Chapter 16 #3
He vibrated with silent laughter, and thrust deep.
After all my fine words about not screaming, I had to press my face against the couch to muffle the gasping moans that jerked out of me at each slick stroke. He gripped my hips and pumped hard, fucking me expertly into a blinding explosion.
This time, as I drifted back, the sweat on my naked body made me shiver as I braced myself for a repeat performance of last night. The post-coital lava pit.
He was collapsed over me, panting. If he was cold and rejecting to me now, I’d be destroyed.
I would also have to go through the whole emotional routine again.
Feeling stupid for letting my gullible, wretched, silly-ass self be seduced into this vulnerable position once again, when I already knew better.
Cass Clarke, the eternal slow learner.
But he didn’t pull away. He just stroked me, hip, waist, ribs, cupping my breast, teasing my nipple as he squeezed the side of my neck. So far, so good.
He withdrew from my body with a low, grinding sigh. “So do you want first crack at the bathroom?” he asked. “Or shall I go first?”
Huh. Maybe he wanted to sneak off while I wasn’t looking. Well, let him. That might be the easiest thing. Slightly less humiliation involved. But only slightly.
“Sure.” I stumbled for the bathroom and shut myself safely inside before I dared to turn on the light.
I was shocked at the look on my face. Good thing it was dark in the bedroom. I didn’t want to show my eyes to anyone. It was written all over me, how scared I felt, how uncertain I was. How needy.
I washed up hastily with the shower nozzle, wishing I’d had the wits and foresight to bring the nightgown into the bathroom.
Just to feel more protected when I walked out.
But there was no effective protection, not after being pounded into sobbing, wailing oblivion by the man of my dreams. As it was, in that shaky state, I had to strut out there, stark naked, like the queen of the world. The Red Queen. Hah.
I switched off the light before putting my hand on the knob, and tightened every muscle in my body to get ready for… whatever was on the other side.
Which was to say, probably an empty room.
I opened the door and found him standing right there. I jerked back. “Whoa!” I said. “You scared me!”
“Sorry,” he said. “My turn?”
“Sure,” I said, bemused. “Ah… go for it.”
So. He hadn’t left. Now I had to deal with him. Was that good, bad? Who knew.
At least it was interesting. It wasn’t sad and flat and stupid, like an empty room would have been. So I was going with… good. Very good.
Yes. I would dare to think that this was a promising development.
I put my nightgown back on and paced. Restless, nervous and excited.
After a few minutes, the door opened and the light was still on, spilling out, blinding me.
He sauntered out, magnificently naked. So freaking gorgeous, it was just too much for my poor, overloaded sensibilities. It shouldn’t be allowed.
“Could you turn that light off?” I asked him. “It makes my eyes hurt.”
He flicked it off obligingly. “But I want to see you. Can we turn on the bedside—”
“No.”
“Okay,” he soothed. “Whatever you want. So, ah…” His voice petered out.
“So what?” I asked.
“I was just wondering if you’d like to get into that bed,” he said. “With me.”
“You want sex again? Already?”
He let out a short laugh. “Full disclosure? I want sex with you all the time. That’s just a given. But I was thinking right now I could just, ah. You know. Hold you.”
“Hold…” I stopped, speechless. “You want to cuddle?”
“Is that so outrageous?” he asked, defensive. “I’ll always be up for sex, believe me. Say the word, and I stand ready. But we don’t have to. We can just…”
“Cuddle,” I said again, still unbelieving.
“Yeah,” he said. “It would be nice.”
Nice. The word made me want to break out into hysterical laughter. Cuddling. Nice. Those words didn’t belong in the apocalyptic shitshow that was my current life.
“It’s okay, if you don’t want to,” he said carefully.
“It’s not that.” My voice came out shakier than I wanted it to. “I’m just wondering. Can you guarantee that whatever fiery pit opened up inside you last night won’t come back and slam me in mid-cuddle? Because that would really suck for me.”
He was silent for a long moment. “It comes when it comes,” he said cautiously.
“Ah. So I won’t ever know when you might morph into an instant asshole. At least you wouldn’t be able to throw me out of this room. You’d have to get up and leave yourself. Slightly less horrible, but still a thing to be avoided.”
“I can’t swear it won’t happen again,” he said, his voice low and careful. “But I’ll try not to push you away if it does. It’s just that, ah… it won’t be pretty. So just… you know. Be ready.”
I was taken aback at the stark vulnerability in his voice. It moved me. Then again, maybe I was just being managed. The guy had some very smooth moves.
“I’m not that pretty inside right now myself,” I told him. “You be ready, too.”
“You seem great to me,” he said. “So? May I get into your bed?”
I couldn’t keep back a bark of laughter. “Wow, Shane, you weren’t so delicate and polite about it when you were putting your dick into me.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “If I did anything you didn’t like—”
“Oh, no! No worries on that score,” I assured him. “If you did anything I didn’t like, you would by God hear about it. I’m not the type to suffer in silence, believe me.”
“I do,” he said. “Believe you, I mean.”
That bewildered me. “You do? About what? What are we talking about exactly?”
He waved his hand. “You,” he said. “You still seem too good to be true. You’re too gorgeous, too brave, too smart. You’re just… too much to be real. But you are real.”
I pondered that for a moment, bewildered. “Ah, gosh. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily a compliment to have one’s existence on this mortal plane duly acknowledged, but whatever. Thanks. What was it that persuaded you?”
“Mostly, the way you are with your little sister,” he said. “You can’t fake that.”
“That’s true.” My voice caught.
“It went all right today,” he said. “Reuniting with Holly, I mean. I was shit-scared of that. But I didn’t smash or break anything. It was okay. Better than okay.”
“It certainly was,” I said. “You were fine with Holly. Great, even.”
“I’m grateful. And that gave me the nerve to try this again. Being a real person, I mean. Doing risky things like reaching out to an amazing woman. Touching her. Wooing her. Begging for her to forgive me for being such a fucking coward last night.”
“Ah,” I said, cautiously. “I see. Well, um. Consider yourself… forgiven. I guess.”
“Thank you,” he said. “So? May I get into your bed?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You should think about it long and hard. The Red Queen’s bed is a dangerous place. Are you sure you have the nerve?”
He was grinning. I saw his teeth flash in the dimness. “Will you chop off my head if I disappoint you?”
“You’ll never disappoint me in bed,” I told him. “It’s after that’s risky.”
“I won’t do that to you again,” he said. “If the lava pits open up, I’ll just try not to freak out on you. I’ll do everything I can. I’m so afraid of fucking this up.”
I harrumphed. “Well. That would imply there was a thing between us to fuck up. We’ve never discussed it, ever. And just sex, no matter how scorching hot it might be, does not count as ‘a thing.’”
“We could discuss it in bed,” he suggested.
I laughed at him. “Nice one, Masters. You already had your wicked way with me tonight. It’s a bad precedent. Make you think everything is yours for the taking.”
“I’ll take nothing for granted, I promise. And yes, there is something between us, apart from the spectacular sex. There has been since you sneaked down into my dungeon to see me.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” he said. “I was ready to die, Red. I was actually looking forward to it. Then you came tiptoeing in, and you fucked that all up. And suddenly, I didn’t want to die anymore. Which was kind of a huge fucking problem for me.”
“Aw,” I said, shakily. “That’s sweet.”
“Please, don’t jerk me around. I’m trying really hard. I’m sorry about last night. And I’m sorry if I was too aggressive with the sex. It just… comes over me.”
“You weren’t,” I said. “I liked it. Besides, I’m pretty aggressive myself.”
I thought I saw a brief smile flash over his face in the dimness. “Off with their heads,” he murmured.
“Exactly,” I said. “So. You solemnly promise to be good?”
“Good as gold,” he said.
“Well, then. In that case, you may get into my bed,” I said primly.
It felt comically awkward and shy, after all his hot moves on the couch. We went to opposite sides of the bed in silence, lifted the covers, and got in, like a couple of virginal noobs. Then we scooted closer, and closer still, until we met in the middle of the huge king-sized bed. And ahhhh. Yes.
As always, touching his hard, hot, naked body was a fresh, delicious shock to my senses.
He was so dense and solid. A sweet rush of emotion and sensation flashed through me.
He slid his arm under my neck, gathering me into his warmth.
It was a wonderful and terrifying sensation.
No one had ever done that for me. I’d cuddled my darling Reggie, of course, but she was my precious little honey to curl around and protect from the big bad world.
Not that I’d had so much luck with that.
Touching Shane… that was a new type of cuddling. A very different vibe.
“So,” I said. “You said before that you had decided that I was for real.”
“Yeah.” He sounded like he was wary of a trap. “And? So?”
“This implies that there was a time in which you were wondering if I wasn’t.”
He grunted. “I wasn’t even sure if you were a hallucination, Red. But my family all sees you, too. And they’re all grateful. So I’m pretty sure you’re flesh and blood. If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up. If it’s a drug trip, I don’t want to come down.”