Chapter Ten Maia
Chapter Ten
Maia
The world around me plunged into darkness, and a moment later the water turned ice cold. The scream ripped from my throat despite my best efforts to keep it in. The last thing anyone needed after a murder was someone screaming in a blackout.
But the water was so freezing that my poor nipples would never be the same. I practically tripped out of the claw-foot tub-shower combo just as the door flew open, startling another strangled scream from my throat.
“Deck?” I croaked.
He came up short, his gaze raking over my very naked body cast in moonlight before he forced it skyward. “You screamed.”
“I’m sorry.” I winced. “The water turned frigid, and I might have frostbitten nipples.” At least I’d pulled my hair into a bun so it wasn’t wet.
Decker choked on a laugh and began fumbling around the bathroom. A second later he wrapped a soft towel around me. “Better?”
I pulled the cotton tighter, drying the majority of the water from my body. “Yeah.”
I looked up, my breath stuttering as I took in his gray eyes. They seemed to glow in the moonlight, but it was more. As if they saw me in a way no one else did—all the beautiful parts and the messy ones.
For the first time, maybe ever, I wanted to play with fire. I wanted to live. And if tonight had taught me anything, we weren’t guaranteed a certain amount of nights on this earth. “Deck,” I whispered.
His hand slid along my jaw, tipping my head back. “Birdie, there’s nothing I want more than to take your mouth, to know what it’s like to lose myself in you, but I need you to take some time to think about if that’s what you want.”
I didn’t feel even a hint of rejection in Deck’s words because I could feel how much he wanted me in that moment. The way he held my face, how his body curved around mine, the heat I saw in those gray eyes.
“What if I don’t want to think about it? What if, for once in my life, I don’t want to do the thing that makes sense? What if I want to be reckless?”
Deck’s eyes turned molten silver. “Then let’s be reckless.”
In one fluid move, he lifted me as though it was nothing. I wrapped my legs around his broad frame as he carried me toward the bedroom. But I couldn’t wait. My mouth found his, needing to feel again, needing to fly.
Deck tasted like a mix of whiskey and apples now, and it was suddenly my favorite flavor. I wanted to drink it in, memorize it for all time.
He groaned into my mouth as his fingers moved to my hair, reaching for the tie and pulling it free. My red waves tumbled down around us like a curtain between us and the world.
Deck tore his mouth from mine. “Dreamed of what it would feel like to have this hair trailing over my chest as I took you. Sometimes I’d catch myself reaching out to touch it, to touch you, even though I had no right.”
Air caught in my lungs. “Deck.”
“Will you let me see you, Birdie? All of you?”
“Yes.” The single word was barely audible.
Deck moved the tray to the bench at the end of the bed, then gently laid me on the mattress. He leaned over me, cupping my face and trailing his roughened fingertips down the column of my throat to my chest. They stilled on the place where I’d knotted the towel.
His eyes locked with mine for a moment before he went any further. And then he tugged the cotton free. He pulled one half of the towel to the side and then the other. I should’ve been cold, but everywhere his gaze touched turned to fire.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Deck rasped. “I won’t lie. I’ve imagined you more times than I can count, painted pictures in my mind. But this puts them all to shame.”
“Deck.” My eyes stung as I struggled to speak.
He palmed my breast, his thumb circling my nipple as his other hand dipped between my thighs. I arched up, feeling no uncertainty, no inhibition, because Deck made me brave. He made me want to reach for more. Even if it meant launching myself without any hold on gravity.
“Killing me,” he murmured as his fingers slid over my slit. “Already weeping.”
“You kissed me.” It was the only explanation I had. Because I’d felt more in that kiss than I had in anything else I’d ever experienced.
Deck dropped to his knees. “I can’t wait. I need to taste you.”
My head jerked up in surprise.
He stilled. “No?”
“I, uh, I just. I’ve never . . .”
Deck let loose a string of expletives. “Selfish prick.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply as his hands slid up my thighs. “Birdie, it’s nothing but an honor to worship every part of your body. And you better believe I’ll be making a study of it.”
My lips parted as I sucked in air. “Okay.”
“Good.” And then his mouth was on me.
I nearly bowed off the bed as Deck’s tongue flicked out, circling my clit as he slid two fingers inside me. I let out a moan, not caring if it was loud or worrying what Deck might think, because he made me believe he wanted all of me—exactly as I was.
And maybe that was why I flew higher. Because both of us were able to let go.
Deck’s fingers swirled, then dragged down my walls in a stretch that had me nearly coming apart at the seams. The tip of his tongue circled and flicked, my core tightening around him. He moaned against that bundle of nerves, sending vibrations coursing through me.
I was already so close to the edge. I both wanted to reach for it and never wanted it to end.
“Give it to me, Birdie,” Deck murmured against my flesh. “Let me feel you shatter on my fingers and soak my hand. Let me taste you coming apart.”
Those words were all it took. A rolling wave of nearly painful sensations rocketed through me, and then I was free. Flying. Higher than I thought was possible.
Deck took it all. He wrung out every dip and crest. He guided my body to make the most of every curve the journey had to offer.
When he stood, my vision was still hazy. But I didn’t miss him ditching the suit and shirt. Or his fingers hooking in his boxer briefs, pulling them over thighs nearly the size of my waist. I gulped as I took him in.
Deck rolled a condom over his cock, and something about the action, the power and precision of it, had my mouth watering.
“Never going to forget this moment,” he rasped. “The taste of you on my tongue while I get to feel that tight body taking all of me. Never going to forget the honor it is to have all of you.”
Deck put a hand on the mattress as he leaned over me. My legs encircled his waist on instinct. Something about this simply worked. As if neither of us was afraid to let our bodies do exactly what we wanted. But I also wasn’t afraid to ask for just what I needed from him.
“I want all of you, too. And I need to feel everything you have to give. I don’t want gentle. I want you.”
Deck’s gray eyes flashed, and then he slid inside, giving me everything I needed. He powered in with such force the entire thousand-pound bed moved with us. But I didn’t care.
He showed me a ferocity that made me feel alive. Gave me a stretch that flickered between pleasure and pain and only drove me higher.
“Deck.” I arched into him, my walls fluttering around him.
“Tell me what you need, Birdie. Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”
“Rougher,” I begged.
Deck gave himself over to my request. Each thrust went impossibly deeper. My nails dug into his shoulders.
“Not gonna last. Need you with me.”
I reached for it, pulling deep.
Deck’s hand moved, his fingers twisting my nipple—the exact perfect sensation to send me flying again. My body clamped down on him, and he let out a guttural, animalistic sound as he came.
None of it was perfect or within the lines. And it was the best sex I’d ever had.
The only problem was that it felt like a hell of a lot more than just a reckless hookup.
And later, as we drifted toward sleep, the clarity of our situation—of the line we’d crossed—descended upon me.
And I couldn’t ignore it. I knew there was no way I could have a future with Decker.
He lived in Boston. I’d dated his brother for a decade.
But somehow, looking back over my time on this earth, I knew it wouldn’t be Jackson who was the loss of my life. It would be Decker.
And all I could think was . . .
What have I done?