Chapter 24 Conquer #2
His gaze drifted over the swell of her breasts to the darkening tips. Petite but plump. Her body seemed to bloom under the weight of his stare.
“You’re...” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I don’t have words.”
No one had ever looked at her in such a way. Reverent. Mindfully. Admiringly. “You don’t need words.”
His hand trembled, as if afraid to touch her. His split knuckles reminded her what kind of man he was, yet his hesitancy implied a sense of prudence she hadn’t expected in this place. He was nothing like the aggressive hunters running wild below. Perhaps that was why he was all alone, up here.
“It’s okay.” She gently pulled his hand closer, cupping her breast.
The sound that escaped him was almost wounded.
She let go, not wanting to force him. His hand continued its exploration, between her breasts, not touching the curves themselves but mapping the valley between them.
Daisy gradually eased back, reclining in the pillows as he traced the ladder of her ribs, each one too distinct beneath her too-thin skin. When his featherlight strokes moved to the concave plane of her belly, her muscles jumped.
He paused at the swell of her hip, fingers tracing the sensitive crease where thigh met pelvis. An unnamable ache formed deep within her core.
He seemed to deliberately avoid the places she assumed every man inevitably wanted to claim. His touch circled wider, skating down her outer thigh, over her knee, along her calf to the pool of black cashmere at her ankle.
The way he touched her made her feel like an outsider looking in, as though this was happening to him more than to her. He studied her body as if it were a sacred text he waited a lifetime to read.
His face told a story as his brow pinched and his focus intensified. Sometimes his lips would part in awe, other times they formed a hard line. His jaw ticked and his lashes flicked.
Even he didn’t seem to know what he needed.
Another ache formed, this one in her chest. Some instinctual part of her felt called to nurture him. A man. This very powerful man. It didn’t make sense, but her instinct to do so sounded like a church bell inside her.
There was something brittle and innocent about him, something he made an artform of hiding. The veneer was cracking. His mask was falling. Vulnerability spilled from him as he lost himself in learning the shape of her.
She wanted to protect him from whatever haunted him.
But she also wasn’t immune to him, to the things he was doing to her—all while barely touching her.
Daisy’s breath came faster now. Her body temperature climbed with each pass of his fingers. Slick arousal gathered between her thighs, wet heat gathering as her sex clenched around emptiness in silent demand.
But he seemed in no hurry. His fingers traced patterns on her skin. Slowly. Devastatingly.
Her head cocked as she realized he was writing words. Lush drifted across her thigh. Cage across her ribs. Warm between her breasts. Hunger in the dip of her belly.
His face was transfixed. Lost. The expression of a man who might have never touched a woman intimately before. But how was that possible?
Daisy studied his face in the firelight. The sharp angles of his jaw, shadowed with stubble. The fullness of his lower lip, the grey eyes that held equal parts desire and devastation.
She lifted a hand to his face, traced the hard line of his cheekbone. He turned into the touch like a flower seeking sun.
His gaze dropped to her breasts, suspended inches from his face, pert nipples tapering invitingly, begging to be touched. Hunger flickered through the tenderness in his expression. Desperate.
His fingers curled around the curve of her waist. He adjusted her position so she was slightly seated, his large hands spanning her ribcage as he lifted and turned her body, propping her against the pillows, then lowering his head to her lap.
His weight settled across her thighs, his cheek pressed to her belly, his breath fanning warm across her skin. For a long moment, he simply lay there. Breathing slowly, as if the closeness was what he wanted most. As if he’d been starved for any sort of real intimacy.
And the rawness of his need awakened her own hunger. Time had made her weak with wanting things she never thought she’d have. The loneliness was enough to consume her on some days. She learned to ignore it, to amputate those parts of her that she would never be able to feed on her own.
Softly, she raked her fingers through the silk strands of his dark hair. He turned his head slowly and drew her nipple into his mouth.
Daisy gasped.
He suckled gently at first, his lips forming a seal around the sensitive tip, his tongue laving in slow, wet strokes.
The sensation shot straight to her core, a bolt of pure electricity that made her inner walls clench.
She arched instinctively, offering more, and he took it—drew her deeper into the heat of his mouth, his cheeks hollowing with each pull.
There was something desperate in his grip and the way his body curled into hers. The small sounds that escaped his throat between each suck went beyond the hunger of a man seeking pleasure. This was something else entirely. This was a man healing. From what, she didn’t know.
The longer he lay there, the harder the truth sounded. She wasn’t sure how, but she could feel his appreciation as deeply as his pain. The ache of a boy who’d never been held. He was seeking something he’d been denied, something fundamental and primal.
She didn’t fully understand what was happening. Didn’t have the context to piece together the fragments of trauma he carried. But the yawning emptiness inside him pressed against her like a second body.
Her eyes burned with sudden tears.
Her fingers threaded through his dark strands, cradling him to her chest the way a mother might hold a child, protective and fierce, offering shelter from whatever storm raged inside him.
Her acceptance seemed to trigger a darker need. His mouth worked harder, suckling with increasing urgency, as his tongue circled her nipple in tight spirals. His teeth grazed the sensitive tip, and she gasped.
The sound seemed to spur him further.
Fingers curled around her hip with possessive claim as he pulled harder. Pleasure built in waves she hadn’t expected. Heat pulsed between her thighs. Her hips rolled, seeking friction she couldn’t find.
His hand dropped, palming himself through the fabric of his trousers, hips thrusting in slow, unconscious drives as he rubbed the straining bulge there. The sight sent a fresh flood of arousal pooling between her thighs, and her hand drifted lower to help him.
His hand intercepted hers before she made contact, lacing their fingers together and pressing their joined hands into the pillows beside her hip.
He held her there—pinned—then he gradually loosened his grip. But the message was clear. He only wanted to touch her.
His mouth only left her breast to capture her other nipple. His hand drifted between his legs again, but never ventured any further.
Daisy’s head fell back against the pillows as the pleasure crested. Her free hand stayed tangled in his hair—a contact he allowed—while her other hand remained open and unthreatening at her side.
The coil in her belly wound tighter with each pull of his lips, each scrape of his teeth, each desperate sound that vibrated against her sensitive flesh. Her body undulated in an instinctual dance that came as naturally as breathing.
“Jack…” His name tore from her throat.
He sucked harder. Drew her nipple deep into his mouth and held it there, tongue lashing the trapped peak, and something inside her shattered.
Her spine bowed off the pillows, her thighs clamping around hollowness, her inner walls clenching in violent flutters. It was everything and at the same time not enough.
Wanting flooded through her, harder than any emotion. Deeper than grief. More consuming than compassion. A fierce, protective ache for this damaged man swallowed her from the inside out.
She might have screamed. Might have sobbed. The physical release tangled so completely with the emotional torrent that she couldn’t separate them, couldn’t tell where pleasure ended, and heartbreak began.
When the tremors finally subsided, she found herself trembling in his arms. Somehow, he was holding her now.
His breath came in ragged gasps that matched her own as they lay tangled in a tangle of limbs and confusion. Her shock reflected in his eyes as he watched her.
“Did you like it?”
She frowned and laughed at such a question. “Obviously.”
His frown deepened. “Not always.”
His question didn’t come from a place of insecurity. It came from a place of protectiveness. “Yes, Jack. I liked it very much.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, but he seemed to deny himself the slightest show of genuine satisfaction. The fire crackled and another bell tolled somewhere far above. Gradually, incrementally, her heartbeat slowed toward something approaching normal.
He still lay on her neck, eyes closed but awake.
Her hand drifted without conscious thought, slipping from his hair to his neck, tracing the tendons beneath his skin. Her fingers teased the collar of his shirt, finding warmth underneath and the raised flesh of a scar.
She grazed its edge with featherlight pressure, guessing the injury had been inflicted quickly, but it had healed slowly. It could have been work-related, but she knew better. He had too many. Some, like the brand of his ring, too intentional. His scars were the result of violence.
When? How long ago? The tissue had knit together thick and ropey, a permanent testament to suffering endured alone.
His hand closed around her wrist in silent warning. Not roughly. Not painfully. Just an immovable grip that stopped her exploration before it could fully begin.
“Don’t.” The word came out strangled.
The raw vulnerability in his eyes was enough to make her comply. But withdrawing her touch wasn’t enough for him.