Rule's Obsession (11 page)

He moved between her thighs and pressed her open with his knees between her legs. He wanted to be able to say something to her, but speech was impossible. He felt as if he were on a tightrope; he didn't think his heart would keep beating unless he could get inside of her.

He looked down and saw that the expression of euphoria was slowing leaving her features. She glanced down and her eyes flared with a look that he could only describe as trepidation.
Son-of-a-bitch
. He knew what she was seeing. His goddamn cock was what you might call super-sized. When he'd been a kid, he'd been proud of it. But not so much anymore.

His size was nothing more than a sexual hindrance. He'd learned to choose women who looked as if they matched him physically. But there wasn't anything about Angie that matched him physically.
Nothing
. She was small and delicate and his finger inside of her had only proven that she would have a hard time accommodating him.

Studying her now, the fear he was feeling was twofold. Fear that she would bolt before he could prove to her that they
would
fit together, and for the first time since he'd been a teenager, fear that he was going to lose it before he could get his cock where it was supposed to go.

Son-of-a-fucking-bitch
. She made him feel like a fucking teenager.

Unable to delay any longer, he positioned his erection at her entrance and began to push. He gritted his teeth and concentrated when all he wanted was to plunge inside.
Slowly, Rule
. He had to go slowly.
Get a grip, man
. Go. Fucking. Slow.

Through the tight bubble of silence that filled the room, all Damian could hear was his roughened breathing highlighted by her sudden gasp when he began the inexorable push inside. He felt her breath hitch and tension take hold of her where she lay under him as she became deathly still. He swallowed and groaned, her wet heat enclosing around the head of his cock, giving him a teasing glimpse of the pleasure he was about to find, if he could only get it inside.

He pushed again, trying to attain another inch of depth, but her internal muscles tightened and her hands came up against the planes of his chest in a defensive move. She didn't push against him,
thank God
, only held her hands there as if ready to call a halt. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. She was so tight that his brain was almost spinning. A tantalizing lick of fire along his spine urged him to push again. He asserted ruthless control and reminded himself what the definition of
slow
was. He fought the predator inside and with deliberate discipline, pushed again.

He stalled instantaneously when she let out an alarmed little moan and her fingernails clenched into his skin, stabbing into him. He felt her suck in a breath and hold it, and he knew that she was silently panicking.
God, he needed time
. He needed time before she refused to go any further. With that in mind, he set out to calm her. His arms came down on either side of her head and he dropped his mouth to her ear, and took a moment to calm himself first, dragging in oxygen in a repeated attempt to slow his heart rate.

He was as hard as a rock, the blood pumping furiously through his veins, landing in an erection so hard that it was painful not to continue pushing. He fisted one hand in the sheet and the other in her hair and tried to speak while fighting his arousal. "Hey, baby,
it's okay,"
he whispered. "It's going to go in." Her whimper of denial sliced through him and he felt a pounding in his head. "Shhh, shhh," he mumbled disjointedly in an effort to soothe. "You're doing great, baby. Just keep still for another minute, okay? I promise it won't hurt if you let me be easy."

Her grip relented slightly as she lay still and listened to him as if his voice was the only anchor she had. "That's it, sweetheart. Relax. Can you relax your muscles for me?" He pressed his mouth to her ear and grazed a light kiss over her lobe. "I don't want to hurt you." He took her lobe in his teeth and pulled with a slight friction and he heard her breath catch and felt some of the tension leave her body. Relief, hot and sweet, slid down his spine. "You're
so sweet.
The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you."

She made a tiny keening noise and Damian slid a hand between them and pressed a finger on her clit. With a control he didn't know he had, he took his time and swirled his touch over her silky flesh repeatedly until she moaned again. Another rush of relief gripped him by the throat as she arched against him and he felt a sudden rush of feminine moisture around the head of his cock.

Thanking whatever deity that might be listening to him, he lifted his hips and pushed in a short, firm stroke that only allowed him to sink another inch inside her. His guts clenched with violent need; he was at that incredible, tight threshold at the point where her body needed to give. He groaned and pulled back before pushing in again.

Her breath caught again and her fingers sank into his skin in warning.

She was tight, tighter than even he'd expected when he fantasized about her and the knowledge of that was sending a throbbing, primal beat through his system. He wanted to slam into her so badly he could taste it, but he knew he couldn't. She held herself too still, almost holding her breath, as if expecting to be hurt at any moment, and her fear wasn't sitting well with him. He redoubled his efforts and continued to play with her clit while he attempted to seduce her with words. That the words he spoke were the complete truth didn't escape him. "I've never felt anything half as good as you feel. I knew it would be good the first time I saw you." He slid over and kissed her on the lips and then rose up enough to see her face. Her eyes were closed with a look of concentration on her features. "You're so pretty, baby. You feel so good."

Through a haze of lust, he watched the expression on her face turn to mesmerized, as she lay perfectly still and listened to him. "You're doing so well, sweetheart, being so still, just like I told you to. You're a good girl, aren't you?" Unable to help himself, a barrage of emotions slamming through him, with savage possession he leaned down and softly bit her lip. She cried out, and at the same time, he felt another wave of moisture that allowed him to sink deeper inside.

Chapter Six

Damian groaned at the same time that Angie moaned, and he lifted and began stroking, pushing in a bit at a time until he was fully seated within her. Satisfaction and arousal blazing down his spinal cord, he rose up on his hands, his elbows locked in place as he studied her.

Her eyes were closed and he felt a need so strong he couldn't contain it. "Angie. Open your eyes."

She stalled for the count of two seconds, but then her eyes flew open and she looked up at him. "It's in," he announced with a triumph he couldn't hold back. "And it feels good. Fucking perfect." He slid out and took another stroke and her eyes began to slip closed.

"No," he grunted. Her eyes opened and she watched him though heavy lids. "Am I hurting you?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued with some satisfaction, "I know I'm not."

She shook her head.

Holding himself up with one arm, he slid his hand back to her clit and massaged her there, the fullness of his cock inside of her, so close to where he touched her intimately, adding another dimension to his need. "You want to come again?"

Her eyes flared but she remained quiet, and he said, "I think you want to come again."

Shaking her head, she whispered, "I don't think I can."

"No?"

She visibly swallowed, and shook her head again.

She might have doubts, but Damian had none as he felt her sweet, slick wetness surround him. He began taking firm, short strokes, and with every inward thrust, he hit that place deep inside of her that he knew would drive her crazy. Within seconds, she was moaning in the back of her throat. Within a minute her eyes closed and so did his.

The fury of sexual heat consuming them both, he let his instinctive reflexes take over. He stroked her hard and deep, taking what he needed, what he felt like he had to have to keep breathing. With a last, hard, merciless pump, he thrust them both into a world of sublime pleasure. She let out a high, feminine shriek, and holding himself tightly inside her, milking the spasms of release, he followed her over the edge into a pleasure so profound, he felt stunned.

In the aftermath he tried to clear his head, but thinking was impossible. He slid to the side, withdrawing from her as gently as he could manage, allowing her to breathe deeply. He was pulling in oxygen as if he'd just run ten miles, and before he could check the inclination, he swept her up in his arms and held her clamped to his side with one arm around her waist as he lay on his back.

A feeling of possession swamped him, one he immediately tried to tamp down. A dark, dormant emotion from deep in his soul abruptly reared its head and he felt aggression rise in his blood. Just the simple act of pulling out of her was causing conflict in his brain; he struggled against a compulsion to not let her go.

A thousand thoughts hit him from all sides. The fact that it had been the best fucking sex he'd ever had was the most prevalent, the memory sliding over him and even now, hardening him to a full-blown erection. The feel of her was like an addiction; she was soft and feminine and the fact that he wanted to stake a fucking claim was screwing with his heart but his head was fighting the desire.
Nothing
had changed and he needed to remember that. She was still wrong for him. Maybe the sex
had
been the best in his life, but sex didn't count for everything. He had to remember the other qualities that were important in a relationship. There was compatibility, friendship, and that ever-elusive quality that he always heard about but didn't quite believe in, love.

What-the-fuck-ever. It didn't really matter. Those were problems he'd have to face in the long-term, but all he had to think about now was the short-term, at least for the moment. There was no question that she felt damn good in his arms, so for now, that's where she'd stay. He abruptly remembered what he'd told her when he'd been trying to get her to sleep with him.
Nothing had to be serious
. He knew it was a mantra he needed to live by. Even as he had the thought, he questioned whether it was viable or not.
Could
they maintain a casual affair with everything staying smooth sailing? As his arm clenched tightly around her, he acknowledged that he might have a certain difficulty with that. And
why
shouldn't it be easy to keep things casual?

He didn
't feel casual
.

And he didn't know if it would
ever
be possible to feel only casual with Angie.

****

Had someone told Angie a few months ago that she'd have a hard time chatting with Damian's mother, continually reiterating to the older woman that she and Damian were only friends, she wouldn't have believed them.

But it was so true. She was having a damn hard time. It happened every time the older woman came in for a cut.

As Mrs. Rule sat in the chair at her station, Angie couldn't help a shard of discomfiture at the lie she was perpetuating. Maybe if it had only been that one night between the two of them, it might have been easier.
But it hadn't been
. Maybe if it had only been a week or two of hot and heavy.
But it hadn't been
. It had been
months
. Months and months of a hot affair where almost every night was spent together. Every night when neither one of them had a conflict, they'd ended up in bed together.

Damian had shown up at her apartment the night after their 'first date' without any warning, and within mere minutes, Angie had found herself butt-assed naked and clinging to him, more than ready for round two. A date had turned into two dates and weeks had turned into months now.

Maybe it was only casual, maybe it wasn't, but it damn sure wasn't a simple friendship as she insisted to his mother every time the older woman came into the salon. "Yes, I think he's really handsome," she answered, biting the inside of her cheek, as she applied the highlights that would give the much-needed definition to the older woman's hair. It had taken a while to convince her to allow highlights, but now the older woman loved them and seemed to trust only Angie to do them.

"Then why exactly are the two of you just friends?" Justine Rule asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time, her tone one of frustration.

Angie attempted to stifle the clang of warning in her head that was telling her nothing good could come of this conversation, as she tried to stick as close to the truth through the web of lies spilling from her mouth. "We don't have a lot in common, I suppose."

"He likes you, I can tell. The night of my dinner party, he couldn't keep his eyes from you, darling," the older woman said with a fondness toward her that made Angie feel even guiltier.

She felt a flush of crimson climb up her cheekbones. "I'm sure you're exaggerating. We don't know each other that well. Just from the salon, really."

"He must have wanted you to be with him that night. I just don't understand. Did he even give a hint he might like to see you again?"