by HELEN HARDT
“God, you’re beautiful,” he says against my skin.
My hips rise again. Searching for him. His touch. His tongue. His fingers. His cock.
But I won’t give this up. As much as I need him inside me, I want to experience his touch. His ultimate caress.
He brushes his hands down my sides to my hips, which puts his mouth on target with my nipples.
“Please, Braden.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“My nipples. Suck my nipples.”
He flicks his tongue over one, making me gasp, and then he sucks on it lightly.
And it occurs to me. He asked what I want! Such a strange sensation, coming from Braden.
I just want to lie next to you, as your equal, and make love to you.
Such lovely words.
Am I missing the kink?
Yeah, sort of. He probably is, too. But this is something we both want, and it has its merits. A lot of merits, actually.
“I love you so much, Skye,” he says, after releasing the nipple.
“God, I love you too.”
“Your tits are so gorgeous.”
Nothing he hasn’t said before, but in his deep voice that sounds a little breathless right now, it’s completely different from the way he’s said it before in that dark and commanding voice.
Dark Braden isn’t gone. I know that instinctively. He’s only on hiatus. He’ll be back. He’ll be back when I can answer his question.
And I will answer his question.
I will find my truth, and I’ll share it with the man I love.
He slides from my breasts to my belly, dipping his tongue into my navel as he grips my hips. Then he flips me over like a pancake and slides his tongue between the cheeks of my ass.
“Mmm,” he groans. “Mine. This ass is mine.”
Dark Braden. I recognize him. Dark Braden has returned, and he wants my ass.
Then, almost as if he realizes what he’s doing, he slides downward, kissing the backs of my thighs and making me shiver. He kisses and caresses all the way down my legs to my feet, and then he kisses each of my toes and slides his tongue between them.
I never knew my feet were so sensitive.
He turns me over once more, this time a little more gently, and then he spreads my legs.
“So beautiful. Your pussy is wet for me.”
“God, yes.”
“I wanted to go slowly. To make real love, but I need you, Skye.” He climbs forward and thrusts his cock into me. “I need you now.”
So full. So complete. I close my eyes, expecting him to order them open. He doesn’t, but I open them anyway and meet his fiery gaze.
His eyes are full of need and passion. Full of love.
And I hope, as I gaze into them, he sees the same in my own.
For I feel all of that. Lust. Need. Passion. Love. So damned much love.
He descends slowly toward me until our lips touch. Then our tongues, and then the soft moans from each of our throats—his an octave lower than mine. It’s music, a discordant melody borne of our passion.
I realize, in this moment, that I’ve never made love with any man except Braden Black. And though this time is different, the other times with him were no less making love.
Making love isn’t about the act or how you do it. It’s about the love you feel in your heart and in your soul for your partner.
Braden increases the tempo of his thrusts, and I know he’s going to come. I’m close myself, not from the friction I usually crave, but from our bodies vibrating together in perfect synchrony.
“Skye,” he says, “I’m going to come. Come with me. Please.”
As always, at his urging, my body responds, and I burst into a shattering climax.
Never do I take my gaze from his. I wrap my arms around him, bring his head down to mine, and kiss him as we orgasm together. I thread my fingers through his silky hair, slide my hands down over his shoulders and then down his back to his ass, grabbing it and pushing him farther into me.
For a moment, as my climax sends me soaring, I don’t know where he ends and I begin. He is me and I am him and the whole world is us.
And I know I’m truly home.
When our orgasms finally subside, he withdraws and rolls onto his back, one arm over his forehead.
Elation fills me. Elation mixed with love mixed with peace.
I haven’t figured everything out yet, but I will. I must. For Braden and for me.
For us.
Chapter Sixteen
“Stay,” he says softly, his eyes closed.
“I can’t.”
“Please.”
Braden hardly ever says please, but he’s said it several times tonight. I want to stay. I want to sleep in his arms and wake up together. Make passionate morning love—the kind where morning breath and bedhead don’t matter.
But even though I’m at home with Braden, I’m also in my hometown, and I need to be respectful of my parents.
I kiss his lips lightly. “I want to stay more than anything, but I can’t. I hope you understand.”
He nods. “I’ll walk you down.”
I laugh out loud. “Braden, Liberty, Kansas is the safest place in the world.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll walk you down anyway.” He gets up, pulls his slacks back on, and slides his bare feet into his dress shoes. He grabs his shirt and buttons a few buttons.
Man, he looks sexy. Just fucked and sexy.
I hastily dress as well, and we leave the hotel room.
“You want to come over for breakfast in the morning?” I ask. “You’ll get better coffee from my mom than at the Sunrise.”
He kisses my cheek lightly. “What time?”
“Around eight, I guess. My mom and dad get up with the birds, but I won’t be ready for public viewing until eight.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
“I can pick you up.”
“That’s okay. I’ll get there.”
I smile. “Okay, Braden. Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For…tonight. For telling me a little about your childhood. For…”
He lifts his eyebrows.
“…everything,” I finish.
“I love you, Skye,” he says. “I’m trying.”
“So am I. Goodnight.”
…
Even though I long to be in Braden’s arms, I sleep better than I have in a long time. I wake up refreshed and feeling alive.
Braden and I will work things out. I feel certain. But he’s not my only issue. I still need to work out my friendship with Tessa. It’s an hour later in Boston, so I can catch her on her way to work. I grab my phone and make the call.
“Hi there! This is Tessa. I’m either on another call or out clubbing! Leave a message and I’ll call you back right away. Or whenever I feel like it!” Then a giggle.
I sigh. I don’t really want to leave a message, but she’ll see my number and know I called. I have to leave something.
“Hey, Tess, it’s me. I’m at my parents’ for a week. Just needed to get away. I miss you. Call me, okay? Let’s work this out.”
Not my most eloquent message, but I think I got my point across. I head to the shower. It’s seven, and Braden will be here in an hour.
After my shower, I amble to the kitchen, where Mom’s working on some pie crust.
“Morning, sweetie.”
“Hey, Mom. I invited Braden for breakfast at eight. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course. I’ll whip up some apple turnovers with some of this crust. Will he like that?”
“He’s kind of a bacon and eggs guy, but I think he’ll love it.”
She laughs. “He can have bacon and eggs, too. We have plenty.”
�
��I’ll make it.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m happy to do it. Your dad and I really like him, Skye.”
How can they not? He was amazing last night. More friendly than I’ve ever seen him. “I do, too. But…we’re not actually together right now. I hope we can fix it.”
“I’m sure you can. He’s lucky to have you.”
My lips curl into a smile. “You think so?”
“Of course I do.”
“Mom…?”
“Hmm?”
I sigh. My talk with Braden last night brought back memories I’ve never quite gotten over. “What happened between you and Dad those months when I was seven?”
“Skye…” She wipes the flour from her hands onto her apron and turns to look at me.
“Please. I’m an adult now. I can handle it.”
She sighs. “Why do you need to rehash all that?”
“We used the good china last night,” I say absently.
“Yes. So?”
“I remember breaking a plate once, and that day…” I open the refrigerator door and stare into it, not looking for anything in particular. “I’m trying to figure some things out.”
“Close the refrigerator,” Mom says. “You’re wasting electricity.”
I chuckle softly. So like my mother. I close the door and meet her gaze.
“I don’t like to think about those days,” Mom says.
“I know that, and I’m sorry. But it means a lot to me.”
She turns back to her crust, picking up the rolling pin. “Why? Why should it mean anything to you? You were a child.”
“Because it’s important to me.”
Mom cuts large triangles in the rolled out pie crust, seeming intent not to look at me again. “We put this to bed long ago. You haven’t asked me about it in years.”
“Since my freshman year of high school, right after you and Dad had a big fight. I remember.”
She places filling on one of the triangles and seals it shut. “It has nothing to do with you.”
Irritation boils through me. “How can you say that? You’re my parents. When one of you leaves for three months, and the other spends a lot of that time crying, of course it has to do with me.”
“I mean it wasn’t your fault.”
“I never thought it was. But it affected me, and like I said, I’m trying to figure some things out.”
Mom slides her turnovers onto a cookie sheet and opens the oven door. “What kind of things?”
“Like, why I am the way I am.”
“You’re an intelligent and generous young woman, Skye. You know who you are.”
She’s not getting it, and I don’t know how to explain it any better without mentioning my foray into BDSM, and that’s so not happening.
Hey, Mom, I wanted my boyfriend to bind me around the neck and choke me, but he refused.
Yeah. Really not happening.
This is getting nowhere. “Never mind, Mom.”
She closes the oven door and wipes her forehead, leaving a smudge of flour on her left eyebrow. “I thought you let this go years ago.”
“I never let it go. I just stopped asking.”
She turns back to her pie crust and cuts out several more triangles for the turnovers. “The past is the past. It doesn’t do any good to revisit it.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “In therapy—”
She turns abruptly and meet my gaze. “You’re in therapy?”
“No. Not currently, but I haven’t ruled it out.”
Her pallor whitens. I stiffen in my chair. For a moment I wonder if she’s about to faint.
“What’s wrong with therapy, Mom?”
“Nothing, of course. Nothing at all. But you’re a success, honey. You’ve always seemed happy to me.”
My mom’s apparent aversion to therapy disturbs me. What exactly is going on?
“I’m happy enough, but that’s not what therapy’s always about, Mom. There are some things I don’t understand about myself. Things I want to understand.”
“Oh, God.” She quickly fills the dough with apples and throws them onto another greased cookie sheet. Then she sits next to me. “I hoped this wouldn’t happen.”
Apprehension edges into me. “What are you talking about? You don’t want me in therapy?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. If you need therapy, I definitely want you in therapy. I just always hoped…”
“Hoped what? What exactly are we talking about here?”
She bites her lower lip. “Where do you think your father went for those months?”
“Honestly? I assume he had an affair.”
“Oh?” Mom cocks her head. Is she surprised?
“If you just tell me, I’ll know.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“For God’s sake—”
I jump at the doorbell.
Braden. Braden is here, just when I’m making some headway with my mother. I rise to answer the door. “This isn’t over,” I tell her. “Not by a long shot. He’s leaving tonight to go to New York, but I’m here for the rest of the week.”
Braden doesn’t smile when I open the door, but he does seem relaxed, which is a good thing.
“Good morning,” he says as he walks in. He kisses me chastely on the cheek.
“Good morning. My mom has a treat for you. Homemade apple turnovers.”
He inhales. “Is that what I smell? Sounds delicious.”
“Plus bacon and eggs. And strong coffee.”
“Perfect.” He follows me into the kitchen. “Good morning, Maggie.”
My mother pastes a smile on her face, though she’s not fooling me. Something’s got her freaked.
“Good morning, Braden,” she says. “Please, have a seat. I’ll get you a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar?”
“Just black. Thank you.”
Mom sets a cup in front of him. “Turnovers will be out in five minutes. How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled,” Braden and I reply in unison.
“Scrambled it is.” She turns back to the stove and takes four eggs from the carton.
I feel like I’m sitting on a block of ice. What have my parents been keeping from me all these years? But next to me sits Braden, the man I adore, looking scrumptious in jeans and a blue button-down the exact color of his eyes. I’m fraught with ambivalence. My body doesn’t know how to react. Braden’s nearness warms me, makes me feel all mushy inside. But my discussion with Mom has me frigid, ready to either fight or take flight.
Perhaps my father didn’t have an affair. That should please me. But all I really know is that my mother has to confer with my father before telling me anything.
Which makes me think it can only be bad.
Chapter Seventeen
“When do you fly out?” I ask Braden when we’ve both cleaned our breakfast plates.
“Not until five p.m. I’ve got a car meeting me at the hotel at two thirty.”
“Okay. What would you like to do until then?”
His gaze burns into me.
Yeah, I know the answer.
“Not here,” I say under my breath, though I don’t need to be so cautious. My mother escaped the kitchen as soon as she served breakfast. She’s freaked out in a major way. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her like this before.
Except maybe…
Fragmented images float through my head. My mother. My father. Me. But they’re like puzzles missing that one essential piece that remains elusive no matter how hard I look for it.
“Show me around,” Braden says.
“Why? You’ve seen the house. And the cornfields are huge, but if you see one acre, you’ve seen them all.”
He reaches toward me, trails a finger over my forearm. “Show m
e a certain part of it.”
“What part?”
“The part where you got lost.”
Again I’m sitting on that damned block of ice. I never ventured so far into the fields after that time. I haven’t given it any thought in ages—at least not until I told Braden the story a few weeks ago.
But maybe this is important. Maybe I need to face that part of me to understand the other parts. I swallow. “All right. I’ll take you there.”
I’m an adult now. I’m not seven years old. I’m taller than the corn, and even if I’m not, Braden certainly is. We won’t get lost.
He touches my hand. “You’re frightened.”
“Not frightened exactly. A little apprehensive.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“You’ve never gone back there, have you?”
My eyes widen. “How did you know that?”
“You got rigid. Tense at the mere thought.”
“You can tell that by looking at me?”
“Of course. I know you, Skye. Sometimes I think I know you better than you know yourself.” He looks toward the entry and then lowers his voice. “I have to know my partner. I have to be able to read her body when she can’t speak to me. It’s part of the lifestyle. Part of how I keep you safe.”
His words give me hope. “Will we ever get back there, Braden?”
“I hope so,” he says, “because I don’t think I can exist without that part of my life.”
“You mean last night didn’t mean anything for you?”
“Last night meant everything to me. It was completely new to me, and I wanted it with you. But I can’t deny I still crave the darker side of sex. I always will. And if you and I can’t go there, I’m afraid there’s no future for us.”
Sadness sweeps through me. “We can go there, Braden. You’re the one who stopped it, not me.”
“True. But as long as you have that need—for the neck binding—I can’t be with you. That’s why I need you to figure out why you want it. That’s the only way we can deal with it, but until you know the reason behind that need, you’ll always want something I can’t give you. And that’s no way to begin a relationship. To begin a future together.”