Battered Not Broken (26 page)

“Your halo’s back.”

She raised a hand automatically and ran it over her hair. So much for keeping it frizz-free overnight.

He caught her wrist gently. Even so, her bones felt slender and oddly delicate beneath his fingers. “It looks good. And you shouldn’t worry about it now. Your halo’s going to be twice its current size by the time we’re done.”

“So you’re going to make me look like one of those saints in a stained glass window.”

“Pretty much. Though I wouldn’t call the way I’m going to make it happen saintly.” He released her wrist and wrapped his arms around her waist, letting them crisscross beneath her breasts as he embraced her from behind.

A sensual shiver ran down her spine when he brushed his lips against the side of her neck. Then she felt the telltale roughness that reminded her of his injury. “Don’t hurt yourself. I don’t expect you to kiss me until your lips heal.”

“Can’t wait that long,” he murmured, his breath streaming hot against her skin as he gave her the lightest of kisses. “Hurts to talk, anyway. And to eat and drink. I’m not going to stop doing those things, so I might as well not stop this either.”

She turned her head so that her mouth nearly met his. Carefully, she let her lips brush his, more of a sweep than a true kiss.

He sank onto the mattress and took her with him, his arms still wrapped around her body.

The unmade bedclothes caressed her where he didn’t, still warm from the night they’d spent together between the sheets. When he rolled on top of her, the mattress and blankets cushioned her back, the contrast to his firm body making the feel of his front pressing against hers that much more striking.

His cock pressed against the inside of her leg, its hardness promising. As his body rested between her cradling thighs, a thrill of expectation made every muscle in her core clench. It was all she could do to resist the urge to roll her hips, inviting him in.

“I’ll get a condom,” he said, lowering his head so that his mouth brushed the upper swells of her breasts, “but will this be okay?” He looked up. “I know you like being on top, but I’d like to take you like this. I want to know what it’s like to feel your nails digging into my back.”

“That’s fine. I don’t want to be on top all the time. It’s just…” It had been important to her at first. She’d wanted to make sure their first time was purely theirs, untainted by a past she couldn’t fathom bringing up in that moment. “It was just what I wanted at the time, before.”

Now, she was aching to feel his hips thrust between her thighs. She knew his body and could imagine the pleasure he’d bring her. It was all she could think about, and that was the biggest relief of all.

“Great.” He trailed a stream of light kisses across the tops of her breasts before rising to retrieve a condom. As he approached the dresser, his gait was strangely stiff, lacking its usual grace. Her mind presented her with memories from the night before, when he’d pressed a hand over the scars on his thigh and massaged its muscles in the dark.

Once sheathed, she expected him to return immediately to the shelter awaiting him between her thighs.

He did, but didn’t enter her instantly. Instead, he paused to bow his head over one of her breasts, slowly closing his lips around her nipple.

His gentleness was unprecedented, and the careful mouthing that protected his lips also sent her pulse racing. He teased her nipple, lavishing it with attention with the tip of his tongue. It drove her desire to a fever pitch that had her arching against the bed.

When he stopped to reach below and position the tip of his cock against the lips of her pussy, she held her breath for a moment, her channel tightening as she imagined how it would feel for him to slide inside her from this angle.

It was a new kind of bliss, similar to their previous times together, but also different. He was as hard inside her as ever, but he was also closer, his body aligned with hers. He propped himself up on his forearms so as not to crush her, but he was close enough to touch, close enough that her breath streamed against his shoulders and chest when she exhaled.

She pressed one hand to his chest, her palm absorbing his heartbeat as she let her other one rest on his back.

He moved, half unsheathing and then re-sheathing himself inside her, his hips flush against hers, allowing her to feel his easy strength and every nuance in his motions.

She let her hand drift down the slope of his back and over the firm plane of one ass cheek below. His muscles contracted and relaxed beneath her palm, going from hard to harder and back again as he stretched her pussy in new ways. The way their bodies fit together caused her to shiver briefly in a way that had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with heat.

He laid a hand on her breast and the feel of his fingers, which were lightly calloused from roofing work, echoed the gentle scrape of his damaged lips, bringing her the same desperate-for-more pleasure he’d given her before he’d entered her. It combined with the thrust of his cock inside her and the tantalizing pressure of his groin against her clit to make her gasp.

He continued to play with her breast as he fucked her, fondling and squeezing, dragging his fingertips across her nipple in a way that made it shrink until it was hard and aching.

When she began to come, the sudden sweep of sensation and tightening of her internal muscles drove her to dig her nails into his chest and back, seeking something to anchor her as pleasure pushed her over the edge of coherence, reducing her to an entity of pure sensation.

She could feel everything his body was doing – his cock sliding in and out of her, his hand on her breast and even his breath on the top of her head – but that was all she could feel. The sensations blossomed and then exploded in her mind, sweeping across the surface of her thoughts like shockwaves and directing them all toward him. When he made her come, he was all in the world that mattered.

She closed her eyes and arched against the bed, the small of her back elevated above the mattress and blankets. The way the position crushed her breasts against his chest doubled her pleasure, especially since his movements caused his chest to rub against hers, creating friction that teased her nipples, like he’d so recently done with his hand.

If there was anyone in the next apartment, they probably heard her as she cried out, giving in to the irresistible instinct to verbalize her pleasure as she gasped for air.

A low moan rumbled in Ryan’s chest, a deep sound to balance out her breathy noise. Their bodies were so close that the sound of his pleasure seemed to physically permeate her, making every nerve-ending in her body hum with the thrill of his gratification. Below, her pussy clenched around the shaft of his cock, reminding her of his size and hardness, as if she could possibly forget.

When her moans turned soft and her breathing began to even out just a little bit, he gathered her in his arms and pulled her close to his chest, so that every inch of skin on the front of her body was touching his. His hold was an embrace, not a trap. Inside his arms she was given pleasure and sheltered from everything else.

He poured himself into her with a few last, hard strokes, bowing his head and breathing her name like it was the last one that would ever leave his lips. In the wake of her own orgasm, she was extra-sensitive to the feel of him inside her and the sound of his voice, one that she’d heard in her dreams the night before, when she’d slept beside him.

He remained inside her for a few moments, his head still bowed, before withdrawing. When he rose from between her thighs he brushed his lips lightly across her temple before leaving the bed.

Faint pink crescents marked the un-inked space between black knots where she’d gripped his back. It was a new sight and a strangely satisfying one.

“Want me to make breakfast?”

“Sure.” For the first time that morning, she was able to sense her hunger. Before, she’d been unable to think of anything beyond what she and Ryan had been doing. Her hunger took second place to distraction again as she watched him pull on a pair of jeans before leaving the room.

She dressed in her jeans and sweater from the night before, glancing toward his dresser and wondering what it would be like to open up one of the drawers and find a few of her things there. Maybe someday. Butterflies filled her empty stomach at the thought.

As she exited the bedroom, Ryan emerged from the bathroom. “I almost feel sorry for you having to go out with me today.” He motioned toward his face, his split lips tilting up into a wry smile on one side.

“We don’t have to go out if you don’t feel up to it. We can have a day in. I have to go home to get a fresh outfit anyway – I could grab another movie and we could watch it here.” She would’ve invited him to watch it at her place if she’d lived alone. But she didn’t, and surely a day spent indoors would end up back in the bedroom – a fact that made the privacy of his apartment extra-appealing.

“No, I want to take you out. We haven’t been seeing each other long enough for me to keep you holed up here all the time, and you watching me get my face busted doesn’t count as a date. We should go on a real one.”

“Suddenly you’re such an expert,” she said with a teasing smile. “It was hardly a week ago that you said it had been a while since you’d dated.”

“I remember some basics,” he said, donning an expression of mock-thoughtfulness. “Like the fact that women like it if you actually do things with them besides sex.”

How long had it been since he’d dated? Had he had anyone to write to him when he’d been in Afghanistan? “What did you have in mind?”

“I thought we could go down to the Inner Harbor. Maybe get lunch there.”

“Sounds good. Maybe we could swing by my house first so I can change clothes.”

“All right. You know, you can bring a few things over here and keep them in a drawer if you want. That way you’ll have something to wear on the mornings you wake up here.”

His tone was casual, as if he’d just suggested the most practical thing in the world. And really, he had. But that didn’t stop heat from creeping into her cheeks. She fought furiously to keep her lips from curling into a ridiculously wide smile.

“Unless you’d rather not. If you don’t want to make a habit of staying the night here, I—”

“No,” she hurried to say. “I’d love to keep a few things here. It would be really convenient.”

As he turned to make his way into the kitchen, moving toward the stove, his shoulders rose a little, as if a weight had just been lifted from them.

* * * * *

“When I was little I used to be terrified that I’d fall in and a shark would eat me.” Ally peered down at the water that lapped along the Inner Harbor’s walkway, where the pavement met the water. There was no railing, just a little drop off to the dark expanse below.

“Did your parents let you watch
Jaws
or something?” Ryan raised an eyebrow, his lips turning up just the tiniest bit at the corners.

“Not exactly,” Ally replied, interlacing her fingers a little more tightly with his. “But my brother and I watched it anyway, when they weren’t looking. We got about halfway through the movie before we were caught. By then, the damage was done – I was terrified.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Yeah, he’s…” A small-time gangster who’d betrayed their family and spent the years since selling drugs and doing other things she didn’t even want to think about. “We don’t talk anymore. You could say we’ve gone our separate ways.”

Ryan nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“What – you have a sibling you don’t talk to anymore?”

“Yeah, a brother. And a whole family, really.”

“You don’t talk to your parents?”

“I haven’t for quite a while.”