Chapter 72
Seventy-Two
I awoke to pleasure, pure and base. It pooled in my stomach and spread in rolling waves through my body.
Alfie’s hands were on my inner thighs, holding me open as his tongue did delicious things to me.
I reached under the sheets and sank my fingers into his hair, holding him to my core as I rode those waves.
I came in breathless ecstasy, my back arching off the bed as I soared.
Slowly, I sank back down to the earth and Alfie was there to meet me, his lips finding mine and grounding me. I could taste myself on his tongue and I revelled in it. I reached between us, finding his rigid erection, angry and desperate for release.
“The condoms are still in my bag.” I planted a soft, inviting kiss at the corner of his mouth.
“I’d rather abstain altogether.”
I pulled back, looking up at him. He didn’t want anything between us. I didn’t blame him.
“Then please let me.” I squeezed him slightly, massaging his length.
I wondered if he could see how much I wanted to pleasure him, how much it hurt that he would never let me.
His gaze shuttered, closing me out, and I knew that once again, I was banging on a locked door.
“You’re a damned fool, Alfie Tell.” I planted another kiss at the corner of his mouth as he pulled my hand away.
“Isn’t that going to drive you crazy?” I nodded between us at his raging erection.
“Physically yes, mentally no. My mental pressure is released with your release.” What the hell does that mean? I groaned and closed my eyes.
“It’s too early for riddles, Tell.” He chuckled and moved until he lay beside me, encasing me in his arms. We lay there for a while, blissed out in a rare moment of morning silence.
I peeked up at him to see his face set in consternation. I traced the thin line that ran between his brows whenever he was chewing on some dark thought. “What is it?” For a moment I thought I was going to get another door slammed in my face, so I was surprised when he spoke.
“Yesterday was bad.” Yeah, it had been. The morning, anyway. The evening had been better.
“Yes, it was. And the day before.” The lecture in his office, then the messed up fuck on his dining table.
“And the day before that,” he said. Adam. When did we last have a good day? When it was just us, that’s when. Whenever we let the world in, that’s when things went wrong. “Lo?—”
“Do we have to talk?” I sighed. “Every time we talk things get worse.”
“No, baby. We don’t have to talk.” He cupped my jaw. His lips found mine in a frozen river embrace, the kind of kiss that seemed calm on the surface, but underneath…
That baser part of me sensed his need and reacted in kind, and suddenly we fell deeper.
His mouth grew hot, his tongue searing his need into mine.
One hand gripped the flesh of my hip and the other fisted my hair, holding me in place as he rolled onto me, seating himself between my legs.
Despite myself, I opened up, welcoming him.
What am I doing?
“Alfie…”
He paused immediately, his forehead pressed against mine. We panted hard, the static of sexual tension crackling between our bodies as we fought our most natural instincts.
Oh god…Oh god…
He rested poised at my entrance, and my core ached with need, my entire body yearning to be connected with his.
“I need to fall with you.” I needed it too. To fall with him off the edge of insanity. I wanted it because I didn’t care…I’d rather be insane than be alone without him. I wanted to wrap my legs around him, to pull him into me, for the tip of him to part my soaked folds.
I felt rather than saw his jaw flex as he pulled himself away a few inches, the unreleased tension between us stretching as taut as a bow string.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I hadn’t lost my stupid pills then we wouldn’t be in this position right now.”
“It’s not your fault.” The hard edges in Alfie’s face softened and he cupped my cheek. “Don’t blame yourself anymore. I forbid it.” He stared down at me for the longest moment, a haunting darkness behind his eyes.
“Well, if you’re forbidding my dark thoughts then I’m forbidding yours too.”
“Maybe I deserve my dark thoughts.”
“Maybe you’ve served your time.” He didn’t answer. Instead he rolled off of me and sat up in bed. I tucked myself into his side and gazed up at him, feeling warm and safe in our nest of pillows and sheets. “Let’s think about good things. Are you excited for us to leave together?”
“Terrified.” He clamped his jaw shut—that word had escaped by accident. “Fuck.” He ran an exasperated hand through his hair. “How do you do that to me?”
“I have powers.” I pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “I’m scared as well, but I’ve been scared worse. I think you have too.” I traced the scar on his eyebrow. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got this?”
“I’m working on it,” he replied, repeating my own words back to me from that perfect night when he had asked me if I could love him.
I opened my mouth to push for an answer but he cut me off.
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about serious things.
” I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to not talk.
I squeezed his hand and studied him, searching for the secrets behind his eyes as I’d done so many times before.
“Why won’t you let me pleasure you?”
He let out a small huff and threw the covers back.
He was done having his brain picked at but I grabbed his hand anyway, kneeling on the bed as he stood, towering over me.
“Please. I need to understand.” I watched as his shoulders stiffened and he stared me down with that hard glare that would have frozen another woman to her core.
“Enough.”
“No. This isn’t a boardroom, remember? It’s a bedroom. I’m letting you hold onto so many of your secrets but your body is mine, Alfie. I need to know why you won’t share it all with me.” I squeezed his hand. “I want to pleasure you. I want to do for you what you do for me.”
“Do you really think you have the skill?” he snapped.
My skin burned as his words sank in. “My body has been worshipped by the most skilled women in the world. Did it ever occur to you that I might be trying to save your ego?” His lip curled with a disdainful sneer. “How could you possibly compare?”
His words hurt, but they weren’t as painful as they would once have been. I tilted my head, searching his beautiful face. There were cracks in his exterior now. He was trying too hard to push me away and it was showing.
“You, Alfie Tell, are the biggest faker I know.”
His jaw flexed, his eyes flashing. I watched as he recalculated, trying to figure out a way to turn this game around and keep me out.
I watched the cogs turn, sputter, and come to a creaking halt.
For once, he didn’t have any clever moves.
Without a word, he turned on his heel and stalked into the bathroom.
I sighed, but decided to give him a moment to himself.
I got dressed, slipping into the blue sundress I’d packed the night before, before following him into the bathroom.
Wordlessly, I set about cleaning my teeth and trying to fix my hair as he got himself ready for the day.
He was completely naked, but for once it didn’t distract me.
His eyes were those of a wounded animal, frustrated and scared.
We moved in silence and after a few minutes, with his hair perfectly styled, he left and I followed him into his closet.
Ignoring me, he pulled a fresh pair of Calvin Kleins out of a drawer, and before I could think I’d yanked them out of his hand. His eyes widened.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer because I really wasn’t sure.
As always, in moments like this, I just followed my instincts.
I knelt in front of him. I tapped his ankle, indicating I wanted him to lift his foot.
I watched his fists bunch, the veins popping in his forearms. I didn’t understand what caused this storm-stricken sea in which he was stranded, but I’d ride those waves with him whether he liked it or not.
I held his ankle as I held his gaze, waiting. I’d wait all day if I had to. Eventually, he lifted his foot. I slipped his underwear on and stood as I guided them up over his calves, his muscular thighs, until the waistband rested on his hips.
I opened the drawer I knew contained his socks. There they sat in neat little black rows. I grabbed a pair from the bottom, messing up their strict order with a satisfied smile. He watched me, his gaze wary.
“Enough.” He forced the word out through gritted teeth. I sighed and cupped his cheek, rubbing my thumb over his cheek bone.
“No, Alfie. It isn’t enough. We’ve done this dance before, remember?
The morning after I told you about your garden.
I offered you my affection and you responded with cruelty.
But I remember what else happened that day.
You told me about a girl who played the violin, who had been so poorly treated that she believed she was unworthy of any kind of attention or kindness.
” I fell into his eyes, wishing I could exorcise his demons for him.
“You are worthy, Alfie.” His eyes narrowed but I didn’t dwell on it.
I knelt again and this time he didn’t resist as I slipped the socks over his feet.