Chapter 15
Odette
M y heartbeat is all over the place and I can taste him on my skin. Salt and musk and a delicious flavor all his own. I’ve never taken my time over a man before, but kneeling before him, undressing him and then touching him is definitely up there in my top ten list of hottest things ever.
Now I’ve got his cock in my hand, long, thick, hard, and he feels so hot, his skin smooth and velvety. My mouth is watering and I want to taste him. He’s given me permission, I’m clear on that, but this talk of swans has stuck in my head for some reason.
They mate for life…
The way he said that, the way his blue gaze held mine so steadily as if there was there was more— something hidden beneath the surface of the words that made my heart shudder in my chest. I thought Lucas might be the one for me — I’d even started thinking about us long-term before the attack happened — but I know now that he’s not and he never was.
I’m thinking about something else, some one else, and now he’s put the thought in my head I can’t get it out.
Maybe it’s not Lucas who’s the one for me.
Maybe it’s him.
I lower my lashes as I lean in once again, dropping a kiss on Mr. Fairfax’s hard stomach. His muscles tighten beneath my lips and when I kiss him lower, my fingers wrap around his cock and I feel his muscles tighten yet again.
There’s a lump in my throat and I don’t even know why it’s there, because sure, I’m loving this encounter with this man, but I’m not falling for him. I hardly know him.
Except maybe you kind of do. He’s got a wounded heart beneath that hard exterior and he’s alone.
His fingers move in my hair, caressing it as I move my mouth lower, giving his magnificent cock a long, slow lick.
His fingers tighten in reaction as I place my tongue on his skin, then they ease.
I taste the salty flavor of him and it’s delicious.
I want more, so I lick my way around the blunt head of his dick.
I’ve got one hand on his thigh and I can feel the powerful muscles there tense in reaction.
God, I love what I’m doing to him. I love how he tangles his fingers in my hair, stroking it as if he likes the feel of it in on his skin.
And I love how kneeling here before him, knowing he’s given me permission to touch his fucking amazing body anywhere, is the biggest thrill I’ve ever had.
But it’s not just about his body. It’s about the way he watched me as I undressed him, his blue gaze glittering from beneath his lowered lashes, and how, as I touched him, I felt his muscles relax, tension easing slowly from him.
Alone. Yes, he is alone. I can sense that in him and I can see it, because I’m alone too.
I’ve been alone for years, trapped on the other side of an experience no one I know has ever had, and they can’t imagine it.
They can’t cross that gap to where I am.
He’s like that too, he’s trapped on the other side of his loss and no one can get to where he is, either.
It hurts me to think of him, stuck across that yawning void. It hurts me to think that’s he alone. It hurts me to think that he lost a woman he loved and now she’s gone, he’s got no one at all. And he should have someone, he really should.
You maybe?
I shut my eyes, gripping his cock tighter and licking him again, giving myself over to the experience completely so I don’t have that thought in my head.
I don’t want it there, because of course it can’t be me.
Not only am I so much younger than he is, I’m a college dropout with terrible anxiety issues.
What would he ever see in me? What do I have to offer him?
Besides, I’m not looking for another long-term relationship, not when I can barely manage my own bullshit let alone someone else’s, and definitely not when he’s my ex’s dad.
I open my mouth and draw him in. He gives a deep, masculine growl of satisfaction as I do, which lights me up inside like candle. And I grip him tighter, moving my hand as I suck him, then licking him, nipping at him, glorying in his rich flavor.
“Fuck , ” he hisses. “You’ve got a hot mouth, sub.”
The praise and the rough note in his voice makes me shiver in delight, and so I narrow my focus, taking him even deeper so the head of his cock is brushing the back of my throat, then sucking him hard.
His hips shift as I do it, his fingers tightening in my hair, all the lazy relaxation in him gone as pleasure takes hold.
Lucas liked a blow job, except he always closed his eyes when I gave him one. Sometimes I used to wonder if he was imagining someone else rather than me, but I never had the courage to ask him. Mr. Fairfax, though, catches me beneath the chin and forces my head up so I have to meet his blue gaze.
“Watch me,” he orders. “I want to see you swallow every fucking drop when I come.”
The way he says that makes my whole body turn to flame.
I couldn’t look away from him if I tried.
I’m lost in the dense blue of his gaze and suddenly all I want is to make him come and come hard.
Give him the best blow job he’s ever had.
Suck him harder, take him deeper than anyone ever has, so he’ll remember who did this to him. So he’ll never forget me.
So I do and my eyes water as he thrusts into my mouth.
But I can still see what I’m doing to him, how the pleasure burns like a flame in the blue of his eyes.
And I see the moment he comes apart too, his face hardening and every line of him tensing.
“ Fuck, ” he snarls. “ Jesus fucking Christ, sub.”
Then he’s coming hard, hot, salty liquid filling my mouth. And I’m swallowing him down, swallowing all of him just as he ordered me to, my own body shaking as much as his.
There’s a moment of panting silence afterwards while I rest my head against his thigh. I can hear his breathing begin even out, his fingers idly tangling once more in my hair.
I close my eyes, my cheeks wet with tears from the brush of his cock against my throat, but also just…
. from him. From the thought of his loneliness.
The thought of his grief and his pain, and the incredible loss he experienced.
I don’t know why it hurts me so much. I don’t know why he matters, because he shouldn’t.
We’re just having sex, not deep, heart-to-heart chats.
Mr. Fairfax lets out a breath and reaches down, pulling me up and into his lap.
I’m facing him, my legs spread on other side of his lean waist. It’s amazing sitting on him, both of us naked, skin to skin.
His face is relaxed, the remains of the orgasm glowing in his eyes, and I want to touch the lines at the corner of his eyes, lines of experience, of pain and grief.
There are lines around his mouth, too. It’s so hard.
He doesn’t smile a lot, I can already tell, and that hurts me too.
“Magnificent, sub,” he says, his voice roughened. “That was fucking magnificent.”
His praise warms me all the way through until I’m glowing like a lightbulb. It’s probably stupid to feel so pleased with myself, but I do. “Thank you, Master,” I say. “And thank you for allowing me to care for you.”
His blue gaze is hot and he’s looking at me as if he’s never seen anything like me before in his entire life. He’s not so much a scientist now, wanting to dissect me, but a man looking at a lottery ticket and finding that all the numbers are winning ones.
I’ve never been looked at like that in my entire life.
He’s silent a moment, then he says. “Why did you hide yourself away? Let the world pass you by?”
I shouldn’t really be so surprised at how he keeps asking me unexpected questions and doing unexpected things, since he’s been doing that all night. Yet somehow, I’m still shocked by the question. I’d thought he’d forgotten what I told him.
I’m unable to hold his gaze so I look down, trying to think of the least pathetic answer, but then he takes my hands and places them on his chest, palms down.
Beneath his hot, velvety skin, his muscles are rock hard and I feel the slow, steady beat of his heart.
“Look at me, sub,” he orders softly, covering my hands with his and holding them against his skin.
Reluctantly, I lift my lashes to look him in the eye. “I was afraid,” I say simply. “I was afraid of everything and everyone. It was so dumb. I couldn’t go to college, couldn’t do anything but sit in my apartment with the door locked.”
His hands over mine are warm, his chest against my palms hot. I love touching him. “Why do you say it’s dumb?”
“I mean, it is, isn’t it? My parents didn’t understand what was wrong with me, how I could throw a Yale scholarship away like that just because of an assault. But they didn’t understand.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “No one did.”
He’s quiet, just gazing at me. Then he says, “When Gabrielle died, I shut myself away. The only place I went to was the office, the only thing I concerned myself was work. I buried myself in it, cutting off friends, cutting off my son. You said that I wasn’t the one who died, and you’re right.
I wasn’t. But it felt like it for a long, long time. ”
“That’s different,” I begin. “You lost your?—”
“And you lost your belief in yourself,” he interrupts gently. “What I’m trying to say is that we both lost things that were important to us. Which doesn’t make us dumb, only lost.”
I don’t know why those words hit me the way they do, like a cannonball to the foundations of my soul, shaking me. I stare into his blue eyes, seeing not the Dom, or Luc’s father, or the CEO of a massive company. Seeing only the man, grieving, hurting, alone….
“I don’t feel lost with you,” I say before I can stop myself. “I don’t feel afraid. With you, I feel found.”
Something shifts in his eyes and it looks like regret, and I know immediately what he’s going to say.
He’s going to remind me that this is only one night, that there can't be more than this, and I shouldn’t get attached.
But I have a horrible feeling it’s too late for that for me, and I have to get these words out.
I have to tell him so he knows. “And… I want to find you too, Gideon. You don’t have to stay lost if you don’t want to be. ”
The expression on his face shifts again, his blue gaze flickers, and I know I’ve said too much. He’s going to say something now, perhaps send me away, and I can’t bear it. I don’t want to end it like this, so I lean forward and press my mouth to his.
He must know what I’m doing, yet he doesn’t move, still holding my hands pressed to his chest. But he doesn’t kiss me back, either, and it hurts.
In fact, everything about this is suddenly exquisitely painful.
I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ve ruined the moment, been too open, been too-full on. So I do the only thing I can.
“Please Master,” I whisper against his lips. “Let me choose another toy.”