Chapter Eight #2
“I don’t see why we can’t...keep having sex.
I’m designing a house for you. There’s a natural end to our acquaintance.
It’s...” She laughed, shaking her head. “You know, when my brother Isaiah proposed to his wife he told her it made sense. That it was logical. And I was angry at him because it was the least romantic thing I’d ever heard. ”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“They weren’t dating. She was his assistant. He was looking for a wife, and because he thought she was such a good assistant it meant she would likely make a good wife.”
“And that went well for him?”
“Well, not at first. And I was angry at him. I hated the fact that he was turning something personal into a rational numbers game. It didn’t seem right.
It didn’t seem fair. But now it kind of makes sense to me.
Not that we are talking about marriage, but.
..an arrangement. Being near each other is going to be difficult after what we shared. ”
“I’m fine,” he lied, taking a step away from her and her far-too-earnest face.
If fine was existing in a bad mood with a persistent hard-on, yeah, he was fine.
“I’m not,” she said softly.
She took a step toward him, just like she had done on those other occasions. Like a kid who kept reaching her hand toward the stove, even though she’d been burned.
That he thought of that metaphor should be the first clue he needed to take a step away. But he didn’t.
It’s too late.
The damage had already been done.
The time in prison had already changed him. Hell, maybe the damage had been done when he was born. His father’s genes flowing through his veins were far too powerful for Levi to fight against.
“Until you’re done designing the house,” he said, his voice hard. “Just until then.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief, and the look of vulnerability on her face would have made a better man rethink everything.
But Levi wasn’t a better man. And he had no intention of attempting to be one at this point.
“I’m supposed to be at work,” she said. “I really should get back.”
He reached out and grabbed the handle on the front door, shutting it hard behind her. “No,” he said. “Baby, you stepped into the lion’s den. And you’re not leaving until I’m good and ready for you to leave.”
“But work,” she said, her voice small.
“But this,” he responded, wrapping his hand around her wrist and dragging her palm toward him. He pressed it against that hard-on making itself known in the front of his jeans.
“Oh,” she said, pressing her palm more firmly down and rubbing against him.
“You want to do this, we’re doing it my way,” he said. “I didn’t know you were a virgin the first time, but now it’s done. Taken care of. I’m not going to go easy on you just because you’re inexperienced, do you understand?”
And he wasn’t sure she had any idea at all what she was agreeing to. She nodded again.
If he was a better man, that, too, might have given him pause.
But he wasn’t. So it didn’t.
“I like to be in charge. And I don’t have patience for inhibition.
Do you understand me?” She looked up at him, those eyes wide.
He didn’t think she understood at all. “That means if you want to do it, you do it. If you want me to do it, you ask for it. Don’t hide your body from me, and I won’t hide mine from you.
I want to see you. I want to touch you everywhere.
And there’s no limit to what I’m going to do.
That means the same goes for you. You can do whatever you want to me. ”
“But you’re in charge,” she said faintly.
“And that’s my rule. If you think it’ll feel good, do it.
For you, for me.” He leaned in, cupping her head in his hand and looking at her intently.
“Sex can be a chore. If you’re in a relationship with someone for a long time and there’s no spark between you anymore—which doesn’t happen on accident, you have to stop caring—then it can be perfunctory.
Lights off. Something you just do. Like eating dinner.
“Now, if there’s no emotional divide I don’t mind routine sex.
There’s a comfort in it. But I hadn’t had sex in five years.
There is no routine for me. That means I want raw.
I want dirty. Because it can be that, too.
It can be wild and intense. It can be slow and easy.
It can be deliciously filthy. Sex can make you agree to things, say things, do things that if you were in your right mind you would find.
..objectionable. But when you’re turned on, a lot of things seem like a good idea when they wouldn’t otherwise.
And that’s the space I want to go to with you. That means no thinking. Just feeling.”
Then he lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder. She squeaked, but she didn’t fight his hold as he carried her out of the entry and up the stairs.
“You don’t have your custom orgy bed yet.”
He chuckled as they made their way down the hall, and he kicked open the door with his foot. “Well, we’re not having an orgy, are we? This is a party for two.”
“How pedestrian. It must be so boring for you.”
“No talking, either.”
He laid her down on the bed and she looked up at him, mutinous.
“Did you have a bra to wear today?”
“Yes.”
“I have your other one.”
She squinted. “I have more than one. I have more than two.”
“Let me see this one.”
She shifted, sat up and pulled her top over her head, exposing the red lace bra she had underneath. Then she reached behind herself, unzipped her pencil skirt and tugged it down, revealing her pair of matching panties.
“Damn,” he said. “Last night, before we started, I’d planned on that side-of-the-road stuff being just the introduction.”
“Yes, and then you got ridiculous.”
“I tried,” he said, his voice rough. “I tried not to be a monster, Faith. Because I might not have known you were a virgin, or at least I didn’t admit it to myself, but I knew that...my hands are dirty. I’m just gonna get you dirty.”
She looked up at him, and the confusion and hope in her eyes reached down inside him and twisted hard. “You said sex was fun when it was dirty.”
“Different kinds of dirty, sweetheart.”
She eased back, propping herself up on her forearms. It surprised him how bold she was, and suddenly, he wanted to know more. About this little enigma wrapped in red lace. An architectural genius. So advanced in so many ways, and so new in others.
“Take your bra and panties off,” he commanded.
She reached back and unclipped her bra, pulling it off quickly. There was a slight hesitation when she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and started to pull them down. But only a slight one.
She wiggled out of them, throwing them onto the floor.
She kept the same position, lying back, not covering herself. Exposing her entire, gorgeous body.
Small, perfect breasts with pale pink nipples and a thatch of dark curls between her legs.
“I wanted to do the right thing. Just once. Even if I’d already done the wrong thing. But I give up, babe. I give the hell up.”
He moved toward the edge of the bed, curved his arms up around her hips and dragged her toward him, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh.
She made a small, kittenish sound as he moved farther down, nuzzled her center and then took a leisurely lick, like she was the finest dessert he’d ever encountered.
She squirmed, squeaking as he held her more tightly, and he brought her fully against his face and began to devour her.
It had been so long. So long since he’d tasted a woman like this, and even then...
Faith was sweeter than anyone.
Faith wiped away the memory of any previous lover. Doing this for her was like a gift to himself.
He brought his hand between her legs and pressed two fingers deep inside her, working them in and out, in time with his tongue.
He could feel her orgasm winding up tight inside of her.
Could feel little shivers in her internal muscles, her body slippery with need.
He drew out that slickness, rubbing two fingers over her clit before bringing his lips back down and sucking that bundle of nerves into his mouth as he plunged his fingers back in.
She screamed, going stiff and coming hard, those muscles like a vise around his fingers now as her climax poured through her.
By the time she was finished, he was so damn hard he thought he was going to break in two.
He stood up, stripped his shirt over his head and came back down on the bed beside her.
She was looking at him with a kind of clouded wonder in her eyes, delicate fingertips tracing over the lines on his arms. “These are beautiful,” she said.
“You want to talk about my tattoos now?”
“That was great,” she said, breathless. “But I was waiting to see these.”
“Celtic knot,” he said, speaking of the intricate designs on his arms. That wasn’t terribly personal.
He’d had it done when he was eighteen and kind of an idiot.
He’d hated his father and had wanted to find some identity beyond being that man’s son.
Inking some of his Irish heritage on his skin, making it about some long-dead ancestors, had seemed like a way to do that at the time.
Or at least that’s what he’d told himself.
Now Levi figured it was mostly an attempt at looking like a badass and impressing women.
“And the bird?” she pressed.
Freedom. Simple as that. Also not something he was going to talk about with a hard-on.
“I like bird-watching,” he said, his lips twitching slightly. “Now, no talking.”
He gripped her chin and pulled her forward, kissing her mouth and letting her taste her own arousal there.
He took her deeper, higher, playing between her legs while he reached into his bedside table to get a condom.
Her head was thrown back, her breasts arched up toward him. Her lips, swollen from kissing, parted in pleasure. She was his every dirty dream, this sweet little angel.
He kept on teasing her, tormenting her with his fingers while he lifted the condom packet to his lips with his free hand and tore it with his teeth. Then he rolled it onto his length, slowly, taking his position against the entrance of her body.
She was so hot. So slick and ready for him. He couldn’t resist the chance to tease them both just a little bit more.
He held himself firmly at the base and arched his hips forward, sliding through those sweet folds of hers, pushing down against her clit and reveling in her hoarse sound of pleasure.
He wasn’t made for her. There was no doubt about that. He was hard, scarred and far too broken to ever be of any use to her. But as he pressed the thick head of his erection against her, as he slid into her tight heat, inch by agonizing inch, he wondered if she wasn’t made for him.
She gasped, arching against him, this time not in pain. Not like the first time.
She held on to his shoulders, her fingertips digging into his skin as he thrust into her, pulling out slowly before pressing himself back home.
Again. And again.
Until they were both lost in the fog of pleasure. Until she was panting. Begging.
Until the only sound in the room was their bodies, slapping against each other, their breathing, harsh and broken. It was the middle of the day, and he hadn’t taken her on a date. Hadn’t given her anything but an orgasm. And he couldn’t even feel guilty about it.
He had spent all those days in the dark.
Counting the hours until nothing. Until the end.
He had been given a life sentence. And with that there was almost no hope.
Just a small possibility they’d find a body—as horrendous as that would be—and exonerate him.
He had felt guilty hoping for that, even for a moment.
But something. Anything to prove his innocence.
That had been his life. And he had been prepared for it to be the rest of his life.
And now, somehow, he was here. With her.
Inside Faith’s body, the sunlight streaming in through the windows.
Blinded by the light, by his pleasure, by his need.
This was more than he had imagined having a chance to feel ever again. And he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt anything like this. Like this heat and hunger that roared in his gut, through his veins.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, forced himself to continue watching her even as his orgasm burst through him like a flame.
It was like looking at hope.
Not just a sliver of it, but full and real. Possibilities he had never imagined could be there for him.
He had come from a jail cell and had intended to ask this woman to build a house for him, and instead...
They were screwing in the middle of the afternoon.
And something about it felt like the first real step toward freedom he’d taken since being released from prison.
She arched beneath him, gasping at her pleasure, her internal muscles gripping him as she came. He roared out his own release, grasping her tightly against his body as he slammed into her one last time.
And as he held her close against his chest, in a bed he should never have taken her to, he let go of the ideas of right and wrong. What she deserved. What he could give.
Because what had happened between them just now was like nothing he’d ever experienced on earth. And it wouldn’t be forever. It couldn’t be.
But if it was freedom for him, maybe it could be that for her, too.
Maybe...
Just for a little while, he could be something good for her.
And as he stared down at her lovely face, he ignored the hollow feeling in his chest that asked: Even if he knew he was bad for her, would he be able to turn away now?
He knew the answer.
He held her close, pressed her cheek against his chest, against his thundering heartbeat.
And she pressed her hand over the knife wound on his midsection.
Oh, yes. He knew the answer.