Her profile revealed the slow closing of long eyelashes that touched her cheeks several seconds longer than they should have. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“So am I.” It was the first time he’d allowed the honesty. On the extremely rare occasion he mentioned the tragedy, when he did, invariably someone apologized. For too long he’d dismissed the sympathy with a flippant remark. A benign comment that made a wide circle around his guilt.
She turned around, coming to the table for her water. Her knee jostled his as she bent over to pick up her glass, jarring his hand. He jerked away with a hiss.
“Crap. I’m sorry.” Natalya frowned at his makeshift bandage. “You should put a bandage on that. You’re still bleeding.”
“It’s fine. I don’t really have the energy to deal with it.”
Her delicate eyebrows dove farther down her nose, and she stuffed her fists on her hips. “Well I will then. Tell me where.”
“It’s really not necessary. Just a scratch. I’ll live.”
She rolled her eyes. Turning toward his dark hall, she repeated, “Tell me where.”
“Second door on the left. There’s a first-aid kit under the sink in the bathroom.”
The response came so naturally he didn’t realize what he’d said until he heard his bedroom door creak open. Panic turned his chest into a vise. His space—he’d just sent her into his sanctuary. Shit. He jerked to the edge of the couch, prepared to intercept her and send her back into the living room. Halfway to his feet, sense shoved him back into the couch.
Chill. It’s the fucking bathroom.
Pulling in deep fortifying breaths through his nose, he stared at his door, counting the never-ending seconds that it took her to find the kit and return to the hall. Thirty-eight. It took thirty-eight seconds to recover from a near-death experience.
He exhaled hard.
Natalya rummaged through the plastic case as she walked across the room. A gauze pad dangled from her mouth. Around her finger, she wore the reel of waterproof bandage tape. She carried a bottle of hydrogen peroxide—not found under his sink, but in the medicine cabinet above, he acknowledged with some discomfort—under her arm.
“Okay, gimme your hand.” She held out her palm.
He obliged with a tight chuckle.
Her fingers were as gentle as rain. She dabbed a peroxide-saturated cotton pad against the torn flesh, bent closer, and inspected the cut for what he assumed was leftover glass. He watched, fascinated by the focus she gave to the menial task, enchanted by the tenderness in her touch.
How long had it been since he’d allowed someone to see to his needs? Too damn long, if the last person he remembered was his mother. He’d been a scrawny boy the last time he could recall any but his own fingers bandaging his cuts.
Brandon lifted his gaze to study her face. Her brow was smooth, her expression rapt. She chewed on her lower lip as she folded another gauze square just so and laid it over the torn flesh. Winced on his behalf
when the tape pulled too tight, widening the gash before she could lift it with her nail and ease the sting.
Beautiful. Not just physical beauty, but something that came from within. That woman she kept behind a shell. This one right in front of him—his chest suddenly felt tight.
“There,” she said quietly. Straightening, she closed the first aid kit. “Now you won’t bleed all over your couch.”
He stared at the tight hem of her shorts that accented the sharp definition of her muscular thighs. She stood less than a foot away, close enough he could smell the sweet flowery fragrance he’d come to associate with her. His gaze flicked up, resting on her narrow waist, her flat stomach. Something fierce and hungry reared in his mind, striking him with the sudden desperate need to possess her. To somehow mark her in such a way no other man would ever want to touch her.
The power of that startling sensation unsettled him. She wasn’t an object he could own. No trophy he could display alongside his baseballs. Yet something about her twisted his thoughts into knots. Rationality vanished. Right alongside sensibility.
He reached out and fitted his palms on her hips. Caught by the spell of everything she was, he urged her a step closer. His thumbs pushed up the hem of her tank, exposing creamy skin and the cutest belly button he’d ever laid eyes on. Scarcely aware of his actions, Brandon leaned forward and pressed a kiss to that adorable little dimple.
N
Pleasure fragmented through her body. She clamped her hands on his shoulders to keep from stumbling and closed her eyes. He was doing it again. Making her feel. Slowly stripping away her control. She
floated to a daunting height, hanging precarious on some unseen ledge. The fear of falling tugged at her mind. But a deeper, wiser voice assuaged that apprehension with a promise of safety.
He traced the circumference of her belly button with his tongue, drawing pinpoints of heat to the surface of her skin. She tightened her fingers against the slow spreading warmth and reveled in the reverent way he worshipped such a benign portion of her body.
“Brandon…,” she exhaled.
The nip of his teeth answered. His cheek rubbed against her quivering stomach. Beneath her fingertips, his shoulders expanded as he pulled in a deep breath. His ragged exhale stirred the fine hairs on her skin.
He lifted his mouth for a moment, opening his eyes to look up at her. Their gazes locked for several stuttered heartbeats, and something passed between them Natalya couldn’t define. Acceptance maybe. The unspoken acknowledgement they couldn’t control what was happening between them, along with the understanding that all the desire they’d toyed with had come to one final, devastating end. No stopping it. No turning back.
His eyelashes lowered, and his lips grazed across her abdomen. She held on, trapped in place by feelings she’d never known, as he lowered the waistband of her shorts. Gradually his mouth inched lower, her clothing giving way with the unhurried tug of his hands. He bared her bit by bit, nudging aside one protective layer after another with each small sliver of skin he unveiled.
Natalya trembled so violently it was all she could do to breathe. But his hands were there to hold her up, to stop her from falling into a limp pool at his feet. Her shorts and underwear tumbled, the last bit of elastic drawn over her legs. They gathered at her ankles, confining her further. She knew she should kick them aside, should do something other than cling helplessly to Brandon’s shoulders. Yet no matter how her mind instructed her to move, she couldn’t function.
He spanned one large palm over her bottom, supporting her as the
other hand ran down the length of her leg. Gently, he cupped her ankle and pulled it free from the gathered cotton. He lifted her leg, cradling her calf as if she was as fragile as a porcelain doll, and set her foot on the cushion. Subtle calluses scraped pleasantly over her thigh, teased the sensitive skin at her hip, and glided around to join the hand holding her up.
Knowing what came next, she gasped before his mouth ever touched her. When it did, when that searing heat nuzzled through downy curls and his tongue slipped between her damp folds, her hips bucked forward. Her fingers bit into his shoulders, and she sagged into his hands.
Oh, God… please…
Sparks crackled through her veins.
Brandon held her on her feet effortlessly. His fingers massaged her buttocks as his tongue swirled over her swollen clitoris. He suckled at the hardened nub. Scraped it with his teeth, only to soothe the bite by suckling again. She shuddered violently. Strong thumbs pressed into her hips, guiding her pelvis forward, and his tongue delved lower to lap at her weeping opening.
She waited for words, accustomed to Dmitri’s brash and vulgar vocalizations. But Brandon didn’t make a sound, as if he sensed saying anything at all would dissolve the magic that engulfed them. Pleasure soaked through her limbs. It stormed down her spine, shot through her womb, and left her aching. She moved against his mouth, countering the languorous stroke of his tongue.
More. Please, Brandon, end the lies. Make me feel.
His tongue slipped inside her, and she let out a moan. Using her elevated foot for leverage, she lifted into the steady, rhythmic thrusts. Ecstasy brimmed, the agonizing in and out adding drop after drop of pleasure, slowly filling her up. He pushed in deep, sliding against her swollen tissues, his mouth hot against her overwarm flesh. One hand slid around the curve of her bottom, in between the thin crevice of her cheeks to massage the tiny hidden entrance there. A brief moment of apprehension slipped into her spine. She should be offended, had been
every time Dmitri attempted to touch her there. Yet, at the same time, Brandon moved his masterful mouth to her clit and sucked the nub hard, turning apprehension into something dark and exotic. She pushed against his mouth, pressed back against the pressure of his middle finger.
“Brandon. Oh, God…”
What are you doing to
me?
Tearing her into pieces, that’s what he was doing. Making her want so badly it had become painful, the need for release, blinding. She shifted against his mouth, aching with pleasure. When he edged his tongue back inside her, her pussy clamped around the glorious intrusion. She didn’t know which way to move, which sensation to chase, the ecstasy of his tongue fucking her, or the torment of his finger easing closer, pushing barriers no one had ever breeched before.
She undulated against him, no longer able to control the motion of her body. As pleasure rose, and she struggled to remain upright, Brandon nudged the tip of his finger beyond the tight muscle, delving ever-so-slightly into her forbidden channel, and sparks burst behind her closed eyes. Natalya overflowed, her pussy pulsing around his probing tongue, her body trembling against the unexpected, astounding invasion. She screamed with the force of her release, calling his name.
Floating. Falling. Up or down… she didn’t know. But if heaven existed on earth, Brandon had taken her there, and she never wanted to return to the world she knew. She clung to his shoulders, trembling as her hips slowed in time with the slide of his tongue. He guided her through her orgasm until he brought her safely to the ground, the landing painless, the journey divine.
As he scattered light kisses to her belly button her death grip on his shoulders relaxed. She opened her eyes to look down into his molten gaze. Something unnamable moved within her then, stilling her heart and squashing her lungs.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
She swallowed to wet her dysfunctional throat. But before she
could dismiss his praise with a laugh, he eased her into his lap and wound his arms around her waist. Despite the confines of his jeans, she felt the insistent press of his swollen cock against the flesh he had loved so thoroughly.
One hand lifted to tug her hair free from the ponytail. “Goddamn mesmerizing, Natalya.” A smile touched his mouth as he ran his fingers through her hair. Shifting position, he sprawled onto his side, laying her alongside him. “When your eyes sparkle that way, they do something to me. I don’t know what it is, but…” He shook his head with a wistful expression. Lowering his voice, he murmured, “It’s powerful.”
Her cheeks heated, his praise unexpected and wholly unfamiliar in her world of cruel intentions and even crueler minds.
“All I want to do is get lost in you.” He dropped his mouth to the thick vein at the side of her neck, his hand sliding beneath her shirt to cup her breast. “You should wear green more often. I like it on you.”
With that singular phrase, Brandon shattered Natalya’s paradise. The warmth in his hand turned to ice. The comfortable pressure of his body became an unbearable weight. She edged away, unable to see cropped dark hair and captivating tawny eyes. Instead, she stared at Dmitri. Felt his soulless body cover hers.
Every damning aspect of what she was smacked into her. A liar. A manipulator. A killer. And she’d just done the unthinkable with Brandon, she’d given herself to him. Not just physically, she’d allowed that hidden portion of her soul to escape its corral with a man who was real. A man she lied to at every given opportunity and she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t be… Natalya. Not unless she wanted to stand at the edge of his grave and mourn the life she’d taken.
This couldn’t continue.
“What time is it?”
His brows dipped, confusion clouding his gaze. He glanced at the wall behind her. “Three. Why?”
“I’ve got to go. I need to get ready for work.”
Sharp and severe, his frown settled into place. But his anger reflected inward, not out through his quiet, speculative stare.
“Let me up,” she insisted quietly.
“No.” He dragged the word out as if considering whether he should say it at all. Then, more decisively, he repeated, “No.” Dragging a knuckle across her cheek, he released his frown and his gaze searched her face. “I said something wrong. Tell me what.”
Natalya forced out a laugh. “Don’t be silly. That was very nice. I just need to get home and get ready for work.”
His head moved side to side in minuscule fractions. “No. You were right here with me when that was incredible. Now you’re gone and it’s
nice
. What did I say?”
Incredible. No one had ever told her that her solo orgasm had been incredible.
She shoved down the rising pleasure. He could read her, which meant he’d already gotten too close. She turned her head aside. “Please. Take me home, Brandon.”
Instead, his lips trailed down the side of her neck. Slowly. Deliberately. At the same time his hand skated over the flat of her belly, drifted lower to the damp curls between her legs. He cupped her pussy, but kept his fingers still, using his mouth alone to tease her flesh back into wakefulness.
His lips tugged at her earlobe. His tongue traced the delicate shell of her ear. “If you really want to go, I will. But I don’t think you do.” To prove his point he pressed his middle finger against her wet opening and swirled a lazy circle. Her hips automatically lifted into his hand. A soft sigh escaped her lips as all thoughts of Dmitri faded beneath Brandon’s gentle touch.