Chapter 7
Four
Tara
“Do you trust me?” The question burned hot against the nape of my neck. It was absurd to even ask. I didn’t know Isaac. How could I trust him?
Then again, he was standing in the living room of my rental, hands roaming over my bare stomach. That put us in the deep end as far as trust went.
“Yes,” I whispered, and strangely, it felt true.
I trusted him in this. To give me what I needed—the distraction he promised. Isaac was good at distraction, and I didn’t see the harm in letting myself indulge one more time.
That isn’t true at all. I could list eight dozen ways this could go wrong, but with each step toward the door, they mattered less.
What was the point of living if I didn’t enjoy the finer things in life?
Like the stroke of Isaac’s tongue beneath my ear, or the caress of his fingers along the side of my breast.
Isaac took the fabric tie from the waist of my blouse and handed it to me. “Strip first, then lie on the bed and cover your eyes.”
I took the slip of fabric, hesitating. Maybe I wasn’t in the deep end yet. Maybe I was still standing at the edge of the water, debating the plunge. It was dark and murky, everything unknown. This felt dangerous, a risk I shouldn’t be taking when I had only just found the shore.
With Isaac, drowning was almost a guarantee. I knew myself well enough to realize I couldn’t do uncomplicated and unattached.
Or maybe I could. Maybe that was the real way to heal.
Isaac gave me the choice. He gave me the power.
This ended when I wanted it to end. It ended how I wanted it to end.
I walked into the dim bedroom, making a show of peeling off my skirt. When it came to my bra, I tossed it through the bedroom doorway, letting Isaac know I was following his instructions.
The bed was a queen with a simple quilt and two pillows. I positioned myself in the middle, dropping my head onto one pillow and tying the fabric tight over my eyes.
With my vision gone, every other part of me came alive. My skin tingled with anticipation, ears open for the faintest sound of Isaac coming for me.
His presence filled the room—and somehow he was silent.
A finger trailed lightly over my stomach. A whisper of breath over my cheek.
“Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
Lips pressed against my ear and the tip of his tongue brushed the shell. “For me to make you beg?”
Voice trembling, I answered, “Yes.”
I couldn’t decide if it was nerves or excitement sparking through my legs.
Heat burned my lower belly as I waited for more of Isaac’s touch. His breath danced across my nipples, moving down my torso to the apex of my thighs. Nothing else happened, and I resisted the urge to squirm, anything to satisfy the pounding pulse between my legs.
“What’s your record?”
“My record?” I moved my head as if I could see him through the blindfold.
“How many orgasms have you had in one night?”
I hoped he couldn’t see my blush. “One.”
“One?” Was that incredulity in his tone? “That’s not even a challenge.”
“I don’t under—” His mouth closed over my nipple and I gasped. Teeth scraped my sensitive skin and it hurt just enough to make me whimper.
Isaac sucked harder, flicking his tongue against my breast and increasing the pressure of his bite. Then he pulled away and I searched for him with my hand.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Tara. It’s my turn right now.”
The barest brush of fingertips tickled across my skin.
There was no pattern to his touch—arms, thighs, breast, cheek—and it drove me mad.
He kissed a line from my sternum to my belly button, pausing over my core and breathing in deeply.
I flushed at the brazen move, even as it stoked the fire building inside of me.
What Isaac was doing was torment. There was an electrifying sensation when he touched me. My need became so intense I felt crazy, gasping and shuddering every time he grazed over my nipple or caressed my legs.
Finally—he used both hands to part my thighs, spreading them wide.
A guttural sound ripped from him at the sight of me.
He dragged a knuckle through my slick, the intensity of his own desire thrumming against me.
That finger circled gently over my clit and I jerked up.
The orgasm hit sharp and fast, leaving me aching for more.
As soon as I cried out my ecstasy Isaac stopped, leaving me to chase him with my hips. He took those hips in his hands and flipped me over, pressing my head into the pillow. His cock rubbed up against my core, then moved higher, sliding along my ass.
I jumped forward in surprise and he chuckled. “Never done that either, huh?”
“Don’t plan to.” I mumbled self-consciously into the pillow.
He pressed there again. “I think you’d like it.” A hand came around the side of my hip, fingers sliding through my wetness. I couldn’t hold in my moan. The combination of sensation was overstimulating but somehow it made me ache even more.
“It turns you on, doesn’t it?” His voice was a deep vibration against my body.
“The image of me taking you like this. You shouldn’t want it this much.
” More pressing and he was so close to sliding inside of me.
My heart was pounding violently in all of my most sensitive places and another moan escaped.
Would I tell him to stop? Something about Isaac made me feel daring. I was curious to see what he would do next.
“You would be so tight.” He slipped a finger inside of my core, another gliding across my clit. “And you would come so hard knowing you used every part of your body to please me.”
The audacity of this man.
Those words were my undoing. I trembled with the most earth-shattering orgasm I’d ever experienced. My muscles gave out, melting into the bed as I gasped and writhed.
Just when I thought there was no topping this feeling, Isaac stopped his teasing and slid into my clenching core. “Fuck. I live for this.”
But not with me. He lives for this moment with anyone. He lives for the control. The thought came sharply and suddenly, momentarily pulling me from my daze.
I shoved those thoughts away. I could do this with any man too.
“Isaac!” I couldn’t catch my breath as he thrust in and out.
Another wave built, crashing into me. Isaac thrust so fast and hard that the mattress slid back and forth on the frame. The bed frame could break beneath us and I wouldn’t care as long as he didn’t stop moving inside me.
Isaac slipped out of me and rolled me onto my back, tugging the tie from my eyes so I could see him clearly above me.
He was moving again before I could protest. The tendons in his neck grew tight and his shoulders tensed but he didn’t lose his pace as his own climax rode up on him fast. With a groan he buried himself deep into me, pulling my thighs to wrap around his waist.
The room was dark around us, only the glitter of sweat on Isaac’s chest and the faint glow of his green and gold eyes visible.
Maybe it wasn’t the darkness of the room at all but the way my vision zeroed in on him.
He was still twitching inside me and that connection felt like my only tether to reality.
The heavy breaths exchanged between us matched the churning sound of waves on the bay.
The emotions in my chest turned just as tumultuous. I ran from him for a reason. There was too much room for things to go wrong, and I was trying to make my life less complicated.
Isaac dipped his finger in a bead of sweat at the base of my neck, dragging it between my breasts and down to my navel. I expected him to say something lewd, but he leaned down to kiss me ever so gently and said, “You have no idea how beautiful you are.”
He was so genuine, his expression open, and I got the impression this was the real Isaac. Underneath all that cocky ego and innuendo was a man too afraid to be soft.
Another gorgeous, unavailable man. I could see myself falling for him.
I leaned into him for a long, drawn out kiss. I finished with a soft nip to his bottom lip, smiling and whispering, “Four.”
Isaac smirked, eyes glittering with pride as he untangled from me and disappeared into the bathroom.
The cool air on my naked skin shocked some sense back into me, and I climbed quickly from the bed, finding my discarded clothes in the dark and yanking them back on.
At least an hour had passed. The sun already solidly set behind rows of colored houses, dusky purple hues coloring the world beyond the window.
I ran my hands through my hair, a frantic energy sparking in my chest and ruining my afterglow.
I couldn’t let this happen again. My heart was over-sensitive. I was grasping for something to take hold of. Something that would make me feel safe again.
That something couldn’t be Isaac.
Deep down I knew he wasn’t safe. Whatever softness I imagined he was hiding, it didn’t belong to me. It might not even be real, just my own optimistic mind creating concepts of people that they wouldn’t live up to.
I stood at the end of the bed, Isaac’s clothes draped over my arm. As soon as the bathroom door opened, I held them out to him, my expression polite but closed off.
Isaac stared at my outstretched hand, lines creasing his forehead.
“Thanks for the ride.” I let the words hang between us, leaving them for him to interpret however he wanted.
After a long beat, he accepted his clothes, sliding his legs into his briefs and tugging on his shirt. He didn’t immediately take the pants, so I carried them out of the bedroom and to the front door, holding it open expectantly.
“You’re kicking me out?” He schooled his features into one of those light-hearted smirks. It didn’t quite hide his shock. “We could still beat your new record tonight.”
I laughed, some of my nervous tension relaxing. “Four was plenty. Thanks again for the good time, but it’s getting late, and I have things to do.”
Isaac looked around the plain furnishings in the living room, then at the empty kitchen, arching one brow.
I ignored his expression, waving him over and handing him his pants. We locked eyes as he passed me, the green fading from his irises as they flashed gold. The angles of his face looked sharper in the gloaming, almost frightening in their harshness.
For some reason, that sent little spirals of thrill through my stomach, and I was tempted to take him up on the offer to beat my record.
“Goodnight, Isaac Barbeaux.”
I didn’t wait for a response before closing the door and collapsing against it, breath shaking.