Roxy Harte (3 page)

I wanted to look away but took him all in, his jaw darkened with a hint of five o’clock shadow, adding ruggedness to his well-trimmed mustache and goatee. Lashes, longer and thicker than any I’d ever seen on a man, surrounded his dark brown eyes. Just a man, I told myself again, not a God, not a demon, and still I trembled.

“Are you going to be able to go through with this?” he asked.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I want this, I truly do.”

His eyes narrowed and I felt him assess the truth of my words. “Go inside. Spend the evening with Garrett and Jackie. Eat a good meal—God knows you need one by the look of you. Tonight, you and Garrett are going to make up for the misunderstanding, for the deceit, for the betrayal.”

I jerked with each accusation—deceit, betrayal—knowing how much pain I’d caused Garrett, wishing
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I’d been honest from the start, the regret trapped in my chest begging for release, but my gaze never left Lord Fyre’s.

“Tonight he will make love to you and I want you to embrace that love, fill yourself with it, saturate every pore of your being in that love, enough to carry you through three months of not seeing him, because once I collar you, you will be mine, solely mine, for ninety days. Do you understand?”

I nodded, not really understanding what he was saying, hearing only that he wanted me to make love to Garrett, hearing that he wanted me to say good-bye to him.

Emotion caught in my throat, preventing me from speaking.

He repeated, “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered, not able to find my voice.

“Tomorrow you will meet me at noon beside the swings at the park around the block. Do you know where I’m talking about?”

I nodded, even my whisper stolen by the power pounding into me from his eyes.

“Then go to him now.”

* * * *

Finally returning to the house, I entered to find it solemn and felt like I had just missed an argument between Jackie and Garrett. Enough so for me to ask, “Is everything okay?”

Handing Garrett plates to set the table with, she turned to me with a questioning, raised eyebrow, “We could ask the same of you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sit, Kitten,” Garrett commanded, pulling out a dining room chair. “Dinner’s almost ready, we’ll eat soon.”

I looked at the food already on the table and my stomach rolled, but I sat.

“So, we’re not going to discuss this?” Jackie demanded, sitting a wicker bowl filled with warm bread on the table.

Their gazes met over the table, each glaring at the other. Garrett’s glare said stop. Jackie’s glare meant a whole lot more. I slumped forward, propping my elbows on the table, rudely sliding so that my crossed arms pressed the table and my face pressed into my arms.

“For God’s sake, talk some sense into her, Garrett! Before it’s too late!”

“God has nothing to do with this,” I quipped, whispering too softly for either to notice. Exhausted, not
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wanting to hear them fight over me, over my decision to go with Lord Fyre, I sucked the flesh of my arm into my mouth and bit down, just to feel the pain, just to make sure that I was awake, not dreaming. I just turned myself over to Lord Fyre. He commanded me here to eat and to make love.
To say good-bye.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Jackie. This doesn’t concern you.”

“I think she’s making a huge mistake, one she’s going to regret, and mark my words, Garrett, my boy, you will too.”

I closed my eyes, wishing I could turn off the volume, sinking my teeth in harder, deeper, wanting it to hurt enough so that the pain would be louder than their voices in my head.

“God, Kitten, stop!” Garrett jerked back on my hair, pulling my teeth from my arm with a loud pop.

“Jackie, hand me a napkin, Kitten’s bleeding.”

Looking down, I saw the first red drip of blood falling over my forearm. Perfect dents, welling with blood, forming a perfect circle, and then blood spilled in thin rivers of red. Not a lot of blood, but enough to require attention.

Funny, I felt drunk, or drugged, when only moments before my heart was racing from the fear of knowing I’d just taken the final step. No turning back. How will I survive three months with Lord Fyre when a moment on the lawn left me so unsettled?

“And I thought when Lord Fyre kicks her back to your curb in three months you’d have a mess to clean up,” Jackie sniped. “Looks like you have a pretty big mess that needs cleaning up right now.”

“Enough, Jackie!” Garrett demanded, kneeling beside me, pressing the napkin against my arm to stop the bleeding.

Jackie stormed to the table, pressing herself nose to nose with him. “No, Garrett, not nearly enough! I watched while you destroyed this girl, I held her hand while you ignored her, and now, when you should be stepping up to the plate to reclaim your property, you are letting one stronger than you take her! I’ve seen you Garrett, as Ice you are every bit as strong as Fyre. If she needs to be mastered, you are every bit as able as he is to help her release her demons and embrace her darkness! Isn’t that why you said this is happening?”

“Yes, Jackie, that’s what I said.”

“If you go through with this, little girl,” Jackie seethed, turning on me, shaking me unexpectedly, waking me from my stupor with her angry shriek, “I’m wiping my hands free of it—I hope the three of you can figure out how to fix this disaster once it explodes in your faces, because I’m wiping my hands free of all of you! Do you understand?”

“Leave, Jackie,” Garrett stood and pushed her hard enough to move her, screaming, “If you feel that way, get out!”

He didn’t have to ask twice. Jackie stormed away, making me jump when the screen door slammed, announcing she was gone. Startled, I blinked, feeling like I’d missed something. Squatting before me, Garrett’s concerned face came into focus, but he wasn’t really in focus, I saw just his blurred form, enough to realize that it was him, lifting my arm, dabbing at the bloody mess I’d made on my arm. My brain squeezed in on itself when he demanded, “Why did you bite yourself?” I couldn’t answer. My shrug
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didn’t seem to please him.

With Jackie’s departure, my head cleared a little, though she’d had nothing to do with it. I watched Garrett clean my arm with a square damp pad reeking of alcohol, and once wiped and disinfected, it didn’t look horrible, just a red, angry-looking circle of teeth indentations. I watched him repack the contents of the kitchen first-aid kit I didn’t remember him bringing to the table.

“I need to feed you,” he said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Lord Fyre told me to make certain you ate.”

That got my attention. I couldn’t resist challenging, “Do you always do what Lord Fyre tells you to do, Garrett Lawrence?”

His eyes narrowed as if he might not answer the question, as if I might have made him angry with the question. I swallowed, realizing too late that when it came to matters between Thomas and Garrett, I was walking on eggshells and hadn’t even realized it.

Just when I thought he was going to not answer, he did, his eyes still narrowed. “Sometimes I do.

Sometimes I don’t. It’s a complicated relationship even I am sometimes loath to understand; however, he was once my master, and old lessons are hard to unlearn.”

His answer made me wish I hadn’t asked the question, especially when he started to speak again, but closed his mouth. I didn’t ask what he might have said. We both looked at the table at the same time, seeing how much trouble Jackie had gone to for my homecoming—fresh, warm breads that looked homemade, grilled salmon, glazed green beans, fresh corn on the cob, bowls of cut melons, green leaf salad, and citrus salad. “Please thank Jackie for the trouble she went to, but I can’t eat, really.”

“You have to start eating soon,” he said, but he didn’t argue the point, instead lifting me and carrying me through the house and up the staircase to my bedroom, without directions.

He lowered me onto the bed, and then pulled his shirt off. “Did Fyre tell you that I’m going to make love to you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to make love to you?”

“More than anything in the world—yes.”

“No games tonight then, Kitten. Just me making love to you and you making love to me. No pain tonight. Do you understand?”

I nodded, trying not to be overcome with emotion, watching him as he unzipped his jeans, pulling jeans and plaid boxers off in one swoop. As he stood naked before me, I was very aware of how much I appreciated the beauty of his body, tall and lean, long-limbed and tan. Fine dark hair covered his arms and legs, thicker hair covered his chest, narrowing to a trail that led enticingly to his hard cock. I could say that he stood there posing. I could say that he wanted me to look, he wanted me to commit to memory each shadowed muscle, each subtle nuance that made his body distinctly his. The truth was
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perhaps somewhere in the middle of me being unable to stop looking and him wanting me to look my fill.

I looked until I could look no longer without touching him, and then reached out to him without thinking, just reaching. Grasping my hand, he folded it over his and kissed each finger, turning my palm to kiss the inside of my hand. A man had kissed me in a similar manner in my past—Lion. I have never been kissed that way by a man who knew what he was doing and put every bit of emotion he held in his being into the kiss, energy crawling over my palm with his lips, the kiss itself electric, coursing through my body, awakening parts of me that I was unaware were sleeping.

Moving to the foot of the bed, he slipped my sandal from my right foot, kneeling before me to kiss each toe as he had my fingers, except after kissing, he ran his tongue over and under each toe, until each had felt the soft lick of pleasure. Continuing to hold my foot, he ran his tongue down the length of my arch before placing a kiss on my ankle. Not to be neglectful, he pulled my other sandal off and repeated the sensual tongue worship on my left foot, drawing and sucking on each toe, discovering quickly that my left foot was more than slightly ticklish. I’m sure the sadist in him made him lick my arch while I wiggled and screamed, begging him to stop. I was both relieved and sorry when he did.

Standing, he watched me. It was hard to lie still, waiting an uncomfortable length of time for him to join me, until finally he bent over me, unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans, wiggling them down over my hips, pulling the fabric to free my legs. He left my black lace panties on my hips while he moved higher, pulling my T-shirt over my head and tossing it carelessly across the room. Lowering his body onto the bed, he covered me, sliding his hands beneath my back to release the hook closure of my black bra with a quick, skilled flick. Drawing the lace away from my breasts and pulling the straps free of my arms, he threw the bra over his shoulder as he lowered his hot mouth to my nipple, his tongue gliding to circle it, teasing me, making my back arch, before allowing me the small pleasure of being sucked. When I could barely stand another second of licking, teasing, circling, sucking, he switched to the other breast, leaving the first so lonely that I reached up to pinch myself.

“No, Kitten.” He pulled my hand back, pushing my arms up over my head. “Don’t move. You said that you understood there would be no pain tonight, no pinching, no pulling, and no biting. Do you? Do you understand?”

“You’re going to drive me insane!” I cried out, arching my back, trying to rub my lace-covered clit against his thigh, frustrated when he angled away, still hovering over me, but not touching me.

“Can you let me make love to you, Kitten—gently?”

“Yes!” I sobbed, begging, “Please don’t stop—touch me, touch me, touch me.”

His lips descended to kiss each nipple, just a soft kiss on the tips standing out hard, pebbled tight, each ready for more, each in agony to be sucked and sucked hard, and if not sucked, pinched, pulled, bitten.

However, Garrett had his own agenda, kissing so softly I barely felt his lips as they traveled the valley between my ribs, over my belly button, a quick light swirl, before going farther, the heat of his mouth finally settling over the scrap of lace that covered my sex. The heat of his mouth caressed me in swirls of heat that made my hips dance with need, his mouth pulling away each time I pressed up, maintaining the distance so that the only thing touching my clit was the heated air being breathed from his mouth.

“Oh God, Garrett! I can’t take this!” I groaned, the pleasure he was giving me agony. “Please, please, touch me.”

“Do you want me to lick your sweet pussy, Kitten?”

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“God, yes! Please. Lick me.”

He didn’t make me wait, sucking the lace of my panties into his mouth with my flesh, sucking and swirling, circling my clit, teasing me with the same gentleness he’d used on my breasts. “Oh God, oh God!”

I lifted my hips, trying to make the contact more solid, but he pulled away with each lift of my hips, until finally, I lay still and unmoving. My reward was his tongue sliding along the edge of black lace to lick at my wet slit, making me wetter, his saliva mingling with my own wetness. He licked back and forth, side-to-side, front to back, just along the inner, ultra-sensitive edge of my labia, his tongue sliding beneath lace. The dual sensation of tongue and lace between my lips made me crazy. I was wet and slick, ready and needy for more, but he made me wait, licking where he wanted and not where I needed him to be, torturing me with his gentleness.