Beauty and the Barbarian

by Nikki Winter

  She snorted unexpectedly. “She looked at me with all the solemn wisdom a toddler has to offer after naptime and said, ‘Ma.’ Up until this point, I’d ever only heard her mumble and occasionally call for you, but she was standing there, gazing at me, calling my name. I realized how insane I had to have looked, curled into a ball and hiccupping, my eyes red.” Mackenzie found herself shaking her head again. “What was I doing? Sobbing. In the middle of the floor. Over some unknown threat looming. A threat that I had created because I’d allowed myself to get lost. If I stayed that way—lost—I don’t think I would have made it through another month without being committed. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t make my depression a part of her first memories so I picked myself up and—”

  “—Left me,” Ashleigh finished for her. “I didn’t stop you. I challenged you to go through with it.”

  A slight knocking sound came from her right and she realized he was slapping his palms against the sides of his head. Mackenzie reached out to stop him, “Ashleigh—”

  “What’s wrong with me?” he blurted. “What’s wrong with me that I couldn’t see that? Feel that?”

  “Ashleigh—”

  “What's wrong with me that I could let you go?” He abruptly stood and left the room.

  Bewildered, Mackenzie gently moved Arista’s head from her lap and followed, closing the door after herself. She walked a ways down the hall and trailed the sound of Ashleigh leaving the house through the back door. She quickened her pace and caught him marching down the porch, his body coiled like a snake’s.

  “Ashleigh, wait a minute.”

  He swung around and jabbed a finger in her direction. “Why did you let me do that to you?” His voice broke, his gray eyes suspiciously glossy. “Huh? Why did you let me do that to you?”

  Her feet left the porch before she could reconsider it. She charged him, headed straight for arms that had always done more good than harm. Ashleigh couldn’t seem to support himself the moment she touched him. He toppled over and they went to the ground with her arms around his neck and her temple pressed to his own.

  “Why’d you let me do that to you?” he whispered again, repeating it over and over until his voice went raw.

  She could never give him an answer. Her mouth wouldn’t work.

  “Here.”

  Ashleigh took the ice pack shoved into his hand and applied it to his shoulder. He’d taken a hit when he and Mackenzie had tumbled to the ground, turning so the weight of the fall was on him and him alone. It was the way things should’ve been in every other aspect of their lives. The weight of the fall should have always been on him.

  He’d never been good enough for her. He would never be good enough for her. It was something he’d fed himself, believing that if he worked harder, pushed himself harder, that he could be. Ashleigh didn’t want to be Matthew. Didn’t want to let opportunities slip through his fingers and then find himself a lonely, miserable, bastard of a man. In his search for what he thought would be better, he’d lost something worth more than anything his fame had to offer. He didn’t want to lose it again.

  He knew what it was like to be tolerated, admired and adored, but Mackenzie had been the only one to show him what an unselfish love felt like. He hadn’t received it from his mother nor his father; just a pretty wallflower who had been willing to bloom only for him.

  The ice pack was suddenly taken from him and pressed down where he needed it after smaller, gentler hands rooted around to find the right place. Déjà vu came fast and hard. So hard that Ashleigh’s next exhale was more like the wind being knocked out of him. How many times had she done this for him? How many times had she tried to heal him, only to have him leave her open and vulnerable?

  He turned his head, catching the concentrated look on her face and said, “I love you.”

  Her eyes jerked up, startled. “Ash—”

  “I’ve always loved you,” he went on, repeating words that he’d said days ago and still meant. “I think I loved you before I ever even knew you were coming; before I ever even knew your name.” She seemed to be at a loss, but he continued. “I always made the assumption that football was my gift, the one God gave me to compensate for a lack of affection and normalcy. It seemed to be something to push me, give me a reason not to down stolen bottles of gin from my Daddy’s liquor cabinet and just drive head first into the nearest, strongest tree.” Her stare widened. “But I assumed wrong. Football wasn’t my gift.” He shook his head. “Nah, my gift wouldn’t be that generic, that stripped down or stark and shared with thousands of others. My gift would be exceptional. Significant. Irreplaceable. My gift couldn’t be mirrored.” Lifting his hands, he wrapped them about Mackenzie’s wrists and pulled her right palm to his chest, flattening it over his heart. “My gift would look at me and tell me that I was worth something, that I was important, loved. My gift would fight for me; try to chase off a grown man twice her size because she refused to stop defending what she considered to be hers. My gift—even after how little I appreciated her—would still keep a box of our best memories hidden in a secret place for herself, the same way I keep one.”

  Ashleigh angled forward and pressed a kiss between Mackenzie’s brows before she could ask how he knew about that. Murmuring, he said, “You’re my gift, plums.” He caught and held her eyes. “Let me unwrap you again? Show you that I can’t ever imagine giving you away?”

  Her answer would have been missed if they hadn’t been so close to one another, the summer air making their skin sticky. But he still heard it clearly when she said, “Yes.”

  Considering how infrequently Mackenzie felt delicate in her day to day life, surrounded by women several inches shorter and several dress sizes smaller, one would think that she’d come to appreciate a gentle touch; a touch given by the only man who’d ever truly dwarfed her in stature outside of a select few. And yet, that belief was wrong. She didn’t need painstakingly slow seductions from Ashleigh, didn’t want flowery words and tenderness. Not when the loss of his control told her all that she needed to know. Romanticizing intimacy between the two of them had never been an ability of hers. Because it was always borderline animalistic when they came together, grappling touches and bites, the snap of teeth and growls. It was all she’d ever really known from adolescence to now, but tonight was different. He needed different, desired something he hadn’t been able to clearly articulate since they’d left the porch and escaped humidity for the shelter of her room.

  “I just want,”—he stopped in front of her, trailing his thumb across her jaw, down her chin and then her throat—“to touch you. Without it being rushed. Without feeling like it may be the last time.” Ashleigh tipped her face towards him. “I want to get inside of you so deeply that even when we're apart you still feel me.”

  She swallowed, latched onto his hand and brushed her lips across his fingertips. “So do it.”

  A maelstrom of emotions rolled through her at the darkening of his stare. It wouldn’t be the last time he touched her. Mackenzie couldn’t even fathom it. Whatever happened tomorrow, or the day after, she wouldn’t worry about. They were mending, healing. It was needed—wanted—and she couldn’t halt it because of fear. Look at what that emotion had done to them already.

  “No matter what I did,” Ashleigh told her. “No matter what I said or how I behaved, plums, you meant—mean—more to me than I could ever express. I let you go because some ridiculous, and very idiotic, part of me always felt like I wasn’t good enough for you to begin with; that I would only hurt you eventually.” His mouth twisted. “And I did. If I failed to say it before, if somehow I missed the chance, I’m so sorry, darlin’.”

  All air left her lungs.

  “Do you hear me?” he whispered fiercely. “I. Am. Sorry. For every insecurity I unintentionally increased. For every moment that I made you feel like a fixture. For every time that I didn’t appreciate how much it took for you to follow me into the unknown. But more than anything, I’m sorry for not fo
llowing you when I should have. I’m sorry for not dragging you back, for not letting you know that you’re invaluable to me. I’m sorry.”

  Moisture beaded on her lashes and she nodded mutely, afraid that if she opened her mouth she’d blubber. Instead she kissed him, hard and fast. When she had control again, she pulled back and admitted something that she’d been so intent on keeping from him, “I love you too. I don’t think I ever stopped.”

  A feral sound erupted from his throat and he curved a hand around her nape to pull her into another soul rendering kiss. She’d waited so long to hear the simple words of an apology. It was an honest one, thoroughly honest. The last link in their chain had been restored. The axis was titled in its rightful place again and she could hold his hand. That was all she’d ever really wanted.

  In one smooth motion, he bent and grabbed the backs of her thighs, lifting her until she locked them around his waist. A few long legged strides carried them to the bed and he released her then, moving away to undress frantically.

  “Strip,” Ashleigh gritted out, standing at the foot of the bed, his large body uncovered and tense, the muscle between his legs heavy and aroused.

  Mackenzie shimmied out of her shorts, tank top, underthings, and waited. His narrowed eyes ran across her, heating every place that they touched. She felt his gaze much in the same way that she could feel the pulsing between her thighs, her pussy creaming for every second that he withheld his touch and simply watched her.

  Her gaze drifted over the strong stone cut of his arms, shoulders and chest, down the delineations of his stomach and past his belly button, only stopping when they reached his sex. If there was ever a blueprint for dicks, Ashleigh’s was certainly it. It bounced under her stare and her thighs jumped, torn between the anticipation of when he’d hold them open and deliver agonizingly pleasurable strokes, leaving her spineless; or when she’d get the chance to swallow him. Absent-mindedly, she licked her lips and heard him groan.

  Ashleigh suddenly fisted his member, rubbing from root to tip. “In your mouth, is that where you want me?”

  She bobbed her head; partially dazed from the show he was giving her.

  “Knees.”

  Mackenzie was still focused on his hand.

  He abruptly stopped and her eyes lifted to his. “Do I have to tell you again?” he questioned.

  Shaking her head quickly, she went to do as he’d commanded, but pulled up short when he reached for a pillow on her ottoman and dropped it on the floor. She raised her gaze questioningly and he gave her a leering grin. “I’m nothing if not a gentleman, darlin’. Southern hospitality and all.”

  She snorted, refusing to say thank you even though she appreciated the small, considerate act. Her knees hit the pillow and then she was reaching for him.

  Ashleigh pulled back. “Eyes on me.”

  Heart hammering, she looked up at him and opened her mouth as he came forward again. She engulfed the big crown, taking him as deep as she comfortably could on the first glide. He swore, his glare blazing down at her. Mackenzie angled forward and placed her palms against his strong thighs, clenching the thick muscles. His length slid further and her tongue worked the smooth underside of him. When she traced the vein there, Ashleigh tangled his hand in her locs and began to move in tandem with the bobbing of her head, moaning. The rumbling sound made her clit tremble, tempting Mackenzie to use one of her free hands to rub herself.

  She fought the urge, knowing that the longer she postponed, the greater the reward would be. This was their game. The way things had always worked. He didn’t release her stare, whispering things that made her cheeks burn as she took him down her throat and held him there for a moment.

  “Jesus,” Ashleigh groaned before he abruptly withdrew from her.

  Mackenzie frowned and started to argue that she hadn’t been finished when she found herself airborne. She squealed as she hit the bed and shook it.

  “Kneel and then turn and face the headboard,” he demanded.

  She hesitated.

  “Now!”

  Jumping into action, she did as he’d said, waiting with her head bowed. The bed dipped and before she could ask what he was doing, Mackenzie felt the coarseness of Ashleigh’s beard on her inner thighs. A startled look down showed him on his back, his head between her legs, as she stayed motionless in a fairly precarious position.

  “We never got around to what I promised, plums,” he grumbled. “I’m remedying that now.”

  His hands slammed down on her hips and he jerked her so that her thighs spread wider and her sex rested on his mouth. She released a gasp and then a drawn out moan at the flick of his tongue against her nubbin. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to satisfy the greedy tugs her pussy made in search of something to fill it.

  Her hands curled around the wooden bars beneath her palms. “Ash…”

  A harsh puff of warm air against her clit was his response and she bucked, huffing. A beg rushed to the forefront of her mouth but was halted and shoved back by another moan when he lapped at her slit and circled it, seeming intent on tormenting her. He nibbled and then nipped, making her cry out. One hand released the headboard to tunnel through his short-cropped curls while her hips began to roll on their own volition. Ashleigh’s huge hands moved from her waist to the globes of her ass and parted them. He broadened his tongue and the pressure increased, alternating between her opening and clit.

  The flicks quickened to a pace that made her mouth drop open on a silent scream. Then he tunneled inside of her and Mackenzie danced on his tongue, riding out every gratifying sensation delivered. She ground down, biting her lips. Turning her head away from the sight of his feasting, she caught a glimpse of him in a nearby mirror, pumping himself in time with the movements of his mouth. A noise left her throat that wasn’t exactly natural or clear but she couldn’t be bothered to care.

  The rhythm grew erratic and jerky and her thighs quivered. A ball of fire formed in her womb, growing with every thrust of his tongue, every groan. Mackenzie looked back down again and found those steel gray eyes focused solely on her, heavily lidded and rife with lust. It was enough. The ball fanned out and flames licked at every inch of exposed skin. Her head went back on her shoulders and she clamped her teeth down on the wail charging up and out from her gut. Her pussy locked around Ashleigh’s invasion and he drank every drop of nectar spouting from her with hungry sounds that expanded the inferno.

  Short, snapping breaths left her but Ashleigh didn’t wait for a recovery. She was on her back in an instant with him sinking into her, one of her knees pressed into her chest. He drove into her once, twice and said, “Don’t you ever leave me again.” The hard motion of his hips picked up. “Do you hear me, Mackenzie? Never. Again.”

  “Never,” she heaved, still on a high from the last climax and barreling towards a new one at a speed that scared her. “Never again.”

  He brought them chest-to-chest, keeping her leg pinned. The other was locked around his waist. “Lips.”

  She angled her mouth towards his and nearly swallowed her own tongue at the taste of herself lingering there. He fucked her with the same urging intensity that he kissed her. Mackenzie gripped him as tightly as possible, unable to rationalize that at some point she’d have to release him, that she couldn’t be skin to skin with him at every waking moment. Oh but she wanted to. For three years she’d denied herself this pleasure, determined to grow up and mature and succeed, but what she’d failed to realize was that there were simply some things that a body couldn’t forget. The near violence of her attraction to the man making her scream into his mouth was one of those things.

  And when she arched up due to the brutal force of her orgasm, almost throwing him off, Mackenzie realized with every whispered, “I love you” he delivered, that she could never walk away again.

  Fourteen

  “Mooommmyyy,” a small but strong voice sung from the other side of Mackenzie’s door. “Have you seen Daddy? I’ve been looking all over th
e house and I can’t find him!”

  Groaning, she buried her face further into the crook of warm, wonderfully scented skin that she’d been resting on and began to answer with whatever it took that got her daughter to go away. She then suddenly became painfully aware of the fact that Arista couldn’t find Daddy because Daddy was beneath her. Mackenzie jerked up from her sprawled position and almost toppled over the side of the bed. Strong hands caught her and brought her back up and she stared at Ashleigh with wide eyes.

  “You spent the night in here,” she hissed.

  He looked from side to side. “Was I not supposed to? Because I was under the impression that you wanted me to stay,”—his lips curled—“especially after that last thing you did. You know where you sat on—”

  She slapped a hand over his mouth and barked, “You were supposed to vacate the premises after that. After all of it!”

  He removed her hand. “Once again,” he said as if speaking to someone on the spectrum. “I was under the impression that I was allowed because…sex. There was a lot of sex. Really great sex.”

  “Mommy?” Arista tried again.

  “Just a second, Ari-bear,” she called out, scrambling to get up.

  Ashleigh remained where he was, her sheets covering the essential parts while the rest went bare to the streaming sunlight. “Why, precisely, are you panicking?”

  “Because she can’t see us like this!” Mackenzie fussed, hauling a t-shirt over her head and then yanking on yoga pants. “Not at least until we’ve had a chance to explain everything! As far as she knows, I’m supposed to be marrying Michael!”

  He blinked owlishly. “Plums, our child is an intelligent, free-thinking individual, intuitive enough to know and understand that there is something happening between her parents.”

  She yanked her locs up into a bun and growled, “Shut up and find your panties.”