Chapter 23 – BEAU
BEAU
Lisa is trying to have a serious conversation with me.
She keeps opening her mouth, starting a sentence, and then I kiss her neck or drag my thumb across her hip bone.
Whatever she was about to say dissolves into a breathless sigh.
We've been lying here for maybe twenty minutes, tangled together in damp sheets, and my bear has never been this calm.
So deeply satisfied, he's happy to just sit back and enjoy having her here.
"Beau, we need to talk about this. We're…"
My mouth finds the spot below her ear, and she loses the rest of the sentence.
Her fingers curl against my chest, nails grazing my skin, caught between pushing me away and pulling me closer. "Stop doing that."
The way she says it though, tells me the exact opposite, that she never wants me to stop, and I'm perfectly happy to comply.
I chuckle against her. "Doing what?" My lips move down her throat, licking the salt off her silky soft skin.
"Distracting me."
Her scent is so strong in the air now, her desire, that I can practically taste it on my tongue. I want more. All I can think of is taking her again.
"We can talk tomorrow." My hand settles on her bare hip, and her pulse kicks up under my thumb.
"No, not tomorrow. Not when you have god only knows what planned for today.
" She pushes up on one elbow, pointing to the far wall where Van and Tripp are sleeping in the room next door.
Or, unless they have earplugs, probably not sleeping after the show we put on.
Lisa looks down at me, wavy red hair falling around her face in a messy tangle. "I don't understand what this is."
"Neither do I."
Although that's not strictly true. I have a strong suspicion. Reaching up, I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and she catches my hand, holding it against her cheek.
"Then talk to me, Beau." Her eyes drop, uncertainty creeping in, and I can't stand it.
I kiss her shoulder, the bite mark on her breast, then nuzzle her neck and take her lips with mine once more, gentle and tender this time, instead of bold and demanding.
"I need to know if you meant any of what you said, or whether that was just..." She gestures at the bed, the sheets, the mark on the wall from the headboard. "The heat of the moment."
The honest answer to that question is sitting right on my chest, a weight I'm not sure what to do with. How can I tell her what I am, what I think is going on here? What if she doesn't accept it, accept me?
She pulled away before for a lot less.
Lisa sits up, pulling the sheet across her chest. "Does this mean you… forgive me, for ruining everything before?"
"Of course, I do." I don't even need to think about that. "But I guess…" Shit, I'm no good at this. "There's other stuff I want to tell you, but…"
Rolling away, I stare up at the ceiling, the words refusing to come. She won't accept me. She might even be afraid of me. Unable to bear the thought, the need to move takes over, and I go to sit up.
Lisa shoves the blankets to the side, throwing one leg across my thighs to straddle me, and pins me back down against the mattress.
I'm so distracted by how perfect her dusky nipples look against her pale skin, while feeling the weight of them in my hands, that I barely notice when she leans over the side of the bed and rummages in her backpack.
I'm more focussed on my disappointment at not being able to play with her nipples anymore rather than what she's doing, so that when she sits back up, it takes me a second to realise there's a pair of handcuffs dangling from her finger.
Without a word, she takes my wrist and clicks the first cuff into place, threading the chain through the headboard slats before catching my other hand and securing it.
"Cute," I say, tugging on them gently. The metal is cold against my skin, and my bear tenses despite knowing we can escape easily. But she's looking at me with those blue eyes, and I'm not going anywhere, not until I see where she's going with this.
"There." She settles back on my hips, hands on my chest. "Now you can't distract me or run away."
My fingers curl around the slats above my head. "I hope this isn't how you interrogate all your suspects, or we'll have to have a serious chat before you go back to work."
Even though it's a joke, the picture it conjures in my mind isn't nice, and a ludicrous surge of jealousy rises inside me. I shift, tugging on the restraints again.
Lisa regards me, naked, her glorious body on display, palms pressed flat over my heart, and she must be able to feel how hard it's beating. "Did you mean it, Beau? What you said before. That you want me to be yours."
A growl. "You are mine."
I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to take the words back but also recognising the forcefulness of how I'm saying them and that the way my bear surges forward each time might actually seem strange to her.
Not to me. It feels completely right.
"When did you decide this?" she asks. "Because to me, it feels like you've been avoiding me. And you keep shutting me out."
My jaw works. The cuffs rattle against the headboard as my hands tighten, looking for a way out of this that doesn't give away any more of what I really am. "Fuck."
"Beau?" Her fingertips stroke down my chest, which feels like it's being pulled apart from the inside.
"Because you couldn't get away from me fast enough once before. Who I am, what I am, that hasn't changed." It comes out rough and angry, but Lisa doesn't seem put off.
Her fingers press harder against my chest. "But I have," she whispers. "I see you now."
My eyes stay on the ceiling.
"What I felt that night terrified me, and I handled it badly. I decided it was too good to be true and pushed you away the first chance I got. That's on me."
She shifts in my lap, and I clench my jaw, trying to push down the need building inside me. This is definitely not the time.
"Lisa—"
"I'm not done." She leans forward, her weight shifting, and my wrists strain against the cuffs automatically. "Tell me this isn't just great sex."
Our eyes lock. "It's definitely not just sex."
She nibbles her lip, considering this, while my focus shifts to the red bite mark on her breast. That is, until she rocks forward, her tight pussy teasing my stiff cock that's growing harder with each tiny movement.
My arms pull against the cuffs. Harder. The headboard creaks.
"I'm scared, Beau," she says, quieter now. "Because I like you, absurd as it seems when all we do is fight, I really like you, but this won't work if you don't let me in."
I blink up at her. "You like me."
She nods and gives me a sultry smile. "I might even be falling for you." When she rises up, her hand reaching down and finding me rock hard and ready to go, she purrs and strokes me, long and hard.
Transfixed, I can only stare as she lifts higher and notches the head of my cock against her entrance before dragging the head back and forth, coating me in her wetness.
"Let me out of these," I demand, rattling the chains and attempting to sit up.
"Why?" Instead of doing what I say, she runs a hand over my taut abs and bites her lip even harder, sinking down an inch, then two.
I fall back, lifting my hips to push further inside of her, the warmth of her body curling around me, too much to take.
"Now, Lisa."
She ignores me and circles her hips, sliding lower and lower, until she's fully seated on my cock, head tipped back, eyes wide, and mouth open.
"That's so good," she moans, grinding against me so her clit rubs against my pubic bone on the outside, and my cock slides against the front wall of her channel with each small movement she makes. "Fuck, why is this so good?"
I bend my knees and lift my hips, driving up into her, but it's not enough. My fingers curl into my palm, digging in so hard, it stings. "Because we're made for each other. I told you, you're mine."
Lisa ups the tempo, her hands sliding up her toned stomach to her pebbled nipples, tweaking them, tugging and cupping her breasts. "And are you mine?"
This is fucking torture.
"Open them," I demand, growing more and more agitated as she rides me, one hand sliding lower now.
When she rises, two fingers sliding each side of where my cock disappears inside her body, collecting her cream to rub on her clit, my vision blurs. Her fingers between us, sliding up and down, my erection as it disappears in and out, connecting us, feels incredible.
"I need to touch you right now."
But instead, she strokes herself, whispering my name on a breathy moan, shaking her head to my demands.
I can't take it anymore.
On a deafening growl, the chain snaps with a crack that echoes in the small room as the broken links scatter across the pillow. My cuffed hands find her body.
Lisa gasps, staring at the pieces of metal, then at my wrists, then back at the pieces. "Those are... those are real handcuffs."
"I know." I don't care about hiding anymore. About pretending to be more, or less, than I am. All I care about is touching her.
My hands are already on her face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones, pulling her down to me. When I kiss her, it's slow and deep, and nothing like before. There's no fighting, no fury, just a deep connection I can't resist.
"I'm yours," I murmur against her lips. "I was a goner the second you walked into that bar."
She shifts her hips, rocking slowly above me, her hands braced on my chest and fiery hair falling around us.
My hands travel everywhere I couldn't reach before, her hips and ass, cupping her breasts, mapping every inch of her while she moves.
Her rhythm stays slow, each roll of her hips drawing me deeper, and my grip tightens on her waist, fingers pressing into her skin as my back lifts off the mattress.
"Look at me." It's barely a whisper, and when my eyes meet hers, she's not hiding anything and neither am I.
Our powerful connection is laid bare between us as my hands slide into her hair and pull her forehead against mine.
We breathe the same air, moving together, and when she comes, this time, it's quiet.
A shudder that rolls through her whole body, her lips parted against mine, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
I follow her with my face buried in her neck, arms wrapped around her as a tornado builds inside me with the strength of the emotions churning through my body and hers.
She lies on my chest afterward, my cock still inside her, with one finger tracing the ridge of a scar on my ribs.
My hand moves in slow circles on her back, and my bear is making a low, steady sound I can't remember him ever making before.
"You broke my handcuffs."
I stay silent.
She lifts her head and looks at me, and behind those blue eyes, the detective is working, but I'm grateful when something shifts, and she lowers her head back to my chest instead of pressing me further.
"I should care about how you did that more than I do," she mumbles into my skin, voice already drowsy.
My hand stills in her hair.
"And about my job. I’ll probably get fired for this." She huffs out something that's almost a laugh. "But all I actually care about, right this second, is this.” She snuggles closer to me. “And finding Amber alive."
Her breathing evens out within minutes. My hand keeps moving through her hair, my bear settled and warm, confident we’ll figure this out. That we can make it work somehow.
"You'll have to tell me, Beau," she mumbles, voice thick with sleep and eyes still closed, fingers curling loosely against my chest. My fingers still in her hair. "And soon."