Chapter 37 All Talk
ALL TALK
Simone
Idon’t remember how we got up the stairs.
It was possible that he carried me and also possible that I dragged him there myself.
All I knew was that one moment I was climbing Brendan Black like a tree in the middle of his foyer, and the next I was being tossed onto his football-field-sized bed on the second floor of the apartment.
“Strip.” He yanked off his clothes like he was shucking an ear of corn. “I need you naked. Now.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice.
And as soon as all our clothes were on the floor, he was there, caging me to the bed, body to body, and kissing me like he was stealing my soul.
And God, if I didn’t want to give it to him.
“Brendan.” My voice broke as his lips found my neck with a hard, unforgiving suck that made my back arch clear off the bed. “Should we—we should talk?”
“No.” Another suck, this time with teeth. “This is how I talk right now.”
Before I could respond, he ducked down to take one of my breasts deep into that sinful mouth. He was an animal, biting just hard enough to make me gasp before he soothed the sting with another long, hungry pull.
“Brendan—oh God—” The words slipped out, half-moan, half-prayer as he drifted further down my body, tongue dragging over my skin, nipping as he went.
“Say my name like that again.”
I looked down at where he was kneeling between my legs like they were his own personal altar. “L-like what?”
“Like you need me too.”
My whisper was somewhere between a prayer and a plea as he suckled my inner thigh hard enough to leave a bruise. “Brendan.”
“Fuck, yes. Just like that.” He wrenched my thighs wide, looking at me like he didn’t know whether to worship or devour me.
Studying me.
Learning me.
His dark hair was wildly mussed, his eyes even wilder. He really did look like the devil everyone said he was.
I couldn’t have wanted him more.
“Look at you, trembling for me,” he murmured almost meditatively as he dragged a finger through my aching flesh. “You want me to kiss you here, baby? Lick that sweet nectar? Devour you whole?”
I squirmed, but his other hand kept me pinned to the bed. “P-please.”
He paused. “When you stutter, is it because you’re excited or scared?”
I flushed and couldn’t quite hold his gaze. “I…a little of both.”
“Scared of what?” His head cocked to one side in an uncanny imitation of the birds he loved so much. “Of everything that’s going on with your family? I told you I took care of it.”
I shook my head. How could I tell him that when he looked at me like that, I wanted to open the darkest places inside me and give them all to him so badly it made me shake, but it also made me so terrified he would hurt me that I wanted to cower away.
“I just…I want you,” I managed.
The left dimple appeared—the one I always wanted to lick. “You have me.”
He picked up my foot and pressed a kiss to my ankle. Then to my knee. And back to the spot on my thigh he’d been so deliciously torturing just moments ago.
“B-Brendan, please.”
“You beg so sweet, angel.” He draped my thighs over his shoulders. “Well, you’re mine to ruin now.”
As Brendan’s tongue stroked, teased, then slipped inside, I didn’t have space to doubt, so consuming was his touch, his taste. I could only feel him—the press of his hands, the heat of his tongue, the strength of those shoulders spreading my legs even wider so he could feast properly.
“Brendan!” I clawed at the sheets, head thrashing from side to side. “Oh my God—”
His groan was utterly depraved. “That’s it, angel. Let me feel you fall apart on my face.”
I tried to twist away, overwhelmed, but the grip on my thighs was iron. “Brendan—I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” His mouth sealed tighter, tongue flicking faster. “Because I told you to. Because I want it. Now.”
“Oh my GOD—OH! brENDAN!”
His commands broke me in blinding waves as he drank me down like I was water in the middle of a desert. When he finally pulled away, his mouth was wet, his eyes darker than night.
Black Prince indeed.
And tonight, he was mine.
Still shaking, I watched as he crawled up my body, continuing to worship with his mouth until his erection teased that spot where his mouth had just been. Sliding through my desire.
Bare.
“Brendan.” I clutched his shoulders, even though it felt good, so good. “Brendan, you’re not—there’s no—and I’m not taking—”
“I know, angel.” He rolled his hips again, allowing my slick heat to welcome him without breaching it fully.
It was all I could do not to tilt my hips too, just a bit, so he could slide in.
“I won’t put it in.” His voice was strained, like he was talking to himself as much as to me. “Not yet, anyway. God knows I want to, but that would be sacrificing the control I can’t afford to lose.”
He kissed me then, sucking on my lower lip like candy while his cock continued its delicious, slow torture against my clit. I writhed beneath him, chasing more, but he was as steady as the tide, pushing, teasing, but never losing his balance.
“Brendan,” I begged. “Please.”
It was all I could manage. All I could say.
For a moment, the hunger in his eyes burned so hot it looked close to pain.
“I don’t like to lose control.” His tongue twisted around mine again in a delicate tangle. “I don’t like it when people fuck with things that are important to me. And you, angel, have become very important to me.”
Something inside me shifted, deeper than the ache blooming between my legs.
I was so tired of trying to control things I couldn’t. Things like my sister. My family. The chaos of our lives since my mother died. The things I couldn’t fix no matter how hard I tried.
But here, in this bed, in Brendan’s arms, I could let it all go.
I could give it to him.
And so I did.
Twin waves of freedom and ecstasy washed through me for a second time as I arched into his arms.
“That’s it,” he crooned as he paced me through them, timing every spasm, every heartbeat with the steady movement of his body. “Let it go, baby. Let it all go for me.”
Vaguely, I registered the crackle of foil, then the touch of his big hands as they turned me over and eased a pillow under my cheek.
“Can you take one more?” he asked as the weight of him pressed me into the mattress along with his cock sliding into the pulsing slick he’d so thoroughly readied. “For me?”
“Mmmm.” I could only moan into the pillow as he eased in, inch by inch. Words had deserted me.
“Such a good girl. You really are my angel.”
But I wasn’t interested in good. I wasn’t interested in being his angel right now.
With a sudden movement, I used my hands and knees to shove back against him, taking him fully.
He choked. “Fuck, Simone.”
I turned to look at him over my shoulder.
To my surprise, fear had carved apart his careful mask, like the hesitation was costing him everything as he stared down at the place where our bodies joined.
There was a war inside him, between the desperate need to maintain control versus the abject hunger to lose it.
“Brendan,” I called softly.
His eyes dragged to meet mine, wild like the caged animal he so often resembled.
“You can let go too,” I told him. “Please. I want it.”
A sound tore from his throat, half howl, half groan.
With a roar, he pummeled forward, rattling the bedframe, maybe even the building itself. His fingers dug into my hips, dragging me back to meet every ruthless thrust.
“Simone,” he gasped with every deep drive, the South Boston in his voice erupting fully. “That’s it, baby, fucking take it. Take it because you want it, baby. Take it because you’re mine. You. Belong. To me. Say it.”
“I am.” I could only keen into the pillow as he plunged further, harder. “I’m yours, Brendan, I promise. All yours.”
“Yesssss.”
His hand slipped beneath me, finding my clit as if he had been doing it for years, not days.
“One last time, angel.” His fingers circled in time with his savage rhythm. “Come for me again and remind me why I’ll never let you go.”
His name was a cry for salvation. His touch brought me back to earth.
“Fuck, angel—yes, that’s it—SIMONE—” He toppled into his own oblivion, body shaking as he called my name again and again. “Simone. Oh, God, Simone.”
That timbre would echo through my soul for the rest of my years.
Slowly, the world came back to us, and for a while, there was only the soft hush of breaths and slowing heartbeats to fill the room. Brendan pressed a final kiss to my shoulder before he shifted onto one side and wrapped me in those strong arms.
If peace existed in this complicated world for either us, it was right here. In this moment.
And then, just as quickly, it was gone.
“Brendan?”
A deep sigh was emitted behind me. “Yeah, angel?”
“What happened with the Huntingtons?” I had to ask.
Another sigh warmed my shoulder, and Brendan rolled away onto his back. I turned over to watch him drag a hand through his hair. Tension returned to his solemn features.
“I handled it. That’s all that matters.”
I frowned. “But—”
He cut me off with a kiss, gentle but firm. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
It wasn’t exactly a request, but at least he was communicating. And we had just “talked” in a completely different way, according to him.
So, I nodded and enjoyed a brand-new smile. It was quiet. Barely evident but for a shadow of that left dimple nearly masked by his stubble.
But I saw it for what it was: bliss.
“Brendan?” I asked just after his eyelids had fluttered shut.
“Mmph. Yeah?”
I toyed with an edge of the comforter, but when I pulled it up to cover my breasts, he pushed it back down despite the fact that his eyes were still shut.
“No covering up with me. Not anymore. Now, I’m about to catch up on the sleep I didn’t get last night, so whatever it is needs to be solvable in the next two minutes.”
I searched myself for the words I couldn’t quite figure out. Was it silly that I’d hoped he would look at me and just see the uncertainty I couldn’t quite name?
Know me, I wanted to tell him. Figure me out. Share yourself with me so I can know you.
Love me like I’m starting to love you.
Instead, I blurted out the only thing that ran through my head: “I’d like you to meet my father.”
His eyes opened. “Really?”
I shrugged. Asking for the answers to questions I couldn’t quite articulate wasn’t going to work. But coming home with me might accomplish more.
He studied me for a moment, as if looking for flaws in the request. “Yeah, okay. I could do that. Tomorrow?”
Well, that was unexpected. “Don’t you have meetings or something?” In the month I’d been staying here, I had never seen Brendan take a full day off except for the day he took me shopping.
He lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes again. “Fuck ’em. I’d rather spend the day with you.”
I gawked. Who was this man and what had he done with The Black Prince?
Then something else occurred. “Um, how should I refer to you? As my…friend? Boyfriend? Partner?” I hadn’t even told my father the news. He barely read the papers, and honestly, I’d been hoping to avoid lying to him until this whole thing was over.
Except now, would it end?
“Fiancé,” Brendan answered before he gave a great yawn. “That’s still what you are to everyone but me.”