The Beauty Series (16 page)

He pulled away—jerked himself back from her, panting. “God, Erin. God.”

She sank back to the wall, the slab cool against her fevered skin. The air felt thick and sumptuous, hard to breathe but nourishing too.

“How do you want me?” she asked, her voice low.

“I’m too far gone after… I’m on the edge, Erin. Let me step back and then I’ll make this good for you.”

“I don’t want you to make it good for me. I want you to jump.”

She reached for him, tugging the pants that hung at his thighs, down his legs and off completely, leaving him bared in only a dress shirt hung open. The lines of his body curved so elegantly, all that power contained, the strength sharply forged—exactly like the man within. She stroked down the outside of his calf, the tanned skin and sprinkling of male hair, admiring.

When she looked up, the question was in her eyes—the plea.
Please?
He groaned, and it sounded so dire, like something had perished, and she hoped it was his self-control.

He pointed to the living room where the hardwood floor softened to plush carpet. “Hands and knees.”

She scrambled to comply, dropping her clothes as she went, shedding out of them like finding a new skin—this one molten and pure. Nothing but sex and sensuality. Only helpless, guileless intimacy here. The carpet felt scratchy on her forearms, a metal scrub brush on ceramic. She turned back, offering herself up to him, letting the embarrassment wash over her and heighten the gift of herself.

*     *     *

Blake took his
time retrieving a condom from his pants pocket, slipping it over the length of his cock. Not looking at her—he couldn’t. Like Erin had done in class that first day with her pens and her notebook, keeping herself hidden because to see would be too much. Her beauty too blinding and his own weakness at the fore. He wanted to ravage her in a way that would change her, indelibly bind her to him so that neither of them could break loose.

He was afraid, though, of the tension rippling through his arms, the dark murmurs of his heart. He could be too rough like this. He needed to check himself even if she wanted to give him full rein. What if he hurt her? What if he scared her away?

But he wasn’t sure he could stop himself. Just warning himself to be careful wasn’t enough, not when his whole body bristled to take her. Erin knelt before him, the curve of her ass so sweet, the pink lips of her sex glistening. He was ravenous for her, desperate to be inside her and over her, surround her until all she breathed was him.

Be careful
, he admonished himself.
Go slow.

He fisted his cock and forced himself to speak evenly. “What are you thinking about? Right now.”

Her eyes widened. “About you. How you’ll feel inside me.”

“You need to come?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“When’s the last time you got yourself off?”

She blinked. If he wasn’t mistaken, a blush spread over her cheeks, spilling over the back of her shoulders. “You mean the last time we…?”

“Not me. You. How long has it been since you touched yourself?”

She turned her face into the carpet, muffling her answer. “This morning.”

He stroked up the inside of her thigh, not wanting her to feel alone in this and needing—needing to touch her soft skin. Not wanting to be alone in this either. Blood coursed hotly through his veins, pounding a beat of urgency and desire. Of possession, even though he knew that wasn’t right. Wasn’t good.

She deserved to be cherished, but all he could think was to hold her down and fuck her. She deserved to be worshipped, but he imagined his every sinful dream upon her body. Most of all, she deserved a better a man, one whole and unbroken, but he would never let her go.

The silky skin at the top of her leg was already damp. He drew circles there idly, needing to stall before he plunged into her. Before he hurt her. He would accept her submission, her trust. He’d use her sweet body and in doing so reach his own bliss. Selfish, monstrous—that was him.

He leaned down, murmuring the only love words he could think in the moment. “Show me. Make yourself come for me.”

With a moan of acceptance, she reached down. He could see flashes of pale as her fingers worked quickly at her clit. Thick blinds filtered light from the evening, a shy illumination of her gorgeous curves and shadows beneath. He knelt behind her and bent his head. She tasted lovely. He reached deeper, nudging her legs farther apart and delving into her with his tongue. She shivered, and the motion of her hand sped up.

He’d directed this, but he felt strangely powerless. He could lick her, caress her with his tongue, but it was she who controlled the pace, she who stroked herself toward climax. It wasn’t what he’d intended at the start, but her pleasure was its own sweet reward.

She began to rock in a familiar rhythm. He grabbed her hips to hold her steady. His harsh grip seemed to spur something inside her. Her sounds were frantic now, her fingers desperate. He slid his own two fingers into the warm clasp of her body, finding the right angle and perfect spot, meeting her caress with his tongue through her swollen flesh.

She cried out as she came, sounding desperate and so wholly his that he reared back and slammed inside her before she had finished. He pushed inside again and again, not letting her relax or find comfort in the fullness. It was different than ever before, and that thought only spurred him higher. Harder. Deeper inside until she clenched around him in a bid for reprieve.

He couldn’t, though. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t breathe.
More, more.
He slid a palm along the sweat-slicked skin of her back and grasped her hair at the base. He pulled her up against him so she knelt upright and him behind her, almost beneath her, fucking upward. Reaching around her, he found her clit and fondled it with the same rhythm she’d used on herself, having learned her secrets now.

She gasped and sobbed in his embrace, hands damp with her own desire, clinging to his arms and scrabbling at his sides—wherever she could reach, which wasn’t much. He had her in hand now, under his control in a way he both loathed and craved. He wanted to give her all his gentleness only to find there was none left. He sucked at her neck, leaving marks for the world and for her—but mostly for himself. To know that she was his and to never doubt, never fear.

Still holding her steady with his hand tangled in her hair. Still circling her clit in time with the pulse of her cunt around his cock. “Come,” he murmured in her ear. “Come for me.”

“I can’t.”

“Do it now.”

He pinched her clit, and she came with a hoarse cry. Her pussy squeezed him tight. He almost came—
not yet, almost.

“Again,” he demanded.

“No more. Oh God, I really can’t.”

But she could. Her inner muscles still rippled around him, her last climax hardly faded.

He bit her earlobe gently. “I want to feel you come again. I want that sweet pussy to squeeze me until I can’t hold back anymore. I want to feel your wetness drip down my cock to my balls. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

She might have cried out his name, but the sound muffled in his ears as she did just what he’d ordered. As she came and shook in his arms while her sex tightened almost painfully around his cock. His vision went white, his body rigid. He came in a moment of blinding ecstasy and helpless, heartless need. With a cry of despair and release. With the knowledge that he would never survive it if she left him too.

He curled onto his side, catching her as she fell, panting. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

“No.” Her voice was raw. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Don’t you dare.”

So he didn’t say it aloud, he just thought it.
I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go. You’re mine now, God help you.

E
rin stretched. Her
muscles felt rung out and used well.

She turned her head, facing her lover with a lazy smile. Blake had his eyes closed, arm slung over his face. He grew less bold in the aftermath, as if she might find his scars ugly without the haze of arousal to soften him. He had also maneuvered them so that she saw his unmarred side. He did that constantly, so smoothly she hardly noticed until after. She wasn’t sure he even knew he did it. The burned skin was only a glimpse on the opposite cheek. Shiny tissue. White and pink that didn’t tan to bronze with the rest of his skin.

She wished she could tell him it didn’t matter. But that wasn’t really true. How many people wore the darkest part of them on their faces? What a different world it would be if we walked around with signs that proclaimed the worst thing that had happened to us.

For her mother, it would be whatever had happened in the house where she’d worked as a maid and then suddenly hadn’t anymore. For Erin, it would be when her boyfriend had taken her to meet his parents and they realized his father had been the one to hurt her mother. When her boyfriend had called later with that bullshit story about her mom stealing from them, sure that his father was innocent of any wrongdoing. When he’d left her to find her own ride back to campus and when she’d seen him walking between buildings with another girl on his arm.
Broken spirit
, her mother’s sign would say.
Broken heart
for Erin.

Broken body
for Blake.

Put that way, she felt lucky. Everyone had pain in their pasts. Some had it worse than others, but no one was untouched. The difference was that Blake was introduced that way. The rest of them had their smooth-skinned shells to hide behind.

He turned to face her, exposing himself. She looked into his eyes and felt herself fall into them—the contentment there and the shame.

“What are you thinking about?” he murmured.

She almost smiled at the echo of his earlier words. During sex he’d asked that question. And her answer was the same, in essence. “About you.”

He raised a brow. “Anything in particular?”

She studied the smooth bronze of his skin, the mottled pink. The courage with which he faced each day, holding that damned sign up, his head held high.

“How beautiful you are.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “That’s cruel,” he said mildly.

She flinched. “I mean it. You’re beautiful to me.”

He faced the ceiling again. “Fuck, Erin. I never asked you to lie to me.”

She propped herself on her elbow. “Why do you think I have sex with you if I don’t find you attractive?”

“Pity?” he said, so cavalierly she knew he was baiting her.

And it worked, damn him. “Then why do you have sex with me?” she challenged.

He was still a moment. His expression impassive, he turned his head and gave her a long, slow perusal from her wild, disheveled hair down her naked body to where her toes were tucked under the sheet. He caressed her breast, running his thumb down the side, the rough pad of his finger like fine sandpaper on her sensitive skin.

His hand remained on her breast, a soft weight, a link between them as he looked her in the eye. “I love you, Erin. I’m not sure it’s enough. In fact, I know it’s not, but I can’t keep myself away from you. It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

She swallowed thickly. For someone declaring his love and her beauty, he didn’t seem happy about it. “Is it a problem?”

He smiled slightly. His voice was hoarse. “No. Not right now.”

A chill climbed up her spine. Only then could she see the risk he’d taken, teaching a class where she would be a student. At first he’d resisted because he didn’t want to rejoin society, didn’t want to work again and walk among the living, preferring the sanctuary he had made for himself in this house.

They would make it work with him as her professor, limiting the moral dilemma as best they could. She would do her best, which usually earned her an A or the rare B. Both were commonly the only grades given in the small advanced master’s courses, the idea being that all the C and D students had been weeded out by then anyway. But he would grade her fairly, regardless. He was too honorable to do anything else.

More than the potential for conflict between them, what if they were found out? Would there be some sort of inquisition? Would he be fired with a scandal on his virtual resume? Of course no one would find out. And she wouldn’t let the grade come between them, whatever it ended up being. But there was an awful lot of room for error in this plan. He must have known that, and he’d accepted it without complaint.

For her.

“Let’s keep it that way,” she said, brushing back the hair from his forehead. She pet him, her large, sedated cat, until his eyes stayed shut and his breathing evened out. He slept, but she continued to caress him, needing the contact.

How could she have been so reckless with him—with his career and his life? And how had he let her do that? Though he wasn’t confrontational by nature, preferring diplomacy to a direct conflict, he knew how to stand up to people. It was how he’d isolated himself so completely, how he’d avoided getting sucked back into the world despite repeated calls from the Dean, from his parents. He’d laid down the facts with Melinda, threatening to call the police if she pulled any more stunts here. But she’d simply asked him,
here, do this thing
, and he’d nodded and done it. A heady sort of power, but one she could misuse by accident if she wasn’t careful.

*     *     *

This morning had
been another great class. The group had loosened up over the weeks, with the other students holding active discussions that sometimes spilled out into the hallway after class. Then Erin had spent the early afternoon in a small café right off campus, where she’d enjoyed a strawberry drink with tapioca pearls while going over her notes.

She packed up her books and headed back to the department offices. She had a standing weekly appointment with her advisor, Dr. Miller, to go over her progress and get feedback. The day was uncommonly warm. Sunlight winked at her from around the spires and cornices of the elaborate old buildings.