Last Kiss

by Laurelin Paige

  He pounded into me, giving me no time to adjust or catch my breath before adopting a brutal tempo. He fit inside me so perfectly. His stroke hit every sensitive spot of my pussy even before I clenched around him. And the fierce way he impaled me… I adored it. He fucked me so savagely that I had to grip onto the counter edge for support. I held on for the ride, my eyes focused on his expression. Both cruelty and delight played on his features, and while it disgusted me to admit, it was the combination of those emotions that turned me on. He was ruthless, and he enjoyed being ruthless. And he enjoyed that his viciousness was what pleased me the most.

  With no break in his assault, he placed his palm flat against my neck and pushed me back until my head was pinned to the mirror behind me. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t get a breath in with his hand blocking my windpipe. Tension pulled at my insides and another orgasm stretched toward release, building, building, building…

  But he let up too soon, and the pressure calmed to a steady buzz, while the explosion I desired was elusive and just out of reach. I clung to the dizziness of “almost there,” wishing it was enough to send me soaring. “Please,” I implored. “Please.”

  Reeve smirked – he loved it when I begged – but he didn’t take me where I wanted to go. Instead, with his fingers pinching my chin, he twisted my face so that my cheek pressed against the glass.

  “Look,” he said in reverence.

  The mirror ran the whole wall behind me then wrapped around the vanity so, facing this direction, I could see our reflections in the glass, half eclipsed by steam from the shower. He let go of me long enough to wipe the fog then resumed his grip on my jaw. I stared, transfixed by the sight of his cock driving into me over and over.

  With my focus where he wanted it, Reeve rearranged my legs, bringing one foot up to brace on the counter and propping the other in the sink. Now I was angled so that my cunt could better be seen in the mirror. It was naughty and erotic and I couldn’t stop staring.

  “Look at that,” he said again, his fingers jabbing into my skin. “The way you let me use you is so beautiful.”

  Beautiful. It was beautiful. The way he had me spread out awkwardly across the bathroom sink, naked while he was still clothed – it was vile and wicked and oh, so beautiful.

  “I can’t control myself when I’m inside you.” His voice was ragged and threadbare. “I want to tear you apart. I want to rip you to shreds.” He moved both of his hands to grasp my thighs, tilting my pelvis so that his thrusts hit even deeper. “I want to destroy you. Want to fuck you to pieces. Want to shatter you. Want to break you.”

  His awful, wonderful words set a storm to gather low inside me, and I could tell that this time it wouldn’t back down. I shifted my hands from the counter to his forearms to brace myself for its attack. The movement drew his attention from the mirror to my face.

  “Want to break you,” he repeated, his words more of a rumble than actual speech.

  “You do,” I said, peering up under heavy lids, my voice a mere rasp. “You do break me. Every time.”

  Reeve’s eyes sparked in awe, then the muscles in his neck grew taut and his rhythm stuttered. With a low growl, he froze and spilled into me, his fingers digging so deep into my skin I was sure they’d leave bruises on my thighs.

  It was so hot how he defiled and wrecked me. So hot how he loved to see me devastated. So hot that I joined him in his release. My mouth fell open and my climax took over, coarsely racking through my body. Even with the mirror supporting my back, I was freefalling, spinning with pleasure. Only a thin layer of sweat and steam covered my body, but it felt like I’d been pulled underwater into a whirlpool of bliss.

  Reeve put himself away, then watched me as I finished, as if completely enamored with my orgasm. As if completely enamored with me.

  It was somewhat disconcerting to feel his eyes so heavy on me. He’d seen me come so many times before, but I’d never noticed him so intent. I lowered my gaze, but he lifted my chin, forcing me to meet his stare head-on.

  With a gentle touch, he swept a lock of sweat-drenched hair from my forehead. “Every time?”

  He’d been tender with me in the past, but it wasn’t his usual M.O., and it startled me. Moved me as I realized it came from a place of concern.

  “Yes,” I answered honestly, because he did break me, every time that he stuck his cock inside me, every time that he made me climax, every time that he touched me. Outside of the moment, when the sex was over and we were people instead of sex-driven beasts, it sounded horrible. Who would want to be broken by her lover? Who would want to be destroyed?

  I do. I always did. I longed for it and needed it. I needed him.

  I caught his hand and pressed the back of it to my cheek. “It’s the only reason I ever want to be someone who’s put together. So that you can break me all over again.”

  Studying me intently, he skimmed his knuckles down around the curve of my jaw. His thumb grazed along my mouth, slowly. I held perfectly still, not wanting to break the trance, afraid even the rise and fall of my breath would end whatever moment we were having.

  Finally, he leaned in and pressed his lips softly to mine. Again. Then again, and this time his tongue slid through the part in my mouth and the chaste caress turned deep and luxurious, but ever considerate. Even when his hands moved to pull my hair and claw at my neck, affection dominated the tone of our kiss.

  It was frightening and perfect, the way we molded together, the way our tongues danced. As long as it lasted, I let myself be in it. Instead of analyzing what it meant or panicking about the intimacy or worrying about the woman in the room next door, I simply took what he gave, returning it in kind, forgetting everything but his taste and his touch and him, him, him.

  When it was over, he pulled back, but not away, the connection remaining even when physical contact had ceased.

  He glanced around the room, seeming to suddenly notice the shower running behind us. “Clean up.” Was it my imagination or were his words as unsteady as the rhythm of my pulse?

  “Are you joining me?” What I really wanted to say was don’t leave.

  He shook his head and my heart sunk. But then he said, “I’ll still be here when you get out.”

  The water was lukewarm when I got in. I didn’t even want a shower anymore, my initial reason for wanting one long gone. Still I stood under the nozzle for long minutes, letting the spray get cold enough to shock my brain back into cognitive reasoning.

  What the hell was going on between us? Reeve acted like he knew. He acted like I should know as well, and if I read him right, maybe I did know. Maybe. Was it ridiculous that I needed clarification?

  One thing was certain – I wasn’t getting answers standing in here.

  I shut off the shower and hurriedly wrapped a towel around my hair and another around my body. He’d said he would still be there when I was finished, but all of a sudden I worried that he wouldn’t be. When I opened the bathroom door and found him lying on my bed, his arm thrown over his eyes, I almost sighed audibly.

  Then I stood in the doorway and stared in amazement. Because he was still there. And he’d undressed. His shirt and jeans had joined my clothes on the chair and now he was just in his boxer briefs, which meant he was staying. Which meant…?

  Seeming to sense me, he shifted his arm above his head and glanced in my direction. “I like it when you look at me like that. Almost as much as I like it when you look at me like you think I might slit your throat in your sleep.”

  I opened my mouth to respond then decided there wasn’t any response appropriate. Instead, I asked, “Are we… together?”

  “Well.” He turned to his side and propped his head up on his hand.

  And I held my breath.

  “Right now you’re over there and I’m over here. But when you come over here and we get into bed then, yes, we’ll be together.”

  “Reeve!” Goddammit, this was hard enough. “I’m being serious, here. Please.”

  His
grin faded. “What are you asking, Emily?”

  “I’m asking about Amber.” Amber, who was right on the other side of the wall. I could feel her presence in the room as if it were only a thin screen that divided us instead of a foot of drywall and insulation.

  “Seeing as how she’s not in the room, I’d say I’m even more not with Amber than I am not with you.”

  I let out an exasperated groan. “Why do you keep dancing around this? Do you not know what you want? If that’s the case, just tell me.” I’d never done this before – never had to feel my way around a relationship that wasn’t based on financial security. Strangely, this was so much more difficult than negotiating where I’d live and how much I had for living expenses and whether I’d allow double penetration or cum in my hair. This was my heart on the line, and until now, I’d had no idea how much I valued that.

  Reeve sat up, and in the sincerest of tones, he said, “It’s not the case. I know what I want. I want you.” His lip curled into a half-smile. “Now come here.”

  My head fell with the weight of relief. Me. He wanted me.

  It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want Amber, too, I reminded myself. There had been other men set on sharing us. That arrangement had worked once upon a time, but we were long past that, no matter who Amber was these days.

  I pulled the towel off my hair and tossed it to the floor before starting toward the bed. I was nearly to him when I halted. “And what about Amber?”

  “She’ll have my protection as long as she wants it.”

  I nodded, glad for that, but it hadn’t been what I was asking. “What did you tell her at dinner?”

  Reeve sighed as if he were losing patience with the conversation, but he answered all the same. “I didn’t tell her what I would have told her if you had stayed.”

  “Which would have been…?” I gestured for him to fill in the blank.

  He scooted to the end of the bed and reached for my hand to tug me closer. “That things have changed since she left,” he said. He drew me closer still so that I was standing between his knees. “And that I’m currently in a committed relationship. With you.”

  My breath caught around the lump in my throat.

  But then I noticed the flirty glint in his eyes, and, though his tone had seemed earnest, I didn’t buy it. I couldn’t.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

  “Yes. I would have.”

  I pushed playfully at his shoulder. “Can you stop messing with me for half a second and be honest?”

  In a blur of motion, Reeve had me pinned on the bed. “I am being honest.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why is it so hard for you to believe me?”

  Because no one ever chose me over Amber.

  I couldn’t say it out loud. As if that would jinx it. “It just is.”

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I realized what this was about for him. My trust. Or lack of trust. Again, he was seeking it. Again, I’d refused to give it. But this time it was totally unintentional on my part.

  I searched his face, trying to predict what his reaction would be. I was afraid I’d ruined it. Ruined us. I was so desperate to undo whatever damage I might have done that I opened my mouth and prepared to tell him what he really wanted to hear instead – that I loved him.

  Before I could, he broke into a smile. “Well then you can believe it when you hear me say it to her.”

  “Okay.” How could a word feel so soft on my tongue when it held so much? I couldn’t even begin to name the emotions wrapped up in those simple two syllables, so many different shades and colors of relief and hope and affection and amazement.

  Then reality came storming in, and I remembered my obligations and promises and all the reasons I couldn’t let Reeve declare his love for me to my friend. “I mean, no.”

  His brow arched. “No?”

  His grip weakened with his surprise, and I easily pushed out of his hold and stood up from the bed. I rewrapped the towel around me, gathering myself literally as well as figuratively, and then pivoted to face him. “I have to be the one who tells her.”

  This wasn’t how things worked between us. He was the one who decided how things would be; I was the one who followed orders. I didn’t get to make demands.

  This, however, was nonnegotiable.

  I shifted my weight from one hip to the other, waiting for his response.

  Reeve rolled to his side and eyed me carefully. “As long as you actually tell her,” he said sternly.

  “I will,” I assured him. Then I frowned. “What do I tell her exactly?”

  He cocked his head at me. “You know. You tell me.”

  It was a challenge, a test, and for half a second I was afraid that I’d fail because I didn’t know what the correct answer was.

  And then I did. “That I’m yours.”

  His features barely changed and yet his entire face lit up. “You’re mine,” he confirmed, pride thick in his tone.

  I bathed in that pride. Let his words lick at my skin like the rough washing of a cat’s tongue. I felt like I’d been remade. Claimed. Newly wedded. Though my declaration and his acknowledgment were far from marriage vows, it was the strongest vow I’d ever made.

  Well. Besides the one I’d made to Amber.

  But this moment wasn’t about her – it was about me and Reeve and this bond between us that she had no part of.

  If there was any chance of letting her slip farther into my thoughts, it was gone a second later when Reeve yanked me to the bed and flipped me to my stomach.

  “You’re mine,” he said again, this time with a growl as he jerked the towel away from my body. “And now I’m going to fuck you like I own you. On your knees. Ass up.”

  I scrambled into position while he stripped out of his underwear. Then he was inside me – bruising me, breaking me. Tearing me into a hundred pieces that all belonged to him.

  And while he fucked me and used me and made me beautiful, I stayed almost entirely focused on him. Almost. Because, unlike in the bathroom where the shower had masked our activity, here we were exposed with only that one wall between us and Amber’s room. I would tell her about Reeve and me, but this wasn’t how I wanted her to find out. So I swallowed my cries of pleasure and pain, and I buried my face in the mattress when I couldn’t keep it inside.

  He noticed, of course. With his cock buried in my cunt, he pressed his chest against my back and whispered at my ear. “Remember I’m the one who’s letting you be quiet. If I wanted you to be screaming right now, you would be, no matter what you wanted anyone else to hear.”

  Was it wrong that this was his way of making love?

  Was it wrong that it was mine too?

  Later, like new lovers who can’t get enough of each other’s touch, we fell asleep coiled, our legs and torsos intertwined, unwilling to be parted even while we dreamed.

  CHAPTER 10

  The last time I’d shared a man with Amber I’d been twenty-one.

  The last time I’d shared one willingly, anyway. Bridge had been after that, but I didn’t count him for obvious reasons.

  Bryan Crane had been nothing like Bridge. Amber had met him while we’d lived in Mexico. He’d been a guest at the resort we’d stayed at, but, though she’d been at his side the entire two weeks he’d been in the country, I’d been too wrapped up in my own affair to have a chance to meet him myself. When his vacation ended, Bryan had invited her to visit him anytime so, naturally, when we decided to head back to the States, he was the first person Amber thought of to take us in.

  “He’s so nice,” she’d told me with a dreamy look in her eyes, “and really rich. But mostly just really a nice guy.” After rescuing me from an abusive lover who had very nearly killed me, Amber had likely thought a nice guy was just what I’d needed.

  She hadn’t understood me back then. Eventually, she began to, but that came later, and, even then, she’d never understood all of me.

  “I can’t wait to meet him,” I’d tol
d her. And maybe I’d meant it. As horrible as my relationship with Aaron had been, he’d taught me some very important lessons about myself – that I had no limits. That I didn’t know how to say stop. That I was incapable of deciding what was best for me in sexual situations.

  A nice guy probably was just what I’d needed.

  “Anyway, I know you’re just going to love him,” Amber had said for the fiftieth time as we’d boarded the private plane he’d sent to collect us. She’d been determined to sell me on him, not because I’d been reluctant to go, but because she’d thought it would be good for my morale to have something to look forward to. “Plus he can lick pussy better than any guy I’ve ever met.”

  “You’re just as beautiful in person as Amber said,” he’d told me when I met him in the foyer of his Atherton estate. I’d looked like I’d just been beat up by someone, because I had been, so I knew it was a lie, but he’d embraced me and kissed my cheek and made me believe for a fraction of a second that I actually was a beautiful person.

  It had been immediately evident that Bryan was everything Amber had made him out to be – nice, rich, and incredibly good at oral sex. Every word that had come out of his mouth had been gracious and kind and, surprisingly, genuine. His house had been the biggest I’d ever seen, let alone lived in. And he could go down for hours.

  He also turned out to be ordinary with a capital O. Except for the fact that he’d self-made his billions in the pharmtech industry, there was absolutely nothing notable about him. He was average age (midfifties), average looking, average height, average personality.

  But Amber had liked him, and he’d welcomed us into his life with no hesitation. He was newly divorced, and with his two daughters already grown and married, his fifteen-thousand-square-foot estate had probably felt large and lonely. It was to our benefit – living with him had been a paradise like no other. He’d spoiled us rotten, buying us gifts and bringing in servants to cater to our every whim, and never once did he act as though he’d expected us to pay him back in any way. He was just that nice of a guy.