by Hope Jones
I didn’t get very far before Hux stopped me with a hand to my belly and then hovered over top of me. His forearms were on my pillow and his hands framed my face.
“Why do you turn away when things get heavy?” he questioned.
“Maybe because I don’t like heavy topics?” I smarted back.
Frustration lingered in his eyes, but he hedged on. “Can’t go your whole life on the edge without something to live for,” he informed me, hitting the nail right on the head.
Fuckity, fuck, fuck.
“Says who?” I ground my teeth, on the verge of flipping him off me.
The entire conversation was pissing me off. Who did he think he was? He wasn’t my dad or my boyfriend.
“What kind of life is that?” he whispered softly, looking at me intently like he could see into my soul.
“The kind of life I’d like to get back to without you interfering every chance you get. Now, get off!” I yelled, bucking my hips to throw him off, but he didn’t move an inch. He was solid muscle, and those muscles were locked tight around me. We were like a Hux and Phoebe cocoon.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he stated, making it known that he didn’t just mean off my body.
“I don’t want you here!” I spat back.
“That’s a lie,” he whispered, his head dipping closer.
I bucked harder, hooking my feet around the backs of his knees, trying to shove him with my hands at the same time. I needed him off. I needed him not to get closer. I needed this conversation to end. He gathered my hands above my head and trapped my wrists. Panic seared through every bone in my body and my urge to leap from the bed became stronger.
“Calm down,” he gritted out, running out of patience.
“Fuck calm! You need to get off. Now.”
“Talk to me.”
“No. Please leave. Go back home,” I shouted in his face, anger shredding my insides.
“Talk,” he barked.
“Why? Huh? Tell me why. You’ll just get tired of me and leave, or you’ll die! Fuck, can’t you see I can’t take anymore? If I let you in and you die, there would be nothing left of me. I have so much scar tissue on my heart already that if it gets ripped open, there’s going to be a gaping hole that no amount of duct tape can fix.”
My breathing had become labored and the fight left my body. Hux didn’t seem the least bit surprised by my outburst. His face softened again, anger no longer present in the lines around his eyes. He bent his head and his lips whispered across my cheek before he rolled off me and pulled me on top of him.
“Hux, really, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get up now. I gave you what you wanted.”
“You’re staying here,” he rumbled, the sound causing my body to vibrate.
“I can’t do this with you,” I mumbled back, half-heartedly trying to pull from his hold. My resolve to stay away from him was diminishing. Fear was wrapping around my heart so tightly it was a struggle just to beat.
Huxley’s head tilted to the side. “You don’t have to be scared of me, of what you’re feeling.”
“Hux, you don’t understand. I can’t go through another loss or heartbreak. My father walked out and I was angry for so long. My mother passed away years later, my nanny not long after her, and then my papa. My entire family is gone. If it weren’t for Millie and her family, I wouldn’t have anyone. I’m not willing to open myself up and risk hurting again. I can’t take any more pain.” My forehead fell to Huxley’s chest; it felt too heavy to hold up. I had just poured my soul out to him, and it wasn’t as scary as I thought. It was almost freeing.
“Letting go, finally,” he whispered, wrapping my hair around his fist.
My eyebrows scrunched together in confusion at his words. “Huh?”
“You. Finally letting go of it.”
“Of what?” I asked stupidly. I already knew what he meant.
“Of all that pain you’ve been holding in for years. Took me pissing you off, but you’re letting it go. Getting it out.”
My face dropped to his chest and I groaned.
“I’m ready for bed,” I mumbled into his chest.
He chuckled, the sound warming my insides, especially my girly bits.
This man will be the death of me. Once again, my brain told me something I already knew.
“Kiss,” he rumbled in my ear, and that vibration sent another wave of heat through me.
“You’re sleeping at your place tomorrow night,” I grumbled back but lifted my head and planted my lips softly against his anyway. There was no point in trying to argue with him; he’d win anyway.
My sick, twisted head wanted nothing more than for Hux to deepen the kiss, but my poor, scared heart knew I shouldn’t. I pulled away and he rolled me off him before gathering me in his arms and spooning me.
“I didn’t take you as a spooner,” I joked.
“I thought you were ready for bed,” he replied, the sound muffled by my hair.
I settled into the bed, tucking the covers under my chin and fitting my back against Huxley. For the first time in years, I didn’t have a hard time going to sleep, my mind wasn’t going a million miles a minute, and I was out like a light. I tried to tell myself it had nothing to do with Huxley and him making me purge my feelings, but deep down, I knew it was a lie. It had everything to do with the man currently cuddled to me tightly.
_______________
A tug on my nipple woke me from my dead sleep. I moaned and pushed into the hardness that was pressed into my ass. I heard a rumble in my ear and felt another slight tug on my nipple. My eyes popped open and the bright light filtering in my room made my eyes water.
Fuck, who opened my curtains?
“What are you doing?” I stupidly asked the man who had a raging hard-on nestled against my ass.
He didn’t respond verbally but stood up and loomed over top of me. His face was alert, but his eyes were dark and his pupils dilated with lust.
He leaned in, presumably to kiss me, but I forced my head as far into my pillow as I could to get away from him.
“I’m not kissing you with morning breath,” I told him, shaking my head and trying to escape from his advances.
“Don’t care.”
“Hux—”
He cut me off with his lips on mine. The kiss started off slow, and then he slanted his head and his tongue dipped in my mouth, lightly touching mine. He was testing me. Trying to see how far I’d go. What he didn’t realize was, every damn time his lips touched mine for more than five seconds, I went into a Hux Fog. All rational thought left my brain and I encouraged him by tangling my tongue with his.
With his mouth distracting me, I didn’t feel his hand dip into the top of my camisole until he was pulling my breast out, freeing it from the confines of the built-in bra. He tore his mouth from mine and kissed down my neck, across my collarbone, and lower until he reached my breast. He lightly rained kisses everywhere except my nipple, where I really wanted him.
I moaned in frustration and impatience, grabbed a handful of his hair, and tried tugging him to my aching bud. My efforts were futile; he wouldn’t give me what I wanted. Hux freed himself from my hands and moved to my other breast, and the combination of the cool air and his callused hand barely touching my nipple had me bucking my hips and groaning again.
Fuck, my body had never felt like this.
My core felt like it was on fire, and I’d never wanted a man’s touch so badly in my life.
“Hux,” I begged, needing him to do something.
“I’ll get there, baby,” he soothed, doing nothing to relax my wild state.
I fisted the sheets beneath me to prevent myself from ripping out his hair while I pulled him where I wanted him. He continued his assault on my chest, neck, and collarbone while I writhed in wanton need.
When it felt like my body couldn’t take anymore, he moved down to my nipple and lightly pulled it into his mouth, tugging just barely. The gasp flew out of my mouth before I could sto
p it. My nipples became the hotspot they never were before. I’d never felt the lightning bolt that shot to my core and made my clit throb almost violently.
“More,” I demanded breathlessly.
I felt his lips quirk around my nipple, and his hand dipped into my panties. He spread me with two fingers before his longest digit entered me. My back bowed off the bed and a long moan escaped from within.
Fuckity, fuck, fuck, but this man was good with his hand. Or should I say finger.
“So fuckin’ wet,” Hux growled, almost to himself.
“Gee, I wonder why,” I sassed back.
Hux punished me for my smart mouth by biting a little harder on my nipple. I guessed he didn’t realize the bite just pushed me closer to my release. It wasn’t punishment. The sting was encouragement.
He inserted another finger, and I felt so full, almost bursting at the seams.
I needed release.
I writhed beneath him, desperate to find what I was looking for. Hux finally, finally hooked his fingers inside me, and the ache intensified. I was so close I could taste it.
“Yes,” I moaned.
“Don’t come,” Huxley whispered roughly in my ear then bit my lobe.
“Why?” I ground down on his fingers and groaned around the thickness.
“Not yet,” he replied, still not giving me what I needed.
I ignored his warning and continued to fuck myself on his fingers, not even caring how I must have looked. My moans became closer together and more desperate, and Huxley, somehow weirdly in tune with my body, noticed the change and pulled his fingers out abruptly.
My eyes snapped open and I glared at him. “What the fuck?”
“Told you not to come, baby,” he said with a devilish grin and a glint in his eyes.
“If you won’t, then I will.” I smirked and trailed my fingers down my stomach under the blanket until I reached my too sensitive nub.
I barely touched my wetness before Hux’s hand snapped my wrist up and pinned it above my head. I looked at him with more than a little hatred. He shook his head and grabbed my other hand before I could use it to find my orgasm. With both my wrists pinned above my head, I was open and spread for all of Huxley’s viewing pleasure. A part of me wanted to shrivel into the bed and cover up, but the other part of me reveled in his gaze. His eyes were dark, full of lust, and his pupils were dilated, telling me he enjoyed what he saw. I felt brazen and even more turned on.
He took my wrists in one hand, freeing up his other one to whip the blanket off me completely. His gaze traveled to my bare pussy and he licked his lips.
Fuck.
Goddammit, I couldn’t take much more of his perusal of my body.
He looked like a man who had been in the desert for years and I was the first body of water he’d seen. He looked like a starving man and I was the first meal he had seen in weeks.
And I was so okay with being his sustenance.
I widened my legs a subtle amount, silently inviting him between my legs.
Fuck it, I didn’t care what this made me. If Hux was the prize, I’d be his slut any day of the week.
“Keep them there,” Hux told me with a pointed look as he released my wrists.
He trailed his lips down my body, slowly, intentionally torturing me. Every bit of my skin broke out in goose bumps as his tongue ran over my hip bones. He was so close to my center, which caused me to ache even more. Hux’s mouth hovered over my core, almost touching but not quite. He gazed up at me, and the look in his eyes almost had me passing out in lust.
“Smell good,” he said, inhaling slightly.
“Oh fuck,” I accidentally moaned out loud.
“Fuck is right, baby.”
He smiled wickedly before leaning down and trailing his tongue through my lips. My hips bucked immediately, and a gasp flew from my mouth. My neck arched, eyes clinched shut, and I missed the show of his fingers entering me and his lips closing around my aching clit.
He stroked his fingers in and out, curling them to hit my G-spot, pushing me closer to my orgasm. Just as my eyes closed and I saw a bright, blinding light behind my eyelids, my muscles tensed as my climax ripped through me. I heard a faint ringing in the distance. It sounded so far away it was easy to ignore. I was coming so intensely, every pleasure sensor in me firing off, that I figured my ears were ringing.
I was massively disappointed when I came down from my orgasmic high and felt the bed dip as Hux’s weight left the bed.
Lazily turning on my side to watch him walk to my dresser, I asked, “Seriously?”
He ignored my aggravated question and answered his phone with a “Yeah?”
I tried to hold onto my anger, but it quickly dissipated, because I was still recovering from the best orgasm I’d ever had.
My eyes trailed from Hux’s face, to the column of his throat—which was surprisingly attractive, considering I didn’t usually admire that body part—to his chest, over his seriously cut abs, down until I landed on the V that led to no-man’s land. His black boxer briefs hugged his legs, making them look even stronger, which was saying something, ‘cause they already looked really strong. His cock was straining against his underwear, begging to be freed.
I thought about getting out of the bed, butt naked, striding over to him as confidently as I could, sinking to my knees, and pulling his briefs down his legs while staring at him. Once they were down, I would leisurely pull his thick length into my mouth, sucking just the tip, and when he got comfortable with that, I would pull all of him as far back as I could get. Remembering his length in the kitchen the other morning and seeing him through his boxers now confirmed I wouldn’t fit all of him in my mouth, but it’d be fun trying.
“Phoebe!” Hux barked, breaking into my dirty thoughts.
My face flushed and I pulled the covers up to my neck, hoping to hide what I was thinking. “Huh?”
“Penny for your thoughts?” He smirked, replacing his phone on the dresser and coming to stand next to my side of the bed.
I melted into the mattress and used my arms to cover my face, hiding that I was turning an unbecoming shade of red to match my mortification of being caught in a dirty daydream.
“Who was that on the phone?” I mumbled around my arms, doing my best to casually switch subjects.
The bed dipped again, and Huxley settled on top of me, not crushing me but giving me just enough of his weight that I was still comfortable and able to move if I wanted.
He removed my arms and laid them gently down on the bed next to me. Who knew such a large, intimidating man could be so gentle?
He answered my question, effectively letting me change the subject, but his smirk told me he knew what I was doing. “My guy, Roman, letting me know there was a change in the status of one of our operations.”
“What operation?” What could I say? I was a journalist. It was in my nature to ask questions.
“Can’t tell you that, baby.”
I huffed out a breath and rolled my eyes toward the ceiling.
“Let me guess—you got me all hot and bothered, and now you’re leaving?” I asked with more attitude than I should have, considering how hard I just came.
“Have to, baby. It’s important,” he told me, frustration evident in his tone. The hard-on that was pressed into me let me know he really didn’t want to leave.
“Go ahead.” I sighed, bucking my hips to encourage him to get off me. Surprisingly, he got up and moved to his side of the bed where his pants were on the floor.
I didn’t waste any more time staring at him. Jumping out of the bed, I rushed to the bathroom to handle my business and, more importantly, get away from him. He managed to get me in a Hux Fog again, and I needed to focus.
My plan to keep him at arm’s length clearly wasn’t working. I needed to figure something else out. If I was to protect my heart, I had to figure out how to push him away. All he had to do was look at me a certain way, or say my name in his deep, husky voice, and I turne
d to putty in his hands. That was no longer an option. My heart seriously couldn’t afford it.
With my resolve steeled, feeling better than ever about my plan, I slowly, quietly opened the bathroom door—it liked to squeak, and I really needed to get some WD-40—and saw Huxley’s clothes were no longer on the floor. His wallet, keys, phone, and loose change weren’t on the dresser.
I breathed a small sigh of relief that he was gone. After tugging on a mint-green silk nightgown that barely hit the top of my thighs and had a lot of kickass lace, I stripped the bed of the sheets, pillowcases, and blanket. They smelled like Huxley, and I had no intention of sleeping on them with his minty smell wrapped around me like a second blanket. I wanted no part of that.
So, bed clothes being washed was added to my to-do list.
I walked down my steps with my arms loaded over my head with my bedsheets, peeking around the side as best as I could so I didn’t trip coming down the stairs. Seriously, the last thing I needed was to fall and break a bone. I was naturally a clumsy person, so coordination was not my strong suit.
“Babe, the fuck?” Huxley asked, laughing, but also scaring the shit out of me. I screamed, falling flat on my ass—luckily, I was on the last two steps—and dropping all the laundry.
My face flamed as Hux moved the sheets away so he could crouch in front of me. He lifted my chin and asked, “Are you okay?” concern furrowing his brow and deepening the laugh lines around his eyes.
I really loved those laugh lines.
No, stop it! Hux Fog! my brain screamed, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I listened and snapped out of it.
I shook my head in the negative, but quickly said, “I’m fine; you just scared me to death.”
I ignored his outstretched hand and reached for the banister, pulling myself up, doing my best to avoid looking Hux in the eyes. He ignored me and picked me up, bridal style, carrying me to one of my fabulous dark cherry wood barstools and depositing me there. He bent down again and gave me a once-over, I assume checking for any scrapes or bruises.
He wouldn’t find any. I barely fell four feet.
“Hux, I’m fine. I thought you left?” I asked accusingly.