by Moriah Jovan
They were so close she didn’t know where she ended and he began. All she knew was how incredible she felt pressed against and connected to Bryce Kenard: two souls, one body.
“Ride me,” he said in her ear. “Use your knees.”
So she did, finding strength she didn’t know she had. He wrapped his hands around her hips, helped her for several strokes until she thought her legs would give out. Then he brought her down hard, kept her there as he began to come, holding her still, thrusting up into her once, twice, three times.
And when Bryce came—oh, that was spectacular, his hoarse, tortured roar, the arch of his body away from her, the tension in his face and his arms, his pleasurably painful grip on her hips. She felt him so deep within her she wanted to weep with joy, even while she watched him take his pleasure from her—the sight left her breathless: He was majestic.
Her thighs trembling, with no more strength left, she wrapped herself around him, out of breath and very sore, very tired, his body still buried inside hers.
Then he ripped the Velcro of her holster, slipped it out from between them, and set it carefully on the floor. He rolled her down into the duvet and covered them both up to sleep.
* * * * *
“Sebastian told me you were a consummate gentleman,” Giselle whispered much later after they had dozed entwined, she curled on top of him. The music had stopped long ago, leaving the house silent. Her lips brushed his scarred left ear, kissing, speaking, her left hand stroking his smooth right cheek and her fingers running through his thick, silky black hair.
“Not in bed,” he murmured, his arm around her and his hand caressing her arm, holding her tight to his chest. “I have no interest in being a gentleman in bed. This is what I like, what I want. It’s what I want with you.”
“I thought it was wonderful. Thank you.”
“What you wanted? Expected?”
“Oh,” she sighed, “much, much better.”
He said nothing for a moment, his chest rising and falling slow and easy under her body. He startled her when he finally spoke. Soft. Reverent. “Thank you, Giselle. I knew it’d be good with you, but if I’d known it was going to be that good, I’d’ve been more insistent.”
Giselle chuckled. “I let you in my bed because you had the balls to try.”
He looked up at her sharply then, his eyebrow raised. “You didn’t let me do anything. If it hadn’t been your bed tonight, it’d have been mine. You’re in bed with me because I’m more powerful than you are and I’m not going to let you forget it.”
“That was an arrogant thing to say!” she gasped, rising a bit on her elbow and not really knowing if she was more offended or aroused.
“It ain’t bragging if you can do it,” he said, smug amusement dripping from every word. “If I’d pressed the point, I could’ve fucked you on that bench and then I could’ve taken you home and fucked you again.” She sucked in a sharp breath because she knew that was true. But still! “I’m the alpha, Giselle. Your bed is my bed. Any bed you and I are in together is my bed. You know it. I know it. Deal with it.”
“Bullshit,” she snapped. “I’m the alpha in this house and wherever I go. I don’t even have to think about it. Men stay out of my way and the CEO of a Fortune 100 company is afraid of me.”
“Ooh, I think I hit a nerve,” he mused, looking up at her and caressing her jaw with a finger. She shivered. “You were looking for someone who could take you. Congratulations. You found him.”
Giselle huffed and sat up. She rolled to bounce out of bed, but as fast as she was, he was faster. Mid-roll, he grabbed her around the waist and roughly planted her on all fours. She gasped when he plunged himself inside her, digging his fingers into her hips and yanking her back onto him. Half appalled, completely aroused, she closed her eyes and moaned, arching her back in utter ecstasy.
“You were saying?” he murmured in her ear. She sighed when she felt his lips pressing softly against her shoulder once, twice, three times, making her cant her head to give him better access. His calloused fingers caressed her damp hair away from the skin of her neck—
—and his teeth sank into her nape. Giselle’s eyes popped open. She drew in a long, tortured breath and released it on a shattered whisper. “Bryce!” She felt him smile against her skin before he released her and rose up straight behind her. He withdrew a bit before he thrust again. And again. Hard.
Oh, she liked this. It was nasty, savage. A battle. Suddenly, he sucked in a rough breath. “A tattoo,” he breathed reverently as he traced the skin over her sacrum with a finger and she sighed. She groaned and dropped her head when he buried himself in her yet again, caressing the two Chinese characters with his fingers while taking lazy strokes in and out of her. “What does it mean?”
Eyes closed, she could feel him stretching her even more than before. She could feel her juices flow free with the sensation of the tender flesh of the inside of her thighs sliding along the outside of his muscled legs. She wanted—no, she needed—him to move, to take her again.
“What does it mean, Giselle?” he demanded, pulling away from her, then plunging into her again, twice, three times.
One bite.
She was his.
“Warrior Queen,” she whispered.
He fucked her again. She felt every brutal stroke, coming before Bryce drove himself in her for the last time. “Ah, Giselle!”
Out of breath, her limbs trembling from holding up so much weight in such an unfamiliar position, she dropped to her stomach and he shamelessly fell on top of her. It was a welcome weight, one she’d longed for her entire adult life, one she’d almost given up on getting. She felt him entwine his fingers with hers and kiss her shoulder, nip her earlobe, lick that spot on her neck where he’d bitten her.
Since they had already slept, they talked. She was finally sated enough to have an actual conversation and too tired and weak to do anything but. His mouth wandered over her skin and her soul reveled in that.
“You’re nasty,” she whispered.
“Yes, I am,” he agreed with alacrity. “And you knew that the first time I kissed you.”
“And ruthless.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“And vicious.”
“Check.”
“And I’m in love with you.”
“Were you in love with me before or after I told you I wanted to fuck you?” he whispered in her ear as he nuzzled her.
“I fell in love with you when you took my kiss away from me. Did you think I’d give you my virginity just to check and make sure?”
“Are you sorry?”
She opened her eyes and turned her head to look across the dark of her room, thinking. “Um, I don’t know yet. I guess I’m supposed to be, huh?”
“That’s usually the way it works, yes.”
“Are you?”
“No,” he muttered swiftly, decisively between kisses, licks, nips. “This is who I am, what I’ve wanted my whole life and fought against. Even if I had acknowledged this part of me, it would’ve horrified me. When I was twenty-four, I would’ve taken one look at you and been forced to accept who I was, what I wanted— And I was already fighting it with everything I had. You would’ve chewed me up and spit me out, which would’ve validated who I was trying to be.”
“Oh, that’s probably true.”
“It’s not like you can hide that everything you do, everything you say, everything you think makes you conspicuous in a roomful of Mormon women, but at the same time, you’re just a nice Mormon girl and I like that.”
“Let me tell you something,” Giselle sighed, her eyes closing because what he was doing to her was so . . . comforting. His weight on hers, pressing her into the mattress, their legs entwined, his cock lying languid in the valley between her buttocks. She didn’t have the strength for another round and she hurt. On the other hand, she might not have a choice—and that thrilled her. “It’s not easy being me, walking this fine line between the letter of t
he law and the spirit of cultural expectations.”
“I empathize.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t. You’re a man and it’s different for women. A woman doesn’t have the luxury of being able to be a hard ass when she needs to be, so if she’s inclined that way, she stifles it or channels it in a different direction. You can be a hard ass when you need to be and then you’re praised for being that and a kind and loving father and husband.”
Bryce huffed and murmured, “About that loving father and husband routine—it’s expected to extend all the way into the bedroom. There is no such thing as being a hard ass in bed. It’s supposed to be a giving, a nurturing process, unselfish, soft, sweet. Sharing. Making love. Always. This,” he told her, sweeping her arms lightly with his palms. She sucked in a breath, closing her eyes when he continued to do so as he spoke. “What I’ve done to you tonight, fucking, taking, greed, lust—that’s the opposite of what we’re taught about how it should be between a man and a woman. It’s prideful and selfish.”
“Mmmm,” she whispered. “I need to turn over. I want to look at your face.”
He lifted himself away from her and she turned, welcoming him back to her with a smile and outstretched arms. She wrapped her legs around his thighs and felt the smoothness of his chest on one side where the hair had burnt off and the other where she could feel the ridges and bumps of his scars.
“For like-minded people, in the taking,” Giselle breathed, “the giving is inherent. Yin and yang. There can’t be one without the other. I give you pleasure when I take what I want from you. In the selfish pursuit of my own pleasure, you benefit. Enlightened self-interest. Works with money. Works with sex.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“You were too afraid of being labeled selfish.” She snickered. “Just like Rearden. Galt had no such issues.”
“Ouch and touché,” he murmured as he kissed her.
She grinned wickedly against his lips. “Seems to me somebody got his themes and characters messed up. Good thing I picked you, huh?”
He chuckled. “That surprised me.” They kissed for long moments, their tongues playing, not expecting it to lead anywhere. “And it meant a lot to me. Thank you,” he whispered.
“There was no other choice. I posit,” she murmured between kisses. She could kiss this man forever and not get enough. “That it’s much better to be open about who you are and not get what you really want than settle for something not quite what you wanted in the first place.”
“Tell that to a zealous twenty-one-year-old freshly returned missionary who’s one big raging hormone and being exhorted at every turn to do his duty, get married, and procreate.”
Giselle said nothing for a moment for their kissing, then, “I see your point. What happened to you between then and now?”
“I got tired of doing the right things for the wrong reasons with the wrong woman and getting my ass kicked by life. Tonight, I’ve done the wrong thing for the right reason with the right woman. And I don’t intend to get my ass kicked again.”
Giselle smiled and ran her fingers through his hair. He kissed her again and she tried—again—to take it away from him. He chuckled and upped the ante, refusing to let her, which left her breathless and thoroughly aroused. Again.
“‘If I’m asked,’” she whispered, placing her palms on either side of his face, stroking his skin with her thumbs and watching him as she quoted, “‘to name my proudest attainment, I will say: I have slept with Hank Rearden. I had earned it.’”
He laughed wryly. “You really do like Rearden better than Galt, don’t you?”
“He had real depth. He was the most noble character in the book.”
* * * * *
25: CONTROL ISSUES
“How the hell should I know when she came in last night and why is it my business?”
“You live with her!”
“So what? She’s got a mother and it’s not me. She pays me rent. That’s how the roommate relationship works.”
“What do you mean, you’re not her mother? You act like her mother and mine, too, come to think of it.”
The low rumble of two men arguing in another room brought Bryce slowly to consciousness, though he never forgot where he was or why he was there or the woman he was with or every single thing he’d done to her. And oh, the things she’d done to him. His head dropped back on the pillow and he smiled.
In the taking, the giving is inherent.
Why had he not read it that way to begin with? You were too afraid of being labeled selfish . . . Just like Rearden. Galt had no such issues.
He had to admit she’d nailed his ass to the wall on that, but she’d said “Kenard” without hesitation when asked to choose.
I’m in love with you.
He sighed with a sudden feeling of deep, deep contentment—something he had never felt with Michelle, not even on their wedding day.
Sunlight seeped through the cracks of drawn blackout drapes. The two of them were uncovered, the duvet long since abandoned on the floor. Giselle apparently still slept, her back spooned tight against his ribs as she sought warmth, her head on his outstretched arm, her breast filling his palm, his thumb absently caressing her nipple. Her hair spread across his chest and tickled his skin. He lay spread-eagled, his other hand fondling her silky curls, bringing them to his nose for sniffing (vanilla), turning their conversation and their sex over in his head, reliving it, waiting for her to awaken. To start all over again.
“Look, if you’re so worried, go look in her room and see if she’s there.”
Bryce didn’t know exactly what was going on, but it sounded like it could get ugly when determined footsteps on the hard wood got closer and closer. The door swung open and the two people he least wanted to see at that moment burst in and stopped cold.
“Gi— Holy shit.”
Knox looked like he had been hit in the head with a two-by-four, staring at Bryce, his mouth hanging open. Taight, on the other hand, looked very pleased.
“Get out,” Bryce snarled, and Taight hauled Knox back and closed the door with a salute.
“Oops,” Giselle muttered against his arm.
“Did you bring me back here specifically to make a point to Knox?”
“I have no points to make to Knox and Knox has a woman. Sort of. Maybe. Which you know very good and well. I brought you back here because it was the closest available bed.”
Bryce started to laugh, but that gradually declined when Giselle turned over. He immediately felt he needed to further explore her breasts and other body parts that he had neglected last night.
And the hole in her right hip.
“Before we do this again,” she sat up and announced, “I need to pee and brush my teeth. That is the first thing I do every single morning, without fail, and in that order.”
“Fair warning: I’ll follow you and fuck you in the shower.”
Her eyes opened wide and she looked down at him, grinning like a child at the possibility that she would get exactly what she wanted on Christmas morning. “That would be sublime, thank you.”
“Oh, now you’re just making fun of me.”
She arose with great care and groaned at every slow step she made toward the bathroom. “You have got to be kidding me,” she breathed as she stopped, bent over, and massaged the muscles on the insides of her thighs. He grinned, totally satisfied with his night’s work. She looked back at him then and smirked. “I would never make fun of a man whose idea of sweet nothings is ‘I want to fuck you, Giselle.’”
“I wouldn’t be with a woman who wouldn’t find that romantic.”
Finally she disappeared into the bathroom. Once he heard the sound of a faucet and then the brushing of teeth, he decided that it would be a good idea to do the same.
With no embarrassment on either of their parts, they went about their business in the bathroom, glancing at each other in the mirror. She broke out a new toothbrush from her dentist-office stash and sa
id, “Now mine won’t be lonely anymore.”
He turned her toward the mirror and wrapped his arms around her to look at their nude reflection. She smiled, her eyes soft and dreamy as she leaned back into him and watched him inspect her.
“I like that you shave,” he murmured, dragging his fingertip along her bare mons.
“I don’t,” she whispered. “It’s lasered.” She laughed again when his mouth dropped open. “Shaving’s a bitch and waxing hurts.”
Her body was perfect. She was much shorter than his wife had been; in fact, she could fit under his chin. She was muscular yet curvy, unlike Michelle, who had been neither muscular nor curvy. Giselle’s breasts were bigger than he’d expect on a weightlifter and he was oh, so grateful for that. Her ass was reasonably tight but nicely rounded. She had nice hips, though the right one sported a larger bullet hole than the one in her shoulder.
He caressed it with his thumb, studied it in the mirror, along with others, he saw now. Old scars, slashes here and there. “What’s this?” he murmured as he traced a long, thin gash on the outside of her right thigh with a finger.
She smiled. “A knife wound.” His eyes widened a bit and his cock stirred as he met her gaze in the mirror. She continued, “You don’t make black belt without a few injuries. I think that one took sixteen stitches.”
“Black belt,” he breathed. “That explains the bodhisattva, the meditation. Most people pray.”
“Meditation is silent, a quest for emptiness. Praying is a conversation. They each serve their purpose.”
He said nothing for a long while as he traced her body, her scars, with his fingertips. “This one?” he asked when he found a very old, very odd-shaped scar under her left breast that he would have missed had he not been looking so closely.