Damage Me (Crystal Gulf Book 2) (35 page)

Her lips kissed down my jaw, over my pulse, and then she stopped at my chest. “Do men like it when you lick their nipples?”

I forced my eyes open and lifted my head to find her draped across my body. “You want to lick my nipple?”

“Well,” she said, kissing between my pecs. “I liked it when you licked mine.”

The reminder of her in my mouth chased away some of the ache. “I don’t know, baby. The girls I hook up with don’t usually want to lick my nipple.”

“What do they want to lick?” Her warm lips moved to the right and closed around my flesh, sucking softly.

I smiled around my pain. That’s what this girl could do. Pull smiles from the darkness.

“My dick.”

She paused, peeking at me. “Does it taste as good as these?” Her tongue darted out and slid across my abs.

“Do they taste good?”

“So good.” She kissed down one side, pausing to taste each ridge in my muscles. “So freaking good, Dylan.” When she got to my happy trail, I expected her to stop. Instead, she kept going, twirling her tongue in my hair like she was licking at the last drop of coffee from her mug.

I hurt all over, and I felt good all over; the mixture of pain and pleasure created a heady, confusing rush inside of me. “Come here.” I grabbed for her arms, but she slid lower, her naked body sliding right along with her.

She stood between my legs, fingers awkwardly reaching for the buttons on my shorts. “I want to make you feel better.”

I watched as she pulled my jean shorts apart. For the first time in my entire life, I panicked. Hillary wasn’t like all of the other women I’d been with. My dick was just one more dick in their mouths. Hillary hadn’t done it before, and she didn’t want to do it now, she was just trying to return the favor. Somehow that sucked the pleasure out of me. I didn’t want her doing that to me for me, despite how that usually went. I wanted her to do it the way she touched me—like she couldn’t help it. “Stop.”

She looked up in defiance. “You stop.” Then she tried to tug my shorts off. She growled when they got stuck on my hips, revealing the top of my pubes. “Dylan.”

“I’d rather lose myself in you. Not the other way around.” What part of me was worth that? “Come here.” I opened my arms, ignoring that both my hands were shaking, and my leg was teetering on the edge of brutal, and my heart was breaking, and Hillary was beautiful, but only here for a short time.

The angel was confused. “Why do you always get to set the rules? Why can’t I make a choice? I want to make a choice, Dylan. I realized I like making them. I enjoy having the ability to control my own life. Now lift your hips. I choose this!” she snapped, pulling on my jeans roughly.

“You want to put my cock in your mouth?” I snapped back. The longer I sugar coated this the more chances she had at choosing wrong. “You want to do that to me? You want to ruin that good mouth with me?”

“Yes!”

“This may shock you, but I’m not in the fucking mood anymore.” I knocked her hands away and redid my zipper. She stepped away, covering her breasts, eyes dangerously close to dampening. “Don’t look at me like that.” She swallowed hard, as if I just hurt her beyond words. “Hillary. There’s no going back if you do that to me. We both know you’re going to want to go back someday. What if you wake up tomorrow and regret this?”
Regret me?

“You licked my ass, Dylan. I think I’d regret that more.”

She was getting feisty. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “What if, baby?” My tone lowered, forcing her to listen, to hear the words rather than the argument that it would take to defend them.

“Why are you so positive I’m leaving? Like I’m going to wake up tomorrow, or in two months, and suddenly realize I feel differently? Don’t you get it, Dylan? I don’t want to leave you.” Fire poured from her eyes, hot torrid truths.

She had no idea who I was.

I don’t want to leave you
.

Who I’d been to survive my entire life. Who I would be regardless of what she wanted.

Don’t you get it, Dylan?

That wasn’t good for her.

Why are you so positive I’m leaving?

All I could think was:
don’t leave me.

“Why do you think so poorly of yourself?” The wetness in her eyes spilled over. “Who told you that you weren’t worth it? I think you’re worth it. I know you are.” Her hands were on the bed, her eyes were on me, and she crawled up my body like she wasn’t going to look back. Settling on top of me, she found my mouth and kissed me until I could remember only one thing.
Her.

“Enough.” I pulled my lips free and inhaled gratefully as she kissed along my jaw and throat.

As she did so, she rubbed herself against me, grinding on my hard on. She rose with a gasp and splayed her hands on my chest, this wild blond woman on my lap. Watching her lose herself was unhinging. Her hips created her own perfect rhythm. When she had it, she tossed her head back and moaned, rubbing her pussy against me until she tensed. Her breathless moans made me want her. I wanted inside of her, to feel her clench as she came. When she fell forward, I caught her and wrapped her in my arms and held her as she trembled from her orgasm.

“Wouldn’t you rather I make you feel good? You deserve to feel good.”

“You too.”

Her sleepy tone made me smile. “Tired?”

“Mhm.”

“I wonder why.”

“Hmm.”

“Do you want to sleep?”

“Together?”

We shouldn’t sleep together. Couples slept together. It would make it harder for both of us. The last woman I’d slept with was Harley the morning before I told her I was a liar and ruined everything. I wanted that again. To be close to someone and fear it. To be afraid of something that made me feel good. Instead, I rubbed my hands up and down her spine, tracing the goose bumps I left behind. “You know you can pretty much have what you want.”

“Hmm,” she mumbled again, as if that weren’t true.

I sighed in her hair. “You’re here, aren’t you? In my arms. In bed. You got what you wanted. Dweeb,” I grumbled.

Her giggle was surprised and quiet. “Jerk,” she retorted.

“Nerd.”

“Manwhore.”

“My good girl,” I breathed.

She kissed my bare chest. “My bad boy.”

Anything that was hers couldn’t be bad.

Unless of course it was.

And she wanted it. She did get what she wanted too often from me. Because I thought maybe deep down, I wanted it too.

But wanting this last year destroyed me. Left me here with my rot.

But it also gave me the woman in my arms.

The thought both terrified and comforted me.

I wanted the woman in my arms.

“We should get some sleep.” My hand gave her ass a smack, finding perverse pleasure when she yelped. “Up.”

She rose from my chest and glared. “Did you just spank me again?”

“My ass, my rules.” The more she glared, the higher my eyebrows rose. “Your pussy’s mine. Your ass must be too. In fact,” I said, reaching up to hold her face. “This is mine also. This is my hair. These are my lips.” I brought her close and met her half way, tasting her shocked mouth. “Those are my eyes, those sexy ass eyes, and these are my thoughts. And every one belongs to me. This beautiful, stunning woman is mine.” I released her and slid my hands back down to her ass, cupping it tightly, wanting to make love to her. “So yeah, I just spanked you. You want more?”

Her breathing was heavy and warm, fanning across my face and chest. “Maybe. Uh-huh.”

I squeezed her harder, loving the spark of lust in her eyes. I wanted to see her beneath me as I took her body, maybe even her heart. “Maybe?”

“Yes,” she huffed. “Definitely.”

“You want me to hurt you?” I couldn’t help myself. Her soft lips were parted and her cheeks blushed. She looked too damn good to not taste. I took her top lip between mine and sucked softly, inhaling her whimper.

“No. I never want you to hurt me. Mmm, Dylan. You are such a good kisser.” She deepened our kiss, hands roaming over my chest. “The best kisser.”

“You have something to compare me too?” Hot, unpredictable rage flew through me. I pulled back. I got the impression she only did this with me. The idea that she’d lost herself in another man, even for a moment, was earth-shatteringly upsetting.

“Just you.” The emotion in her eyes reminded me of sparks. They crackled and flamed, burning me on accident, or on purpose—she was burning me. “You’re my first everything.”

“I’m one hell of a first time.”

Her smile and laugh were breathless and hesitant, soft, timid lifts of her lips and giggles that reached through my skin and bones and burrowed inside of me. I should’ve pulled away, pushed her off, saved myself from the impending damage.

Instead, I brought her back down and held on as tightly as I could because I feared the day I had to let her go.

***

Hillary

My eyes fluttered open, confused by my surroundings.

I expected my bedroom. My familiar, twin bed, my sheer curtains, and the sound of quiet because mom was snoring from her shift at the bar. Instead, I woke up to a bedroom covered in rich colors and expensive furniture. I was in the arms of a man. The room wasn’t quiet but disrupted by the distinct sound of whimpering.

“Spits?” Dylan’s quiet, pained voice whispered. “I’m sorry, Spits.”

I rose carefully so as not to wake him. Tears trailed from the corner of his sleeping eyes. Clear rivulets moistened his pillow. I leaned over and kissed them, tasting his pain.

“Help,” he mumbled, but his left leg moved, as if in his dream he was just as immobile as he was now. “Down. Spits. Tex was wrong. Help!” His shout startled us both. His eyes snapped open.

The bone-deep fear inside of him called to mine. It was a part of Dylan Meyer I understood more than any other. The crippling knowledge that this was happening, and that it hadn’t, but we’d gotten close enough to the darkness to be altered. I buried his head against my naked chest, cradling my bad boy from the pain that seeped from his eyes.

“I just wanted to come home,” he sobbed, holding on to me. “I told Tex we weren’t alone. Spits’ son could be Aubrey. I just wanted to come home, Hillary.” He pulled back, his eyes gleaming with his tears. “I didn’t have a choice. Spits’ eyes won’t stop haunting me. Like he blames me. It’s my fault he’s gone, and I’m here.” And then he crushed me to him, holding me so tight I couldn’t breathe.

I rubbed his back, wanting to free him from whatever hurt him. “Who is Spits?”

“He was in my unit. He helped me. He helped me deal with …”

“War?” I guessed softly.

“War. But he’s gone. He didn’t make it when I did. He has a son. He taught me how to survive. I did bad things to do that.” He pulled back, his hurt so profound it made my heart constrict. “How could you want this? How could you feel safe around an evil bastard like me?”

I knew Dylan was a soldier. I understood that these men were strong, brave men who sacrificed their well-being for people like me. But war and fighting were removed from my life. They were short clips on
CNN
. They were brief, painful stories I only heard. They weren’t real life truths. Until now. I was staring into the eyes of a man who had probably fallen so many times he couldn’t find his way up. A soldier who did what he had to do to come home. A man who had no choice but to protect himself, to protect his daughter. Killing was something we did not touch upon. It was unbearably dark. But in combat, it happened. That’s what war was. War was two people trying to win. Even if you won, I had a feeling deep down you lost something. You bled from your eyes, from your heart—because good men could be bad boys too.

I was looking at one. I was looking at a man who was so strong he could withstand my weakness. His strength was in his tears, in his heart. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t a monster. He was a father who fell. A man who protected me. And a human like the rest of us. To know that this is what he’s been hiding behind—these horrible dark lies—twisted painfully inside of me. Another piece of me, and what I wanted from him, fell into place.

“Because of this.” I touched his chest over his heart. “This is the same heart that makes your eyes shine when you look at your daughter. It’s the same light that makes your face come alive when you laugh. It’s the same heart that pounds when we kiss. This heart is as beautiful as mine. It could never be evil. You can’t blame yourself for surviving, Dylan. That isn’t fair to your daughter. To yourself.”

Is that why he wasn’t taking care of himself? Because he felt guilty for living? The realization dawned on me like a sharp painful light bulb in a dark room. It shone on all his secrets.

That was why Dylan Meyer had given up.

“Aubrey loves you. How can you think that way about yourself?” I blinked my tears away. “You’re the only person holding me together. The only man I think I’ve ever trusted.”

He moved away from me like my words were knives thrown at him. He dodged them instead of waiting to find they weren’t sharp instruments meant to harm him. I watched in shock as he sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He deflected everything I’d said for the lies inside of him? His tears still fell. He flinched occasionally as if his dreams were still taunting him. He might not have been running in real life, but I had a feeling Dylan had been running from himself for a long time.

I crawled to him and wrapped my arms around him from behind, holding on to the only man I’ve ever wanted to let my guard down around, the only one I took a chance on. “My father never wanted me. When I learned he was a monster it was like I had to let him go all over again. I’ve never had a man in my life I could trust. They’ve all either hurt me or pushed me away. But you’re the first man I’ve ever wanted to bare myself to, to be like this, naked, and not just physically. Am I wrong? Again?”

He pulled in a sharp breath. “I’m tired, baby.”

I kissed his shoulder. “I think sometimes we have to be tired before we give up.”