Chapter 12 #2
My voice goes low on the last, and the statement hangs in the air like smoke. But then she sucks in a sharp breath as if waking up from a daydream.
“You’re gonna protect me? I can protect myself. I’ve been protecting myself,” she grates out.
Taking one step closer, then another, she says, “I don’t need you. Ever.”
This close, her citrus scent paired with something darker, something new, has me all fucked up in the head. So, when her knee comes flying up toward my junk, I narrowly avoid her neutering me by grabbing her by the inside of her knee.
In a smooth move, I bring my other arm to her clavicle, causing her to flip on her side like a cartwheel.
Stunned, it takes a moment for her to understand what the fuck just happened and how I managed to press her back to the wall I previously leaned against.
“You can protect yourself, huh?”
“Get the fuck off me,” she spits, pushing her weight against where I have her pinned. I press her even more firmly against the wall.
“No, because if you can protect yourself, you can get out of this hold, right?” I ask, driving myself crazy by bringing my nose to the space where her neck and shoulder meet.
“You can take me down. Right, baby?”
“Don’t call me ‘baby’,” she hisses, her breath faint.
“Okay, how about ‘Little Liar’ then?” I nip at her ear, feeling ten feet tall and hard as granite when she shivers.
“Let’s see what else you can lie about,” I murmur, placing soft kisses down the column of her neck, decorating the flesh above her breasts. “You want to lie to me and tell me you’re not scared of this Keystone situation?”
She huffs and says, “I’m not scared. It’s going to be fine.”
I growl a laugh, and she bites back a whimper.
“Little,” kiss “Liar.”
“I’m not the liar. You are,” she rasps, and I don’t respond to that. Because I did lie in our relationship, but only once. I lied when I told her I wanted her to leave. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Her hands move from my chest around my back, her nails scoring into my muscles and making my dick jump.
“Okay, Shae. So lie about this.” I pull back to stare straight into her eyes. “Tell me you don’t want me.”
She freezes, her eyes widening for a flash before narrowing into slits, like a viper.
A mask. It’s all part of her new masks.
Masks I forged for her.
What the hell are you doing, Sandoval?
“Tell me you’re not turned on right now. Tell me that your hard nipples are lying to me. Tell me that if I put my hand down your black lace thong, you wouldn’t be dripping for me.”
Shit, I wouldn’t know a detail like that unless I’d seen her undressed…which I did this morning.
“Fuck you, Storm. Go all the way to Hell,” she bites out.
I bring my face closer to hers, our lips inches from each other.
“Baby, I’m already in Hell.”
I run my hand down her cheek, over her breast and the point of her nipple; I go past her stomach and run a finger across the line of her waistband. She stares at me with blown pupils, her entire being telegraphing her lust.
“Do you want me to get you off, Shae? I bet I know exactly how to make you come. Even after all this time.”
What the fuck am I doing right now?
She laughs, and it’s a dark sound.
“You think you’re hot shit, don’t you, Sandoval? Well, here’s the completely honest truth. Of course, my body remembers yours. That big dick you got? Magical. But do I want it?”
She chuckles and looks down at where my hands are before meeting me head-on.
“Nah, I’m good on it,” she finishes.
If I were a weaker man, I’d be thoroughly put off.
Emasculated.
But I see through her every word to the core of it, and I can tell by how her breaths saw in and out of her chest that she doesn’t fully mean what she’s saying.
So, instead of pulling away, I give her my most feral smile. Her bottom lip trembles—the first crack in her armor.
I nip and suck at the skin above the edge of her exposed bra. My fingers move inch by inch down the pad of her pussy until my middle finger reaches the bend that brings her a straight shot of pleasure.
“That’s a nice monologue, baby,” I say. She shivers, a slight flex of her shoulders. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want me to see the involuntary effect I have on her. In fact, I know she doesn’t want that.
Playing with the very top of her button, not quite touching, I say, “But this hard little clit tells a different story.”
She whimpers again, swallowing the sound, and I brace myself to look at her face, to not scare her with how fucking much I want her.
Love her.
And then, she says, “Fuck. You.”
“I can do that, but I don’t think you’re ready for my ‘magical dick’ again.”
She glares at me, defiant.
Then, with another roll over her pulsing spot, down along the line of her cunt, she says, “Fine. Show me.”
That’s all the permission I need.
My finger slips, sliding over her hard nub and into her soaking wet center.
“Storm!” she shouts, the hard facade she’s been wearing since I walked in the door finally, fucking finally, slipping down to the floor.
It’s a tight fit between her flat stomach and the band of her pants, and it’s an even tighter grip where I’m inside her. She clamps down around my fingers like she’s trying to break them in half. It’s like she wants to devour me alive, and, God help me, I might let her.
“Fuck, Sweetness. Let me make you come. Tell me to make you come,” I growl, my needy dick getting my boxers all wet with pre-cum.
She snaps again, anger and desire radiating off her in waves.
“F-fuck! Make me come, goddamn it!” she shouts, and with urgent movements, flicks open the button on her slacks and slides the zipper down.
With more leverage, I impale her on my ring and middle fingers and bring my thumb up to press and rub in the circle I know is the recipe for getting her there.
“Ohhh, fuuuuuuck, ” she slurs, and then I feel it. Her pussy clamps down on my fingers so hard I almost drop her, almost come in my jeans. Her hips move wildly, chasing the rest of her high as she wrings the last drops of her orgasm from my hand.
Then, with big bellows, she huffs and puffs…and slides her eyes shut.
“Sweetness,” I murmur, my fingers still inside her. I lean in to kiss her, to claim her mouth, but at the movement, she jerks back so hard she clocks her head on the wall, scrambling to get away from me.
I let her go.
I let her go because I know she’s overwhelmed and scared. I know because she’s part of me, and when she hurts, I hurt.
And this is agony.
She buttons and zips her pants, then turns away from me to walk to the end of the foyer. She stops for several seconds before whirling around, her arms crossed over her chest again.
Protecting herself.
From me.
“Eight years.”
The two words hang in the air, even though they’re fucking heavy.
“You’ve been out of my life for eight years , and now you’re here talking about…wanting to protect me?”
Her voice climbs with every word until it slices through the space between us.
She rushes toward me, poking me in the chest.
“Don’t stand here and talk about protecting me when you threw me away like trash . No, like a goddamn used condom.”
Fire burns in her eyes now. The brief flicker of surrender I saw in her gaze? It’s completely gone now. She pokes harder, right into my heart.
“Don’t talk to me about protection when I had to deal with the pain and heartache and responsibility you left behind alone. When I buried my father alone. When I built this entire empire— alone. ”
Her poke turns into a fist, and she slams the side of it into my sternum.
“So, no. You don’t get to say you want to protect me now. You can go back to whatever rock you’ve been under. I don’t need you to save me from Keystone or anything else.”
Her voice cracks. Just a little.
But her eyes? Steel.
“I’ll figure out a way without you. As I’ve always done.”
With every word she spits at me, every accusation and every hard truth, parts of myself start to fracture.
The reasoning I convinced myself of in the sudden grief of my parents’ loss fails to hold up to the evidence of her devastation.
The realities I’d fashioned in my imagination all dissipate like vapor.
Every time I’ve seen her since coming back to Chicago, the feeling I’ve resisted naming becomes more undeniable.
So, standing here in her foyer with her cum on my fingers and her scent in my nose, it hits me like a bullet to the brain: I am still completely, irrevocably, in love with Shae Olivya Rivers, and I broke her.
My actions changed her.
“You done?” I murmur, moving into her space. I don’t miss the hitch of her breath when my shirt scrapes against her chest.
“Done? We’ve been done, Storm,” she whispers, her eyes slipping low.
I quirk an eyebrow, even though I feel shaken to the core.
“Are we? Because here’s what I see.”
Pulling her close to me, I band one hand around her back, running my fingers into the long strands she’s grown since we’ve been apart. At the roots, her naturally curly hair kinks against my fingertips, and it’s a reminder that what was, still is—the core of Shae is still completely her.
“I see you’re angry at me. I hear you’re hurt. And I understand it. You deserve your hurt. I know I caused it. At the same time…” I bring my cheek to the top of her head, breathing in her scent. I feel wild, out of control.
I thought I was obsessed with Shae before, but this?
I don’t even know what this is—this dangerous, all-encompassing emotion.
“I’ll do the work to earn us back. To fix what I broke.
Because you might not believe it now, Shae, but you’re it for me.
I know it’s been a long time, baby. It’s felt like forever for me, and I’ve dreaded every single day that we’ve been apart.
But I know that we’re written in the stars.
I know we’re supposed to be together. So, I won’t let up until you forgive me. ”
Shae’s tiny frame begins to shake at my declaration, and I hold her tighter, unsure what I’ll be met with when I see her face.
She pulls back, but she doesn’t look me in the eye. Instead, she keeps her head bowed, talking to my shirt.
“I believed in us once,” she whispers. “And it damn near killed me.”
I don’t know what the hell to say to that because what is there to say? Words only go so far, and I’ll have to prove my intentions through my actions.
And I intend on saving her from Lakeland…and from herself.
“Why didn’t you answer, Storm? Why didn’t you…why didn’t you care?” Profound hurt laces her tone, and when she finally, finally looks up at me, Shae is completely maskless.
And it’s like…I can barely stand to look at her in so much pain.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I reply. She stares at me, blinks, then heads for the door.
When open, she says, “Well, you’re right about one thing. I am angry, because we— I — deserved more than what you gave. And that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive…because I don’t fucking want to.”
She doesn’t look at me again, and when I exit her condo, the door slams shut with a resounding smack .