by Pam Godwin
He kisses a trail along my jaw that ends at my ear with his breaths caressing my neck. He never breaks eye contact, never slows the pace of his thrusts. The connection, the fusion of our bodies, the grip on my hair, and the intimacy of his eyes—all of it shoves me over the ledge.
I come apart around him, grinding and moaning and clawing at the counter. He rocks me through it, rolling his hips and cradling my head, with his parted lips pressed against my jaw.
“That was beautiful.” He kicks his hips, tormenting my overstimulated pussy. “So fucking perfect.”
When he pulls out, his fingers move over my dress, searching the seams. “Where’s the zipper?”
“I’ll get it.” I slide it down my side, twitching all over from the orgasm.
He toes off his Converse and removes his jeans and briefs. Then he grips the dress and yanks it over my head. The bra goes next, leaving me completely nude with my back to him.
He spends an anguishing amount of time kissing and stroking my scarred skin before turning me to face him. He gives my breasts and mouth the same treatment, sucking and licking with patience and adoration. Every touch of his lips and feverish caress of his hands fans my arousal, spreading it outward and reheating my body for another round.
“Are you this attentive with all women?” My whisper is breathy and cautious against his mouth.
“If you’re thinking about other women, I’m not doing something right.” He bites my bottom lip and clutches my shoulders, pressing them downward.
I give beneath his hands and lower to my knees. At this level, there’s so much naked Decker to take in. The tension in his thighs. The heavy sac hanging beneath his long wet cock. The tight packs of his abs that ripple into chiseled pecs and broad shoulders.
He curls his fingers around his cock, angling it skyward. It’s monstrous and veiny and so damn long that even with his fist at the base, there’s at least five exposed inches to suck.
With slow, measured strokes, he slides his hand up and down his length so close to my face I can smell the sweet essence of our combined arousal. His other hand captures my hair, forcing my head back to gaze up at him.
He moves his fingers from my hair to cup my jaw, staring into my eyes, slowly stroking his erection, and making me crazy with need.
Several seconds pass before his knuckles slide beneath my chin. He tilts my head farther back, and his thumb draws a path from the curve of my upper lip, down to my lower lip and pressing inward, causing it to pout out.
“Open your mouth,” he whispers.
My lips separate, and my pussy clenches.
“Wider.” His breathing speeds up. “Yes. Just like that.”
He steps closer and brushes the head of his cock against my tongue, teasing, groaning, driving us both into a tightly-coiled fog of hunger.
“Decker.” I choke on a thick swallow and grip the hard planks of his ass.
“Take it.” He pushes the crown past my lips and hisses. “Fuck.”
I flatten my tongue and stretch my jaw to accommodate him as he sinks another inch. And another. There’s no way I can swallow his entire length.
“Such a good girl,” he whispers, slowly feeding me half his hardness before pulling out and starting again.
I hold my mouth open, clutch his ass, and absorb his shallow thrusts.
The air has been knocked from my lungs, and a million doubts race through my head. I should’ve kicked him out the moment he disregarded my limits and spanked me. I should be on the phone with Infidelity right now, reporting his violation. It worries me that I’ve done nothing to defend myself. It terrifies me. I don’t know him, yet here I am, hungrily sucking his cock.
I told this man my secrets and broke my own rules by letting him fuck me without Reese. I’m repeating mistakes, restarting the ugly cycle of terrible decisions, and I can’t bring myself to stop it.
Because I’m already attached.
It could be worse. He isn’t burying himself in the back of my throat or slamming against my face to get himself off. But his restraint is tenuous. I see it in the trembling of his legs, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the strained look on his face. He wants to unleash the animal pacing behind his eyes.
“Suck it. Don’t stop.” A desperate growling noise comes from his throat. He’s so vocal and worked up, humming long groans beneath his breath and whispering so softly I can’t make out all the words. “Yes…good…oh, fuck…”
He slips his shaft from my mouth and yanks me off the floor. In the next breath, he crushes me against the nearest wall, with my legs around his hips and his cock buried in one hard drive.
I arch into his thrusts and hug the strong column of his neck, moaning and grinding my way toward another release.
“Fuck, Laynee.” Without breaking eye contact, he lets go of his control, slamming his hips and banging me ruthlessly, wildly, against the sheetrock. “What are you doing to me?”
Gripping the back of my neck, he pulls me close and takes my mouth in a hot wet kiss. His other arm hooks around my back, working me up and down his cock. He tastes like recklessness, smells like leather and testosterone, and feels like a whipping storm of passion. I’ve never been with a man so emotionally and vehemently expressive with his body.
I’ve never felt this connected to another person.
He grabs a handful of my ass and bends forward, deepening his angle. “Give me your eyes.”
I don’t just give him my eyes. I give myself over to him completely. With a free-falling scream of surrender, I come on his cock with all the poise of a deliriously satisfied woman. My entire body shudders, my chest heaves for air, and my fingernails claw at his back.
He holds my gaze and pumps himself in and out erratically, panting, muscles flexing and shaking. His mouth opens. His pupils dilate, and he roars his release with a guttural, sexy-as-hell groan. It’s a beautiful sight—the tendons in his neck stretched taut, lips swollen, and eyes molten and fixed on mine.
“Decker.” I slump against his chest and slide my cheek along the sharp angles of his. “I love watching you come.”
He trembles and twitches against me, the hardened flesh of his chest feverish and damp. “It’s never been that good. Ever.”
Pinning me to the wall with his body, he doesn’t pull out as he cradles my face in his hands and kisses me languorously, breathlessly, and with more affection than I know what to do with.
It’s too late to hold on to the vulnerable pieces of myself. He’s already taken them, and in exchange, he’s given me hope. Hope that he won’t hurt me. Hope that this will last.
Hope is the most dangerous incentive of all.
CHAPTER 19
DECKER
The next four months are as intense and hungry as that afternoon in the L.A. dressing room. It’s strange how I don’t miss being single and unattached. I sure as hell don’t miss the loneliness of my studio apartment. In fact, I’ve discovered a fuckton of perks in living with a woman.
One woman in particular.
When I wake morning or night, I only have to reach over to fill my hands with a perfect set of tits. When I’m in a bad mood or not feeling well, she’s at my side, soothing me with affection and concern—something I don’t remember ever receiving, not even from my mother. It also feels fucking amazing to be instructing again. She’s just one student, but watching her flex her new-found confidence on the wrestling mats has renewed my passion in teaching. When she kicks my ass, the sound of her laughter is intoxicating. It’s made me greedy for more.
Getting to know her has given me a glimpse of what it might be like to share a life with someone. With her. The simplest things—preparing her meals, leaving her admiring notes, finding ways to show her how much she means to me, making her happy—has altered my definition of getting ahead.
Infidelity pulled me out of a rut, but it’s become clear to me that success isn’t measured in dollar signs or notches in a bedpost. Over the past few months, I’ve counted my greates
t accomplishments in the number of times I put a smile on Laynee’s face.
I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, she’s become my purpose. Her happiness is my incentive. She’s my secret to getting ahead in life.
With long vigorous strokes, I slice through the water in the pool behind her Georgian-style cottage. Each time I come up for air, my gaze falls unerringly on her toned, lithe body on the lounger.
Face down with her feet angled toward me, she offers up a sinful view of her delectable ass. Little black strings crisscross her curves and hold the tiny pieces of her bikini together. I don’t know why she bothers wearing anything at all. It’s a Friday night. No one’s around. She’s going to be nude as soon as I finish my laps in the pool.
Christ, I love the way she bends to my touch, melts beneath my mouth, and unravels around my cock. I have her—beside me, under me, all around me—yet I feel like I’m still chasing her.
The golden waves of her hair part down her back and fall around her ribs, baring a tapestry of scars that shimmer like diamonds in the glow of dusk. In the five months I’ve known her, she’s never exposed them to anyone but me. Reese was there the night she was attacked, but if he showed up right now, she’d wrap a towel around her shoulders.
It bugs me. Not that I want her parading around half-nude in front of other people. But I don’t like her hiding in shame. In fact, it fucking pisses me off.
Her fans idolize her, and her public image is recovering with the buzz about her dating a handsome nobody. Not because that nobody is me, but because she’s making public appearances again, putting herself out there. Except the world has no idea what she’s concealing beneath her designer clothes.
I’ve been dragging her out of the house a couple times a week. I take her to dinner, dancing in night clubs, sunbathing on the beaches of Tybee Island. We’ve also made several day trips to L.A. for various interviews and meetings. The cameras follow her everywhere, and I despise the smile she gives them, the one that doesn’t reach her gorgeous blue eyes.
There’s something standing in the way of her happiness, something big and jagged inside her that projects a shadowy wall behind her gaze. I know what it is. I have a despicably close relationship with it.
Because I saw it in the eyes of a nine-year-old boy.
I watched it permanently steal his smile.
I felt it when his mother pulled him out of my school.
Broken trust.
It’s a crippling scar on the soul.
I’m not guilty of the horrors that were done to those kids. Nor am I guilty of the abuse that was inflicted on Laynee.
But I want to be guilty of repairing the damage. Even if it takes forever. Hell, I’ll give her infinite forevers to see her whole and happy.
The problem is I don’t know my way around a relationship. My experience with women is limited to sex. When I want it, I chase it—through seduction, domination, whatever means necessary. But the best sex in the world won’t rebuild Laynee’s eroded trust.
Even though I have her, she remains out of reach, aloof, sad. All of this became apparent to me when she wasn’t offered the role in her last audition. It was given to an actress with half her talent and beauty. The actress also happens to be half her age, which was a devastating blow to Laynee’s morale.
Adding insult to injury, I came home from that trip with business cards from two potential investors. Both divorced women, loaded with capital and looking for ways to invest it. Given the way they leered at me, they’re probably more interested in my cock than my business ideas, so I don’t know if anything will come from the proposals I sent them.
The prospect of me working with them hasn’t helped the ominous mood hanging over Laynee. Especially since she offered numerous times to fund my business ventures. Taking money from the woman I want to provide for feels like a kick to the groin. I need to do this on my own.
“Earth to Decker.”
Her lilt draws my gaze to her hypnotic eyes.
“What’s putting that sexy brooding look on your face?” She shifts to sit on the end of the lounger and stretches out her bare legs in the space between us.
Standing in the shallow end, I rest my forearms on the concrete ledge and curl my hands around her delicate ankles. “Where do you see us at the end of this agreement?”
“Oh. I…” Her spine straightens, and she glances away. “It’s too soon to—”
“We’re almost halfway through the year. Tell me what you want, Laynee.”
“I’d rather not,” she whispers.
“Too bad.” I tighten my grip on her legs. “Tell me anyway.”
Her lips sink into a frown, and she makes a grumbling sound in her throat. “I want you to stay.” Her eyes bounce to mine. “But I’ll ruin it. I’ll ruin whatever we create because I always do. I suck at relationships.”
“Bullshit. You’ve maintained a relationship with Reese for ten years.”
“We’re not fucking.”
And they never will, if Reese wants to keep breathing.
“Your friendship with him proves you know how to get close to someone, how to take a leap of trust.” I run my palms up and down her calves, marveling at the illumination of her eyes in the lingering light of the sunset. “Did you know that up until a couple months ago, I had no friendships to speak of.”
“That’s not true.” Her nose scrunches. “What about that Dan guy you gave your apartment to?”
“I kept him at a distance when I lived in New York. It wasn’t until I met you that I started talking to him on the phone all the time. Then there’s my other unlikely friends.”
“Reese.” She smiles.
I smile with her because my friendship with him makes her ridiculously happy. If I’m honest, I actually enjoy hanging out with the posh bastard. So much so I’ve turned our guys’ night out into a weekly thing.
“And my sponsor,” I say.
Much to my surprise, I’ve kept in contact with Dr. Evan Daniels. I call him more than I care to admit and even met him for drinks when he was in Savannah for a conference last month. Of course, she doesn’t know his identity. He knows her, only because he’s seen me photographed with her.
“What’s your point?” she asks.
“After what went down with my best friend and business partner, I cut everyone out of my life. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to let someone in again. You showed me how.”
“I didn’t—”
“You trusted me with your secrets, Laynee. That took guts.” My gaze roams over her lickable body, and I slide her a smile that says I love what I see. “I figured if this tiny wisp of a woman had the balls to expose her fears to me, I could man up and let a few people into my personal life.”
“Man up?” She glances at my torso, my arms, and lingers on my lips. Her nipples tighten beneath the bikini. “If anything, you need to man down. Wouldn’t want you to get testosterone poisoning.”
“That’s not a thing.” My cock twitches in my swim trunks.
“You’re wrong.” Her lips purse, and she leaps to her feet, breaking my hold on her ankles. “It’s a known ailment.” She backs up with a flicker of heat dancing in her eyes. “It usually manifests at puberty and results in behavior that defies common sense.”
I lean into my arms and lift out of the pool, splattering the concrete with a deluge of water from my shorts as I stalk toward her. “What kind of behavior?”
“Well…” Backstepping toward the house, she loses a fight with her smile. “Typical dumb male behavior, like strutting and flexing and…gun cocking.”
I follow her gaze to the stiffy straining my wet shorts and drop my voice a few octaves. “You should probably run.”
With a sharp inhale, she spins and darts into the house. My pulse spikes as I chase her heart-shaped ass through the kitchen and past the hearth room before catching her in the living room. I’m soaking wet, and my feet slip across the tiles, so it’s an ungraceful impact of drenched skin and heavy
breaths when I slam into her.
I brace for a tumble, maybe even a half-hearted struggle. What I don’t expect is the punch she sends toward my head. I dodge it, anticipating a follow through like I taught her. Adrenaline floods my veins as her second swing forces my body backwards.
She misses. I grin. She grins back and rears her arm for a third strike. I’m ready.
Her knee connects with my groin. She doesn’t just crunch my erection. She attacks from underneath, striking in an upward motion and splitting the tri-state region with the maximum amount of pain.
“Fuuuuck!” I bend at the waist, sucking air, my muscles momentarily inhibited because she invoked my damn spinal reflex.
Holy fucking shit, that hurts.
“Oh my God.” She hugs my bowed head to her chest and strokes my hair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
I sweep her feet out from beneath her, brace her fall on the floor, and land atop her. “You should’ve kept running.”
“I can’t.” She cups my face and stares into my eyes, gasping from exertion. “Don’t you get it?”
“Then why am I still chasing you?”
“Because you have an old lady fetish.”
I grip her neck and apply enough pressure to get her attention. “Age is a shallow measurement. Think deeper, Laynee.”
“You say deeper, and my mind turns into a gutter.” She pulls at my fingers on her throat. “How’s your balls?”
“Throbbing.” I trail my hand from her neck, over her breast, and drag down the bikini top, exposing her fleshy tit. “That maneuver was really badass, baby. Major turn on.”
She laughs, eyes sparkling in the lamp light. “Only you can take a shot below the belt and maintain an erection.”
“Only you can give me an erection.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
With a hard pinch, I tweak her nipple and continue downward, following the curve of her waist, her hip, and her flat stomach, before sinking my fingers beneath the scrap of her swimsuit bottoms. The material is cold and wet from my dripping shorts, and goosebumps pebble her flesh. She’s shivering, and not in a good way.