This Man (54 page)

‘I’m sorry.’ I murmur, circling my hands in his hair.

He pulls back, driving forward on a moan. ‘Ava, everything I do, I do to keep you safe and to keep my sanity. Please listen to me.’

I moan on another deep, delightful plunge. ‘I will.’ I confirm, but I’m aware I’m raging with pleasure and, once again, he can make me say anything he wants. I don’t need keeping safe – except, perhaps, from him.

He gazes down at me. ‘I need you.’ He looks despondent, throwing me out completely. ‘I really need you, baby.’

I’m mindless on pleasure, totally swallowed up by him, but he can’t keep saying things like that – at least not without elaborating. He’s making my brain a knotted mess of coded statements. Is he getting

confused

with

needing

and

wanting? I’m past the wanting stage and only mildly afraid that I’ve let myself fall into the realms of really needing this man

‘Why do you need me?’ My voice is broken and husky.

‘I just do. Please, don’t ever leave me.’

He plunges forward again, enticing a collective moan.

‘Tell me.’ I all but groan, clenching at his shoulders, but ensuring I keep my eyes fixed on his. I need more than his confounding brainteasers. These shallow waters are becoming muddy as well.

‘Just accept that I need you and kiss me.’

I look up at him, torn by my body’s need for him and my brain’s need for information. He’s leisurely working his way in and out of me at the most dreamy pace,

gradually

encouraging

another

buildup of pressure to begin. I can’t control it.

‘Ava, kiss me.’

My body wins. I pull his face down to mine, worshipping his wonderful mouth, as he sinks in and out, rolling his narrow hips each time. The mechanical tense of my body sets in as my pleasure peaks and I start to wobble on the edge of release, short sharp breaths escaping as I try and reign in my impending climax.

‘Not yet, baby.’ He warns softly, grinding hard on another drive forward.

How does he know? I concentrate hard, but with this music and Jesse working my mouth so delicately, I’m really struggling. I claw my fingers into his shoulders, a wordless signal that I’m tipping the edge.

He groans, biting my lip and jerking forward.

‘Together.’ he mumbles against my mouth. I nod my acceptance as he increases his strokes and carries us both closer to ultimate ecstasy, all the time maintaining his controlled, accurate drives.

‘Nearly there, baby.’ he moans.

‘Jesse!’

‘Hold on, just hold on.’ he says calmly, plunging forward again, executing a painfully deep, delicious rotation of his hips, pushing himself forward as far as he can get.

We both cry out.

‘Now, Ava.’ He withdraws, driving forward again, harder.

I let it go, feeling him throb and jerk inside me as we swallow each others moans and both roll over, descending into a calm, unhurried fall into nothing. My flesh trembles around his beating cock and my heart is hammering in my chest.

I kiss him adoringly as he relaxes on me, holding my leg over his shoulder and pushing his body further into me, releasing everything he has, moaning in pure, raw pleasure.

The unwelcome invasion of moisture creeps into my eyes, and I fight real hard to prevent them from falling and ruining the moment. He continues to accept my reverent kiss, meeting my slow, sweeping tongue, stroke for stroke. I’m trying to tell him something with this kiss. I’m desperate for him to recognise it.

I love you!

He pulls back, breaking our kiss and frowns at me. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks softly, his voice full of concern.

‘Nothing,’ I reply too quickly, mentally cursing my wretched hand for shifting on the back of his head. He searches my eyes, and I relent on a sigh. ‘What is this?’ I ask.

He’s still moving slowly inside me.

‘What’s what?’ The confusion in his voice is quite clear. I kick myself for opening my big mouth.

‘I mean me and you.’ I feel stupid all of a sudden, wanting to retreat under the covers.

His eyes soften and he swivels his hips slowly. ‘This is just you and me.’ he says simply, like it really is that simple. He kisses me gently, releasing my leg. ‘Are you okay?’

No, I’m shit!
‘Fine,’ I reply, more harshly than I intended. Is the man so thick skinned that he can’t see a woman in love when she’s lying underneath him?

You and me, me and you, that much is bloody obvious. I don’t see anyone else in bed with us. I wriggle a little underneath him, and he narrows his sludgy eyes on me.

‘I need a wee.’ I say in the most convincing I’m-not-pissed tone. I fail miserably.

He latches onto his bottom lip, eyeing me suspiciously, but he pulls out, reluctantly freeing me from beneath him. I reach around to unclasp my bra before I make my way to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.

Why can’t I just say it? I need to rid my mouth of the words that are causing me so much bloody agony. I mentally slap my sorry arse around the luxurious bathroom and flush my head down the toilet before I go for a wee. I’m such a loser. He must know how I feel. I drop to the feet of this man like a slave, giving my mind and body up to him at the drop of a hat. I don’t believe, not for a moment, that he doesn’t recognise all these signs.

I finish up, presenting my naked form to the mirror. I stare at my reflection. My deep brown eyes are bright again, my olive skin fresh and clear. I brace my hands on the vanity unit, letting out a long sigh. This is not where I planned to be, but I’m here.

I’ve been ram-raided in every sense of the word by this man, and I’m skirting precariously close to a broken heart. The thought of my life without him in it… I reach up and rub my chest. The very thought has my heart constricting. Even with all of his challenging ways, I’m hopelessly in love with him – it just is.

I jump when the door opens and he strolls in, all naked and stunningly glorious. He positions himself behind me, resting his hands on my waist, his chin on my shoulder. Our eyes lock together for the longest time.

‘I thought we made friends?’ he questions on a slight pucker of his beautiful brow.

‘We did.’ I shrug. I had expected far more retribution than what I just received.

Yes, he shredded the taboo dress, but all things

considered,

he’s

been

quite

reasonable today. It’s quite funny that I can play down a clothes massacre as
quite
reasonable
.

‘Then, why are you sulking?’

Because you’re thick skinned!
‘I’m not sulking.’ I say oversensitively. It’s bloody obvious that I am.

He shakes his head on a long tired sigh.

What has he got to be tired about? He circles his hips against my lower back.

He’s hard again. He’s going to distract me from my sulks with his unreasonable, sexual manipulation. I know it.

‘Ava, you’re the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met.’ he grumbles.

My eyes widen at his cheek. He thinks I’m frustrating? His mouth clamps onto my neck, penetrating me with heat.

‘Are you holding out on me for a reason, lady?’

‘No.’ I breathe. What’s he talking about?

I never hold out on him. I give myself up to him, unreservedly and willing, every time.

A little gentle persuasion is sometimes required, but he gets what he wants in the end. Holding out?

He reaches down and slowly starts rubbing his palm, up and down, between my thighs. It’s the perfect amount of friction at the perfect tempo. I hold his eyes in the mirror. Fucking hell, I’m gagging for him again. I drop my head back, giving him perfect access to my neck, his tongue working a firm, heavy trail up the column of my throat, circling at the sensitive hollow under my ear.

‘You want it again?’ he teases in my ear as he works my core.

‘I need you.’

‘Baby, those words make me so happy.

Always?’

‘Always,’ I confirm.

He growls his approval. ‘Fuck, I need to be inside you.’ He yanks my hips forward and positions himself at my entrance before hammering into me on an ear piercing yell that echoes around the vast bathroom.

‘Oh, shit, Jesse!’ I support myself on the vanity unit, bracing myself for the onslaught.

He crashes forward. ‘Watch…your…

mouth!’

I’m subjected to a relentless, desperate round of punishing blows as he yells like a man possessed, yanking me back, impaling me to the most excruciating depths. My head is spinning, my body abused, and I’m out of my mind on the most intense, painful and

pleasurable

drug

that

is

Mr

Challenging himself. I drop my limp head.

Holy mother fucking GOD!

His hands move to my shoulders. ‘Look at me!’ he yells, pounding me with a purposeful blow at his demand. I draw in a sharp breath, drag my heavy head up and find him in the mirror, but it’s hard to focus. I’m being thundered forward, my arms struggling to hold me as he slaps against my backside on continuous groans.

His frown line is so deep, his neck muscles strained. The demanding, brutal sex Lord has returned.

‘You’ll never hold out on me, will you, Ava?’ he barks through laboured grunts.

‘No!’

‘Because you’re never leaving me, are you?’

Oh, here we go again. All the coded sex talk scrambles my brain more than the formidable assault my body is under.

‘Where the fuck am I going?’ I scream in frustration on another merciless blow.

‘Mouth!’ he roars urgently. ‘Say it, Ava!’

‘Oh God!’ I cry. My knees buckle and his hands move quickly to my waist, capturing me.

My world goes completely silent as I ride out the vibration of waves that piston through me, so harshly, I think my heart might have ceased from shock.

‘Jesus!’ He falls to the floor, rolling onto his back so I’m lay across him, my back to his front, his arms sprawled out at his side. I’m being heaved up and down on top of him.

My mind is a foggy, churned up mess and my poor body is wondering what the hell just happened. That was a sense fuck if ever there was one. But for what purpose?

‘I’m fu…’ I snap my mouth shut before I earn myself another scorn, but he still lifts an arm and finds my hip to have a little dig

‘Hey!’ I complain. I suppressed the urge.

It’s an improvement.

He engulfs me in his arms and inhales into my neck. ‘You didn’t say it.’

‘What? That I won’t leave you? I won’t leave you. Happy?’

‘Yes, I am, but that’s not what I meant.’

‘What did you mean?’

He makes a meal of exhaling deeply into my ear. ‘Never mind, want to go again?’

I splutter on a laboured breath. He’s joking, right? I know I won’t be able to say no – for a start, he won’t let me, but seriously? I feel the slight jerk of a hushed chuckle under me.

‘Absolutely, I can’t get enough of you.’ I keep my voice steady and serious.

He freezes under me, but then increases his vice hold on me. ‘I’m glad. I feel exactly the same. But my heart has been through enough in the last twenty four hours, what with your defiance and lack of obedience. I don’t know how much more it can take.’

There we are; lack of obedience.

Control freak!
‘It must be your age.’ I mutter.

‘Hey, lady,’ He rolls us over so I’m face down on the bathroom floor and he’s blanketing me. He bites my ear, blowing hot breath into it. ‘My age has nothing to do with it.’ He chomps at my lobe a bit more as I writher under him. ‘It’s you!’ he says accusingly, grabbing my hip.

‘No!’ I scream, making a futile attempt to free myself. ‘Okay, I give in!’

‘I wish you fucking would.’ he grumbles, releasing me.

‘Old man,’ I mutter on a grin.

I’m hoofed to my feet in lightning speed and pushed up the wall, my arms pinned above my head. I purse my lips to suppress my laugh. He narrows his eyes fiercely. ‘I prefer God.’ he notifies me, hitting me with a heart stopping kiss, thrusting his body against mine and pushing me up the wall.

‘You can be my God.’

‘I really can’t get enough of you, lady.’

I smile. ‘Good.’

‘You’re my ultimate temptress.’ He swaths my face with his lips, and I sigh against him. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asks.

‘Yes.’ I’m famished, actually.

He picks me up and walks over to the vanity unit, placing me gently down. ‘I’ve fucked you, and now I’m going to feed you.’

My brow knits at his tactlessness. Why not, made love to me and make me a meal?

He leaves me on the unit to turn the shower on. I fall into a daydream, just watching the muscles of his back ripple with his movements.

‘In you get.’ He holds his hand out. I slide off the unit, taking his hand and letting him lead me into the shower. ‘It kills me to do this.’ he sighs, taking the natural sponge.

‘What?’ I hold his shoulder as he kneels in front of me, working up my legs to the insides of my thighs in slow, soapy circles.

‘I hate washing myself off of you.’ His face is sorrowful. He really means it?

I stand, letting him clean all the traces of him away from me, working carefully, lovingly and flicking me small smiles when he catches me watching him. My hair is shampooed and conditioned, and I take the sponge to return the favour. It takes me a lot longer with his body being a lot bigger than mine, my task hindered further by my need to kiss every square inch of him. He lets me have my way, smiling down at me and squirting more shower gell on the sponge when I hold it out. As normal, I linger over his scar, hoping he will open up to me, but he doesn’t… again.

One day, I tell myself – when, I don’t know. Perhaps this will all be over before I ever do know. The thought depresses me.

I never want this to be over.

I’m wrapped up in a soft, white towel, showered with light kisses all over my face before he tucks me under his arm and walks us into the bedroom.

‘Put lace on.’ he says softly, making his way into the wardrobe and appearing a few minutes later in some green, striped lounge pants. I smile. I love him in sludgy green. ‘I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ I confirm quietly. He winks, striding out of the bedroom, leaving me to find my lace. I was actually thinking more along the lines of big knickers and a cosy sweatshirt, but he’s in too good a mood to break it over such a minor detail. Where would my underwear be, anyway? And would Kate have packed lace?