Chapter 10 #3
“You’re really walking back alone?” he demanded.
Nadine jerked, her head turning sharply to the side in a movement that looked painful. “What happened to your friend?” she retorted bravely.
“You sound jealous, Nadine.”
She took a step back from the path, the grass whispering beneath her feet. He twisted into a sharp turn that had her stumbling as she tried to keep him in sight and retreat all at once. “What are you doing? You’re making me dizzy.”
“You shouldn’t be out here all alone in the dark.”
“Why? Because you might drag me into those stupid woods?”
What a spectacular idea.
He had herded her off the path, towards the weathered brick buildings that comprised the old civic center. The trees were alive, crickets and night birds calling from their respective shadowed depths. Cal slid fluidly into their darkness as Nadine, twisting around, whispered, “Cal?”
At his silence, she ventured closer to the building, closer to the woods.
He could see her shoulder blades move, taut beneath her skin, the muscles of her back rippling as she bent to check around the wall.
He dragged his fingers down her spine, pressing just hard enough with his nails to be discomforting. “What do you know about my woods?”
She shrieked—which made his cock stir with a throb—and broke out into a run. Not for town, but deeper into the woods. A laugh escaped him, low and pleased. He knew she’d heard it because her legs pumped harder. She was going to make him work for it.
Festina lente. It was an old Latin motto that meant “hurry slowly.” It referred to studied efficiency and thoroughness, but it was also the key to his pleasure, and even if he were to have instructed her personally, she could not have pleased him any more.
Cal ran faster, taking a running leap over a curve in the uneven terrain that cinched the distance closed between them. His arms looped around her waist, bringing her to a jerky halt that had her spilling over his forearm. She kicked out in surprise, throwing her ass against his hard cock.
“Caught you.” It came out as a harsh snarl. “Now you belong to me.”
Nadine’s breathing faltered as he palmed her breasts, her belly, letting his hand trail over her right thigh before toying with the fastenings of her jeans. “N-no,” she said. “Wait—”
“Nadine. Didn’t you hear me? I’m not letting you go.”
She made a ragged noise when he bit her ear, dragging her into the cold dark shadows of the buildings.
So responsive. He opened her pants, using his wrist to slide the zipper down the track.
The heat of her was an erotic shock. Cupping her mons, he slid his fingers into the warm, wet crease of her slit, rubbing slowly.
“You’re wet,” he breathed.
“Cal.” Nadine pushed against the bar of his arm weakly. “Please—”
“Not yet, little sparrow.” He ran his teeth along the outer shell of her ear as he teased at her entrance, pushing just hard enough that she backed herself up against his chest at the sudden pressure of his fingers. “You don’t even know what you’re begging me for.”
“Not outside,” she pleaded.
“Why not? Are you going to scream?”
He pulled his fingers back, rolling her clit expertly beneath his thumb.
She strained against his body, making him take another step back for better leverage.
When he felt the rough grains of the brick wall against his back, he leaned back against it and, without relinquishing his hold in the slightest, he slid one knee between her trembling legs.
“That’s better.” He flexed his thigh to bump her legs further apart. “I told you I wanted us to be close—and I know you got my letters,” he added, just roughly enough that she shuddered. “So don’t even bother trying to lie to me.”
“I threw them away,” she said.
“I figured. I admire it, you know. Your persistence. The way you keep coming back again and again, no matter how many times you get burned.” She made a noise, tried to cover it.
In response, he shoved his fingers back in, forcing a louder sound from her throat that was impossible to hide.
“But I thought we had a real connection,” he whispered. “Do you know how rare those are?”
“You scared me,” she said, still defiant.
“You like being scared.” Cal bent forward, letting his pelvis press against her hip. “You’ve been asking for this all night.”
“I like romance,” she said, in a faltering voice. “Not whatever this is.”
“That’s so sweet. I bet people call you sweet often, don’t they? And good.” He pushed his other hand under her snug top and encountered a thin lace bra. “I wonder, though, what they’d call you, if they saw you with me right now. Spread over my knee.”
She growled at that, and when she opened her mouth to lay into him, he gave her nipple a hard tweak while pressing down on her clit.
“Love is cruel, Nadine,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over her soft cries.
“Possessive. Unforgiving. If you open your heart to it, you’ll get it ripped out.
” He paused, allowing the sound of his moving fingers to fill the silence.
“I find it rather tragic that you romantics lay yourselves down in these honeyed traps, only to get eaten alive by what you claim to want the most.”
“Please,” she moaned, and the word splintered halfway out of her mouth.
Cal bent down and kissed her. She was upside-down at this angle, so he simply sealed his top lip over her bottom one and kissed her the way he’d been aching to, when he woke up from those damned dreams he couldn’t remember with his pulse kicking up in his throat like a wild horse.
“You’re a good person. I can tell.” Ghosting a final kiss over her swollen lips, he returned to her ear and whispered, “But love makes good people do bad things.”
She tensed as his fingers slid inside her, all the way up to the second joint. “W-what?”
“Yes, even you, my sweet sparrow. Rael’s loyal to me.” He bent to her shoulder and pulled at the straps of her top with his teeth as he began to fuck into her slowly with his fingers. “I suggest you remember that, the next time you try to use him to make me jealous.”
“Please—” She shuddered as he added a third finger, forcing her to stretch.
“You did want to make me jealous?”
“Cal—”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.” She choked on the word like it was a blade. “Oh god.”
“Because you wanted me.”
Nadine didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. It was there in every breath, there in the heave of her breast beneath his hand. There in the way that she stood there and endured his touch, like his fingers weren’t making her fall apart piece by quaking piece.
The strap of her top slid down her shoulder. “You should have just told me. I would have taken care of you.” She made another noise as he tugged at her shirt from the inside, baring her breasts to the cool night air.
“Unless you like running,” he whispered.
She stopped breathing, completely still except for the pulse in her throat and the fluttering muscles of her inner walls as she clenched around his fingers.
Cal took his hand out of her top and held her tighter, keeping her spread over his knee. She squeezed her eyes shut when he kissed her temple, as if shutting out his tenderness.
“Let go,” he commanded softly, and she did.
Watching her come was like watching a meteor crash into the earth—a dark and beautiful thing edged in fire, whose ice-brittled beauty exploded in a blazing star of violence.
She surged forward with a choking gasp, her hard nipples dragging over his bare forearm.
Cal rubbed his arm back and forth, teasing her sensitive skin with the coarse hair as she snapped back against him with that sound he’d often replayed in his head, her thighs going slack around his hand, no longer squeezing like she was trying to crush his bones. She tried to speak and moaned.
“It’s always a fight with you, though—even now.” With his lips curled in satisfaction, he traced the fingers he’d touched her with along her lips, glossing them in her own arousal. “I bet you never imagined losing could taste so good.”
She wet her lips and he felt his own breath catch at the sight of her tongue dipping to taste herself. Heat pooled in his lower belly, trickling through him like hot wine. His pulse was pounding in his loins, his cock taut and chafing in its confinement.
“Come here—leave that alone,” he said harshly, when she moved to cover herself. “You look good a little rumpled. Less . . . buttoned up. Exactly how I imagined.”
“Cal,” she whispered. “Please.”
She froze at the commanding touch of his fingers at her nape.
“And do you want to,” he said heatedly, “please me?”
Nadine looked up at him, on her knees between his legs, her face framed by that tangled mane of hair that came down nearly to her waist. She looked like a maenad fresh from the revels, presenting herself for the glory of the gods.
His cock jerked again as he remembered how she’d felt around his fingers. So fucking wet for him, and soft and yielding as ripe fruit. Cal gathered her hair back in one fist, giving it a playful tug before allowing it to fall down her spine.
“Come here,” he said again, pushing down his jeans when she sat up straighter on her heels.
There was a second when he thought she might run again. Her eyes dropped to his swollen cockhead and there was a flicker of uncertainty verging on fear. But then she shifted her weight forward on her thighs and reached for him.
“No,” he said, but not cruelly. “Hands behind your back.”
The darkening of her cheeks was visible even in the cloak of darkness surrounding them as she reluctantly obeyed. Trusting that his desire would be enough to keep her safe, she obeyed.
Cal moved forward until the soft weight of her was pressing against his leg and then—fuck—her lips parted, and he was sliding into the slick warmth of her mouth, the fullness of her lips providing the most exquisite friction as he rocked forward and felt the drag of flesh on flesh.
“Oh Nadine,” he said, his voice low. “Yes.”
A shiver went through her as his hand returned to her hair to guide her.
She’d done this before, he noted. Covering her teeth and relaxing her throat to take more of him in without gagging, she used the pressure of her lips for stimulation and suction, tonguing the vein that ran along the length of him in a way that threatened to turn his legs to water.
This was very good, but not enough. No. He didn’t want gentle teasing.
He wanted to see panic and desire in her eyes as she struggled to adjust to his sizable cock.
Wanted to feel her clench with strain as pain became pleasure, and the muscles of her cunt stretched to endure his every thrust as he seated himself fully inside her, close as close could be without breaking skin.
“Fuck.” A moan escaped him at the heated stroke of her tongue. “Oh, my sweet ruin—your mouth could tempt a saint to sin.”
His fingers tightened in her hair and he felt her whimper against his flesh. The vibration was exquisite, a soft hum that had him growling, “Be rough with me. Finish what you started.”
He brought her hands forward, moving them along his shaft beneath his own. She let him position her, submitting with a docile willingness that felt like a gift as she looked up at him for approval and direction.
He quickened the pace, tugging at her hands with an urgency that appeared to shock her.
She made another one of those little hums, not quite a protest, that made him ache down to his fucking balls.
Without waiting further, he freed up a hand to hold her face steady as he spilled into her mouth.
Come leaked from the seams of her lips and she gagged a little, trying to swallow it all.
“Look at you.” Cal dropped down to one knee, wiping her lips clean with his thumb. A ragged breath tore out of her throat as he circled each nipple, painting it in come. “You were made for this,” he said reverently. “Made for me.”
“Cal,” she said again.
“My little sparrow,” he responded. Her cheeks were slippery with tears, He bent to kiss one, and then he kissed her on the mouth, tasting himself, and her, and them. A fitting flavor for what they’d done here under the cloak of the night, animal and sweet. “Why are you crying?”
“I—I don’t know.”
He pulled the straps of her clothes back into place and she relaxed, though the next breath that came out of her caused her to sink despondently under his hands.
“I’ve upset you.”
“N-no. It’s just . . .” She tried to arrange her mouth into a watery smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ve never—oh god, I d-don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ah. He brought her to her feet, reaching down to fix his fly before pressing her against him. She clung to him this time, desperate, fingers gouging through the screen of his shirt.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said again.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said quietly.
Nadine looked up and under the light of that forgiving moon, her eyes were liquid silver. In her upturned face, he saw the pale reflection of his own dark desires and the glitter of stolen starlight. It was like being struck by lightning, and it made him hold her tighter.
You would choose me, wouldn’t you? He pushed away the hair that had fallen into her face, studying the familiar silhouette of her cheeks and nose. Her eyes fluttered closed under his gentle caress and he thought, It’s me you want. Not the knife.
“I feel like you’re having a laugh at me,” she said unhappily. “Men like you d-don’t look at women like me.”
“I should think it’s rather obvious how much I enjoy looking at you,” he said dryly.
That made her squirm back as far as his arms would allow, a flush of discomfort in her face. “But why?”
“Now you’re questioning my taste,” he said. “Which is an insult to yourself and to me. And if you truly don’t believe that I want you, you’re welcome to come to my room tonight and be shown a second time.”
“What?” Nadine gasped. “N-no. It’s late. I—we should go back. Before someone notices we’re gone.”
“Yes.” Under the line of dark trees, he thought he caught a flash of movement. It was impossible to say whether it was human or animal, but it made her grip him firmly by the shoulder, bringing her to his side. “I’ll walk you.”
“Such a gentleman,” she said, a trace of unhappiness in her voice.
Cal shook his head, ushering her along. “Not quite.”