Anew: Book One: Awakened (23 page)

“Can we just agree that I can be
a real tool sometimes and leave it at that?” I suggest.

She gives me a smile so sweet
that it makes my cock jerk. Looking into my eyes, she says, “We both know
there’s a lot more involved, Ian. You put a very high priority on being able to
control yourself. I make that more difficult for you.”

She pauses and takes a breath.
Her teeth worry her lower lip. I’m staring at them when she adds, “I think
that’s why you called Edward, so that he’d take me away.”

My gut tightens. How is this
happening? I usually have no trouble showing the world only what I want it to
see and keeping the rest buried deep. But that’s not working with Amelia.

She sees far too much. If I’m
not careful, she’ll strip me bare. I can’t allow that.

“I wanted you to be free to
choose,” I counter.

It’s the truth, sort of. A
carefully edited truth, to be sure, one that leaves out a lot of relevant
information but it’s not like I’m outrightly lying…exactly.

“What if I’d said that I wanted
to stay?” she asks.

My breath catches at the
thought. What if she had? What would I have done? Before anything else, I’d
have had to deal with Edward, who would have gone at me with anything he could
get his hands on.

I’d stripped the library of
obvious weapons before I called him but that still left plenty of options for a
guy as enterprising as I know “Teddy” to be. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

But it might have been damn
satisfying.

Rather than dwell on that, I
say, “But you didn’t and I didn’t expect you to. Your brother was talking about
family and home. Of course you wanted to experience that and I wanted it for
you.”

I hesitate. After so many years
of keeping an iron hold on my emotions, it’s tough to let any of them out. B
can’t get passed the idea that Amelia deserves more. Apparently, I also can’t
resist the need to give it to her.

Slowly, I say, “Watching you
walk out that door hurt like hell.”

She blinks and her eyes are
suddenly glistening with tears. Fuck! The last thing I want is to cause her yet
more pain.

But when I tell her so, she
says, “You haven’t…you don’t…not exactly.”

Her hand reaches out, her
fingertips pressing lightly against my lips before brushing over my chin and
down my throat to my chest where she presses her palm gently over my heart.

“I can’t stand the idea of you
hurting because of me,” she says.

I feel as though I’ve just run a
marathon. Beads of sweat break out on my forehead. I can’t seem to get my
breath. Something deep inside feels as though it’s cracking wide open.

Enough with the touchy-feely
talking bullshit. I know a hell of a better way to communicate.

Before she can even think to
protest, I go down on my knees in front of her and stroke my hands up both her
silky bare legs to clasp her hips. Pulling her forward to the edge of the seat,
I bury my head in a froth of silk skirts, lace lingerie, and pure Amelia.

“I need to taste you,” I groan.
“Just that, nothing more, unless you want more, of course, which would also be
fine.” I realize that I’m babbling and shut the hell up.

She gives a soft little gasp,
which is all the permission I need. My mouth and tongue savor every inch of her
from the sensitive spots behind her knees up along the inside of her thighs to
her slit.

I inhale deeply, loving the
scent of salty sweetness mingling with the essence of pure Amelia. Her
breathing is suddenly ragged and she’s staring at me wide-eyed but she doesn’t
object or try to close her legs.

The little scrap of panty she’s
wearing rips when I pull it to the side. They should make those things sturdier
if they want them to last. I gaze at her in wonder. She’s all bare except for
that delectable little arrow of hair, and her lips are shiny with her arousal.

Thank god I’m not the only one.

Her hands clasp my shoulders,
her fingers digging in through the fabric of my polo shirt. It’s cotton--thick
enough to absorb sweat, thin enough to let the air in--and snug because when
you’re in a hard gallop across a playing surface the size of nine football
fields bearing down on a ball that’s just over three inches in diameter, you
don’t want your shirt flapping in the breeze to distract you. Concentration is
everything in polo, as in so much else.

I zero in on her slick wet
labia, parting them with my thumbs and stroke the flat of my tongue all the way
up to her small, glistening clit. Damn, I’ve missed it! It’s so adorable, so
responsive, and it likes me, I can tell. With every lick I give it, it swells.

Her thighs are shuddering, she’s
gripping me even harder. As I lap at her, her thready little moans turn into
the sweetest sound I can ever hope to hear.

“Ian…oh, god, Ian…!”

My name on her lips. Perfect. I
ease a finger into her, followed by another. She’s so blissfully wet but she’s
also tight and I can’t bear the thought of hurting her. She doesn’t seem to
have any such concern because she’s pumping up and down on me, her breath
coming in gasps as I find just the right spot and thrust back and forth
relentlessly.

There is no sexier sight than
Amelia when she comes. She’s exquisitely beautiful under any circumstances but
nothing beats the moment when her neck arches back, her lips part in that
perfect O, her eyes close in ecstasy and--

“Look at me,” I say because of
all the perverse things to happen, good old Hayden has just jumped into my mind.
I want to make damn sure that she knows who’s doing this to her.

Her eyes fly open. She fumbles
for my hands, our fingers entwining. Holding onto me tightly, she stiffens as
wave after wave of pleasure course through her. I should ease up, let her catch
her breath, but I’m not about to. As I continue tonguing her clit, she keeps
coming hard and fast.

Her responsiveness awes me. My
gratitude for it knows no bounds but I don’t have time to tell her that because
I’m dying. My balls are either about to explode or the semen back up is going
to shoot straight up my spine and blow the top of my skull off. True, I’ve
never heard of a guy actually buying it like that but the way I feel, nobody’s
going to convince me that it can’t happen.

There’s only one solution and
fortunately Amelia is urging me to take it.

“Please, Ian,” she says, tugging
at my biceps, “I need you inside me. Now. Oh, god, please! Now!”

If the military taught me
anything, it’s to be a gentleman. A lethal one with a very high kill ratio but
still--

It’s not polite to keep a lady
waiting. In an instant, I’ve taken her place on the backseat with Amelia facing
me, straddling my legs. The snug polo pants slow me down, so does the cup I’m
wearing. Her head is against my neck, her breath coming in little sobs, when I
finally free myself, lift her up a little more and---

Ohdamnfuckme
… She feels
so good…like drenched wet silk rubbing up and down the whole length of my cock,
clenching so tight-- I really want to make this last but Amelia isn’t helping.
Her teeth rake my throat, she’s putting scratches in my back, and those noises
she’s making, sweet little mewling sounds so full of need and--

“Fuck, Amelia!”

The world turns red hot. A mist
moves in front of my eyes. Every orgasm I’ve had with her has been incredible
and this is no exception. I’m spurting into her, coming and coming, when she
lowers her head suddenly, takes my mouth with hers, and plunges her tongue into
me.

Ohfuck!

Somewhere somebody, an archangel
maybe, must keep a record of the really important things like the longest male
orgasm ever. Time to rewrite the record books because I just can’t stop.

She’s wringing me dry, taking
everything I’ve got and it is so damn good I just want to stay this way
forever, buried balls deep in her, more alive than I ever knew it was possible
to be.

“Amelia-amelia-amelia,” I’m
chanting her name like it’s a prayer, holding onto her with all my strength,
and at that moment I know that I never want to let her go.

Fuck free will, she can have
mine. I’m hers now and forever. World without end.

And it doesn’t. It just rights
itself a little once we both start breathing again.

“I can’t believe we survived
that,” she says and gives a satisfied little laugh.

“Speak for yourself,” I moan, my
head thrown back against the seat and my eyes closed.

She laughs again and starts
kissing my throat, working her way up to my mouth slowly and tenderly so of
course I kiss her back the same way. That’s only fair plus it feels so good.
I’d be perfectly happy to keep on doing that while my cock, still inside her,
twitches on its way to getting hard again. Damn thing has no sense at all,
thank god.

But Amelia breaks off and looks
at me with a teasing smile. “Are you sure the love of your life won’t be upset
about this?”

I pull her back down so that our
mouths graze. “Let her. This has been one of my top ten fantasies since
forever. Along with doing it in the front seat of a silver 2022 Bugatti Veyron.
But that’s for another time plus I’m fairly sure one of us has to be a
contortionist.”

“I’m pretty limber.”

Down, boy. Down.
Let’s
take a few minutes and catch our breaths while we dwell on the inspiring image
Amelia has just so generously given us.

I settle back against the seat
with her in my arms. The world has taken on a rosy glow like the sunsets after
a really massive volcanic explosion only better. I’m feeling …happy, content?
I’m not sure exactly what it is and I don’t care.

I’m congratulating myself on
reminding the lady who she belongs to when I discover that it’s my turn to be
taken by surprise. Amelia slips gracefully from my lap and sinks to her knees
in front of me.

She’s blushing but she also smiles
mischievously as she runs her hands up the polished leather of my riding boots
and says, “I like these. You wouldn’t happen to have a crop, too, would you?”

Whoa, that’s new. “Uh…not on
me.”

She shrugs and, taking my cock
in both her hands, begins stroking. Happy fellow that he is, he responds warmly
but the rest of me is elsewhere, my wayward brain--which to be fair had more than
a few circuits blown just a few minutes ago-- conjuring up images of Amelia’s
lovely ass well reddened and--

Her tongue swirls around my tip.
An electric jolt of pleasure tears through me. I want to tell her to stop but
she’s drawn me into her mouth and is sucking, gently at first, then more
firmly. I look down at the exquisite vision of her full, glistening lips
stretched tight around my shaft. The dark lure of the erotic seizes me,
triggering quick flashes of memory.

Amelia on the balcony in the rain
that first night, her gown clinging around her hips, her glorious breasts bare
to me.

In the golden room that last
night when I drove us both relentlessly in my need to be sure that she would
never forget how we are together.

In the spa, coming under my
hands, offering herself to me in the shower.

And lastly--the memory that
emerges the most strongly--Amelia in the tent, face down on her knees in a
posture of absolute submission.

But then there is also Amelia
walking away…at the palazzo, at the opera, at the soirée. Denying and defying
me.

I don’t feel the darkness rising
in me until it’s too late. It comes in a wave, pulling me under. Distantly, I
realize that all the time and energy I’ve spent resisting it has only made it
stronger.

I grit my teeth, my fists
clenching… unclenching… I don’t know when exactly I thrust my fingers through
her hair. Holding her head, I drive deeper into her mouth, compelling her to
take more of me. My hips rise up off the backseat as I intensify the rhythm.

Hitting the back of her throat,
I distantly hear myself say, “Suck harder… that’s it… more… all the way…”

She complies and why the hell
shouldn’t she? In a moment of white hot clarity, I let myself acknowledge the
truth.
I own her
. Letting her go was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
She’s my property to use as I will and she’s damn well going to acknowledge it.

I plunge harder, faster, in
control and taking what’s nothing more than my due. I don’t know when she
starts to struggle and I don’t care. I can hear the voice in the back of my
head, goading me.

They’re all just sluts. They
want to be used and abused. It’s all they’re good for. The harder you ride
them, the better they like it.

The power swells in me, the
intoxicating sense of being indomitable, a king, a fucking god. Nothing matters
except driving myself into her, using her, taking everything from her.

Until suddenly, with hideous
clarity, I realize that I’m so deep into her throat, pushing so hard that she
can’t breathe. She’s on the verge of passing out.

I withdraw in an instant,
holding her as she bends over gasping. Her face is flushed and her eyes are
watering. She looks at me wildly, as though seeing me for the first time.

And in a sense she is.

“Amelia--” Confronted by the
stark reality of her fear and shock, I choke. I’ve always been so careful
before, even that last night in the golden room. I’ve never totally lost
control. Not for goddamn years, not until now. Until her.

I knew it could happen from the
first moment I saw her. Hell, even before that, when I found out that she
existed. Everything I’d thought dead and buried inside me started to awaken
right then. I knew it and I did nothing. I set us both up for this.

Without looking at her, I rearrange my clothes, throw open
the car door, and go.

Amelia

I
an
thunders down field toward the goal. Rising in the stirrups, his powerfully
muscled arm extended with the long mallet in his grip, he looks at once
extraordinarily graceful and threatening, a throwback to an age when men on
horses ruled the world. Yet for all his obvious strength and will, I can’t help
but recognize the raw edge of aggression that is driving him.

The shock that engulfed me in
the Rolls has subsided to a frantic fluttering. In its wake I’m struggling to
try to understand what happened.

Ian’s admission that he is as
susceptible to me as I am to him… the unfettered ease with which I succumbed to
desire for him yet again… the incandescent pleasure… Even now, I can’t forget
that. Or how suddenly and darkly it changed.

Briefly, I consider the
possibility that I over-reacted but I know better. I have all too much
experience with dehumanizing pain and helplessness to ever be a willing
participant in more of the same.

Yet the idea that Ian wants to
inflict anything of the kind on me doesn’t fit with what I know of him. Or
think I know. As reluctant as I am to admit it, I have no idea whether what I
glimpsed in the Rolls was an aberration or a part of his nature that he has
concealed until now.

Abruptly, I remember the Cabinet
of Secret Delights next to the golden room. I still don’t know who created it
or even if Ian is aware that it exists. But the memory of it exerts a dark,
erotic pull that further adds to my confusion.

A sudden flurry of activity on
the field gives me a welcome respite from my inner turmoil. We’re in the second
half of the game with three minutes to go in the next-to-last chukker. The
crowd is on its feet screaming, a far cry from their lolling ease at the
beginning.

I wince as a defending player
from my brother’s team drives his mount forward, all but colliding with Ian. At
the last possible moment, the defender gives ground, I suspect only because he
realizes that Ian won’t.

The pace of play has been
intense from the beginning with the lead shifting back and forth constantly. My
brother’s team is good--well-drilled, fluid, technically superb--exactly what
I’d expect of Edward. But they were unprepared for Ian’s sheer, unbridled
aggressiveness, evident from the first throw-in of the ball at the beginning of
the game, and they’ve had to scramble to adapt their style of play.

Nor are they alone. The game
wouldn’t be hanging in the balance but for the fact that Ian’s team mates have
had the same problem. They’ve been hard pressed to keep up with him as he’s
torn up and down the field.

The ponies are changed at the
end of every chukker or more often if needed but the men get little relief
except during a brief half-time. Nor do the officials who have called foul
after foul as tension has mounted.

Ian is about to take his swing
when Edward, riding hard at him, refuses to pull up as the other player did. I
can’t tell whether my brother’s actions are motivated by anger or calculation
but either way he seems determined to confront Ian with his own recklessness.

The horses, galloping at thirty
miles an hour or more, come dangerously close. Both men rein in but too late. A
scream rips from me as the powerful animals collide.

Edward loses his balance and is
flung out of the saddle, only just managing to grab hold of his horse’s neck to
avoid being hurtled to the ground and crushed. The officials are moving in, I
can hear them shouting, when Ian leans all the way over, grabs hold of Edward,
and in an astounding display of strength, drags him safely back into the
saddle.

Play resumes at a fierce pace,
positions shifting constantly, until Ian makes another drive at the ball, so
impossibly small against the huge expanse of the field. His aim is unerring. He
strokes it directly midway between the goal posts, putting his team up by one.

The crowd roars. They’ve been on
their feet baying for blood since they realized what kind of game this would
be. The raw aggressiveness on the field feeds their appetite for sensation as
nothing else can. For the first time since I have been in the city, not a
single face looks jaded or blasé.

As the last chukker begins, the
excitement reaches new heights. Edward leads a charge that ties the game again.
Ian and his team respond with a fierce drive. They’re within reach of the goal
when the mallet of the blond man I noticed earlier is suddenly hooked by
another just as he is about to hit the ball.

The move is entirely within the
rules but this time it has unintended consequences. The ball goes wild, smacking
through the air and striking Ian directly in the head. Although he’s wearing a
helmet, the blow stuns him.

I watch in horror as he
instinctively reacts by pulling up on the reins. But his mount is galloping at
top speed and the maneuver backfires badly, hurtling Ian into the air. He hits
the ground hard and lies prone, not moving.

At once, play stops. Edward
rides down and seizes Ian’s horse as officials and doctors pour out onto the
field. My hand is at my throat, I can’t breathe. A hush falls over the crowd.

Time seems to stop or at least
slow down profoundly, only to lurch forward suddenly when Ian sits up, waves
off the doctors, and gets to his feet. He shouts for his horse and springs back
into the saddle.

The crowd goes berserk,
stomping, screaming, cheering. The officials confer for a moment, then throw up
their hands and signal for play to resume.

It continues to see-saw back and
forth until, with the final throw-in of the ball, the tension reaches
unbearable heights. The thirty second warning rings as Ian, turning defense
into attack, breaks through the opposing team’s line and begins an all-out
charge down the field. Edward and the other opposing players spur their mounts
after him as the blond man moves into position to block them.

Still sixty yards or more from
the goal, Ian stands in the stirrups, swings at the ball and rams home the
winning point.

The horn sounds, signaling the
end of the chukker and the game.

The crowd explodes. If not for
the safety barrier around the field, they would be streaming out onto it even
before the horses are led off. As soon as they are, the players are surrounded.
Ian and Edward, as the captains of their respective teams, meet at the center
of the field to shake hands under the cautious eyes of the officials.

Beside me, Adele says fervently,
“Thank God that’s over!” She looks as pale and drained as I feel.

As my grandmother chats with
friends, I take refuge in the club house where final preparations for the
post-game reception are underway. Helene and Marianne are already there. Helene
appears to be at least half-way through a stiff drink.

“My God,” she says when I join
them, “I’d take that boy’s head off if the damn ball hadn’t almost done it for
me.”

Marianne nods. Her lovely face
is pale and strained. “What was Ian thinking? It’s just a stupid game! And
Edward--”

Her eyes look bleak. I guess
that she is also remembering the moment when my brother almost came off his
horse amid a scrum of slashing hooves.

“I take it matches aren’t
usually so exciting?” I ask because I have nothing to go on other than my own
reaction and Adele’s dismay.

“Society will be talking about
this one for years,” Helene says drily. She knocks back the rest of her drink
and waves off a server who approaches to offer another. “That’s better. I’m not
feeling quite as murderous as I was. Now then, are you all right, my dear? You
look pale.”

Her concern for me raises a lump
in my throat. As much as I appreciate Adele and Edward’s many kindnesses,
Helene is a mother, something I have never known.

I don’t let myself think about
that very often but a few days ago, I walked over to the park where on my first
day in the city I heard the happy shouts of children. They were there, romping
in a small playground surrounded by a wrought iron fence and furnished with
benches occupied by nannies and a few parents.

I found a seat away from the
others and watched the children for almost an hour. They are strange,
fascinating creatures, not like miniature adults at all but entirely their own
selves. They laugh and cry, pout and smile for the most volatile and mysterious
of reasons. Moment to moment, they seem at once so vulnerable yet also
indomitable, determined not merely to survive but to thrive and grow.

Thinking of them now stirs the
anger and regret I feel at all the lost years adrift in the loneliness and pain
of the gestation chamber. But it also reminds me of how grateful I am for the
life I have awakened to. I’m determined to live it free of the shadows of the
past but I don’t underestimate how difficult that is to do. Not just for me but
for everyone.

Mindful that Helene is waiting
for a response, I manage a smile. “Let’s just say that I don’t think I have a
future as a diehard polo fan.”

Marianne laughs and links an arm
through mine. “Brothers! What quiet, boring lives we would have without them!”

“I think you mean men in
general, my dear,” Adele says as she joins us. “The good ones can make life
worth living even when they are at their most infuriating.” With a nod to
Helene, she adds, “As for the bad ones, I say kick them to the curb and make
sure they stay there.”

“Thanks to the success of this
event,” Helene says with a smile, “a good many more women will be able to do
just that.”

“Mother chairs a foundation that
assists women escaping abusive relationships,” Marianne explains in an aside to
me. “She’ll never tell you herself, but she does an enormous amount of good.”

I don’t ask--because of course I
can’t--but I have to assume that Helene’s devotion to helping such women stems
from her own experience with Marcus Slade. I try to put that together with what
I know of Ian--his aversion to hurting women, his need for control in any
situation but most especially of himself, his loss of control in the Rolls. And
the explosion of aggressiveness that followed on the field.

I’m tempted to believe that
Ian’s behavior can be explained as a struggle to escape the shadow of the
father whose violent nature drove his wife from him. But I can’t shake the
thought that there is something more. Something I’ve glimpsed but haven’t
grasped.

A flurry of activity near the
entrance interrupts my thoughts. Edward has just arrived with several other of
the players from both teams, all freshly showered and dressed. It would be
difficult to imagine a more attractive group of men but I’m too busy looking
for Ian to more than barely notice them.

The moment they appear, they are
surrounded by the crowd in the club house. Congratulations and commiserations
are accepted with equally good cheer from both sides. The fury of the game
seems forgotten.

I’m still looking around for Ian
when I hear Edward say, “The doctors wanted a better look at his noggin. He
should be along any minute now.”

A short time later, Ian makes
his appearance. He has showered and is freshly dressed in charcoal gray linen
pants that hug his slim hips and an open-neck white shirt perfectly tailored
for the broad sweep of his chest. A cashmere jacket is hooked casually over his
shoulder. His dark, slightly messy hair still gleams with droplets of water. He
looks supremely fit, powerfully masculine, and utterly untouched by what
happened less than an hour ago on the field.

After accepting the backslaps
and congratulations of club members, he joins his mother and Marianne. When I
try to meet his gaze, he stares straight through me. He does not give even the
slightest acknowledgment of my presence.

The man whose body was driving
into mine scant hours ago seems to have forgotten that I exist.

I flush with anger and
mortification. Whatever accounts for his behavior--regret, embarrassment or
even displeasure with me--it’s all too much.

From the first moment I opened
my eyes in the floating bed, I’ve been bombarded with sensations, emotions,
experiences, all piling on top of each other without a pause to make sense of
any of them. I’m paying for that now.

After another, unreturned glance
at Ian, I realize that I’m dangerously close to breaking down.

Fortunately, Edward is nearby,
chatting with several people. I join them and touch a hand to his arm.

Quietly, I say, “That was all
very exciting but it’s left me with a headache. Do you mind if I take the car
home?”

My brother frowns with concern.
“No, of course not. The driver can come back here afterward. But are you sure
you’ll be all right? Adele and I can leave now.”

I manage a quick smile. “I
wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll be fine. I just need a brief rest and some quiet.”