Risk It All (Risqué #2) (16 page)

‘All night,’ she said.

‘What did you have planned?’

‘There was no plan,’ she snapped. ‘I knew that you were up to something. You don’t think that I know you, Blase? Ever since that night you said you went to Rafe’s you’ve been quiet, whispering with Dax, you’ve been distracted. I know the signs, Blase. I notice when you get tunnel-visioned and everything else falls away from your focus. Every time I tried to ask you what had happened at Rafe’s you gave me an excuse or dismissed me, I knew it. I knew you were up to something.’

‘So you came in here to spy on me?’ he said, shrugging off his jacket to toss it toward the couch.

‘There was nothing to spy on. I already knew that something was going on. I came here to give you a chance. I came here because I wanted you to tell me, I wanted to see if you would be honest. And I wanted to make sure that you were safe.’

Taking his eyes away from her, he strode into the kitchen and opened a cabinet to pull out a half-drunk bottle of bourbon and a glass. Pouring a measure into the tumbler, he threw it back into his throat, then shoved the glass away and swiped his hand across his mouth to remove the remnants of liquid.

He spun around and held open his arms. ‘You’re right,’ he declared. ‘You were all right about me all along, there, are you happy?’

‘Am I happy?’ she retorted. ‘God damn you, Blaser, this isn’t what I wanted!’

‘I’m sorry, Doll, but right now I don’t give a fuck what you want. My objective was to keep you safe and that’s not an objective I’ll ever apologise for.’

‘I don’t need you to take care of me!’ she said, moving into the kitchen, stopping on the other side of the table. ‘I don’t want you to risk everything you’ve built for yourself just because I came back into your life. I didn’t come to you because I wanted to be saved!’

‘So why the fuck did you come back?’

‘Because I love you, Blase! You know that! I came back because I finally had the chance to get close to you again without Gary and without trouble. I wanted us to work! I wanted to make this work because you’re the only man I’ve ever loved!’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘There’s no problem then, we can make this work.’

‘No,’ she said shaking her head. ‘We can’t. Because I wasn’t the one who was right, they were. All of them, out there.’ Extending her arm, she pointed out of the front of the apartment. ‘Colt and Ruger, and all of your family and mine, we make each other worse! I am trouble and I make you a worse man just by being around! All you did tonight was prove them right!’

Fear seized his throat when she turned and began to move for the door. Leaping around the table, he caught up with her and snatched her arm to pull her back. ‘Don’t walk out of here.’

‘I have to leave,’ she said with fresh tears skimming her cheeks, but she wouldn’t look at him.

‘No, I’m sorry, ok, you’re right. I shouldn’t have…’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, lifting her arm away from his hand. Slowly, her chin rose until her glistening eyes landed on him. ‘I’m bad for you.’

‘No, you’re not. You make me better. You give me something to love so much that I would give it all up. I would risk everything in my life for you, Bri, and not because you asked me to but because you’re the only one I would sacrifice myself for. You’re my girl,’ he said, brushing the tears from her face then taking a hold of her cheeks. ‘You’ve always been my girl, Doll. I should never have ended our relationship, I should’ve made you wait for me.’

‘I wanted to wait,’ she said. ‘But you were right to do what you did, tonight has proved that you are a better man without me.’

‘I am no man without you,’ he said. ‘I think all along I just wanted to prove to you that I could do it, that I could provide for you in the way you deserved. Every night I came home to you like this, crying and wondering where I’d been, I thought that I needed to do what I did to keep you, to provide for you, and to stay on Gary’s good side. I don’t need to do any of that anymore, Bri. I love you.’

‘How can you love someone who brings out the worst in you?’ she whispered.

‘You bring out the best in me,’ he said. ‘You make me live. Before you came back to me I was only going through the motions, each day blended into the next, life had no purpose, but you… you give me purpose and that purpose is to make you as happy as I can. I failed in that tonight again, but I won’t do it again.’

‘Is that a promise?’

‘Yes,’ he said, hoping that if he smiled she would too.

‘Just like the promise you made to Colt that you wouldn’t do anything illegal again?’ His smile drooped and the nausea returned to his throat bringing with it a tingling that stretched from his jaw to the back of his neck. ‘We can’t do this again, Blase. When will the cops be coming for you next? Tonight? Tomorrow? Or maybe in five years when we’ve got two kids, and then what do I do?’

‘That’s it,’ he said, experiencing a desperation that was unfamiliar. ‘No more, Doll. I promise. Can’t you see that tonight was for you? I raised enough cash to silence Rafe, now we can put all of this behind us, for good.’

‘Until when?’ she asked. ‘What if I see a pair of shoes I like that you can’t afford? Where is the line, Love? You make these decisions to go out there and do these things and then claim that it’s in the name of love. Why can’t you see that I love you for who you are not for what you can give me?’

‘I see that,’ he said, dipping to kiss her. ‘I see it, babe, I’m sorry.’

Covering her mouth with his, he wanted to show her the love that she had declared tonight. The stark focus with which he saw things now was jarring. Bri was the most important thing, but she wasn’t interested in him fixing the messes, she wanted him to be by her side, and that was all she needed from him.

A gulping cry made her retreat, but he kept her face and kissed her again. Moving her back they came up against the front door. He pressed deeper, opening his mouth to devour the woman he’d craved every day of his life. Holding her face, he tipped her head higher and came lower to tilt the other way. The mass of their muddled tongues forced her to suck in a long breath through her nose then she seemed to still. He worried that he’d taken too much so he relaxed, reducing the pressure and giving her some more room.

‘Bri,’ he said on her mouth.

Her hands came to his shoulders and when she pushed he gave her the space she wanted and met her eye. ‘I…’ she said, fluttering those lashes and liberating the last of the tears that remained in her drying eyes. ‘I think I can do this.’

Hope and primal want delivered him a piercing spear to the gut. But he wasn’t going to push her. ‘Can I make love to you?’ he asked.

Although he could tell by her stiff form and wide eyes that she was nervous, she nodded. ‘Take me to your bed, Love.’

The emotion of the night was high and there was enough adrenaline rushing through them to distract from her reservations about sex. But he had no intention of pushing her further than she wanted to go.

Taking her hand, he led her through to the bedroom and saw from his rumpled covers that she’d already been sleeping there, which meant she really had been here all night. Seating her on the bed, he crouched in front of her.

‘If you want to stop, if you don’t like something that I’m doing—‘

‘I know,’ she said, covering his forehead with her hand and arcing it down around to his cheek. ‘I know, Love.’

So much remained unresolved, but if she was ready for this, if she needed him, then he had to give her what she wanted.

Blaser looked so innocent crouching before her, Bri knew that he was anything but. Tonight she had been so scared for his safety and although she had no idea what was next for them, if anything, she knew that Blaser would be the only man she could move forward with. Trusting him in bed was so natural for her, and if she couldn’t be with him, then she couldn’t be with anyone because she really did love him with an unparalleled intensity.

Reaching for his nightstand, the first thing he did was open the drawer and fish out a condom, which he tossed onto the top of the stand before closing the drawer. It was an interesting start, she’d always been on the pill when they were together so a condom would be a bit of a novelty. But it proved to her that he was going to be responsible and gave her a physical cue on what was about to happen.

From the way his measured gaze came back to her, she knew that was the point of his action. By showing her an object whose only purpose came in sex, he was giving her a chance to back away from his proven intention.

She shook her head and took hold of the hem of the tee-shirt she wore. There was nothing underneath it, but pulling it up over her head, she put her body on display, baring it all to the man she wanted to be intimate with, even if it was for the last time.

The wariness in his eyes vanished and was replaced by a desire so tangible the air in the room became charged. Without losing her fix on his gaze, she dropped the tee-shirt, put her hands on the mattress and slid backwards to lie down on his bed.

Rising to his full height, he examined her figure then crouched to unlace his boots and pull them and his socks off. This process was restrained in the face of what intensity they both suffered now. Her body temperature had jumped and continued to rise.

Passion, this kind of desire, helped her to put aside her fears about what sex could mean. She wouldn’t give her attacker power over her anymore. Lyssa had explained that the steps Bri had been taking in the last year to minimise the effects of the trauma lingering were a form of stress inoculation self-help. Now Bri knew it was time to reward herself, and being with Blaser would do just that.

On hearing the pride Lyssa had in her, she had repeated the full story again and again, and Lyssa listened to every detail. The prolonged exposure was meant to desensitise her, and although she was still in the early stages, she could already understand how it was going to help.

Blaser took off his tee-shirt and she sunk her teeth into her lip while exploring the defined chest of the man she’d first shared her body with, and now he was going to be her first all over again. A fresh scar on his shoulder made her pause and her lip slipped out from between her teeth. That was the mark he’d refused to show her before, the proof that her own brother had put a bullet into the man she loved. Blaser could’ve died for her and she never would’ve known it.

Leaping up from the bed, she crawled across it and grabbed hold of him to bring him toward her. Tracing the jagged edges of the flushed pink mark, she kissed the indentation and then his collarbone and his jaw.

‘I’m so sorry, Love. You bled for me… for us.’

‘You’re the only one I’ll shed blood for,’ he said, tipping up her chin so that he could kiss her again.

This kiss started slower than the one they’d shared in the living room. His rough lips traced over hers then closed to form a gentle suction which he released then adjusted to kiss her the same way from a different angle.

The way he approached her now was different than before, his kiss encouraged the same drive in her, the same want to be joined and the need to unite her body with his. But his slow, careful kisses betrayed a reverence, a patience that he would never have displayed as a younger man.

He had changed and so had she. With maturity came a greater understanding of what they found with each other. The love that couldn’t be matched and the respect that gave each of them power wasn’t typical. As their younger selves, they could never have appreciated what it was to find someone you could bond with so easily. Which only made this night all the more bittersweet. In returning to the Blaser of old he had illustrated to her the negative effect that she had on him, and she didn’t want to be the cause of his misdeeds.

His warm hands glided onto her waist, and the slight moisture they brought with them made her wonder if he was nervous about what was to come, or if he was still worrying about her and how being intimate with him might affect her.

To be so esteemed was humbling, but she didn’t want to be treated like glass, she didn’t want him holding back for fear he would break her. Bri took her chance to spur him on and reassure him by unbuckling his belt and pushing his jeans and underwear from his hips.

The sound of denim hitting his floor, accompanied by the thud of his belt buckle, made him withdraw from the kiss. Instead of questioning her, he removed her hand from its resting place over his gunshot wound and lowered it to the girth of his erection. After pumping her hand a few times, he let her go and swept her hair away from her breasts to cover them both with his hands.

Being seduced in his bedroom wasn’t new, but being in a vertical position was. The gratification she got from his mouth was just the same, it meant more now because she’d been without it for so long. These lips had been hers for so many years, they’d kissed her more than any other female, he had always belonged to her.

Without realising it, she had continued to work her hand around him, squeezing her fist and pulling him toward her, mimicking the action she wanted him to feel in her body. But keeping her upright he was giving her space to flee at any time. Neither had more power than the other here, they were simply free to explore each other.

His mouth was moving up her shoulder to her neck. When she gave him more room, he went straight for a certain spot behind her ear and she smiled. He had just proved that he remembered her as well as she did him, and that brought back every joyous memory of their unity. Breathing out a mew of pleasure, his lips curled into a smile.

‘Still there,’ he exhaled into her ear and she laughed.

‘Only for you,’ she said and grabbed his face to kiss him with every drop of nostalgia that was pouring itself throughout her senses, drowning her in the love they’d nurtured from the moment they met.

He swayed forward, bending her back, she broke their kiss before he could lie her down. Kissing her way down his body, she kept her hands on him, preventing him from coming onto the bed. She kissed his chest, closing her eyes and revelling in the sensations of longing. At one time, she’d had unrestricted access to this body any time that she wanted it and she hadn’t appreciated it, she hadn’t appreciated him.

She let him get into trouble because it was easier, it kept the peace with Gary, and she didn’t put up as much of a fight for Blaser as she should have. He’d solved the problem with Gary by giving him his own way, and she hadn’t ever blamed her brother or rebelled against him, which was wrong of her. If she had put her foot down and told Gary to get lost maybe Blaser wouldn’t have ended up in prison at all, maybe they would have had a future.

Slinking down to sit on the bed, she directed his pulsing want toward her mouth and blinked her eyes up to his. Fluttering her lashes, she was pleased to see his throat bob. How she could still have such impact on a man after he’d had her so completely, she didn’t know. But with a smile she parted her lips and breathed him in as far as she could take him.

This technique allowed her to acquaint herself with him again and she liked this control, liked that she could pleasure him at her own pace and in her own way. Drawing back and forth she sucked on him, using her circled fingers to squeeze around his base, and come up to meet her lips when they reached their limit.

‘Oh, god, Bri,’ he said and their gaze was broken when his head went back.

Recognising all of the signals that he was close to his own release, she stopped what she was doing and shuffled back onto the bed. ‘Come here,’ she said.

He was on the bed, coming at her, but before he got her onto her back, she put her hands on his shoulders and, using her own force, she stopped his advance. ‘Babe?’

‘I want to be on top,’ she said, more confident that her memories wouldn’t resurface if she didn’t put herself in the same position. Except she wasn’t really sure of anything and more than desire, anxiety made sweat seep from her pores. This was it, she was going to do it, let a man into her body.

He accepted her request without question and sat up against the pillows at the head of the bed. Rolling on the condom he’d put on the nightstand in preparation for this moment. She knew he was ready, and despite the narrowing of her throat and the prickle in her sinuses she moved forward and climbed on top of him.

‘I want to touch you,’ he said, indicating that he wanted direction.

There was no question that he knew what he was doing with a woman, but he didn’t want to step over her boundaries and the show of further respect boosted her courage. Her thighs were parted over his, she remained high on her knees meaning he had easy access to her centre.

The whisper of his fingertips floated above her outer thigh, but the slight movement of air was enough to raise her awareness and there was nothing negative in it. Contact with another human being, a man who loved her and had no interest in overpowering her made new wetness threaten her eyes again.

‘I love you, Brianna,’ he said.

Opening her eyes, which she hadn’t meant to close, the sincerity that he exuded made her kiss him again. Bringing his hand to her inner thigh he touched her this time, tracing circles that got ever wider until they met her outer labia.

‘I’m going to go slow,’ he said.

Speed wasn’t the first thing on her mind, she wanted him to touch her, and the wait to experience his caress increased the pounding urgency. He kissed her, taking the time to warm his tongue to hers and loosen her body. His fingers slid into the softer, thinner flesh, furrowed in perfect fashion to lead his fingers to her clit. When they made contact she yelped and he froze, but she exhaled a laugh against him and dug her fingers into his pecs.

‘That was good,’ she said. ‘You feel good.’

Taking control of the kiss, her focus stayed on his mouth but his hand kept going, increasing the pressure on her clit, he rubbed in faster, longer strokes until his fingertip dipped into the well of moisture slickening the passage that she wanted him to occupy. He brought the moisture up to her clit, then down he went for more until he’d coated all of her with her own juices.

His finger went deeper each time and although the digit wasn’t as thick and stiff as what she needed for ultimate pleasure she realised that she was moving, riding his hand. Momentum gained until his finger wasn’t retreating anymore, she was moving up and down on his hand and his finger was actually in her.

Pure joy that she had gotten this far made her move faster, she was doing it, she was with him, with Blase and it was working. Pulling up, she was surprised when on her next descent there was a second finger. But when she accepted it a cascade of heat shot up inside her and when the unfamiliar orgasm took her oxygen she gasped in for more, then stilled, sinking down onto his hand and grinning at him.

Now his hand wasn’t enough, she was impatient for more, so shoving it aside she grabbed his dick and rose up, resting her other hand on his shoulder. He nodded either in permission or pride, but it gave her the last push to take her chance.

Calculating her angle and releasing pressure from her knees, she squeezed her eyes closed and prodded his head to her centre. Her muscles had tensed of their own volition and frustration made her clench further. The problem wasn’t as easily forgotten as she’d hoped. For all the work she’d done and with how sure she had been about Blaser, she really thought that she could do this.

Unshed tears from her months of celibacy tried to rear up and escape, but his lips touched hers and her eyes opened.

‘Don’t close your eyes,’ he said, curling his fingers around her hips. ‘You forget who you’re with when you’re not looking at me. Don’t think about the memories of what was, think about here and now, and how much we want this. I love you and I want to be with you. It doesn’t matter if it’s now or in five years, I’ll wait, I know that we’ll get there eventually. You’ve come so far tonight and I’m honoured that you would trust me like this, open yourself up to be vulnerable with a guy when I know it isn’t easy.

‘You are so strong, Brianna Wilcox, you keep your head up because with those beautiful eyes fixed on me baby, that’s all the pleasure I need from you. You’re as perfect as a doll with the face of an angel and the heart of a saint. I love you and I will always belong to you, my heart is yours and no one will ever take it away from you.’

Having held her attention so thoroughly, she hadn’t managed to blink yet, but she did now and the wet tears that came down were of joy because she believed every single word he said. She didn’t know what she’d ever done to deserve such dedication.

Pressure between her thighs made her squirm and when she did, she felt the thickness of him in her. In speaking to her so sincerely, he had relaxed her, so her body now slid down onto his in a final perfect motion of oneness.

Another yelp, more tears, and she threw her arms around to kiss him with all that she had, the gratitude and love came together and her anxieties fled. ‘I love you too, Blase,’ she whispered, bringing herself up and lowering onto him again.