Nine
Iwas not one of those hit the ground running in the morning people. I was probably a reincarnated vampire, truth be told. So, it was not surprising that I was standing beside the coffee maker, waiting for it to brew the precious elixir that would keep me vertical, when he walked through the door.
I was stunned.
I had not expected him for weeks. To find Sam Kage, rumpled and with three days’ growth of beard, scowling at me was a shock.
“What the hell is going on?” he roared at me.
I lifted my eyebrows. “Hello to you too.”
He growled, dropped his duffel, pulled off his peacoat, and flung it down onto the couch before striding forward.
I moved around the island in the kitchen, which was a counter on one side and a bar on the other. The open layout of the loft meant that one room flowed into the next, so I was thankful for the small barrier between us.
“What are you doing?”
“Why are you mad?”
His eyes widened. “Why am I mad? I dunno … lemme think.”
I crossed my arms, waiting.
“Kola had his finger broken, you had to protect your children all alone from this psychopath, and you witnessed a hit on two policemen!”
“The dinner party was really the worst part. Your boyfriend was there.” I shivered.
He snarled low in the back of his throat and came at me.
I would have run, but it was just too early in the morning. I turned instead, and he charged up to me, grabbed my arms tight, and shook me.
“Why do you keep letting me go?”
“Why do you keep going?” I asked back, knowing from the raw, haunted look in his eyes that I was seeing a man absolutely eaten up with guilt and worry and pain.
He was sick that he had not been there for me or Kola or Hannah.
“I always think if I want something done right, I absolutely must do it myself.”
“I know.” I smiled as my voice softened, and he let me go, his hands moving to my face, cupping it. “It’s okay.”
A shuddering gasp went right through him before his jaw clenched.
“You’re mad at yourself, not me.”
He didn’t argue. He didn’t have to; I saw it.
“Let it go,” I said, wrapping my hands around his wrists. “I’m delirious that you’re here.”
He nodded, and when I lifted toward him, I heard the catch of breath.
Still.
After so many years, I still made the man breathless. It was a gift.
He sealed his mouth over mine and wrapped me up in his arms, using all his power to press me against him, our bodies aligned, tongues tangled, our kiss intimate and languid. I belonged to him, and he could hold me for as long as he wanted.
My arms twined around his neck as he lifted me off my feet, hands on my ass. I slid my legs up his thighs to his hips and tightened them. The whine in the back of my throat made him clutch at me, his big, rough hands digging into my skin as he began walking me out of the kitchen and down the hall.
I really wanted to go home. In my house, early morning sex was taken care of in the laundry room. I had lost count of the times I had been put over the washing machine.
He broke the kiss, panting for breath as I took my own gulp of air before recapturing his mouth. I sucked on his tongue as he staggered forward, carrying me, then stopped suddenly and shoved me hard into the wall.
“Where are our children?” he asked, whispering against my ear, nibbling on the lobe.
“Still … bed … early …” I trailed off, kissing up his throat to his chin and biting gently before trailing my mouth back down, sucking on his skin, moments away from leaving hickeys.
A frustrated sound, first a growl and then a huff of breath, before he levered off the wall and continued down the hall. “Where?”
“First door,” I directed him. “Lock it when—”
“Yes.”
I smiled against his mouth. When we got there, he kicked the door closed behind him, and suddenly, his movements were fast, mauling and forceful.
After putting me on my feet, he pulled my T-shirt up over my head and off, then did the same to his, stretching back between his shoulder blades to grab it. I reached for him, gripping his chest, loving the feel of him.
My deep groan of appreciation brought violent motion. The back of my neck was in his iron grip as he spun me around and pushed me forward, my cheek pressed to the cold, solid wood of the door.
“Hands.”
Immediately, I put them over my head, palms flat. At the same time, I spread my legs.
He knotted his hand tightly in my hair, and the message that I was not to move was clear. I stayed still as he left me, heard the rattle of the drawer in the nightstand behind me and the break of the plastic seal.
We had been together so long; no matter where we were, where we stayed, things always found familiar places. He knew where to look for lube.
He pulled the drawstring of my sleep shorts loose, tugged them down, and slid them over my hips and off.
When I felt his warm breath on my ass, my breath hitched because I knew what was coming.
He bit me hard—he would leave an imprint of his teeth, but I didn’t care.
The licking that followed, the sucking, was worth it.
If we had not been apart, if this were normal morning need, my cheeks would have been spread, and his tongue would have pushed inside my puckered hole. But I was being manhandled, would be pinned to the wall and hammered. I could barely wait.
Every muscle in the man’s big, hard body was tensed and ready to surge into motion and take me. And I wanted it. I wanted Sam Kage to simply ravish me.
The first lube-slicked finger slid inside me as his mouth closed on the back of my shoulder, where his name was tattooed and had been for years.
I had had an artist trace his signature there, just Sam, and ink it.
He never ever tired of seeing his name on my body.
It was where his lips went every single time he took me from behind.
I pushed my ass out for him, and he moaned in appreciation before stroking and slapping it.
“So beautiful, so perfect and round and firm … like a heart … always amazing.”
“What?”
“You’re so small, and yet … you take all of me.”
I did and could, and there was a lot of Sam Kage to take. He filled and stretched me as no one ever had.
“Watching”—his voice was a husky groan—“could make me come.”
I pushed back on his finger, and he added a second, working the tight rings of muscle, trying to get my body to unclench.
“Fight me,” he ordered. “Go ahead and try because I can’t wait.”
I heard the jingle of his belt buckle, the zipper, and then the sound of flesh on flesh. Then the greasing of his dick, and I smelled his pre-cum before the touch of the enormous head at my crease. He pressed between my cheeks, letting his cock part them, and the first nudge made me jolt forward.
His angle changed, lowered, and he pushed up and in, shoving deep and hard, the lube letting it happen. Breached muscles rippled around him.
“Oh God,” he groaned loudly, angrily, driving, pushing, grinding into me without hesitation. “You just sucked me in; your ass just swallowed me fuckin’ whole.”
I was sweating but freezing at the same time as he pounded me into the door, ramming hard, not caring about the noise. He released my hands, leaning back so he could watch his dick disappear into my ass again and again. I knew what he was looking at, had been told enough times over the years.
The steel hold was on the back of my neck again. His fingers would leave bruises, but I knew he didn’t care. Only exerting power and dominance mattered, seeing me take him in, feeling the silky walls squeeze around him, knowing I belonged only to him.
His hot, thick length impaled me over and over, and then suddenly, his left hand slid over mine. Our fingers laced together, splayed flat on the door, as his other hand fisted my dripping shaft.
“Come,” was the guttural command as he thrust hard, jerking me off as I cried his name. “You feel so good when you give yourself to me.”
The rocking motion, the pound and retreat … my body was seized in friction and heat, the sound and the smell. My orgasm was wrung from me in seconds, and everything clenched at once.
“Oh fuck!” Sam yelled, my muscles clamping down on his dick so tight that he couldn’t move, held within my spasming channel. “Jory … baby …”
I was trembling. So was he. And then he was spilling inside me, and I could feel every pulse, every tremor, and hear his breath in my ear.
He wrapped his arms around me and held me close, his muscular chest plastered to my back, his mouth open on my shoulder as he just stood there and kissed every piece of skin he could reach.
I wanted to simply dissolve into him, felt like I could if he would just tighten his grip. I opened my mouth to speak.
“I have things to say.”
“G’head,” I replied softly.
He took a breath and then gently eased himself free of my body before scooping me up and carrying me to the bed. Once there, he left me and went to the bathroom.
I waited, and he returned with a cold bottle of water and a warm washcloth.
“That mini fridge in the bathroom is awesome,” he said as he opened the bottle and passed it to me. “We need one like that at home.”
“Yes,” I agreed and then gasped as he roughly cleaned cum from between my thighs and ass cheeks, then wiped off my abdomen. It wasn’t a perfect job; I was still a little sticky, but not nearly as messy. Not that I had ever cared. I loved smelling like Sam, loved having his spend drying on my skin.
“Like you care.”
“What?”
“You don’t give a damn if I clean you up or not.”
I shook my head. The man was getting very good at reading my mind.
He grunted, and I could tell he was pleased before he turned and threw the washcloth back into the bathroom.
“Did you hit the sink?”
“I got close to the sink.”
“Good enough,” I said, offering him the bottle.
He drained the rest of it, put it on the nightstand, and then came down on top of me, pile-driving me into the bed. It winded me, and I started laughing as he wrapped his arms under and around me, hugging me tight.
I felt it then, the tension in him. Normally after sex, he was loose-limbed and relaxed.