Chapter Eleven #2
It was minutes before Nush could form some kind of coherent thought. She was on her back, Caio’s fingers lazily drifting up and down her side, her breaths still shallow and too fast. The cold of the damp sheets was a welcome contrast to the pockets of heat still tingling over her skin.
“I thought I died,” she said, tasting salt on her tongue.
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Princesa.” He asked, a sudden gravity to his tone, “You okay?”
“You know when I went on all those dates with all those men over the last year?” she said, her throat hoarse after all the moaning and sobbing, her words shooting out of a place she hadn’t even known she wanted to visit. Especially in front of Caio.
Maybe the orgasm had undone not only her body but unlocked her heart too.
It’s just damn good sex, Nushie, she could hear Yana say with a roll of her eyes. Not magical healing.
But neither could Nush discount the fact that this intimacy hadn’t been possible for her with any other man except Caio, because she was emotionally invested in him already. Because she’d needed this real intimacy to go further.
The sudden tension that gripped Caio was a tangible thing in the air that plucked at Nush’s wooly head. “Is this punishment for stringing your release along for too long?” His voice was only half joking.
But it didn’t stop Nush. It seemed nothing could now.
“I was trying to get you out of my head. It got distressing to see you every day, every minute, to be so close and not tell you that I... I was determined that I’d prove to myself that it was just attraction.
Lust. I’d idolized you for so long and somewhere along the line, it morphed into this.
..desire. I desperately wanted you to see me as a woman.
I built up all these insecurities about why you didn’t and I drove myself nuts. ”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Princesa.”
To her pleasant surprise, Nush found that his words sank deep, that she believed him wholeheartedly.
He saw beauty in her, conveyed it in his words, his touch, his kisses, and who was she to question that?
All the ways he made her respond, the pleasure her body sang for him, what they had together was beautiful and powerful in itself. More than simple chemistry.
“Thank you,” she said, running a finger over the furrow between his brows.
He held her wrist and again, pushed his face into her touch. “We don’t have to talk about this. Now or ever.”
And that sent a niggle through her. He was so reluctant to hear about her feelings for him, even as he demanded all that she had to give.
“I’m not ashamed of how I feel, Caio. It’s just that I think I see it finally.
Why it didn’t work with any of them. Why even when they were nice and pleasant, I couldn’t go through with it.
I used to think it was a mental block to do with how.
..everyone called me weird for so long.”
His silence, instead of discouraging her, prodded her on.
“It was a block but not that. I simply didn’t want any of those men even if I convinced myself I did.
I’ve been in love with you for so long that.
..it was the last thing I wanted to admit to.
I tried to purge it by going out with others.
But my heart wasn’t in it. And I backed off every time and my reputation grew even more bizarre. ”
As wrapped up as he was around her, Nush felt the tension that gripped him.
What was heartfelt on her part gave way to an awkwardness she couldn’t seem to dispel.
Still, she tried. “That I love you...it’s as natural as breathing for me, Caio.
It’s not a demand or a price or a weapon. It simply just is.”
Caio kissed her shoulder, gathering her to him with tender reverence that plucked at her heart. “You’re a gift I don’t deserve, Nush.”
And then he kissed her again, before she could argue with his questionable concept of deserving again, pushing her back into the sheets.
There was an urgency and something more to his kisses, a sense of determination. As if he wanted to make up for something he couldn’t give.
The final piece of puzzle in place, Nush let herself float on the cloud of pleasure he pushed her onto. Already, all of her was addicted to him. And now she tested the words on her lips, of the truth she’d fought for so long.
She was in love with Caio. That was her truth.
Her vulnerability. Her strength. And there wasn’t much she could actually do about it.
Her past and her present and her future all irrevocably tied to him who only dealt in absolutes.
In words like loyalty and commitment and deals.
In the past that was full of pain and ache and hatred.
She’d been in love with him for as long as she could remember. She wondered if she should be scared, if she should worry that he didn’t feel the same but all her shoulds melted as he worshipped her with his mouth.
There wasn’t an inch of her he didn’t kiss, an inch of her he didn’t learn. An inch of her he didn’t bring into sharp clarity, teaching her new, exciting things about pleasure and her own body and how he could make her addicted to it all.
His hands were everywhere but stayed nowhere.
Never long enough or lingering enough. On the bare swells of her breasts.
Over one of her peaked nipples that was wet and glistening.
Over her hips that bore his fingers’ imprints.
Over her thighs that she’d compulsively wrapped around his hips.
Only inciting her further, only driving her toward that peak that she’d already thrown herself off.
He built her all over and all the while Nush was aware of the press of his thick, hard length against her outer thigh. “Can I touch you?”
His answer was a grin against her mouth before he drew her hand to his shaft and guided her fingers.
Turning on her side, unable to see him, Nush let touch and sensation speak to her.
He was hard and thick and pulsing in her clasp.
She traced the tip of it with her finger and found a drop of liquid.
Her sex clenched, hungry for him all over again.
Dampness fluttered even as her clit felt swollen and sensitive. “Is this okay?”
“Everything’s okay between us, Nush,” he said, thrusting his hips into her clasp as she moved her fist up and down.
Releasing his erection, she brought her finger to her lips and tasted him. He was unlike anything she’d ever tasted and the dark gleam in his eyes made her want to lick him up all over. “I’m not ready to swallow yet, but that’s my goal. Just so you know.”
A filthy curse from him echoed around them. “I don’t know whether to mar you or worship you.”
“Why does it have to be one or the other?” she said, sending her hand on another foray.
His shaft twitched in her hand, and the more she fisted it, the more Nush could see the tension vibrate through him.
A displeased growl fell from her mouth as she could only do so much with one hand out of commission.
She fell onto her back and he followed, and finally, oh, finally, he bore down on her.
Not giving her all of his weight though.
Nush panted at the delicious weight of him and her thighs instantly fell open for him.
Like a cat in heat, she rubbed her bare breasts against his hair-roughened chest and the erotic shock of that sensation made her roll her eyes back.
Nush nudged her hips upward, following instincts she didn’t know she possessed and it was the most delicious feeling she’d ever known. And then he was there, running the head of his cock through her folds, drenching himself in her wetness, igniting a thousand sparks all over again.
“Hold on to me, Princesa.”
Nush did, breaths coming helter-skelter now as the fat head of his erection dipped into her heat. It was tight and hot and her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest if he didn’t continue.
“Look into my eyes, Nush. Keep touching me and yourself. Give me everything you’ve got, minha esposa.”
Nush followed his order, melting at the gravelly command. Melting at the taste of him. Melting at the feel of his taut, tense muscles rippling as she raked her fingernails down his skin. Melting as sensations she’d never known before, pain and pleasure, suffused her.
Caio drove into her inch by merciless inch, going impossibly slow and she knew from the concrete set of his jaw that it was costing him every bit of his steely control.
Arching up, she rubbed herself against his chest. Touched him everywhere, whispering to him that she wanted all of him. And then with one merciless thrust, he penetrated her so deep that he was a part of her.
The pain was intense, cleaving through her pelvis, but fled as fast as it came. She gasped in air through her mouth, willing herself to breathe through it. Eyes closed, fingers digging into his shoulder, she tried not to betray her shaking. Not to give in to fear and push him off.
“I’m sorry, Nush,” Caio breathed out. “Taking longer would only prolong the pain.”
A drop of sweat hitting her shoulder made her look up. Golden eyes darkened impossibly, his jaw was so tight that a muscle jumped violently in his cheek. The regret in his eyes was like a balm to the pain that was already fleeting. Giving way to an achy fullness that she wanted to explore.
Nush clasped his cheek, pushed up and kissed him. Even the little movement made her gasp, her pelvic muscles clenching and releasing in an instinctive reaction. “I know,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his like a cat.
“Don’t, Anushka,” he gritted out as a warning making her giggle. “Let me catch my breath.”
His lips were soft and gentle, a sizzling contrast to the impossible hardness of him inside her. Wrapping her legs higher on his hips, Nush clung to him with one arm around his back. “It’s almost gone, Caio.”