Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You’ve been pretty mum these past few days about what you’re doing with Doc and Everett.
” Audra sat cross-legged on the end of the bed as Gage undressed.
This was her favorite part of the day: their bedtime conversations rehashing the day’s events, sharing stories from their lives, or just talking like they’d been together for years.
Being with Gage was just that easy, as comfortable as an old married couple.
But with the addition of sex sizzling enough to rival insatiable twenty-somethings.
Okay, scratch that. Watching Gage undress while they chatted was her second favorite part of the day. What came after was most definitely first.
Still, her gaze wandered every inch of skin he exposed in his leisurely transition from considerate, easy-going daytime Gage to passionate, commanding bedroom Gage.
He faced the dresser and slid his shirt over his head, the muscles along his back bunching.
He turned and tossed the shirt in the hamper, his chest hair stair-stepping down his abs to dive beneath his waistband.
She held her breath as his fingers played with the clasp of his pants, waiting with barely contained excitement for the reveal of her favorite body part.
Her skin itched, too tight to restrain her arousal, too covered by clothing for the skin-on-skin she needed more than oxygen. Did she detect the bulge of his erection? Would she see his thick cock first, or would he turn so she’d get a delicious view of his ass?
Heart pounding in her head, her vision narrowed to just his fingers paused at his zipper. If he didn’t hurry up, she was going to explode.
“Don’t pass out on me, beautiful.”
His voice shocked her attention back to his face, and her tunnel vision faded. “Wh-what?”
One side of his lips lifted in a knowing smile. “You stopped breathing there for a minute. Had me worried.”
Oh. So it hadn’t been mere hyper-focus on his hands. She’d run out of oxygen. But she didn’t dare admit it. “I was merely waiting for you to…” She waved in the general direction of his crotch.
“You watch me every night like I’m dessert.” His low chuckle did things to her nether regions. “Why do you think I take my time?”
“Well, you took too long.”
He bent at the waist and brushed a kiss along her lips. “Worried I might refuse to undress? Don’t. As long as you enjoy the view, I am happy to provide the eye candy.”
Audra giggled at the idea of this stalwart, potent man being as fleeting as candy, even as she craved him more than chocolate.
Maybe he was dessert. Her mouth watered for him like a starved woman at a smorgasbord as he unzipped his pants and let them skim down his thighs like she wanted to with her hands.
His erection bobbed in front of her, an eager pet awaiting affection.
Affection she was more than happy to provide.
A hungry moan rumbling in her throat as she slid to the carpet and took him in her mouth, loving the glide of her tongue along the underside of his velvet length.
She raked her fingernails across his powerful ass and down his thighs, and swallowed the salty precum that coated her mouth.
The only sounds in the silent room were his moans and the moist suction of her mouth as it stretched around him.
With each trip down his length, the wiry curls at its base tickled her nose.
His legs trembled and his hips rocked, his breaths coming faster and with more force.
She desperately wanted him deep inside her, but couldn’t decide if that meant here in her mouth, or another hungry part of her anatomy.
Moisture trickled between her thighs and her clit throbbed. Even her nipples tingled with arousal, an unusual reaction. She popped him out of her mouth and fisted his cock, stroking its length and circling the pad of her thumb along the sensitive spot under the hood.
“Nnngh, God that feels good, beautiful.” He groaned. “Ungh, mmm, I’ll strip for you any time of the day. Just say the word.”
His words pulled her up short. She enjoyed the view of Gage Austin naked, yet she denied him that same view in return. Granted, the landscape of her body wasn’t as scenic as his. But keeping that choice from him made her a hypocrite.
Two warm hands framed her face, shocking her out of her thoughts and back to the fact she’d stopped her attention to his cock. He tilted her face to his. “I lost you again, Audra. What’s got you so distracted, beautiful?”
“I-I’m so sorry I stopped. I just… just…”
“Hey, it’s okay.” He kneeled on the floor, wincing when his leg twisted, and dropped his hands to her hips. “Has the shine worn off this penny?”
She opened her mouth to protest his words but he shook his head.
“Don’t tell me it could never happen. You’re under pressure.
Hunted. On the run. Away from home and surrounded by relative strangers who claim you’re free but insist you stay in this underground bunker.
It can wear on any person, even someone as strong and determined as you. ”
A long pause as she considered his words, then his voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “So, this… us… being with me… we’d be fools to deny the possibility this close proximity is the only thing keeping us together.”
He thought she was only with him because she was suffering some sort of Stockholm Syndrome?
Audra speared him with a glare and poked his chest with a finger.
“Get this through your thick skull right now, Gage Austin. I’ve known about you for years.
I’ve watched you every day suffer through your security scans and the looks everyone gives you.
I’ve seen you hold yourself apart from everyone, every day, just because you’re a cyborg.
I’ve been in love with you for a long time.
This… forced proximity, as you call it… isn’t what’s keeping me with you. ”
Audra clutched his shoulders and pulled his forehead to hers. Her voice shook with the surge of emotion washing over her. “I’m here in this bunker—in this room, this bed—because I love you. And I finally get to be with you. And you’re everything I had hoped you’d be and more.”
He opened his mouth, maybe to profess his own love, but she put a finger over his lips to stop it. “But I’ve been selfish. I…” She swallowed past the lump and blinked back the tears burning in the corners of her eyes. “I have something to show you.”
Audra stood and perched her butt on the edge of the bed, then reached for the hem of her shirt and tugged it upward. But Gage caught her hands in his. “You don’t have to do this, beautiful.”
David’s words from the day rang in her head. We don’t keep secrets. We heal each other. She had a secret to expose. She needed Gage’s help to heal.
“Yes, I do have to do this, Gage. I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us ever again.”
Still kneeling before her, his hands returned to her hips and he watched her as she tugged her shirt off.
Her nerves made her hands shake, and she got an elbow caught in a sleeve for an awkward moment.
But once she tossed the shirt to the floor, and forced her gaze back to Gage, half afraid to see the expression of revulsion on his face, all her previous worries faded like mist in the sunlight.
He looked at her breasts as if they were a priceless treasure.
“I researched the type of treatment you might receive, and the after-effects.” His gaze volleyed between her eyes and her pitiful breasts. “All the pictures looked like this.”
“I know. Ugly. Lumpy and lopsided.”
“They’re not the breasts you had when you were in your twenties, no.” He agreed. “But they’re the breasts you have now. The breasts of a woman who has suffered and survived a disease we’ve supposedly cured.”
Audra opened her mouth to downplay the tone of admiration in his voice.
It made her uncomfortable; she wasn’t anything to be admired.
But he put two fingertips on her lips and shook his head.
“You once told me the scar on my hip—the one where my cyborg leg attaches—was a mark of honor, and that it gave you strength to face your own battles.” He placed a hand on her sternum, spanning her heart and near her breasts without actually touching them, warming her whole body with that one touch.
“Your breasts do the same for me, Audra. They represent courage and hope, and I want to be worthy of the woman who bears them.”
His hand trailed down the center of her chest and returned to her hips while Audra let his words seep into her soul.
He hadn’t recoiled in horror. He hadn’t gagged.
He hadn’t even pretended there was nothing wrong.
Her boobs had been in a battle. And won.
Even if winning had forever changed them, they were still victorious…
she was victorious. She’d battled cancer and had won.
And she would continue to fight. Cancer.
Richard Hawks. Anyone who said cyborgs were second-class citizens.
She would fight alongside Gage, and the others.
Courage and hope. Once again, this amazing, selfless man had given her a priceless gift of life. How would she ever repay him for it?
Gage banded his arms around her hips, his chest brushing the tops of her thighs. He looked up at her, a rogue smile tilting his lips so her heart somersaulted and her uterus convulsed. “I know I’m a professed ass man, Audra, but I also want to put those tender morsels in my mouth.”
She laughed. God, it felt good to be this carefree, all her worries lifted and the contentment of having this wonderful man beside her filled her with euphoria.
Whatever happened, they could tackle it.
Together. She leaned down and kissed him.
“Well then, how about you just lay down on the bed, and let me drive the tank?”
His smile was pure joy, the lecherous waggle of his eyebrows pure comedy.
He grabbed her around the waist and she squealed as he lifted her up and over, settling her on top of his powerful thighs and squeezing her full bottom as he laid down on the mattress.
He swept his palms along her sides until his hands rested on her ribcage below her breasts.
Then he looked in her eyes, his own expression one of wonderment.
“Audra, you are every bit as beautiful as the day I met you. As that morning on the conference table.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. Now he was just making shit up.
“Actually, that’s not entirely true.” His quick reverse caught her attention. “You’re even more beautiful. That morning, you were just a woman I’d admired from afar and chatted with in passing.”
His hands cupped her breasts and she gasped, flinching away, but he shook his head to stop her. Audra fought her instinct to pull back. What did she think he was going to do? Make fun of her boobs? Laugh at her insecurity? Jerk his hands back with a disgusted Ewww? That wasn’t the Gage she knew.
“You are more than merely beautiful in my eyes. After these past several days, I’ve seen your strength, your heart, your courage.
” He continued, his hands content where they were.
“You bring me peace and joy… two things I never thought I’d know again.
I love you. Every inch of your body, every bit of your soul. ”
With all the reverence of a prayer in church, he rubbed his thumbs around her areolas, rolling across their puckered peaks.
His hands dwarfed her breasts, but they always had.
Her breasts weren’t nearly as firm as before, their mass reduced by both the chemo and radiation.
That didn’t deter him either. As handsome as he was, he’d no doubt fondled breasts of all shapes and sizes and consistencies through his adult life.
Tears brimmed her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Crying seemed to be her new normal these days. He thumbed away the wetness. “You’re crying again.”
“Happy tears this time.” She nodded, her voice thick with emotion. “And you’re smiling.”
His smile broadened, and he winked at her. He was giddy as a kid with a new toy. “Of course, I’m smiling. I get to play with your boobies!”
He squeezed them in emphasis and bucked his hips. “You know, you promised to drive this ride.” He swatted her playfully on the bottom and nodded in the direction of the nightstand. “Get to it, beautiful, before my little soldier stops standing at attention.”
She rolled her eyes again, her earlier reservations seeming to have evaporated.
Or maybe simply replaced by the intense sexual desire Gage inspired in her.
With a giggle, Audra leaned forward to snag a condom from the drawer, the position dangled her chest over his face close enough for him to flick a nipple with his tongue.
Audra’s surprised squeak turned to a throaty sigh as he pulled that breast into his mouth and sucked.
Gage moved to her other breast for more of the same, but she wanted more.
Pulling back, she made haste with the condom and they both moaned as she took him deep inside, setting a leisurely pace, her buttocks brushing the hairs on his upper thighs and her breasts swaying against his face as he lathered them with his tongue and sucked and nibbled them.
Everywhere their bodies touched, her nerves were livewires of pleasure.
“Aaaah, that feels so good.” Audra murmured, her head back, her eyes closed in rapture, her body on fire. “My breasts were never very sensitive, but whatever you’re doing feels amazing.”
Gage murmured his general appreciation against her soft skin and urged her toward a faster pace.
Fine by her because she was going to come soon.
Within minutes, they both moaned and tensed and reached their peak, crying out their collective release and collapsing into a panting pile of limbs and mingling breaths.
Fortunately, he had enough energy to dispose of the condom and turn off the lamp, because Audra was already drifting into a replete slumber, her body sated and all her former worries dispersed in the wake of Gage’s adoration.
In the darkness, punctuated by the rustle of sheets, he pulled her into his arms. He held her like a precious thing, a palm over her breasts and his nose in her hair.
She flew toward dreamland on swift wings, tucked against the warm safety of his body.
Just as she fell into that serene abyss of sleep, she heard his whisper.
“Never be farther away from me than this, beautiful.”