EDGE (26 page)

Garrett got down to business, as if plotting an attack or laying siege. He hit all the main regions and once he’d felt they’d been neutralized, he went for home and secured the area.

Now, Cache, he was everywhere and then nowhere all at the same time. It had her off balance. She didn’t know what he was going to do next and that added a level of excitement she hadn’t expected and didn’t know if she liked.

“Slow down, honey,” Cache said, grabbing her hips and holding her in place.

She ignored him and ground her body against his, desperate as she felt the feelings that were snapping and snarling throughout her body start to ebb.

Shit
. It wasn’t going to happen. Just like before, she’d gotten all excited, and then her body betrayed her and petered out.

A moan of frustration escaped her, and she fell over his chest, defeated. He lay under her, breathing hard. Her body rose up and down with the force of his breaths.

Now what did she do? How was she going to crawl off this man, out of his bed, and out of his room? She cursed, silently.

How would she look him in the eye tomorrow?

She’d have been better off putting Mr. Happy to work instead of bothering Cache and landing herself in this situation. Now, in order to save face, she’d have to fake an orgasm. Why didn’t she ever learn? Hopefully, he’d be a cuddler, and she’d at least be held for awhile afterward.

Cache’s hands began to rub her back. Just stroking up and down, back and forth. He made no move to do anything else. Touch anywhere else.

What was he up to?

He caressed her back and smoothed the lengths of her hair until she felt herself give a little under his palms.

“That’s it, honey. Breathe. Let yourself go. Don’t think, just feel.” His voice hypnotized, reassured, and aroused all at the same time, and she felt almost disconnected. As though her mind was taking a trip while her body gave itself into Cache’s comforting touch.

Her eyes closed, her breathing quieted, and she just…floated.

Slowly, a hum began to quiver under her skin, and then it began to pulse as his hands roamed. Leisurely at first, then heat married the embrace and had her yearning for something more. Something deeper. Harder.

Cache switched their positions. He spread her hair over the pillow, and then nuzzled her neck. She couldn’t help herself, she purred.

“Don’t think of anything but what I’m making you feel,” he murmured against her skin. The timbre of his voice resonated with a foreign emotion deep inside her, speaking to her in a way that words couldn’t.

“That’s it, baby,” he encouraged. “Let me—”

As though he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her, sucking her lower lip into his mouth and raking it with his teeth.

Sensations detonated in a burst of colors and wild scents, and she didn’t think at all. Not about what needed to happen next in order for her body to respond. Not about Cache finding her somehow lacking, like so many others had. Not about the thin scars crisscrossing her body, which always raised questions she refused to answer.

It was as though she was on autopilot.

He tore his lips from hers and kissed the line of her jaw, her throat, her breasts, all the while his fingers burned a trail down her abdomen. His open mouth followed his clever hands, and the lower he traveled the less air she breathed.

Then he was there. At that place which was rapidly becoming the center of her universe. He spread her legs and for a moment she tensed, wanted to fight, lock her knees together, and shove him away. He took one of her hands and linked their fingers together, squeezing as though knowing she needed reassurance that everything would be all right.

Then he kissed her more intimately than anyone ever had before. He let go of her hand and spread her legs farther apart, holding her open so he could feast on her as if it were a hot summer day and she was a rapidly melting ice cream cone.

She stopped breathing all together. Who needed air when fire consumed her body? She felt it rain through her bloodstream, rush through her limbs, and then rip through her core.

She swore she heard voices in her head join in a chorus of hallelujahs. She might have even shouted the word aloud herself but doubted it, as verbalizing was beyond her ability when she burst into flames so beautiful she wanted to cry.

Cache cradled her in his arms, murmuring words she couldn’t process, but she understood the questions she could see forming in his all-seeing gray eyes.

She reached up, grabbed his face, and kissed him, putting all she felt into it. She didn’t care if he read too much into the kiss. She couldn’t help herself. This man had given her something she’d been fighting to have all her adult life.

A normal sexual response.

Something that had eluded her no matter the therapy, the meditation, or the experimentation.

Now, to take care of his pleasure and to see if she could do it again.

She sat up and reached for him, closing her hand around his pulsating shaft. The man was swollen with anticipation and promise. Time to get that puppy covered and sheathed.

“Got a jacket for this baby?”

“Jacket? I’m not cold, honey.”

She chuckled. “A condom, shutter boy.”

“Condom?” His eyes connected with hers and the fog cleared. “Good idea. Don’t want you knocked up like Rinka.” He reached into the drawer of the nightstand.

She groaned. “Bad. You just might have to be punished for saying that.”

“You think you’re the woman to do it?”

“You see anyone else here?”

“Nope.”

“Give me that thing.” She took the condom from his fingers and using her teeth, tore open the foil wrapper. He shed his boxers and then she, ever so slowly, rolled the thin latex sheathing down his turgid length.

Cache hissed and bit out a curse.

“We’ll get to that,” she smirked. The power she felt was heady indeed. Unlike anything she’d felt before. Tall buildings and speeding bullets watch out—one climax and she was Superman. Er, Superwoman.

Cache must have reached his limit for he growled and flipped Mel onto her back, positioning himself at the juncture of her thighs. “I hope you’re ready for me, because I can’t wait another minute for you.”

“Who’s asking you to?”

A noise that sounded more animal than human escaped him. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a smart mouth?”

“What’s your point?”

“Damn, but I need to shut you up.”

He plunged into her, claiming her in a way she instinctively knew no other man would be able to.

Heat flared again, hotter than before, as impossible as that seemed, and with each stroke, she felt the flames build until she had nowhere to go but up. In a raging ball of fire, she exploded. Her body clenched around his, she cried out his name and then bit down hard on his shoulder. The amazing fervor continued as he increased the speed of his thrusts. His hips pistoned themselves into her as if he couldn’t control himself.

“
Oh, God. Amelia
.” He groaned, as his body froze on the edge of his own climax and then he emptied himself deep inside her.

The force of his climax had her lighting off again.

The last coherent thought she had before she must have blacked out was that she’d gladly be his sex slave for life, and Mr. Happy was retired.

“Mel, honey. Are you all right?” Cache asked, folding her limp body in his arms and tucking her close to his side.

Was she still alive? If she was she’d never felt better in her life. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him, knowing she looked like a love-starved teenager and he was the poster boy rock star she’d fantasized about.

“I’m fine. Just fine,” she cooed. “You?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” She snuggled closer, only half listening.

“That I was your first?”

She blinked. “I wasn’t a virgin here, shutter boy.”

“I know, but that was your first, second, and I believe third orgasm, wasn’t it?”

“You have a healthy ego there, don’t you?” She pushed at his shoulders. It was time to vacate the premises. He turned and threw his muscled leg over hers, effectively keeping her put. “Let me up.”

“No. How is it that you’ve never experienced an orgasm before?” He nailed her in place with those steel-colored eyes.

“It’s none of your business, but I’ve had an orgasm before. Besides, I signed up for sex, not a question-and-answer period.”

“Too bad. The one comes with the other.”

“You should have spelled that out in the beginning.”

“It’s implied.”

“Where is that written? I’m sure the Karma Sutra doesn’t cover it.”

He sighed. “We’re getting off the subject here. You might have climaxed before on your own, but I’d bet my life on it that you’ve never experienced one with a man. You’re body was honest with me, why can’t you be?”

“You’re really ruining the afterglow. Do you do this with all the women you sleep with?”

“Just the ones I care about.”

“Oh.” She glanced away and then back again. “Might I ask how many you’ve cared about?”

“My ex-wife and now you.”

He’d been married? What happened? He probably questioned his ex until she went crazy and in order to retain her sanity, she’d given up amazing, phenomenal sex in order to save herself. Poor woman.

“Nothing else to add?” he asked with a raise of his brow.

“Uh…no.”

“Then would you please answer my question?”

A voice in her head told her to tell him to go to hell. Another pointed out that this man had given her a gift, one she’d begun to believe she’d never have, that the horrors of the past had ruined her for life. She’d spent so much time on recovery, rehab, and countless hours in therapy. She’d finally allowed herself to really be with a man and the best thing had come from it. Why not share a little? She didn’t have to bare her soul.

“It’s been hard for me to…um…to completely be myself with a man.”

“Why?”

Now came the hard part. She didn’t talk about this with anyone anymore, ever. Could she talk about it with Cache? “When I was a kid…something bad happened to me.”

He just rubbed her back and listened instead of hammering her with questions. That alone had her continuing. “For the longest time, I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with a man. Anyway, I’m over all that, but the one thing that has eluded me was enjoying all aspects of sex.”

“Climaxing.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it looks as though, with my considerable lovemaking skills, you’ve overcome that humongous problem,” he said, with a smug smile. “Now that you’ve consented to be my sex slave for the rest of your life, we’d better get started on catching you up.”

She gasped. Hell’s bells, had she voiced the sex slave thought aloud?

“Yes, you most certainly did,” Cache answered her unasked question. The satisfied smile on his face was just way too big.

She could let the embarrassment of her sex slave comment sink her or she could take him up on his very appealing offer.

Really, there was no contest in the matter.

“All right, shutter boy, since my little secret is out, here’s another detail. I’m thirty-two and I have a
lot
of missed orgasms to make up for. You up for this?”

Cache looked down at his extra appendage, which was standing at attention. “Looks as though I am.” Then he grabbed her and began the immense undertaking.

Much to their mutual enjoyment.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the Lord: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it shall devour all things around it.

~JEREMIAH 21:14

Cache woke to find himself alone. Earlier that morning, Mel had awakened him and kissed him good-bye. He’d been so worn out he didn’t remember if he’d even kissed her back.