Chapter 20
Twenty
Once Kol has turned his back toward me, I pull my T-shirt up over my head. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but at the same time, a rush of excitement flows through me. Partly for the new experience, but partly because I’m going to be naked—with Kol.
Next to go are my shoes and socks, then my leggings. When I unclasp my bra, I take a deep breath before I let it fall to the grass. I’ve never been naked with a man before. Never has a man seen my bare breasts. Finally, I push my panties down my legs and step out of them.
The sun warms my body as I take tentative steps toward the edge of the water.
Kol’s back muscles tighten when he hears me step into the water. “Let me know when it’s safe to turn around.”
Once I’m waist deep, I crouch down so that my chest is covered. “You can turn around.”
When he does, he meets my gaze. “Another thing you can check off your list.”
“I guess so.”
“Want to go deeper?” He arches an eyebrow.
This is it. This is my moment to be brave. Without saying a word, I push up to my full height. Water sluices over my breasts, and I stand there for a moment while Kol takes me in. His eyes grow wider with a predatory gleam as he stalks toward me.
I force myself not to look away from him, but it’s easier than expected. The way his gaze devours me makes me feel wanted and beautiful.
“Fuck, Rapsody.” His voice is rough like sandpaper.
“Do you still want to go deeper?” I ask.
He shakes his head, meeting my gaze. “No, now I want to suck on your glorious tits.” I press my thighs together underwater, but Kol smirks as if he can read my mind. “You gonna let me worship these tits, sweetheart?”
My nipples pucker even tighter than they already were, and a low chuckle leaves Kol. He’s finally in front of me, only inches away, and I watch as he lowers his mouth to my right breast. He does it so slowly that I’m practically panting by the time he flicks his tongue against my turgid peak.
My head tips back, releasing a breathy exhalation, when he closes his mouth around the bud, pulling my lower half into him. His hard length presses against me, and an involuntary shudder works its way through my body. Kol’s tongue flicks and swirls around my nipple, and he sucks hard before softly biting the tip. A mewl crawls up my throat, and my hips move of their own accord, rubbing his erection against my tummy.
Kol releases my breast and backs up a few inches. “Want to check another thing off your list?”
I do want. I want to know what his length feels like in my hand, if he feels as hard and smooth as I imagined. Tentatively, I reach under the water and grip him. He shuts his eyes with a curse. When I move my hand up and down his shaft, he groans. Heat floods my body, even in the lukewarm water.
Kol brings his head down to my other breast, and his tongue slides over my nipple, causing the peak to glisten. He brings his hand up to my other breast, massaging and tweaking the nipple with his finger and thumb.
I grip him tighter, and his hips slowly move back and forth. The vision of him doing that while entering my body comes to mind, and my free hand runs down the back of his head. The friction of his stubble against my palm only adds to the chorus of sensations racing through my body.
Kol bites my nipple, harder this time, and tugs. I cry out. Not because it’s painful, though it is in the most delicious way, but because it feels like electricity racing straight from my breast down between my legs. My clit is swollen and desperate for attention, and I’d bet anything Kol knows that.
“Kol, I…” I don’t know how to finish my thought.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I know what you need.”
Without warning, his hands grip the backs of my thighs. He tugs me up out of the water and wraps my legs around his waist. My yelp turns into a moan when his length centers between my legs. Oh god, if it feels this good just to have him near my entrance, what would it feel like to have him inside me?
Kol’s lips meet mine, and he doesn’t stop kissing me the entire walk out of the pond. It’s all I can do to stop myself from grinding against him. My clit pulses. Once we’re a few paces from the water, Kol gently lays me on the grass, then straightens back up to stand over me. I get my first good look at his naked body.
It’s glorious. There’s a brutal sort of beauty about him from the muscles apparent under his olive skin and the tattoos on his body. The way he holds himself, hands clenched, chest heaving—all of it comes together to make the perfect package. Even the scars I assume he must have gotten while he was in the military only add to his coarse beauty.
His eyes soak me in, and he lazily strokes his cock while his gaze roams my body. When his gaze reaches the apex between my thighs, his hand stills. “Fuck, sweetheart, did you shave that pussy bare for me?”
“Yes.” I think back to my decision a couple of days ago to do so and know I made the right one when the need to conquer me shines in his eyes.
“Jesus.” He squeezes the end of his cock as if the sight of my body is too much. “I’m gonna make you come with my tongue. That alright with you?”
My hips shift just thinking about having Kol’s head between my legs. I nod. What will it feel like to have his tongue on me when his fingers undid me with such ease?
Kol falls to his knees and slides his hands up my thighs, spreading me open for him. “Are you on birth control?”
My eyes widen. I thought he said mouth? Are we doing this now?
He chuckles, clearly reading my thoughts. “Not today, but birth control takes a while to kick in. When I take this pussy, I have to go in bare.”
I squeeze my legs together to stem the insistent thrumming between them, but Kol holds my thighs wide open with his hands.
“I’m on the Depo-Provera shot. I started it before my wedding, so I have another… five or six weeks left before I have to get another one.”
Kol’s jaw tightens for a moment at the reminder of why I went on birth control in the first place, but he seems to set those feelings aside and his jaw relaxes. “Good.”
He lies down between my legs and his whiskey-colored eyes stare up at me. I’m going to paint this image one day. Not for anyone else to see, but to cement it in my mind.
Kol uses his thumbs to spread me wide, then his tongue takes a thorough swipe from top to bottom. I almost internally combust. The sensation is too much, yet I yearn for more.
A moan rips from my throat as he leans in and gets to work. It feels as if he’s French kissing my clit. The sounds slipping out of him awaken my arousal for him even more.
It’s not going to take me long to finish at this rate.
Kol sucks on my clit, and I feel as if I’m levitating, but he holds me to the ground with the firm push of his hand on my hips. I moan, not caring if anyone nearby overhears me. The sun bathes us in heat while my hands find my breasts, squeezing them both. Kol watches me from between my legs, and it’s so erotic. His heated gaze takes me up another level, and I tug on my nipples. An electric current rushes from my nipples to where his tongue is centered on me.
I pant, arching my back, pressing my head into the grass. Kol flicks my clit with his tongue while his fingers explore my entrance. He doesn’t push them inside, and I turn more desperate, gyrating my hips, longing to feel any part of him inside me.
I’m so close. I feel like a bomb about to detonate—full of so much pent-up energy that I’m liable to take out the entire manor.
He sucks hard on my clit, and I come on a cry, grinding my hips into his face while he devours me whole.
When I come down from my orgasm, I lie limp in the grass, staring at the sky and the white clouds passing overhead.
“Do you have any idea how good you taste coming on my tongue?”
I look away from the sky and heave myself up on my elbows. Kol is still between my legs, but he’s on his knees, fisting his cock.
“You gonna let me come all over this virgin pussy, sweetheart?”
My insides clench with his words. “Yes, yes.”
His arm with the lion tattoo jerks roughly on his rigid cock. I watch, studying his movements so that the next time we’re together, I can replicate his actions and take him where he’s taking himself.
“Play with my balls.”
I move so that I’m half sitting up, leaning back against one hand and reaching out with the other. The heavy weight of his balls rests in my palms, and he tilts his head back with a groan, continuing to jerk himself.
Feeling a little braver now that I’ve seen his reaction, I fondle his balls, moving them in my hand and squeezing lightly.
“Fuck! I’ll bet you can’t wait for me to come inside you, painting your insides.”
“Kol…” I squeeze harder on his balls.
The cords in his neck tighten, and he roars as his cum spurts onto my lower abdomen and the top of my mound. Watching this man come apart so thoroughly because of me—a sense of power I’ve never felt before washes over me.
Now that I know what it feels like, I want more.
Kol drains himself onto my skin, making sure every last bit is out before he collapses on his back beside me. With one arm above his head and the other over his abdomen, he stares at the sky while he catches his breath. Eventually, he picks up his shirt and wipes my stomach clean before tossing it aside and lying back down next to me.
Kol doesn’t seem like a cuddler, but I take a chance and roll onto my side, bringing my leg up over his legs and resting my cheek on his chest. He stills at first but relaxes. He doesn’t put his arm around me, but it’s progress, I guess.
“Can we do that again?” I ask.
His deep rumble of a laugh echoes through his chest to meet my ear. “I’ve created a monster.”
I trail my fingertips over his chest, enjoying this feeling of intimacy with him almost as much as what we just did. “Maybe I’m a nympho and didn’t know it until now.”
He chuckles again. “You’re still a virgin.”
“True. But we could fix that right now if we wanted to.”
He’s silent. Probably contemplating, because Kol doesn’t make rash decisions. “I think we’ve done enough for one day.”
His words sting, but he does bring the hand on his abdomen over and covers mine. We lie in silence for a minute or two, and my mind wanders while listening to the birds chirping in the nearby trees—to what we just did, what I hope we’ll do next, to when Kol found me in front of the maze.
I don’t want to ruin this rare moment between us, but the panic and pain in his eyes when I asked if he wanted to go in the maze with me is now at the forefront of my mind.
“Kol, can I ask you something?”
“You want to know when I’m going to fuck you?” I can hear the amusement in his voice, and for a moment, I think maybe I shouldn’t ask him.
But I want to know. I want to bring him comfort if he needs it. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t get the feeling that he opens up to many people. “Why did it upset you so much when I asked you to go in the maze with me?”
He moves his hand off mine.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just… want to help if I can. Even if it’s only by listening.”
He’s silent for so long that I fear he’s going to push me away and storm into the manor.
“It’s because of my father, and what he did.”
I ease up onto my elbow and look down at him. His eyes are clouded with pain and grief.
“What did he do?” I whisper.
Kol brings his arm down from over his head and gently forces me back into the position I was in, so my cheek is pressed against his chest, and I can’t see his face. Only then does he continue.
“My father was a bastard. And that’s putting it mildly. His way of resolving conflict was with his fists—even when it came to his wife and his children.”
I don’t dare move a muscle for fear that he’ll stop talking.
“It didn’t even have to be something big. Accidentally spilling your drink at the dinner table could be enough to set him off sometimes. I don’t have a clear memory of when it started, how old I was. It seems like it was always like that. Growing up with him as a father was like walking a tightrope and never knowing when you might make a misstep, but knowing if you did, it might be your funeral next.”
He exhales audibly and scrubs his face with his palm.
“The maze thing…” I hear him swallow hard with my ear pressed against his chest. “When I really pissed him off, he’d drag me into the middle of the maze in the darkness of night. There’s a small courtyard in the middle. He’d leave me there all alone. The first time he did it, I was so scared I pissed my pajamas.”
I squeeze him with the arm I have wrapped around him. “How old were you?”
“The first time I must’ve been around five, maybe six.”
I work to keep the tears in my eyes from falling. And to think that I once judged Kol for having something to do with his father’s death. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t care at this point, knowing what a monster his father was. I’m glad he’s dead. Otherwise, I might have killed him myself.
“He always thought I had too much pride, and it pissed him off when that pride showed. Maybe he was right. I’m sure pride is partly why I flew across the country to kidnap you.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Funny, my pride is one of the things my mom always said she loved most about me, and it was the thing he hated the most. Guess that’s a good indicator of why they had such a shit marriage.”
“Kol—”
“Anyway, that’s why every year when this anniversary rolls around, all four of us are in shit moods. We’re all glad he’s dead, but it churns up a lot of stuff from our pasts. Asher and Anabelle got married in the maze a few months ago, and I told them I could handle it. That I could spend an hour in there if I had to. But when the day rolled around, I got high as fucking kite just to get out of my head enough to step inside.”
I lift up onto my elbow again and take him in.
“Don’t you dare look at me like that.” He narrows his eyes.
“Like what?”
“Don’t pity me.” He pushes off the ground and steps over to his clothes that lay discarded in the grass.
With a sigh, I get up too. “I don’t pity you, Kol. I can feel badly for what you went through without pitying you.” I slide on my panties then reach down to grab my bra. “No child should ever have to go through what you did.”
“Maybe I deserved it.” He pulls his shorts up to his waist, then sets his hands on his hips and stares at the ground.
I clasp my bra and walk over to him, then clasp his face in my hands. “No one deserves that, do you hear me? No one.”
He meets my gaze. Though the pain is still there, something like understanding lurks under the surface. “I guess neither of us got what we deserved growing up.”
His comment strikes true, like an arrow nailing me in the center of my heart.