Awakening (12 page)

For a brief moment, the entire world shifted, then righted itself. The last thing Claire had expected to hear coming out of Evan’s mouth was an apology. For several long moments, all she could do was stare at him as if he spouted horns and a tail. Whatever look was on her face, it must have amused him, because a slow grin spread across his face. The effect a simple smile from him, the first she’d ever received, had on her heart rate made the Energizer Bunny seem like it moved at a snail’s pace.

Recovering herself, she said the only thing that came to her mind. ‘For what?’

Confusion crossed his face briefly, then he laughed. Again, the first she’d ever gotten from him. His laughter skittered across her skin, raising goosebumps and causing her womb to clench. Her breathing caught just a little. The laughing, smiling man in front of her drew her like a magnet. She could feel herself leaning toward him just a little, trying to absorb as much of this new Evan into her skin as possible. She felt herself softening a bit, a smile playing about her lips.

‘You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?’

The question drew her out of her haze and brought her back to her senses. She settled back into the chair and was relieved to see that she hadn’t totally embarrassed herself. She crossed her legs and rested her hands in her lap before answering.

‘No.’ She linked her fingers together so she wouldn’t fidget and looked him in the eye, studiously ignoring the little hitch in her belly at the melted chocolate of his gaze.

He laughed again, but she simply waited, doing her best to maintain his gaze as he looked steadily at her. ‘I apologise, Claire, for reading you the riot act the last time you were here as well as for making you feel unwelcome. My behaviour was out of line. I acted like an ass.’

He was tracing small circles on the arm of the chair even as he met her gaze. The smile was gone, replaced with a scowl.

‘You look awfully scowly for an apology.’ Again, she spoke without thinking, and cringed at the teenage quality of her words.

He sighed deeply and his expression relaxed as he ran a hand through his hair, leaving him looking rumpled and chagrined. ‘I expect better of myself. I’m not usually so prickly.’

‘So why do I have the honour of bringing out all of your mean, then?’ Claire was losing her shyness as the conversation progressed and he responded openly to her questions.

‘I’m not mean to you,’ he protested, sitting up straight and scowling again.

‘You are the barest minimum of civilised to me.’ She refused to back down. ‘You laugh, smile, and joke with all other customers. Hell, with Bridget you’re downright sweet and brotherly, but with me it’s all polite civility.’ She held up a hand as he made to interject. ‘No, let me finish.’ She was relieved to see him settle back into the chair. ‘You don’t owe me anything. You certainly are not required to be anything other than polite and civil to me. But what makes it so insulting is that it is
only
me. Why?’

She drew in a breath as if to continue, but realised that was all she wanted to know. Why was he so different with her? If it was about that first night, then it was time to address it. She was through being places she wasn’t wanted, but he was going to have to come out with it. Settling back in the chair, she crossed her legs, smoothed the silk over her thighs, and simply waited for him to speak.

He opened his mouth then closed it, only to repeat the process once more before finally just shaking his head and laughing. ‘I have no idea what to make of you, you know that?’ When she just raised an eyebrow at him, he continued. ‘You come in here like a lost puppy that first night. As if a wrong word would send you scrambling. Then you proceed to work the reading club like you’re a schoolteacher lecturing on the nuances of voice and figurative language, yet you fall asleep here and seem like you need a keeper.’ He looked toward the front of the store as he paused. A distant, pained look crossed his face and his fist clenched. When he looked back at her, his visage was ravaged, with what she didn’t know, and his voice dropped as he choked out, ‘You confound me and … I’m uncomfortable with that. I’m used to knowing – no, that’s not the right word – to being confident in my reactions to the people around me and you … You just don’t fit into any melds I’m used to.’

She didn’t know what to say. There seemed to be much, much more to what he was saying than the words he was using. He roamed her face as if he was searching for the answer to a riddle and it was stamped on her features somewhere.

Before she could respond, he locked gazes with her and asked, ‘What brings you here, Claire? Why do you spend so much time here?’

Claire hadn’t expected the question and she responded without thinking.

‘I feel safe here.’ She waved a hand around to encompass the bookstore. ‘You make me feel safe. Despite your attitude, I don’t believe you would hurt me.’ Claire flushed such a sweet shade of pink as she spoke, her hazel gaze roaming the store as she looked everywhere but at him.

Safe. She thought she was safe with him. That he wouldn’t hurt her. Evan sat in stunned silence for the briefest moment before a red tide of fury suffused his body. Fury at Marianne for dying and leaving him alone when she had been the centre of his life. Fury at Claire for tempting him and reviving desires that he’d believed were dead and buried with his love. Fury at himself for being so damned foolish and afraid in the face of his temptation. In that moment, he knew himself for a coward and he snapped.

‘Safe. You think you’re safe with me?’ he all but sneered at her. ‘You know nothing.’ He spit the words at Claire as he leant, forward his hands clenched into fists on his knees. She shrank away from him, pushing so far back into the club chair her feet no longer touched the floor. Her eyes were wide with shock and the beginnings of fear. Shame crawled over his skin and he reached for self-control, only to lose it all over again when her small, white teeth bit into her trembling lower lip.

‘Damn you!’ He slammed a fist down on the arm of his chair, causing her to jump at the violence of his action. ‘You are anything but safe with me. Every time you walk through that door all I can think about is bending you over my lap and spanking that pretty little ass until it is shiny, red, and stinging. Then fucking you from behind so that the sting feeds the orgasm I give you. I fantasise about binding you and whipping those sweet little tits, your pussy, and your ass. Marking you everywhere so that each time you look in the mirror you remember me and how I put them there, and then beg me to put more on you when they heal. I want to drench you in my come, fuck you in every goddamn hole, and make you scream until you can’t speak.’

As the words died on his lips, he dragged in a breath and took Claire in, really saw her now that the apex of his anger had passed somewhat. She was glassy-eyed and panting. The knuckles of her slim, elegant fingers were white and she gripped the arms of her chair as if her life depended on it. She looked like she was having a panic attack.

Fear and shame overrode his anger and he lurched forward, coming around and sitting on the table before her. He took her face between his palms. She was so tiny, his hands seems to swallow her up.

‘Claire.’ He spoke softly, soothingly, as he rubbed his thumb over her cheeks. ‘Claire, please. Look at me.’

She turned just a fraction, closing her eyes and refusing to look at him. Her motion brought his thumb to rest on her lower lip. Quickly, so quickly he almost missed it, she licked his thumb. It was the barest touch, but the sight of her pink tongue against his skin was more than he could take. What control remained to him was lost.

‘Damn you,’ he repeated, but this time it was the hoarse whisper of a drowning man. ‘Suck it,’ he demanded as he thrust his thumb between her full, rosy lips. She obeyed instantly, enveloping the digit in wet, velvet heat. A shudder coursed through him at the silken feel of her mouth on his skin. She sucked gently in slow draws that he felt all the way to his cock, which surged violently to life.

With his other hand he untied the bow that held the halter of her dress together and yanked the barrier from her body so that it pooled at her waist in a lake of red silk. She faltered briefly, but continued to suck on his thumb as he squeezed her breast, massaging and shaping it in his large palm. She was small, tiny even; the entire globe barely filled his palm, but his mouth watered to taste her. He pulled his thumb from her mouth and trailed damp circles around each nipple before leaning down to suck the puckered tips into his mouth. He sucked hard, eliciting a cry of pained pleasure from her as she arched into his mouth.

He squeezed and pulled, sucked and bit at her nipples furiously, his mind blank except for the driving urge to mark her, claim her. Only when they were red and swollen, jutting out from the cream of her skin, did he leave her breasts. But he was far from done with her. He yanked her hips forward and roughly pushed the skirt of her dress up to her hips. She wore a brief, black silk thong which disappeared in a savage yank as he tore it from her. The fragile elastic snapped as easily as if it were an errant thread. He dropped the offending silk to the floor and threw her legs over the arms of the chair so that she was spread and open to him.

He didn’t stop to appreciate the sight she made, though the memory would haunt him later. Her eyes were half-closed and glazed with desire. Her rosy lips were parted and damp from her tongue. Her small, tight breasts were swollen and tipped with hard, berry-red pebbles from his earlier feasting. The scarlet silk pooled at her waist, framing and showcasing her plump hips and drenched pussy. The damp curls were trimmed close, just a shade darker than the honeyed brown of her tousled hair. No, in that moment, he only took in the sandpaper dryness of his throat and the need to taste her.

He plunged his tongue into her folds, spearing into her channel and diving deep. The walls of her core convulsed around him, driving him further into mindless need. He pulled out and licked her from opening to clitoris, and gloried in the keening wail he elicited from her. She was panting hard, gasping unintelligible words as he worked her pussy, pushing her hard, giving her no time to do anything other than take what he gave her. Her unique scent of jasmine and feminine heat washed over him, watering his mouth and fuelling the desire to drink her down. She thrashed and bucked, but he held her firm, interspersing deep thrusts into her pussy with soft licks, nips, and sucks of her clit until she screamed high and long. A wail of pleasure and ecstasy broke from her lips that was music to his ears and a sweet accompaniment to the driving percussion of her pussy as it clenched and throbbed around his tongue. She wrapped her legs around his neck and squeezed him to her as she shuddered under his touch. He lapped at her, softly now, determined to wring every ounce of pleasure from her.

Only when her legs slid limply from his shoulders to rest splayed on the chair cushion did he stop and look at her. Her eyes were dilated and passion-glazed, with pupils so wide that the hazel of her iris was almost indiscernible. The fear was gone, replaced by a look of dazed wonder. Her tongue darted out and wet her bottom lip, and she swallowed hard, as if her throat were dry. With no real conscious thought, Evan leant in and plunged his tongue into her mouth. He plundered and tasted, absorbing the feel of those soft lips under his, the taste of the coffee she’d been drinking and the underlying sweetness that was Claire. She was kryptonite to his self-control.

He surged to his feet and wrenched his pants open, springing his rigid, aching cock free. He gripped her by the hair and wrenched her upright, causing her to gasp. He thrust his cock deep into her mouth, forcing her to accommodate his girth and length. She gagged briefly, but he held firm, and she relaxed and began to swallow against him and to move along his length. Claire sucked him voraciously as she moaned around his cock. The feel of her soft, warm tongue combined with the sweet suction of her mouth and throat beat at him. Each suck and pull served to build the tension in his groin and back, drawing the muscles up tight as his body surged with the need for release. He fought the pull, though. If he was going to be damned, he was going to go down fighting.

Tentative hands reached up to slip into his jeans and massage his ass. Small fingers gripped and stroked and squeezed in syncopation with the hot suck of her mouth. When she scraped her teeth along his cock at the same time as she raked her nails along his ass, he broke. Gripping her hair hard, he thrust deep, threw back his head, and roared his release. With each thick, warm jet he spilled every fantasy, every unsatisfied hard-on, every frustrated desire he’d experienced since she’d begun to frequent his shop down her throat. She swallowed again and again, drawing every drop of pleasure from his body. She drank him down like it was the sweetest nectar and she an addict to the flavour.

He shook from the force of his release. She held his softening cock between lips now swollen and red. As he slipped wetly from her mouth, she rested her forehead against his lower belly and placed a soft, gentle kiss on his groin. The loss of her heat left him feeling bereft and ashamed for his loss of control. He remembered the fear in her eyes and squeezed his own shut against the lance of pain and recrimination that shot through him at the memory.

He reached down and tilted her chin up to look at him. Her eyes were wary again and swimming with tears that traced down her cheeks in crystal rivers. He caught one on his fingertip and rubbed it away. ‘Claire –’

At that moment, the chime from the front door sounded and she scrambled back from him. With hurried, jerky movements she yanked her dress into place and secured the top. Swiping at the tears on her face, she snatched her purse up and ran for the door.

‘Claire,’ he hissed at her. ‘Wait.’ If she heard him, she gave no indication. She just slammed through the front door without a backward glance.

Evan tried to take in a deep breath against the agony squeezing his chest. What had he just done?

‘Hello? Is anybody here?’ A thin, high, feminine voice called from the area in front where the cash register was.