Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
K ash could feel her pulse hammering everywhere—beneath her skin, between her legs, in her throat.
Diego’s hands lingered over her hips like he’d been dreaming of this exact moment. Eyes bright with resolve, he looked at her as if she were the answer to his prayer, which only baffled her further.
Most of her life, she’d kept her head down, relentlessly tunneling toward the next task to be done, the next hurdle to jump over, the next thing to take care of. She’d preferred occasional flings over serious dating in her twenties, focusing instead on med school, on helping her mother keep a roof over their heads. Her thirties had been spent climbing the ladder, consolidating her position.
Even Simon, who had genuinely liked her, had loved the glossy surface of her perfection, had admired her ambition, and her painfully acquired sophistication.
To him, she had been an asset as his wife.
It was only Diego that relentlessly dug past the veneer that had become second skin.
Her body was still buzzing from the way he’d stripped her of all pretensions, drilling down to her desperation. As if all he wanted was the base truth of her desires and nothing more.
Her lips tingled from the possessive bite of his kiss, her mind reeling at how he kneeled at her feet, creating the illusion of control she needed while the exact opposite was true.
“Brace your hands on the wall,” he murmured silkily.
She slowly turned, on shaking legs.
What if she couldn’t come? What if her body betrayed her—froze up on the cusp like it had been doing for months—leaving her stripped bare in front of him?
She could see him going to all the labels she used.
Frozen. Frigid. Unfeeling. Her spine stiffened, the need to bolt sharp in her chest.
He cupped her hips, his grip firm. “Easy, Doc. Remember, you’re in control,” he said, moonlight from the open French doors bathing him in rectangular slants. “Whenever you want to stop, we will.”
Something about how he immediately sensed her panic burrowed deep into her chest. “No, I need this.” She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the cool wall. “It’s just that?—”
“You’re worried it won’t happen.”
It should’ve been humiliating, the way her thighs were already trembling, and he hadn’t even done anything yet. “Yes, and if you tell anyone that I’m a frigid bitch, I’ll tell everyone your penis is tiny.”
He threw his head back and laughed, lodging a thick lock onto his forehead. Her fingers itched to push it back, to sink into that hair and steer his head around as she pleased. Dampness gushed at her core at the visual.
“How about you don’t worry so much about the destination and just enjoy the ride?” he whispered, fingers stroking over the back of her legs, her calves, her knobby knees and her ass cheeks without resting anywhere.
That restless hunger followed them in hot trails.
“Have you met me?” she said, desperation and snark turning her voice husky.
He smiled and again, the warm openness in it tugged at the tight knot in her belly, as if he was unspooling her, inch by inch. “How about I make you a promise?”
“I don’t like promises.” She shivered as his gaze pinned her, as if he knew how many times she’d been burned. “Words are easy.”
“I’m going to make you one anyway.”
“Yeah?”
His gaze darkened, lips curving faintly. “Three times, you will come,” he murmured, voice thick and quiet. “Before I leave this room.”
The promise lodged low in her belly, whipping the embers of her desire into a small flame.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered, skimming his mouth right above the band of the shorts.
She did, and instantly, the entire world rushed in. Kids playing somewhere beyond the palm trees, the distant echo of a poolside speaker, the soft whoosh of the ceiling fan...and beyond it all, the rough exhales of the man kneeling at her feet.
“Diego?” she whispered, loving the shape of his name on her lips.
“Yes, Preciosa?”
“Is this turning you on?”
“Give me your foot,” he said in that commanding voice that sent tremors straight to her core. When she hesitated, he trailed open-mouthed kisses down her thigh. “I won’t let you fall, Kash. Not until you’re screaming my name.”
Bracing her hand on the wall, she lifted her foot. He cradled it first, before bringing it to his...cock. His thick, engorged cock that curved a little to the right and felt like a hot steel rod against her heel.
A breathy gasp escaped her as she imagined that thick length sliding deep inside her, pounding away at her, pinning her to the bed.
Firm fingers gripped her calf, and Kash rubbed the flat of her foot against his erection, up and down.
“Just the mere scent of you drives me wild,” he admitted easily, before lifting her foot away from him.
She took deep, steady breaths. Again, the world filled her first—the salty tang of the sea, threads of jasmine and hibiscus richly blooming in the grounds and damp earth.
But beneath the distracting scents, he was there. Soap and citrus and clean sweat, a cocktail that she brought deep into her lungs.
“Now stop thinking about me or anyone else in the damned world,” he said, dragging the hem of her shorts with his teeth and scoring her belly in the process. She swayed like a drunk as he pulled the fabric over her ass, his fingers branding her flesh. “You don’t exist outside of this suite. Outside of who you are beneath my fingers. Outside of the sensations you feel under my touch.”
“I can’t shut it off,” she whined, even as her skin greedily latched onto his words.
Then there was that deeply human, visceral flicker of joy that he knew what it was like inside her head, that he understood the pressures she felt every moment of every day.
“You can, baby,” he said, pressing another kiss right over her pelvic bone.
The gruff tenderness of his tone made her belly quake. Closing her eyes, Kash fought the urge to sink to her knees and burrow into his broad chest.
“Just let go of everything,” he continued, in that gravelly voice. As if he knew that she needed the anchor of his tone to keep her outside of her own head. “For one night, hell, for five minutes, lean on me. Trust me that I have you. That I know what you need.”
“I do,” she whispered, and it sounded like a vow.
“Good girl. Now, let me unwrap you and see what I’m working with here.”
The raw, unfiltered way he spoke made her core clench on emptiness. “My god, you have a filthy mouth on you.”
“Just admit it that you love it, Dr. Shah.” He laughed again, and this time it was pure mirth, laced with a scoop of desire. “I mean, I know how eager you are for me by the spreading wet patch and the musky scent filling my nostrils, but it would be good to have visuals too.”
In one smooth motion, he pulled her shorts down her legs.
The brush of cool air against her bare folds made her shiver. The idea of his face right there made her knees buckle. One hand reaching around, he cupped her ass cheek, both steadying her and baring her even more to him as she lifted one foot, then the other.
“Fuck, Preciosa, you smell divine.” Then he pressed his entire face, arrogant nose and lush mouth and all, into her pussy, taking a deep breath that sent his shoulders rising and falling.
Sensations exploded over her. Kash dug her nails into the cold wall, breath shuddering in and out of her. “Oh God,” she whispered, head dizzy.
His laughter vibrated through her folds, making her flesh flutter like a leaf in a storm. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, he nosed through her folds, humming in his throat. The effect made a soaking mess out of her.
“Look at this pretty pussy. All bare and wet and pulsing for me.”
Kash remained quiet—a little bit ashamed and a lot turned on—when he looked up.
The tip of his nose and the top of his bow-shaped upper lip glistened with her wetness.
Eyes locked onto hers, he made a show of swiping his tongue over his lip and made a growling sound at the back of his throat. Tension tightened into a taut loop in her core, the ends pulled by his every move.
“When I say something, I want your reaction, Kash. If it doesn’t do much for you, stay quiet. But if it revs you up, stick this pretty pussy deeper into my face. If it really gets your engines going, use that scathing tongue and tell me how much you like it.”
Despite the strange wildness of the moment, Kash grinned. “I think I know why your cock is like an iron poker right now.”
His gaze swept over her face greedily. “Yeah?”
“You like that you can order me around as much as you like.”
“Let’s not discount these long legs and those perfectly lush tits and this needy pussy? But ordering you around tops all of it.”
And then, he separated her folds and took a lick from her clit to her slit.
Kash threw her head back and arched into his touch, every inch of her focused on how he licked and tapped that bundle of nerves with the flat of that clever tongue.
“More, please,” she whispered, waves of pleasure undulating through her like she was a ship caught in a storm.
“Want my fingers? Will this needy cunt swallow them all the way?”
“Yes, please. I want whatever you give me,” she said, licking her sweat-slicked lip.
“Even if it skates the edge of pain?”
“Yes, especially that. Because that means I’m not dead inside.”
“You’re soaking me in your juices, Dr. Shah,” he said, the honorific contrasting keenly against his filthy words. “I’d say you’re more than alive.”
His cheeky grin tugged at her heart. One hand cupped her ass as he circled her entrance with his fingers. Sensation by sensation, stimulus by stimulus, he applied his tongue, lips, and fingers into assaulting her hungry flesh.
And with each new sensation, her body sang, chasing a new rhythm.
Shamelessly, she thrust her hips into him. Gripped his hair and tugged it. Her skin was on fire, her pussy fluttering, her lower belly knotted tight.
Just one hard tug...and she would splinter.
But her body stubbornly refused to fall over even as pleasure suffused her every nerve-ending. All she could hear, feel and see was him, as he worked her over, patient and relentless. Her muscles thrummed with frustration and desire in equal measures.
One lone tear mixed with the sweat on her face, and she swiped it away roughly. “Diego, I?—”
“Push up the top and cup your tits.”
“What?”
“I love your tits, Kash. Can’t wait to bury my face in them as soon as I get you over. Maybe I’ll suck those fat nipples all night.” The lurid picture he painted made her clench his fingers inside her. “Until then, let me see you pinch them. Be rough, like I would be.”
Fingers shaking, Kash did as he bid. Under his devouring gaze, the sensation amplified, zooming straight to her core. She tweaked her nipples over and over, alternating, moaning, panting. Soon, her breasts ached for a rougher touch, the nipples drawn tight and fat.
“Do you want to know what my filthiest fantasy is right now?” Diego asked, stretching her with three fingers.
Kash arched her spine, the stretch tight and painful but so, so good. Just when she got used to it, he added a fourth. She gasped loud, his name a chant on her lips.
“Fuck, I can’t wait to sink my cock into this cunt. Look at how greedy you are, how well you swallow whatever I give you.”
A lash of pure, rich, sinful pain zinged up her spine, making her cry out. The pressure coiled tighter, deeper, winding sharp beneath her skin.
Fresh arousal flooded his fingers. He moaned and lapped it up, the faint scrape of stubble against her inner thigh another skewering sensation.
Her scent, slick and sharp, hung thick between them, mingling with the faint spice of his cologne and the salt-sweet taste of the ocean air lingering in the room.
Her breaths came faster, shallower, muscles quivering as tension spiraled tighter and tighter. But she didn’t crest over the final hurdle. It simmered so close that tears filled her eyes.
“Tell me, Kash. Tell me what you need.”
Kash sniffled and focused her gaze on the wall with its vibrant paintings. Feeling splayed open, she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know what I need. I’m vibrating right at the edge, but I can’t fall over.”
She grimaced, her core clenching on emptiness as he pulled his fingers out. “This isn’t over yet, sweetheart. We have all night to get you there.” He kissed the inside of her thigh, slowly, as if he was restarting all over again. Then bit down—enough to make her jolt. The sting of it made her pussy weep afresh.
“How responsive you are, baby. Every lick, every touch makes you wetter.” He licked along the bite mark he gave her.
Her thighs trembled, both with the standing and pleasure.
There was something curious in his tone as he said, “Tell me, how long has it been exactly?”
“Three and a half years,” she murmured past a tight throat.
“Oh, poor baby. No wonder you’re so tightly wound. How dare you abuse yourself like this?”
“What do you mean?” Kash said, her reaction slow amidst the hazy daze of thwarted desire. She was nothing but a twitching, pulsing lump of flesh.
His hands gripped her hips hard, thumbs drawing paths down the folds where hip met thigh, as if he was charting her curves. “You went too long without stopping, took on too much without asking for help. Now, your body’s taking revenge, no?” His laugh this time was pure devilish mocking.
Her jaw clenched but her pulse kicked into overdrive. “I hate it the most when you’re right. Which seems to be a lot.”
“Nice swerve, Doc, but it won’t fly,” he said, shaking his head. The strands of his hair tickled her inner thighs. “This is all on you.”
“I had no choice but to keep going.” The words fought to spill through her pursed lips. “If I weaken, if I stop, everything around me does.”
“That’s fucking arrogant of you, baby. There were any number of people you could have leaned on, including your friends.”
“I couldn’t trust anyone else to handle it,” she said, tears scratching her throat at how right he was yet again. “No one was there before. I couldn’t take the chance now.”
“You walk around so fucking perfect,” he said, lips brushing her skin in a trail of reverent kisses. And yet his words were full of snark and anger and censure.
The last pricked at her like a thousand needles, making her skin snap and crackle. Anger rose within her like smoke, slithering its way into bone and sinew, a thousand screaming birds under her skin, begging to be let free. “I had to be perfect. For everyone around me.”
He continued kissing her and condemning her in the same breath, as if she hadn’t interrupted him. Then he thrust one finger roughly into her. “Cardiology queen.” Kash gasped. “A fiercely loving aunt.” He added another. “Everyone’s goddamn pillar.” Three fingers and it was that tight, painful stretch again. “But under all that?”
Thighs trembling, Kash thrust into his touch just as his mouth came to her folds again.
His tongue flicked once, slow and thorough, slurping at her flesh as if it was his favorite dessert. “Underneath you’re just a filthy, aching thing waiting to be cracked open. Begging to be seen, to be messed up, to be debased.”
Her whole body jerked as pleasure tugged at her pussy, like his words were a chord deep inside her and he was strumming it. She flailed and keened, thrusting her hips shamelessly.
Diego didn’t pause. If anything, his voice boomed and pinged against her skin, rich with a savage satisfaction. “You like it when I talk to you like this?” He groaned against her, like the taste of her ruined him. “Of course, you don’t need to be praised, do you, Kash? You have no need for fake praise and foolish adulations. You know what you’re made of. You know you’re a queen, baby girl. But a reluctant one. One who wants to be imperfect and messy and filthy, yeah?”
Wetness gushed out of her, and onto his lips, as if a dam that had kept her locked up, that had buried her alive, had finally been shattered into dust. “Diego,” Kash whispered, amidst fevered pants. Her entire body danced on the razor edge of her climax, vibrating to each of his words. “I’m so close, so close, please.”
“You’re such a greedy, needy cunt, Preciosa. If only I had figured that out earlier, if only I knew that pegging you down is what would earn me your surrender.”
He sucked her entire clit into his mouth, his lips and tongue ravaging her.
She whimpered and he sounded savagely triumphant when he said, “I’m going to learn every way your body begs. I’m going to make you forget you ever lived in that cold, polished shell.”
She was close—terrifyingly close—and he knew it.
“You’re mine when you come,” he said, voice tight. His fingers hooked to nudge at her g-spot. “Mine, in the only way you can be claimed, Kash. Mine in the way that no other man has.”
And that broke her. The feral claiming.
The orgasm tore through her like fire, like she’d been waiting three years, no, forever, for someone to yank her out of herself by force. To make her submit and surrender by breaking her down, by telling her she needn’t be anything more than what she was at the heart of her.
She came with a scream she didn’t know she had in her, body arching, clenching, unraveling. Whispering his name like it was an incantation, in case the blessing he gave her disappeared in a poof.
“Yes, baby. Come for me. Drench me in you, Kash. Fuck, that’s it.”
On and on, he licked her clit and pumped his fingers and on and on, her release went, popping off sparks within her, shattering her into tiny fragments of pleasure and nothing more.
She arched and twisted and convulsed, the after tremors as powerful as the original wave.
And then, her knees buckled, a broken sound clawing from her throat as she came fully undone, her vision blacking out at the edges. She folded into Diego’s waiting hands like her spine had been pulled out of her, and with it the pressure to be everything to everyone.
And now she was no one. Nothing but pleasure and fragments and tears and …just her. Wholly herself for the first time in years, as if the orgasm and the man who had given it to her had chipped away the shell.
Crooning words she didn’t understand, Diego held her with steady hands, his hard body a fortress of warmth and safety. Arms around his neck, Kash burrowed into him, the scent of his sweat and cologne already familiar to her senses.
Then she floated as he scooped her up—arms solid beneath her thighs, chest warm against her side—and carried her to the bed like she was precious.
The bed felt like a cloud when he placed her on it, her head empty of everything.
When he tucked her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder and pulled her into the warmth of his body, she let go. Clinging to the illusion that she belonged to this kind, generous, clever man for an eternity, instead of using him, and his overdeveloped sense of honor, for one measly night.