breathy.
“What – are you saying I’m hurting you?” If she was, she didn’t have a clue what she could do about it. She was being perfectly still, enjoying the way her nerves were teetering on the brink of short-circuiting, nearly overwhelmed by the pleasure of being so tightly and completely bound with Grey.
“No. Jesus, no. It feels good. Like… I don’t know. Even better than I imagined.”
Laughter rose up inside her but was choked by a moan. He’d shifted, just a little, and the effect of the minor movement was unbelievably powerful. Her core tightened by a few more degrees, pulsing around him.
He groaned too, then met her eyes. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you. I’m not, am I?”
“No.” His entrance had inspired a slight ache, but it wasn’t bad. Not at all.
“Good.” He pulled his hips back and rocked into her again, this time sliding smoothly and a little more quickly, barely pausing before he did it again, faster this time, and the next.
Kerry’s head spun as he continued. She hadn’t even realized it was possible to be dizzy while lying on one’s back – she hadn’t realized a lot of things, until just recently.
Like how good it could feel just to be this close with someone, even if she wasn’t coming. For years, she’d thought of orgasms – rare though they’d once been for her – as the only pleasurable part of sex. But this was just as good, in its own way.
She wrapped her arms around Grey’s neck and held him tight.
He kept rocking into her, making the whole bed vibrate to their rhythm. The full mattress hadn’t been designed to remain perfectly still while being subjected to something like this, and it didn’t.
As the bed shuddered and the sheets became more hopelessly tangled than before, a feeling of tightness and expectation began to build inside Kerry again. It was a bit of a surprise, while at the same time, everything felt so good that it seemed natural to be nearing climax again.
Still, she wasn’t sure if she could come this way. Not that she minded trying, every bit of her tingling with the knowledge that the possibility was real.
Each stroke was deep, and Grey’s wide shaft rubbed against her in delightful places – one place, in particular. When he buried himself to the root, his body pressed against her clit, and the pressure was like a spark that might catch flame, might send her over the edge again.
At least, that was what she thought, until a noise from outside shattered the illusion that she and Grey were alone in a world that didn’t go beyond the bedroom door.
She gasped, frozen – the noise had been loud, almost like gunfire.
Grey groaned. “It’s okay – it’s nothing. My neighbor has this piece of shit car, and it’s always doing that.”
His words should’ve soothed her, but her heart was already racing and the bitter taste of an adrenaline spike was flooding her mouth.
She believed him about the car, but her body had already responded, hitting her hard with a physical reaction that felt familiar after years of living on edge.
Grey slipped a hand into her hair and stroked the curve of her skull. He was still deep inside her, but he wasn’t moving anymore. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” Her words came out more breathless than ever. “That just… That noise… It scared me. I forgot about the rest of the world, for a while.”
He was still for a moment longer, then he rocked his hips slowly, giving her another taste of pleasure. “Think you can forget again?”
She wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck, pulled him close. “Don’t stop.”
He thrust into her, hard, and groaned. After that, every stroke seemed deeper, more deliberate. “I’m close, Kerry. Really close.”
She could feel the truth in his words, the tension in his muscles, the intent in the way he drove himself into her, filling absolutely all of her.
And it felt so, so good. But her nerves were still buzzing with residual alarm, and she wasn’t sure she could focus enough to come again.
“Don’t stop,” she said again, and gave him an internal squeeze.
He didn’t. Cradling her between his arms, he thrust hard into her, really making the bed shake now.
Each thrust sent a bolt of shocking pleasure through her, and she felt impaled with pleasure, but it didn’t peak, just wracked her in an endless plateau, making her arch and gasp, reaching for more. She knew he was about to come, and visions of his cock between her hands the night before, spilling white, hot stickiness all over her fingers pushed her tantalizingly close to orgasm.
He’d looked so good then, had felt so hard in her hands. This time, he felt just as hard inside her, and looked so good above her that she could hardly stand it.
When he came he cried out and the sound reverberated through her, amplifying the physical and mental pleasure of feeling him lose control. He’d been careful before – so considerate – but now he drove her so hard against the bed that her hips ached, and she felt how strong he really was, how powerful.
He didn’t hurt her, but he made her ache, made her realize just how small she was in comparison to him and just how thoroughly caught she was beneath him, her body open and yielding to his, locked in those long, intense moments as he came.