Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
H arbor
“I’m older than you,” I said, as Katrina’s hands fluttered up my arms, past my shirt sleeves, her touch lighter than a butterfly’s. Like she wanted to paint me.
Her lovely mouth curved up on one side. “Not that much older. How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.” My voice stuttered as she used those gorgeous lips of hers to kiss the inside of my wrist, the backs of my knuckles where I couldn’t hide my past. “I’m not a good man, Katrina.” Even saying it aloud hollowed me out.
“I beg to differ.” She lifted my hands, lacerations and bruises and all, for her inspection. First, she traced each one with her light, artist’s touch, then followed with gentle kisses that made my cock harder than it had ever been. “Where did you get these?”
I didn’t want to tell her. How could I? But if this was more than just fantasy, more than the snowed in cabin dream, she had to know. I wouldn’t touch her without her knowing what my hands had done. What I had done. “I work as a bouncer, so I break up a lot of fights.” The story dribbled from me, but each word loosened a knot in my chest I hadn’t realized was there. “But then I get in a lot of fights, too. Or I used to. My uncle owns a boxing gym in Maryland, and I spent a lot of my teenage years there. Then when I joined the Army, that was what they liked me for. I was… good with my hands.” Memories surfaced of my time on active duty, the orders I followed, ones I never spoke of afterward. Not even in counseling at the Veterans’ Administration.
This was it. This was the moment she would turn away from me. Beauty like her didn’t need the taint of my past.
Instead, Katrina looked from my hands to my face. For a long while, she merely stared into my eyes, using her gaze like a brush as it swept across my features.
“Just because you’re good at something, that doesn’t mean it has to define you, especially if it isn’t who you want to be.” She paused for a moment, as if considering her words, but that statement settled over me like a warm, weighted blanket.
“You’re a good man, Harbor,” she repeated. “I can tell. There’s goodness in you. Everyone has a past, things we aren’t proud of. But it’s the choices we make now that define us. We don’t have to choose the old paths, the old ways. We can move forward.” She reached up and kissed the corner of my mouth. “What do you want for your future, Harbor?”
“You.” It came out in more of a growl than I had intended, but her mouth curled into a smile. “I want you, Katrina.”
With aching slowness, she pulled her shirt over her head, revealing lush, golden brown skin, a plain white bra holding the two most gorgeous breasts I’d ever seen. With her shirt off, she tossed her hair, scenting the air with lavender and sunshine. Her eyes darkened. “Then have me.”
It wasn’t in my power to hold back. Not with her passion matching mine, stride for stride. When I was timid with my hands, she placed them where she wanted them. Maybe this was what I had needed all along. Katrina to cleanse me of my sins. Maybe if she never saw what my hands could do, this could be real.
Because it felt real. Pulling off her bra, revealing her plump, glorious breasts. My mouth taking her nipple in my mouth, rolling it between my lips, her fingers sliding along my scalp and clenching as she moaned. “Yes,” she whispered, the word radiating to my cock. “More. Like that.” She took one of my hands and covered her other breast, so I kneaded that one while I teased her nipple with my tongue. Her skin tasted like cream and cinnamon. I could have spent all day there, kissing her chest, my cock throbbing, listening to her moan and pant.
“More,” she urged. She slid one of her hands from my scalp and ran it down my back, digging her nails into my shoulder. “I want to feel all of you.”
Clothes came off in seconds, zippers and buttons unfastening. I don’t know who pulled who to the bed but Katrina was on the mattress, her legs wrapping around me. “Tell me you have a condom,” she said, her eyes closed, her hair mussed, her lips plump and kissed. She reached between us to palm my cock, and it took every ounce of willpower not to come right then.
I exhaled deeply and stepped away from her hands. Katrina pouted, but her mouth broadened into a wickedly sexy smile when I dropped to my knees. “Let me do this first,” I asked, kissing the line of her inner thighs.
“Yes.” She spread her legs wider, inviting me in.
Taking my time, enjoying the sounds of her pleasure and impatience, I trailed my hands up her legs and traced the line of her slick seam through the forest of dark curls. My mouth watered as my fingers found the taut nub of her clit. She arched off the bed as I rubbed it. “Harbor.” My name in her voice was music, safety. Katrina was my rescuer, my salvation.
I slipped my fingers inside her channel as I latched my lips around her clit, relishing the taste of her.
For now, all my hands needed to do was bring her pleasure.