by Ada Stone
I shivered a little at the thought.
“Do you need some ice? Something to drink? Damnit, Zo, I’ll fucking kill him for touching you.”
His eyes flashed with the promise of violence, fierce and protective and heartbreakingly sweet all at once. He knelt down in front of me, sitting back on his haunches so that we were eye level. Carefully, he reached for me. The rough tips of his fingers were soft as they caressed their way across my cheek, trailing just barely over the bruises there.
Instantly, I was sure that I looked terrible. That I was the most hideous thing in the damn room and I felt awful for it, because I wanted him to think I was beautiful. I always wanted him to think that.
“No, Nick, I…” I only need you, I wanted to say, but just couldn’t. It was enough that he was here; I couldn’t start a fight and risk that. So I fell silent and tried to tell him with my eyes that he meant everything to me.
His eyebrows pulled down, his eyes trailing over every inch of my face as though to memorize it. Maybe they were scanning for more signs of damage or checking the extent of that damage. Or maybe it was just that they were looking at me.
He leaned closer to me as his fingertips turned into a palm, cupping my cheek gently and letting his thumb run soft circles over my skin. His gaze flickered to my lips before jerking back up to my eyes. He seemed on the verge of something. Of saying something or thinking something or realizing something about this moment, but I didn’t have any idea what it was or could be. All I knew was that I wanted him forever closer.
“Nick,” I breathed, my voice a little hoarse still from crying, but not enough that it could hide the desperation that lingered in that one, single word. The need.
“I know,” he whispered, and in that glorious moment, we were in sync. We just knew what was going on in the other’s head.
So when he closed the space between us and let his lips ever so gently brush against mine, I wasn’t surprised. My eyes fluttered closed at the contact, and I longed for a deeper kiss. But he barely let our lips touch before he pulled away.
I snapped my eyes open to look at him and saw him frowning at my lips. “Does it hurt?” he asked, and I remembered that my lip was split open, just a little bit.
I shook my head. “No,” I told him, my voice breathy and needy. “No, it doesn’t. Not…not when you touch me.”
That was all the invitation he needed. He crashed his lips against mine again. It did actually sting a little bit, but not enough to make me want to stop. Instead, I wanted more of him. My hands went to his t-shirt, fisting into the material so that I could pull him closer. He obliged, moving to me, while his own hands simultaneously pulled me to the edge of the couch until our bodies touched.
He was on his knees now in front of me so that he could lift up into the kiss and more effectively press our bodies together. I opened my knees so that his body settled between them. My chest pressed against his as he tried to pull us even closer, his hands on my hips and my lower back, holding me tightly against him as though afraid I might leave him. That I might disappear.
I’m not going anywhere, I wanted to tell him. I’ll never go anywhere without you ever again.
But I refused to break the kiss just to waste words. This moment I had been dreaming of forever. I wanted him, touched myself as I thought of him, and it had been too long since anyone had made my body respond like this physically.
He clutched at me, and I thought, I hoped, that he would rip off my clothes and take me right then and there. Instead, I was surprised by the sudden lifting of my body. He held me tightly in his arms and had stood with me, holding me against him and carrying me without so much of a care.
I groaned into his mouth as my body shuddered at his strength. His bulging muscles made me shiver with want and his tongue, diving and delving in my mouth, made me wish that I could taste more of him. All of him.
I wrapped my legs automatically around his middle, wishing we didn’t have so many layers between us, wishing that I could just slide myself a little farther down until I was impaled on his thick length.
He walked with me wrapped around him through the living room. My eyes were clenched shut tightly as I lost myself in his lips, so I had no idea where we were moving, but after a few steps I felt my back slam hard against a wall. I cried out into his mouth and he growled into mine, the reverberation slipping into my chest and tripping down low into my belly.
Wetness swelled between my legs and I thought if I didn’t take my pants off soon I would soak right through my panties and my jeans both.
His hands clutched at my hips, then moved lower to that spot where my thighs turned into the lower curve of my ass. There he squeezed, simultaneously pulling me closer to him and opening my legs wider to fit between them.
I arched my back against the wall, pushing my crotch into him, sliding against him. I felt the tip of his hardness which tented his slacks, and he groaned. I wanted to grind myself against him, but couldn’t quite slide down low enough to rub along his shaft.
“Please,” I heard myself beg in a breathless voice, and he groaned in response.
He pushed me harder into the wall so that his hands could move from my rear to the waistband of my jeans, which were squashed between us. I arched my back again, pushing my pelvis out and he put his left knee beneath me to hold me up so that his hand could work between us. It was difficult and took some maneuvering on both of our parts but he managed to pop the button of my jeans and jerk down my fly.
“Why couldn’t you wear a damn dress?” he growled at me, the heat in his voice sending tendrils of pleasure running down my spine and across my skin.
I licked my lips, but didn’t answer him. I was on fire. Because I want you to take off my clothes, I thought, though that wasn’t true in the sense that that was why I had worn the jeans. But I wasn’t going to explain to him the real reason that I’d dressed the way I was.
There were much better things to focus on now.
He pulled me away from the wall, our chests slamming together, my hands tangling into his hair as his clutched at my ass again. We were moving, up the stairs this time, though we didn’t make it to the landing before he was pressing me into the wall again, his hand diving beneath my shirt to reach for my chest. He found my bra and tugged at it, pulling one of my breasts free.
“I’ve always had a thing for your tits,” he said, grinning cheekily at me as he squeezed it before rolling his palm to find the nipple. It hardened and he pinched it between his forefinger and thumb.
I gasped. “Thank god,” I muttered, and he laughed.
Our lips crashed once again and instantly our mouths were open so that our tongues could do battle. His hand left my breast to go behind my back, still beneath my shirt. We pulled away from the wall again as his hand searched for the clasp of my bra. He tongued me still, carrying me up the stairs, trying to get my damn bra undone.
Multitasker. I love it. I felt giddy at our closeness, at the touch that I’d been craving from him for five years.
We reached the second floor at the same time that he managed to undo my bra. We stumbled into a room, most likely Jordan’s, with a large bed with plain dark blue bedding and only one pillow. I was still kissing him like my life depended on it when we got to the edge of the bed, but a moment later, he pulled away from me.
I might have whined at him for breaking our kiss, but then he threw me down onto the bed so that I fell onto my back, my legs spreading automatically, my breasts bouncing in the bra that was trying its hardest to slide off of my body.
“Please,” was all I managed to get out, and it was all he needed.
Nick jerked his shirt off, revealing an expanse of rock hard chest. There were scars across his abdomen that hadn’t been there before, and I saw the snake tattoo in full now as it wrapped around his large bicep. His large fingers went to the waistband of his sweats which were tented with thick desire and it snapped me away from his delicious, strong body to remember that I was essentially fully clothed still
.
Quickly, my fingers went to my shirt, undoing the buttons and cursing the fact that it wasn’t a tee in the first place. Nick growled in appreciation as he jerked down his sweats. I licked my lips at the sight of his massive erection, his cock standing at attention, the bulbous head slick with his own lubricant.
Deciding I was taking too long—which I happened to agree with—Nick reached for me, going for my pants as I worked to get my shirt undone. He grabbed my jeans by the belt loops and jerked, my ass coming up off the mattress as he yanked them down my hips. He got them about halfway down before he reached for my panties, too, pulling them halfway down my thighs so that my moist nether region was exposed to his lustful gaze.
“Fuck,” he muttered, one hand sliding up my thigh so that he could let his thumb slip along my wet lips.
I had my shirt open by now and was panting like a dog in heat at his touch, but I needed more. Forcing myself to sit up—which pushed his thumb into me slightly, making me moan—I ripped the shirt off of my body. Not missing a beat, Nick reached for my bra and yanked that off, too, tossing it off to the side somewhere. He squeezed both of my tits just once, then shoved me back down so that he could finish taking off my pants.
He jerked them off quickly, then reached for my knees. He shoved them apart and I whimpered, waiting for him, needing him. He settled between them and I saw his dick pulse with desire. Swallowing, I breathed heavily with an anticipation that had been building for five years. It seemed unreal that it would actually happen, here, now. Finally.
I felt the head of him brush against my wet opening and shuddered with pleasure. This was it. He pushed it in just slightly, spreading my lips open. Then he paused.
His eyes jerked to my face, locking with my own gaze. Maybe he was searching for something there, though I didn’t know what, and after a moment he must have found it, because he started to push.
It had been a long time and I was tight, and Nick wasn’t small by any means. So as he began to shove his length into my waiting body, I felt myself stretch. It was a little uncomfortable, but that quickly gave way to a surge of delightful pleasure that raced through my body.
He groaned loudly above me, his muscles taut, his skin flushed. I reached for him, pulled him to me, clutched his shoulders and whatever part of his body I could just to get him closer to me.
When he was buried fully inside of me, I let out a cry. I felt him hitting the very back of me, bottoming out inside, and it was almost too much for me. He seemed to sense it, because he stalled, waiting for me to get used to the feel of him—familiar, wonderful—before continuing.
At least, continuing thrusting. Though my pussy was so full that I thought I might burst, the rest of my body was fair game.
His hands fondled my breasts, tugging and squeezing them. He pinched the nipples and when he wasn’t quite satisfied with that, he leant forward—causing his cock to shift inside of me, a whimper escaping my lips—and captured them in his mouth. He tongued one nipple, then the next, before grazing his teeth across the little nubs each in turn.
I was burning up with need and lust and a thousand other things, the least of which was still love. Always love.
“Move, please,” I begged him. “I need you to—”
I broke off as he obliged me. He pulled back, his cock slipping out of me, only to shove right back in, going once again so far that I felt him on the other side of me. I cried out, screamed his name.
“That’s it, baby,” he told me, grounding it out between gritted teeth. “Fucking scream my name.”
He didn’t have to tell me again. He shoved into me once more, and I did exactly as he commanded.
“Nick!”
He began to get a rhythm, one that was hard and fast from the get-go, because I could sense how he’d been waiting for this moment, too. His hands held onto my hips for leverage, holding me in place as he plunged into my body hard and fast, over and over again. I begged him, cried for him, screamed for him. I would give him anything in that moment, everything I had, if only he wouldn’t stop.
One hand moved from my hip to caress my belly, then moved back up to my bouncing tits. He squeezed one as he continued to pound into me. I was panting beneath him, trying to jerk my hips into him, though it was useless because of how his hand held me down to the bed.
He leaned forward and crashed into my lips for a kiss that was equal parts searing and tender. He swallowed my I love you and kept going.
Giving my tit a final squeeze, he let his hand move back down. I thought maybe he was going to return to my hip for more leverage, but instead his hand made its way between our sweating, heated bodies. He found the base of where we were joined, my lips fat and wide around his thick cock, but his fingers stopped just above the entrance.
I realized what he was doing a second before I felt it.
“Fuck!” I screamed as his thumb found the swollen nub that sent a shock of pleasure speeding through me.
He grinned down at me, cocky, but also so full of need that it was almost a grimace, too. His thumb began to rub my button as he continued to shove into me. For a while, the only sound in the room was that of our bodies slapping together, skin against skin. We glistened with sweat and other things, my tits bounced with the force of his thrusts, and our breathing was nothing but desperate panting.
His thumb was bringing me closer and closer to my release and when Nick clenched his eyes shut tightly, I knew he was nearly there, too.
Reaching a hand up, I caressed his face, making his eyes snap open to look at me. “Nick, honey, please. I want you to finish. Here, now, inside me.”
His eyes flashed and that was all it took. I felt him spill inside me, filling me to the brim. A second later, he flicked his thumb once more over my clit and I, too, crashed over the edge. I called out his name and he breathed mine against my collarbone as he shook above me.
We said nothing, but when I wrapped my arms around him, his cock softening inside of me, he held me back.
Chapter Eleven
Nick
We lay in bed together, her head resting on my bare chest as we slowly came down from our high. It didn’t take long for her breathing to slow, becoming even, and for her heartrate to return gently to normal. She wasn’t asleep though, her hand drawing lazy circles into my skin as we lay there in silence.
I was doing my absolute best not to think of anything just then. The euphoria of being with Zoe was almost enough to make me disregard everything that had happened in the last few years. Almost. In the end, I knew that if I let myself think about things—what was going on, how crazy life had gotten, my own fucked up plans—then I’d get angry again. And not just a little bit.
And I just didn’t want to be angry anymore. I was tired of that.
So instead I took advantage of this moment and just stroked my hand through her thick, unruly hair, enjoying this feeling of human contact.
But it was too good to last.
“Nick?” Zoe’s voice was soft and sweet, caught somewhere between that lingering headiness that comes from sweet, sweet release and the general tiredness of having worked hard for that release. It wasn’t quite sleepy, but it was a little out of it anyway.
“Hm?” I hummed in answer, afraid to speak, afraid that my own voice would give away my feelings just like hers was doing right now.
“Thank you.”
I frowned. My mind jumped first to the amazing sex—that was definitely something to be thanked for—but that was just as much thanks to her own amazing body. I was able to drag my mind out of the gutter a moment later, however, as I realized there were other things she might thank me for.
Like letting her come in after what had happened with Sal.
It’s her own damn fault for choosing him, whispered a malicious and inhospitable part of my brain. Sal had hit her, multiple times judging by the bruises forming on her face. How had Zoe ended up with someone like that? We argued. We fought and sometimes things got bad, heated to the point wher
e an explosion was imminent. But never once in all of the time we were together, amidst all of those fights and anger, had I ever hit Zoe. Because she wouldn’t have tolerated it. She wouldn’t ever be the kind of woman who would let a man hurt her like that.
So what the hell had happened?
“Don’t thank me,” I finally told her. And I honestly believed that, because guilt was twisting my stomach. After what we’d just done together, it was hard to not feel shitty about my plans for revenge. Plans that involved manipulating and using Zoe to get back at Sal.
She tilted her head up off of my chest, turning it so that she could balance her chin there instead of her cheek, and looked up at me. I could feel her gaze and was terrified all of a sudden to meet it. What if she looked at me like she used to, full of love and concern?
I stared at the wall instead of tilting my head to look down at her, but it didn’t matter. I continued to feel her gaze on me and waited for her to speak as I knew she inevitably would.