“Aw, come on. I’ll tell you my childhood trauma if you tell me yours.”
I slitted my eyes at him. “You are so weird.” He waited patiently until finally, with a huff, I gave in. The allure of knowing what shaped him, defined him, was too much. “Fine. You first.”
He rolled his neck and stared up at the ceiling, considering. “Donegal killed a kitten I’d adopted when I was a lad.” I looked at him in horror. “I found the little bugger in an alley, brought it home. Spent a week caring for it, nursing it back to health. He asked to see it and broke its neck in front of me. Said I needed to rid myself of things that made me weak.” When he looked back at me, his eyes were dead. “Your turn.”
I started to touch him, tell him I was sorry, but I contented myself with straddling his lap more comfortably. He pressed, thick and long, against my core, and in spite of the subject matter I could feel myself heating. Turning liquid. The effect he had on me was ridiculous. With an effort I pulled myself back to the question at hand. “My mother and I have never been close. I think it’s something to do with both my father and older brother Jamie dying together in the same boating accident. She just...went away. She was never really there afterwards. Didn’t care about anything past making sure I was dressed appropriately, because you see, if I looked like a ragamuffin that reflected poorly on her.” The words came quick now that I’d started. “And then she married Paul, who was a complete douche, and it was as if she just expected me to consider him my father. Replace the one I’d had as though he’d never been there.”
“I’m sure she was hurting. My mam lost a child in infancy. Baby brother.” He stroked my collarbones absently. “She was never quite the same woman after.”
“Well, sure, she was hurting. Does that make it right? And Jamie. I barely remember him because she just erased him. Removed all photos, closed his room up, and did her best to forget she’d ever had a son. I don’t know if I just never measured up to Jamie’s perfection in her eyes, and she just found it easier to dismiss me altogether, but regardless of the reason… It hurt. My whole fucking childhood hurt.”
He didn’t answer, just tugged me until I fell flush against him. He pulled my hairband loose and started to undo my braid. I wrapped my arms around his waist, closing my eyes as he ran his fingers through my hair.I loved how he did that. It was peaceful. Soothing.
I didn’t want to be soothed, though.
I sat up again, this time giving an intentional rock of my hips against his. Brodie hissed through his teeth and gripped my hips, his fingers biting into my flesh. Holding his eyes, I slowly peeled my sports bra away, my nipples pebbling as soon as the cool air hit them.
The tip of his tongue flicked out and wet his bottom lip and he reached for me.
“Ah-ah.” I wagged a finger at him and took hold of his hands, pushing them back down to his sides. “Keep those right there.”
“You’ll be the death of me, lass,” he whispered.
Giving him a coy smile, I dragged my torso down the bare skin of his chest, my hands following the path of my breasts as they brushed against his pecs and then his abdomen. I left
kisses as I went, tracing the ridge and dip of each muscle and the groove that bisected them until I reached the Adonis belt peeking above his shorts. His stomach jumped and hollowed out under my mouth and fingers and I exulted in the power I wielded in that moment. This man had put himself in my hands, for whatever purposes I desired. It was a heady feeling.
Looking up to meet his eyes playfully, I took the waistband of his shorts and boxers in one hand and slid my index finger back and forth along the inside of the elastic, brushing lightly against his skin.
“Take me out.”
Excitement drummed in my veins and I tugged them down to his feet, letting his cock jut free between us, long and thick and strangely beautiful before me. Moving myself back up his legs, I situated myself comfortably on my knees in between them, my bottom on my heels. Then, with one more glance up at Brodie’s rapt expression, I leaned forward to slide my cheek along him, nuzzling into and breathing in the musky scent of this man I had given my trust to. I touched him, running one finger up and then down his length before taking him in my hand and curling a fist around him.
“Mother Mary, would you stop playing with it and put it in your mouth?”
One eyebrow arched. “Say please.”
He groaned. “Please. Jaysus, please.”
With a secretive smile, I bent forward and shifted until I was balanced on my knees with my forearms on his thighs. Then I took him into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the head until he hissed and lifted a hand, twining his fingers into my hair and exerting the slightest pressure. I allowed it, knowing if I gave indication, he’d lower it again.
I licked and sucked and drew him in as far as I could, humming softly around his girth. “Ah, fuck. That’s it, love.” I looked up and saw him watching me, eyes hooded and intent, before returning to my task. He couldn’t hold still beneath me, his hips jerking and thrusting in time to the suction of my mouth. His pleasure incited mine, brought a hot rush of fluid between my legs, especially when he couldn’t keep himself from directing me. “Harder. Faster. Deeper.”His bossiness, even with me indisputably in charge, turned me on. My lips stung; my eyes watered, and though it hurt, I craved the pounding of his cock with every beat of my heart.
And then it was gone. I protested but Brodie’s hands were beneath my arms and lifting me, settling me against him for a flash of time to divest me of my yoga pants and panties in feverish bursts of motion. When they were tangled around one ankle, he pulled my legs up to straddle him and with a single sharp drive of his hips, connected our bodies.
Pleasure and pain coalesced into one intense sensation. I moaned, closing my eyes, as his hands clenched at the fold of thigh and hip and directed the movement of my pelvis. “Look at me,macushla.”
His whisper penetrated the feeling fogging my brain and I slitted my eyes to meet his, amber gems glittering in the planes of his face.Macushla.The word was greater than I could ever have imagined. My pulse. My vein.I was his lifeblood. He’d been telling me for days now, without ever saying the words. And now, the emotion I saw unmasked in his eyes was my undoing. It was more…so much more…than lust or even desire. It was wanting, and possession, and the inevitability of dawn after night. I placed my hands against his chest, feeling his heart race beneath my palms, and undulated against him, the hard strength of his body a perfect counterpoint to crash myself against, time and time again.
The thumb of one hand found my clit, circling sweetly until wave after violent wave rose and rolled within me, climbing to crest and fall, pulling me under and spinning me until I shuddered in release. Brodie followed a moment after, quickening until he convulsed against me and pulled me tightly to him to collapse, limp, against his chest.
Heartbeats passed.
“That was…” My voice trailed off. Words were small compared to what had just passed between us.
“More.”
The word was a benediction and my hands tightened in reflex on the flesh of his chest. Yes. That was it. It was more—more than anything I’d experienced with any other person. More than anything I’d thought I’d have the chance to experience. It was more than sex, more than the joining of his flesh to mine. It was more than words, and yet so simple our hearts interpreted it perfectly.
We lay like that for countless minutes, until he softened within me and I reluctantly moved to separate our bodies. Then he brought my mouth to his, kissing me with an agonizing blend of sweetness and sex, until I stood and led him to the shower, and later to the bed. We stayed there through supper, until the night grew deep and our breathing grew shallow with exhaustion.
We were there, tangled around one another, when a faint scraping sounded from the front door. It penetrated past normal night sounds, clearing the vestiges of sleep, and I clutched Brodie’s arm.
Someone was here.
