Mistaken Identities (24 page)

She was a warrior who’d fought too long and too hard and wore her scars on the inside and armor on the outside. It didn’t make him feel any less for her. Instead, he saw it for what it was—a guise to protect herself, so no one else could cause the scars inside to deepen. She would never have to fear that from him. He meant what he said. They’d fight for something good built from a solid foundation. He’d love her like she’d never been loved and, together, they’d heal.

They kissed and undressed each other slowly, tenderly.

He trailed kisses down her torso until he reached the most intimate of places. He felt her shudder when he blew his hot breath against her pussy. He teased her with one little flick of his tongue against her clit. Bryce gave a low chuckle when Stasia’s breath caught in her throat making her hips shift restlessly. He felt his own need building. The sweet pleasure of taking her filled him with anticipation. She moved restlessly against the micro suede sofa and lifted her hips to invite him to taste her.

Bryce took the invitation and pressed his mouth against her sex.
My God, she tastes so good!
The thought ricocheted though his mind. The feeling of her velvety softness against his tongue as it slipped between the folds of her pussy and the way she moaned in pleasure was his undoing. Stasia moaned her pleasure as his mouth played with her. The sound was primal to his ears and it fueled him. Bryce renewed his tasting of her sex and his tongue roamed hungrily. Finally, he spread the lips of her pussy and dipped his tongue deep inside, thrusting over and over and deeper each time. She went over the edge under the onslaught of his mouth and she ground herself against his face.

“Yes, oh, Bryce, I’m coming!” she cried out.

Her body arched and their eyes locked as she fragmented into an intense orgasm. Stasia came for him trembling and calling his name. He licked greedily as her juices flowed and his groans of pleasure at her response to his touch mingled with the soft noises she made. His breath was just as labored as hers when he raised his head from between her legs. He wasn’t done. He was not finished watching her pleasure quite yet.

He trailed one lone finger down the slit of her pussy, up and down in slow deliberate movements. Barely rubbing over her clit, she clutched the soft cushions as he teased and circled the entrance to her core. Her body shivered while he led her in a sensual dance. He gave a soft laugh as she tried to move her hips to guide his finger inside her. But Bryce retreated each time until she made a sound of frustration.

“Please,” Stasia whispered and licked her dry lips.

“Please what?” Bryce continued to tease her.

“I want your fingers inside me,” Stasia begged.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

Stasia opened her eyes slowly as if they were heavy and their gaze connected again. He watched her face as his finger slid into her slick opening, so very slowly until he had it buried and had the knuckle of his other finger pressed against her clit. Bryce moved in slow deliberation until the pace drove her crazy.

“Give me more, please,” she cried out.

“Yes.” The word hissed between his teeth.

Bryce was trying to retain his control as he watched her body respond to him. He began to use two fingers now, sliding them deeper, faster, until her head fell back in ecstasy. He could feel the excitement building inside her like a cauldron overheating, going from a simmer to a boil. She spread her legs wider taking more of his fingers and her pussy clutched at his digits. With every breath she took a soft moan was expelled.

“You’re going to come for me now, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes!” Stasia panted.

When she reached the pinnacle her body had been striving for, Stasia arched away from the sofa and she gave a low scream as she orgasmed. His finger and hand dripped with her juice and she slumped back against the sofa trying to catch her breath.

“I want you to taste me,” he commanded. “Take my cock in your mouth.”

“I like this commanding side of you,” Stasia purred. “Next time, handcuffs.”

“You are a very dirty girl.” Bryce grinned.

“For you I am.”

Stasia pushed him back against the sofa and took his hard shaft in her hand. She licked the tip of his cock slowly, swirling her tongue over the head, and then took the entire length of him in her mouth. Bryce felt like he would die from the sensations her mouth was creating. Heaven or hell could claim him right now and he wouldn’t care. He would die a happy man under her sexual ministrations.

“Oh, yes, you do that so well,” Bryce moaned.

“I’m not stopping until I get my reward,” she paused to say and then went back to her task with a vengeance.

His body tightened and the strong muscles of his thighs flexed. He could not stay still and let her lips do all the work. Bryce’s groans of pleasure drove her to quicken the pace of her mouth around his manhood. Just as he had, she was using the cues of his body to please him. He tangled his hands in her hair and began to fuck her mouth, pumping his cock between her lips.

God, he was dying, dying from the sheer pleasure she was creating. Her tongue was like a snake, twining around the sensitive skin of his shaft every time he pushed between her luscious lips. She stopped her task only a few times to lick at the heavy sack that carried his seed. His groans turned to growls and he felt the first small release of his pre-come into her mouth. Stasia moaned and sucked at him almost savagely until he closed his eyes and let his orgasm take him. Bryce called her name as he came and when he looked down at her, she was licking her lips like the satisfied temptress she was.

“Hands and knees,” Bryce said and pulled her onto the sofa with him.

Her knees were pressed into the soft cushions and her hands on the arm rest. Stasia was already moaning in anticipation. She wiggled her hips as Bryce rubbed his cock up her ass down to the wet slit of her pussy. He closed his eyes begging for control but found none. He grabbed her curvaceous hips and rammed his cock deep into her center and they both cried out. The slippery wet walls of her sex clutched him as he moved, keeping his cock deep inside her after each thrust.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she repeated over and over.

This went past just making love into the carnal realm of pure, hot dirty fucking. God, he loved her and every time they touched they went from simmer to nuclear. The noises they made were animalistic and their bodies made wet smacking noises every time they came together. Stasia came in rolling waves one after the other like the ocean. It drove him higher and she called his name each time she came.

“I want your ass,” he said.

“Take it. God, I want to feel it all,” she moaned wantonly.

Bryce kissed her hard. “Don’t move.”

He went to the bathroom quickly and came back with baby oil. Stasia was still on the sofa on her knees touching herself and it turned him on even more. Her pussy was so wet he could see it glistening as it ran down her thighs. Bryce dribbled oil down the crack of her ass before slowly entering the tight buttonhole. He gritted his teeth at hearing her whimper and feeling this forbidden part of her body accept him. When he was buried to the hilt inside her he began a slow movement that made her tremble and drove him beyond sanity. He reached around as he took her ass and played with her clit. She reared back against him, crying out and increasing the pace on her own and Bryce followed willingly.

“Tell me you like it. Tell me,” Bryce demanded.

“God, yes, I love it, make me come,” Stasia implored.

Hearing her pleading and moaning pushed him over and he took her with abandon. Her cries echoed his as they came together. He spilled his hot seed in her tight ass and it left him drained. They crumpled together on the sofa and neither one said a thing. Bryce never experienced anything so wild and carnal before and he knew only she could make him feel that way. Sex was sex and he’d had women before, but none of them was Stasia and no one could make him feel like she did. Between finding his breath and willing his heart to stop trying to escape his chest, he felt her hot tears against his shoulder and pulled her head up to look at her in confusion.

“Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry if I lost control and hurt you.” Bryce sat up and pulled her close, rocking her gently.

She slapped his chest and sniffed. “I’m fine with the sex, you big oaf. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “Are you upset?”

“No, I’m not,” she sobbed. “I’m happy and I feel contented. Fuck, what’s the matter with me?”

“Because you feel happy and contented or because you’re crying?” Bryce asked confused.

“Both, I guess. I don’t know. Just hold me and stop asking questions,” she wailed. “I don’t cry, damn it, I just don’t cry.”

“Maybe it’s time you did,” he said quietly and held her while she washed away the pain of the past years with her tears.

He loved her already, but with the show of her emotions he loved her all the more. She fought alone for so long and now, to have someone in her life was probably very scary. Thinking about it, Bryce realized he understood how she felt because while he walked around Caldwell County every day, saying hello to people he called friends, he still somehow felt very alone. She was on the outside looking in and he was on the inside looking out. They were part of the same whole, him and Stasia. They were two pieces but when they came together they made one perfect whole. They belonged together. He let her cry and he held her tight as he ran his hand through her hair. He fell asleep holding the woman he loved, who loved him right back, even though she couldn’t say it yet.

Chapter Five

It was a week later that Stasia realized she was living with Bryce. Every night instead of being in her hotel room she spent it in his bed steeped in passion and wrapped in his arms. Her bag and toiletries came over with her one night and never left, and then Bryce commented that he’d checked her out of the hotel. It bothered her a little bit at first but then not so much because she kept telling herself she had to learn to trust, and this tenuous new relationship was as good a place to start as any. Bryce, his words that she was free to live her life, all of it, was a matter of trust. He was also right about another thing. She needed to bury the past and lay it to rest permanently.

And she hated to admit it, but he was also right when he said that her being on the run was her fault. But the child inside her who was lost that night wanted to blame everyone else. It was time to let it go if she was going to move on with her life. She knew it was going to be hard, for she held a lot of anger and resentment within herself about her past. Not just the incident that caused her to run twelve years ago but her entire childhood all the way up to now. She knew where she had to start to put her demons to rest. She had to return to the place that haunted her nightmares—Ruby Houses.

The mornings that Bryce had to work she was on the computer researching her and Kim’s old hangout spots, if they still existed and, if not, what they were now, and eliminating those that would be no use. In the late afternoon, after Bryce got back from work, through nightfall, they would search for Kim. After a week, there was still no sign of Kim and they were running out of leads fast. She and Cole had formed some kind of tense treaty and while it felt uncomfortable it was holding strong. They’d never see eye to eye, but at least they were being civil.

She sighed and sat back against the seat of the cab staring at the entrance of the Ruby housing complex. She was trying to build up her courage to step back on the property. To anyone, it looked like low-income housing and a place where people who didn’t have much tried to raise a family. To her, it was a haunting specter, a jinx that if she stepped back through the gates she would be stuck there once again. Many people grew up and left the complex with happy memories, even though they didn’t have much, they were happy because they had good parents and a good upbringing. She couldn’t boast about that because she never felt she had much of a relationship with her mother. Her mother acknowledged her but never showed her affection or love. She recalled wondering why her mama loved her sister more and had thought that maybe it was her fault, maybe innate, something inside of her that caused the disparity. She tried to stop caring, but it never really worked because a child always wants to feel its mother’s love, even if that love doesn’t exist.

“Are you getting out, lady?” the cab driver asked in a thick African accent.

Stasia took a deep breath and handed him a twenty. “Yeah, no change.”

“You take my card. Call when you are ready to leave. I’m in the area,” he said.

“Thanks.” Stasia took the card. She’d need it because she didn’t see herself staying long.

She got out, slammed the taxi door shut, and walked slowly up the cracked paved driveway that lead through the gates. They’d tried a gated community once with a code for residents to get in and out. That piece of technology stood old with peeling paint and wires hanging out. Nothing lasted long at the Ruby Houses and the broken and rusted key code pad stood testament of that.

Stasia knew exactly where to go. Bryce said they had moved upstairs to get away from the flooding but didn’t move out. How many times had they packed important things on top of tables and drawers to get them away from the ten inches of water that came in during spring flooding? How many times had politicians come clamoring for votes, handing out false promises to fix and to change things, but never came through? Too many to count or remember.

To Stasia, the air still hung stale and oppressive as she walked past the familiar buildings. Already, she felt like clawing at her throat and running for the gates.
Breathe.
Get it done,
she told herself firmly as she found the building that housed her mother’s apartment. On the sidewalk she saw her initials still written in the cement that she remembered tagging with a stick while the cement was still wet.
SC Never Broken
. She stayed true to that promise. She never broke, not once. She made her way up the stairwell and knocked on the door waiting for someone to answer. She heard the wail of a baby and winced. Her sister had reproduced…again. Her mother opened the door. The face that she remembered had gotten older, more wrinkles and the once hard, cruel mouth actually curved into a smile.