Chapter 15
15
BIJOU
I pull back as red-hot fury possesses Rutger, and he screams into the night. But even his most extreme anger doesn’t scare me…
Because I’m the remedy. My touch and voice calm him, bring him back to the present. Whether he’s in the grips of PTSD or dark, spiraling emotions.
It’s always been like this…
It still has to be.
Doesn’t it?
My heart thumps as instinct takes over. I lithely crawl across his lap, straddling him in full recline, my left hand still cuffed to the headrest peg. He looks away, his face enraged and his body taut. But I won’t let him shut me out. I sink onto him, feeling the firm ridge under the zipper of his jeans where it hits the apex of my legs.
He exhales sharply, unable to hide his intense anger or burning desire. I softly stroke his face, wiping tears from his cheeks as emotion floods my own.
Drawing his unreadable, shadowed gaze back to mine, he looks past me, refusing to make eye contact. I whisper soothing words to him, my voice and touch slowly taking the sting out of his anger.
Everything about him—his masculine smell, his hard planes, his warm flesh—inspires a soul-crushing nostalgia. How have I lived one solitary second without him?
Rutger pulls me into him, tangling his hands in my hair, burying his face in my curls, and breathing ferociously. His entire body is tense with wrath, his muscles tight. I wrap myself around him, a mollifying balm. Slowly, his rage and lust evaporate into me until the frontiers of our flesh feel irrelevant.
His skin soaks into mine and mine into his, the delineation between our souls a thin glimmering evanescence, an incandescence where sparks alight at each other’s touch.
I ghost his neck and face, cheekbones and eyelids with my lips, trembling under the weight of years of unsatisfied longing. He grips my neck possessively, tasting the pulse point and tracing it down to my collarbone. A desperate growl shatters the quiet.
“Fuck, I’ve tried so hard, Bijou. But I can’t do it. I can’t live without you,” he whispers in anguish, voicing what I communicate with every touch, every breath, every taste of his familiar flesh. It’s the voice of a broken man—a man I don’t recognize but love wholeheartedly. I could heal him if he’d let me.
“Shh,” I say softly, not wanting even the suggestion of separation in the air. I could mend him, but I’m the source of his pain. It creates a bitter tension between our souls, even as our bodies welcome each other.
His arousal lengthens against my inner thigh, physically echoing the empty ache inside of me. My hunger for him is unmatched, overwhelming. Half-sobbing, half-panting, I confess through shaky breaths, “Baby, I’ve missed you so much.”
My lips follow the hard lines of his muscular neck and jaw to his ear. Nipping at his earlobe, I suck it into my mouth, nibbling it lightly with my teeth as he moans. My free hand slides down his chest, unbuttoning his white shirt, and my fingertips rove over his well-defined abs.
Rutger shivers at my touch, pulling me into his arousal. His hands caress my back and hips; hungry waves quake through me. His right hand snakes into my hair. Wrapping my curls possessively around his wrist, he draws my head back to bare the other side of my neck, devouring me with his lips and tongue as I whimper.
A warning sounds deep in his throat as my hand slaps against the driver’s side window to regain my balance, leaving a handprint in the moist fog clinging to it.
Grabbing the handcuff chain tying my wrist with his right hand, he tangles us together. Straining towards me, he captures my lips as a low rumble vibrates through his chest.
“What have you missed about me, kitten?” he pants, grinding against the warm, soft spot where my panties hug my crotch, wresting a needy cry from my lips. His expression is a study in tortured yearning.
Covering his face in tender kisses, I whisper, “Your smile and your smell. Your feel, the sexy five o’clock shadow on your cheeks. And your hard, thick cock. Your voice, your hair…”
I run my dainty fingers through his wild locks as my eyes thirstily absorb his face. His eyes hold mine, radiating sizzling pulses of lust. “The muscles in your jaw. Your eyes, even more intensely blue than I remember, your boyish smile, your Adam’s apple.” My fingertips flutter over his neck. “And the way you look at me. As if you’re trying to memorize everything about me. You’re the only person who’s ever taken the time to really see me.”
His fingers squeeze into my flesh desperately, and I groan against the feel of his granite arousal against my hot, wet panties. My core quivers, and I feel light-headed. But I can’t stop.
“I miss your naughty sense of humor and how you brought me coffee in the morning, waking me up with that sexy smile that made me beg you to crawl back under the sheets. I miss snuggling with you on the couch and the safety of your strong, warrior arms… Singing the blues to your guitar or keys and dancing late into the night… How you soaped your hair and sang Elvis in the shower and the way you ate your spaghetti—cut up and piled high with cottage cheese and mozzarella. I miss everything about you, even the way you left socks scattered around our bedroom and the toilet seat up. And I can tell you, with five years of distance between us, nothing compares. No one holds a candle to you. I’ve missed you every moment of every day since the day we were supposed to be married. And I’m so sorry. I can’t help myself. I can’t stay away from you even though I should.”
Leveling his gaze on me, he confesses, “Losing you destroyed me, Bijou. Without you, life made no sense. So, I pursued meaningless hookups, the party lifestyle, and too much drinking… all to numb the pain. It never worked. But it changed me and not for the better. Even if I could trust you again, I’m afraid I don’t know how to be the man you just described, the man you deserve.”