Into the Fire (Bridge Book 2) (12 page)

“And Cameron…” I hedged.

“If I tell Cameron, he’s going to kick your ass. So for the sake of the business, I’m going to spare him the dirty details.”

I nodded, grateful for the sliver of mercy my new sister-in-law offered me. I didn’t deserve it, but I was thankful for it all the same.

“Thanks.”

I
’d texted
Darren half a dozen times. I was running late. Reilly had sent me on a last-minute shopping errand. Tracking down his favorite designer pens that hit the expense account at four hundred and fifty dollars a pop had taken more time than I’d expected. By the time I finished, it was nearly nine o’clock.

I had to be at the new office fresh the next day. No way could I squeeze in a date with Darren, much as I wanted to.

I turned my key in the door and walked into the apartment, ready to curse for the next half hour straight over a glass of wine. Except Eli’s music wasn’t playing like it usually was when I came home, and the savory aroma of garlic and butter wafted over me.

I turned past the small hallway into the living room. Darren was lying on the couch, his bare feet propped on one end. He held his phone in his hand and the light glowed against his flawless skin.

I dropped my bags on my orange chair. “What are you doing here?”

He tossed the phone on the coffee table and rose with a dazzling smile. “I was trying to surprise you with dinner. I could have timed it better though. Sorry. It’s probably not so great now.”

He gestured to a few feet away where the small kitchen table had been set for two. Several bowls and dishes were covered with aluminum foil. A single candle burned in the center of the table.

“How did you get in?”

“Eli. He’s sleeping over at Taylor’s, I guess.” Darren shrugged.

“This is crazy.”

He laughed. “Why?”

Warmth flowed through me. I was overwhelmed with the thoughtfulness of what he’d done. And here I couldn’t even show up on time for it.

“I’m such a jerk. I feel awful.” I brought my hand to my mouth.

He came close, circling my waist with his strong arms. “I think your boss is the jerk. I’m just happy you’re finally here.”

I sighed and folded my arms around his neck, resting my cheek against his chest. He was so solid against me. Nothing in my world seemed as important when he was near. It was so easy…falling for him. Falling harder, faster.

“Are you hungry?” The quiet murmur vibrated through me.

Truth was I was starving, but Darren’s kindness had completely captivated me. No one had ever done anything like this for me before.

I had no words for that.

His eyes glimmered, and my chest ached with all the things I hadn’t said. Things I wanted to say when the time was right.

I was too tired to overthink it. I pulled my body—and then my mouth—tight against his. He was in my lungs, all man and musk, his skin heating me through my clothes. Then the taste that was only Darren on my tongue.

The earthy growl from his chest hit my ears and sent shock waves of pleasure straight to my core.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, as he lifted me off my feet and took us to my bedroom.

He lowered me at the foot of the bed. I caressed down his chest slowly, over his pectorals all the way down to his well-defined abdominals. Sliding my palms under his plain white T-shirt, I marveled anew at his incredible physique. And he was mine. This breathtaking man wanted
me
.

My touch went lower. He was already hard, his arousal obvious through his faded blue jeans. I caught my lower lip between my teeth. Nothing but a layer of denim between me and more pleasure than I’d ever known. I molded my hand over the outline of his erection, and he caught my wrist.

He clucked his tongue, and a flicker of mischief glinted in his eyes. “You made me wait, beautiful. Now you can wait a little.”

I pouted my lip and leaned in to get closer to him. More contact. More heat. He punctuated the gentle order with his mouth over mine. His tongue plunged deeper. Sweet velvet strokes.

I moaned, rubbing myself against him. I cursed my clothes…and his patience.

“Easy, sweetheart. We have all night.”

Smiling against my lips, he eased back, which only created more pressure within me. I was wild for the man, for his touch and his dirty words in my ears. I was ready to do anything to recapture the pleasure we’d found before.

I didn’t really have all night, not if I was being responsible. I was starting my new job in the morning, but suddenly I didn’t give a shit. Staying up all night tearing up the sheets with Darren would be worth it, any day.

With one hand still around my wrist, he spun me so my back was to him.

He licked and nibbled up the column of my neck, sending a thousand tiny sparks of desire over my skin. My tits were suddenly heavy and tight, outgrowing my bra in my mind.

“Love your taste…the way you smell.” He moaned softly, nuzzling into my hair. “You’re a gift, Vanessa. I want to unwrap you.”

I grinned like a girl about to get her wish. I craved his skin on mine and so much more. “Then what?”

“You want me to spoil the surprise? Or do you want me to tell you all the filthy things I’m going to do to you?”

My breathing sped up. I’d never been great at dirty talk, but Darren was different. He was bad and uninhibited, and I loved it. I wanted to hear him promise me ecstasy in slow explicit detail.

“Tell me everything.” I rolled my head back on his shoulder and shifted my ass to tease the prize in his pants a little more.

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Bad girl,” he growled. He seized my other wrist, binding them both behind me with one firm grip. The circumstance put unwelcome distance between our bodies. Then he turned us together so we faced my mirror.

His dark gaze met mine. “Okay, Vanessa. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to strip you down. First your clothes.” He nipped at the place where my neck met my shoulder and started slowly zipping down the back of my sheath dress. “Then your modesty. I’m going to spread your legs and take my time admiring the paradise between your thighs. I’ve been fantasizing about your beautiful little cunt, Vanessa, and all the things I want to do to it.”

I arched back against him.

“Then I’m going to make you come all over my hand. I want you loose so I can fuck you hard.” He yanked my dress down over my shoulder.

My eyes rolled back, and the blood in my body seemed to double. I was pulsing. Heavy. Overflowing with desire. He was single-handedly doing this to me with words, and only his touch could rescue me.

“How does that sound, sweetheart?”

I released a whimper. “Yes… God, yes.”

He released his hold on my wrists and my dress fell at my feet. Unclasping my bra, he let that fall away too.

My chest heaved under uneven breaths. My need for his hands on me was outrageous. But he touched me only to drag my panties down to the floor with the rest of my clothes. I stood there, naked everywhere he was still clothed. Vulnerable. Aching so badly for him.

I sighed as his hands traveled the contours of my back, all the way down to where my ass creased against my upper thigh.

“And this pretty little ass of yours. I’m going to do things to that too one day. I’m going to make you come a thousand ways. That’s a promise.”

Anticipation turned into an unbearable heat under my skin. I was so wound up, I might have said yes to anything. Even things I’d never done before.

No one had commanded my pleasure the way Darren had. He turned sex into something so much more for me. There was nothing repetitive or simple about the way we came together. I’d go anywhere with him. Say yes to any invitation.

Foolish maybe, but a part of me wanted to be the best he’d ever had too. I was determined to give him more than the other women who’d had him.

He leaned down, softly kissing my shoulder. “Spread your legs for me.”

I swallowed and moved my feet apart a comfortable distance.

He lifted his head, and I met his hungry stare in the mirror. I knew then that he was going to make good on his dirty promises. Right in front of this mirror.

A different kind of warmth eased any lingering tension in my muscles. The whisper of his breath on my skin and the comforting heat of his body behind me. I was vulnerable, but I felt safe and treasured above everything else.

Curving his hand to my front, he slid over my wet slit. I was throbbing for his touch. Situating my hypersensitive clit between the lengths of two fingers, he pinched gently.

I sucked in a breath and held back the cry that lodged in my throat. The action hadn’t brought me pain but made the ache in my clit all the more acute. Then, with slow firm strokes, he gave me the touch I’d been aching for, and my body climbed with every caress.

Even with the erotic vision staring back at me, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Stars lit up the darkness behind my eyelids, and I chased the incredible sensations his talented fingers were inspiring.

He released my wrists and used the hand that wasn’t pleasuring me to toy with my breast, squeezing and pinching. I thrust my hips into his touch, racing for more contact. He kept going at my clit, and I was edging closer to that sweet release.

“I want your pleasure more than I want mine, Vanessa. I want to see your face when you come for me. Watch.”

I opened my eyes and made a small sound of protest when he halted his ministrations. He swept a hand from my breast to my pussy, dragging his fingers through the moisture that had accumulated there.

Then he was back at my clit, anchoring my body to that delirious pleasure center. Behind me, his fingers slid between my cheeks.

I grabbed his forearm, bracing myself, no words. Then he pushed a single digit past the tight circle of my anus.

With a gasp, I rose on my toes, but his penetration only went deeper, again and again. The pressure on my clit went harder. My cheeks and chest were red with heat. My eyes were glossy with lust and need, wide open as Darren continued to assault all my senses. His fingers were in me just about every way a lover could be, but my shock melted almost instantly.

The orgasm I’d been running toward crashed over me like a tidal wave. Fast and hard and crushing.

“Oh my God!”

The cry that came out of me was pure ecstasy. I quaked in his arms. My legs buckled under the incredible release. My body went slack against him, and he held me as pleasure hummed through me.

“What are you doing to me?”

He whispered a kiss against my neck and held me a little tighter.

“I’m ruining you for anyone else but me.”

All the days without her melted together, stacked up like a heavy weight. I needed relief.

Lying on the bed, waiting and wanting, she was perfection. Smooth skin curved around a body that had my dick aching every time I saw her. The slight plane of her belly. Breasts that fit perfectly in my palms. The glistening lips of her bare pussy, spread for me, waiting for my cock.

This hadn’t been part of my master plan, but I sure as hell wasn’t arguing. We could sit and eat and talk and try to get on the same page with my screwed up past another night. Right now, all I cared about was burying myself so deep in Vanessa that nothing else existed.

I wanted her rough and sweet, feisty and loose. I wanted her mouth, her pussy, and any place else she’d let me in. I’d consume her, pleasure her, and use her until neither one of could see straight.

Even as the thought entered my mind, I wondered if it would ever be enough. In my nearly thirty years of living, I could barely remember the faces belonging to the bodies that had given me release. I’d craved that pinnacle moment, but never the person. Nothing like this.

Now I doubted whether I could ever stop needing to sate myself inside Vanessa, this beautiful incredible woman, over and over.

I tugged my T-shirt over my head and shucked off my pants and boxers. I found a condom in my pocket and rolled it on. I wanted her so goddamn bad I was shaking. The bed dipped under my weight as I nudged her thighs apart around me. I caressed up her thigh and hip and over her belly.

I trailed down to her mound and spread her open…pink and sweet and ripe. My mouth watered, and I resisted the urge to lick her straight into another orgasm.

Slowly, I pressed into her pussy with my fingers, exploring the wet velvet flesh. She gasped and gripped me when I grazed her G-spot, the place I knew would put her over the edge again and again.

“This pussy is mine.”

She answered with a sigh.

The need to consume her, to physically lose myself to her in every conceivable way, overwhelmed me.

Maybe I could lose the man I’d once been. The one who’d wasted time with too many others who weren’t her. I could just be hers. Pleasure her, comfort her, and show her things about her body that no one ever would.

I wanted to be that man.

She spread her legs farther and lifted her hips into my slow torturing touch.

“I’m going to fuck you harder than you’ve ever been fucked. Tell me that’s what you want.”

Her eyelids fluttered to half-mast. “I want that.”

“No one’s ever going to have you the way I will,” I said, my words heavy with the promise. I dropped down, hovering over her supple body.

She lifted her torso and brought me to her at once, kissing me hard. “Take me. Ruin me.”

I groaned against her mouth and met her passion with all of mine. I guided the tip of my cock into her and then shoved into her so hard her breath rushed out.

“Mine.”

Her lip trembled, and a single affirmation came out in whisper. “Yes.”

I cupped the back of her neck and circled around her hips, holding her in place. Then I pounded into her. She dug her nails into my sides. I didn’t care. I welcomed the pinpoints of discomfort. She took me completely. Her pussy was tight and slick around my cock. I slammed home again and again.

“Vanessa…”

I said her name over and over, and together we created an erotic symphony. The sound of our bodies crashing, becoming one. Breathless adorations mixed with her cries as they grew louder and longer.

I couldn’t tell when she stopped coming and started again. Still, I felt her climbing higher with me all the way. Everything was too intense, like an electric storm between us—dangerous and overpowering.

My pulse hammered in my veins. With every desperate touch between us, a strange emotion raged through me, mingling with the ecstasy I felt being inside her body.