Divine Phoenix (13 page)

I want you, too
.

The rain continued driving outside, but the lightning and thunder appeared to be dwindling again.

He lifted his lips from her throat, and she felt his warm breath against her forehead in the pitch black of his bedroom. His face was lit for a split second by a dwindling flash of lightning, and she was held spellbound by the need in his languorous eyes. The overwhelming desire to give in to him, give him whatever he wanted, filled her, and she lifted her palms to his cheeks as he waited, unmoving.

She was supposed to be moving forward and reclaiming her life. Rising from the ashes like the bronze phoenix statue Clay had sculpted with his own hands. The room was completely dark now, so he’d never see the tattoo. She could give in this once and satisfy the craving that had been intensifying in her for a month. Her awareness of him as a man and not only as a friend had grown with each passing hour they’d spent in each other’s company.

“If you want me to stop, Lily, I will. But what I feel for you goes beyond friendship now. I want more. Are you scared of me or of making love with me?”

Making love? Did he love her? Was she capable of that emotion after what she’d been through? She’d lied to herself for a lot of years, believing if she performed well enough, JT would love her but he never had. Clay had never laid a hand on her before now, but she instinctively knew with him it would be making love and not just having sex. Could her heart handle it when all this went south because of her issues?

Her answer came with his gentle kiss and whisper, “On your terms, Lily. Whatever you can handle. All the worries racing through your mind right now, we can deal with later. I’d never intentionally hurt you.”

That was no falsehood, and she knew it. On its own accord, her hand slid over his ribs to his back. His muscled flesh was firm under her palm as she swept her hand down the length of his spine to the hard mounds of his buttocks. His very pleased-sounding sigh fluttered across her collarbone as he pressed his lips against it.

“One thing, Clay.” At his querying sound, she said, “No lights.”

“Even if I
want
to see you? I love your body.” He pressed his lips against the spot above the buttons of her pajama top. “I want to kiss every part of you.”

“No lights.”

She felt his acquiescent nod as the buttons on her top started to come loose. She lifted her knees and loosely wrapped her legs around his hips, giving in to him as he divested her of her top and pulled loose the drawstring on her flannel pajama pants.

Trailing his fingertips down from her breastbone to her fluttering abdomen, he parted the front plackets to reveal her breasts. The room was dark as pitch, so her other senses were heightened as his fingers retraced their path. Gently cupping her breasts in his palms, Clay leaned down and tongued one nipple then the other.

“
Mmm
, Lily,” he murmured against her skin then dove in, sucking vigorously until her nipples were stiff and stinging points of sensitivity. Her pussy flooded with moisture as he tormented her until she was shuddering with need, ready to beg him to strip her pajama pants off and satisfy her desperation.

She shifted eagerly when she finally felt him tug at the elastic waistband. His bare skin seared her everywhere he touched her as more and more of her flesh was exposed. She heard her pajama pants land on the wood floor. Greedy hands stroked her legs as he sat up, kneeling between her spread thighs.

Lily placed her hand across her lower abdomen, to mask the tattoo in case lightning lit the room again. She smiled, realizing she was more worried about him seeing the tattoo than the storm still going on outside. Considering her phobic state earlier, that had to be
some
slight progress.

Sitting motionless, sightless, Clay studied her with his fingertips, tracing every curve and crease within reach, everywhere but the place she wanted to feel his touch the most. Finally, in one sweeping stroke, his fingertips followed a trail up her inner thigh to her wet, heated pussy, pulling a needy gasp from her.

She arched against his fingers when he stroked up and down, teasing her cream from her. Leaning over her, he whispered against her lips, “You’re soaked, baby.”

Sliding her hand down his abdomen, she wrapped it gently around the thick shaft jutting from the nest of crisp, curling hairs at its base. His cock was hard and very hot in her hand as she stroked up and down his length, learning his size and his girth.

Her pussy quivered violently as she imagined being filled with him, and he slid a finger between her throbbing, wet lips. She pressed her face against his pectoral muscle as they both moaned simultaneously. A droplet of his pre-cum painted her palm as she stroked over the head and gently teased the underside of it.

Clay shuddered and whispered, “Feels so good, baby.” He scooted down in the bed, and she knew where he was headed.

“No, wait. The light. No,” she whimpered desperately. It was one thing to be joined body to body with him, but if lightning flashed with his face that close to her mound, he’d be able to see the mark.

“I’ll keep my eyes closed, Lily. Let me,” he murmured but waited for her answer.

With her hand still covering her abdomen, she nodded. Realizing he couldn’t hear a nod, she whispered, “Promise?’

“Yes.” His next touch was the feel of his sensual lips kissing her pussy.

“Oh!”

JT had never done this to her. When she’d asked once during the very earliest stages of their relationship, he’d told her he didn’t like the way a woman tasted. The knowledge that he’d based his judgment on how
other
women tasted had soured any interest she’d ever had in receiving oral sex from him, and she’d never asked again.

What Clay was giving her now was pure bliss. Each slow, velvety lap of his tongue sent her spiraling higher and higher. He lingered over her like her pussy was his only destination, and she wondered how he disciplined himself to not just plunge in and get it over with the way JT would have. She jolted when Clay pinched her ass cheek hard.

“Ow!” she cried through trembling lips, knowing what that was for even before he said it.

“You’re with
me
now, Lily. Stay with me and don’t allow him to ruin this. Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she replied as he continued licking, and she settled back into the sexual haze stealing over her. “But you were reading my mind and you were right. This is about us, right now.”

Whatever came tomorrow, she’d still have this time with him.

He caressed the spot he’d pinched in consolation as Lily lost herself in the sensations, allowing him to find his own rhythm. The strokes of his tongue changed. Fast, fast, slow. The tension inside her escalated. He teased and touched until she was throbbing and on the verge of orgasm. She couldn’t believe how fast she’d gotten there, considering JT’s cruel accusations of frigidity.

Blotting JT from her mind, she focused on the increasing tension and tendrils of pleasure that echoed through every nerve ending in her body. While stroking her channel with his fingers, he laved her clit repeatedly.

She cried out as he touched a spot inside her with his fingertips that made her arch and moan with need…pleasure…agony? The pleasure was so intense she felt it everywhere and not just in her pussy. The last straw came when he closed his talented lips around her flesh and sucked at her clit, alternating with devastatingly accurate flicks with his tongue, then sucking again.

White light exploded behind her eyelids, and she howled and panted as her back bowed off the bed. Clay’s hands caressed her hips and her abdomen as he slowly brought her back down to earth, licking and stroking her through every pulse of her orgasm. Her pussy felt on fire, and he teased her gently as her desire began to build again.

She attempted to catch her breath when he lifted up and reached for the drawer in the bedside table, all the while laying a slow, wet kiss on her lips.

“I love the way you taste, Lily. You have nothing to worry about or be ashamed of.”

Easy for you to say. You haven’t seen me in the light of day.

But she licked her lips and realized he was right as she tasted herself. Certainly not ambrosia for the gods but not repulsive by any stretch of the imagination.

It was dark, they were moving forward with this, and there was nothing she could do about the tattoo at the moment, so she chose to slam the door on her worry. He sat up, and she heard the tear of foil. A deep tremble went through her as her pussy quivered with need for him. Soon he’d fill her with his cock and she was driven by the need to please him. She realized too late that she should’ve sucked his cock for him. Next time she’d make it up to him.

“One thing at a time, baby,” he said with a chuckle.
How much of that did I say out loud?

Leaning on an elbow, he settled his solid hips between her thighs. His warmth and sheer size nearly overwhelmed her, as did the feel of the solid, heavy ridge lying against the crease between her hip and thigh.

Clay brushed a sweet, gentle kiss against her lips. “We’re going to take this slow and easy, Lily. You’ve been through a lot, very little of it good, and I’m not going to ignore that fact. Stay with
me
, okay?”

The fact that he wanted to reassure her, when she already knew he’d be unimaginably gentle, brought the mist of tears to her eyes. Her voice caught when she replied, “Yes, Clay.”

He kissed her again as he lifted his hips and used one hand to tease the head of his cock against her drenched opening, making it easier for him to slide in. He thrust his hips against hers, and she panted as his large, blunt cockhead slid though her swollen opening. She sighed with bliss at his tenderness and the erotic sensation of him filling her so tightly.

With each slow thrust, he sank deeper until she had all of him. He rested his head between her breasts and breathed hard as he thrust against her. He pressed a kiss against her left breast. “Wrap your legs around me, baby.” He moved his knees so they were positioned under her buttocks.

When she complied, he wrapped his arms around her hips and lifted her to change the angle of his thrust. Doing so buffeted her clit against his pubic bone and the crisp hairs at the base of his cock with every stroke. She was surprised by how quickly she returned to the precipice of release.

“Oh, Clay! I’m—Please don’t stop!”

“Never, unless you to tell me to, baby. You feel so good!”

He sat up and growled in a way that sounded triumphant and fucked her in that position until her tension coiled so tight she thought she might explode.

She panted loudly, threw back her head, and screamed as her pussy convulsed in orgasmic spasms. Flashes of light burst behind her eyelids again as she held on to his rock-hard thighs.

His grip tightened on her hips, and he lowered his chest to hers as he thrust with powerful, animalistic strokes. His breath rushed against her shoulder, and each exhalation sounded almost pained as his climax approached.

She knew the moment it hit because his whole body clenched into a powerful, tight, muscular knot and he howled in ecstasy. Lily could feel the pulse of his cock with each ejaculation and held on to him tightly because she felt like she might just shake apart.

Never.
Never
in all her life had sex felt this intimate. Not once. Clay braced his upper body on his elbows so he didn’t crush her beneath him and dragged air into his lungs, trying to catch his breath. His sweat-soaked chest pressed lightly against hers, and she could feel the reverberation of his pounding heart. Cupping her cheek, Clay pressed a kiss to her forehead and drew another ragged breath.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and she could plainly hear the concern in his voice. “That was really intense.”

“I’ll say,” she breathed out. “I’m fine.” Lightning flickered in the windows, but she didn’t concern herself with it as she took in another deep breath. “That was…”
Beautiful. Perfect.

Clay lightly laved the perspiration from the dip above her collarbone. “Yeah. I agree.” His voice was so faint she almost didn’t hear him over the rain outside. “Stay in my bed tonight, Lily. Sleep with me.”

Refusing his sexy, husky request was impossible. “If that’s what you want, sure, but I have to get up early in the morning. I’ve got to study some more.”

She wished she could sleep the whole night through with him, but she couldn’t. What if he woke before her and saw her naked? He’d be repulsed by the tattoo and never be able to look at her again.

Either option she chose for dealing with the tattoo was going to be expensive, according to her research. So she’d put off deciding which procedure to have done—laser tattoo removal that might not be one hundred percent effective or to simply have it redone and commit to a possible larger tattoo. It also gave her pause that the new tattoo might only serve as a remembrance of the trouble she’d gone to getting every reminder of JT out of her life.

Maybe she was waiting for the right frame of mind in which to make the decision. If the only reason she did the redo was to give JT a big “fuck you” to his claims of ownership, she wanted to wait. Somehow, she knew it needed to be strictly
for her
that she had the tattoo redone.

In the short-term at least, she knew what this meant for them. Clay would get suspicious about why she wouldn’t allow him to see her naked while making love, in the morning upon waking, or at other times like in the shower. She never, ever wanted him to see it or even know about it. The image was just too shameful to her. She needed to back away from this new physical relationship with him. It hurt to think of that, and the burning lump in her throat grew at the thought of hurting him.