Last Kiss (27 page)

Our history did not bode well for me.

I shook my head, my neck tense as I struggled to temper the threatening sob. “This is the worst thing you’ve ever asked me to do, Amber. He’s the only person I’ve ever loved besides you.”

“And he’s the only person who’s ever loved me besides you.” She was hard and unwavering. Set in her decision.

And the more resolute she grew, the more I fell apart. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you? You’re really making me go.”

“If you stay, can you really be happy knowing I’m not? It’s not like I have the choice to leave like you do. Not with Micha after me. It will be like this, like it is now, day after day after day. Can you keep living like this? Because I can’t.”

She used pretty words. I’d feel for her if I had anything beyond what I was feeling myself. Right now, my primary emotion was contempt.

“Say it,” I demanded. “I need you to say it again. Tell me exactly what you want from me.” If she couldn’t say it, I wouldn’t have to obey.

She didn’t even hesitate. “I love you, Em. And I want you to leave.”

Funny how being so let down felt like falling, and I wondered if this was how Missy had felt, tumbling through the sky, seeing the bottom get closer every second of her descent.

“There’s a flight tomorrow off the island,” Amber said. “I’ve already checked. It leaves in the morning, and I know the manager at the resort. He’ll be able to get you a seat. It’s never a full flight.” There was more, words that made sense but sounded far away and out of tune.

I hated that she assumed I’d just do as she’d asked. But more, I hated that I would. She had power, and I kowtowed to it. It was what had drawn her to me. It was what had drawn Reeve to me, too, and it wasn’t a trait that I could suddenly shed, no matter how much I wanted to. No matter that it brought me here, plummeting to the ground.

“I should let you get some sleep,” Amber said, drawing my attention after she’d finished talking. Or maybe she’d been silent a while. I’d stopped paying attention. “I’ll give you all the info you need in the morning.”

I perked up as she started toward my door. “Let me change and I’ll walk you. I don’t think you should be roaming the compound alone.”

The bathroom clock flipped to nine thirty-three as soon as I shut the door. I allowed myself one minute – exactly sixty seconds – to crumble and break apart. When the clock on the counter flipped to nine thirty-four, I gathered myself together, stripped off my conservative one-piece, and put on the robe that had been hanging on a hook next to the door.

We were quiet as I walked her down the hall, past the room that I now knew was Reeve’s, to the courtyard.

“Good evening, ladies,” said Tabor, one of the security guards. “Headed to your room, Ms. Pries? I’ll escort you.”

“I’ll watch you from here,” I said, even though it wasn’t necessary with Tabor there. “I’ll stay until your light goes on so I know you’re okay.”

Amber turned to me, her expression soft and grateful. “Thank you, Em. For everything.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to my cheek.

And I smiled tightly and tried not to compare it to the kiss Judas had given Jesus that night in the Garden of Gethsemane, a kiss of betrayal. Tried not to focus on the sacrifice that she had forced upon me. Tried to pretend that this last kiss of hers was not one that brought quite so much pain.

Then she and Tabor were walking away, and her light went on, and the guard took his post in the courtyard, and I wondered if instead it were I who was Judas and she the betrayed. Because, as soon as I turned from her, I went to Reeve’s room. And, without knocking, I opened his door, threw off my robe, and fell naked at his feet.

Then I gave him the three words he’d been wanting to hear for so long, the three words I could no longer give to Amber. “I trust you.”

Reeve had been lying on top of his bed when I walked in. He’d changed from his swimsuit into pajama bottoms, and the smell of body wash erased the smell of chlorine, suggesting he’d showered since I’d seen him.

Now, as I knelt naked in front of him, he stood and looked down at me.

“I trust you,” I said again, wanting him to hear it as much as I wanted to feel the words on my tongue. From me, they were equivalent to an
I love you
. They were bigger, even. They were the strongest words I could ever say to someone, and I needed Reeve to know this more than any other thing I left him with.

He looked down at me. “I was going to go easy on you.” God, his voice was raw and textured. It scratched along my spine, straightening my back and waking every nerve ending in my body. “You know that I can’t now, right?”

My stomach flipped and a thousand hummingbirds let loose inside. “You can do whatever you want with me.” I’d always meant it – any time I’d given myself to anyone, it had been true.

But it was so much more thrilling to give myself and know that the man in front of me would take me and push me and be exactly what I needed and would protect me as well.

“Yes,” Reeve said, stroking two fingers along the curve of my jaw. “I can.” He moved his hand to my shoulder as he circled around behind me. Then, with a hand coiled tightly in my hair, he jerked me to my feet. I shivered as he bit into my neck then soothed his mark with his tongue.

“The question is,” he said, his mouth hot and wet at my ear, “can you take it if what I want is to love you?”

My entire body tensed as adrenaline shot through my veins. My heart thumped against my chest and thrummed in my ears and throbbed at my pulse points. No. I couldn’t take that. I wanted to shake my head, wanted to refuse, but I’d said he could do anything. And I wanted to mean it.

He knew what he was asking, how hard it would be for me. He ran his hands soothingly over the slopes of my shoulders and down my arms. “I think that might be the one thing that would truly break you,” he murmured. “The one thing that will truly destroy you.”

It would. It would break me so sweetly, so deliciously, so completely. This man had held me down, controlled my breath, threatened danger that made me fear for my life. But this – to be truly loved, to truly let myself take it and accept it and
feel
it – this was the most frightening thing he’d ever put upon me. The most terrifying slope he’d asked me to climb, and I didn’t have a safety belt or a net or anything to catch me but him.

Then I would leave, and he wouldn’t be there, and I’d keep falling. Forever.

“Can you take that?” he asked again.

The answer was no. The answer was definitely not. But it wasn’t mine to decide. It was his because he owned me, and he could do with me as he pleased, and I trusted him.

So I didn’t answer him. Instead, as he bent to kiss and nip the side of my throat, I told him that I liked how it felt. I told him, “Yes.”

His hands were all over me then, sweeping over my skin with the attention one would give to polishing fine silver. His stroke was firm and purposeful, and everywhere his fingers grazed I was revived. Dissolved. Little by little, like sun touching on one mound of snow and then another and another, melting and thawing into beads of sweat and anticipation along the nerves of my body.

I turned my head toward him, a spring flower reaching for the nourishing light. He hovered his mouth over mine. “Where do you want me to touch you?”

His breath brushed across my lips and even that – even just that – sent bolts of fire to my core.

“You choose,” I pleaded with him. If he was going to destroy me, I wanted him to decide what the method would be.

“No. Tell me or it will be everywhere.” He licked across my bottom lip, and I had to reach my hand up to clamp around his neck to keep from falling.

Everywhere, then. If that’s what he wanted, then that’s what I’d endure – his touch, everywhere.

“Yes,” I purred. “Yes.”

He wrapped his arms around my torso and pulled me tighter against his body. The rigid outline of his thick, hard cock pressed into my backside and his hands lifted my breasts, heavy from need.

“Here?” He bent over my shoulder to watch as his palms spread over my skin and plumped my tits. “Is this where I should love you?”

“Yes.” If it was the only word I could manage for the rest of the night, it would be enough. I’d say it over and over, to everything he asked.
Yes, yes, yes.

He narrowed the grasp of his fingers, bringing them in close to pinch and tug my nipples so hard I squirmed. “Your body is mind-boggling, Emily. So round and soft yet firm and strong.” He rubbed his cock in the crevice of my ass with a groan. “It’s like crown jewels, and I can never decide if I want to show you off proudly, to let everyone see the beauty of my most prized object or if I want to keep you locked away only for myself.”

I panted, the pressure of his fingers on my nipples enough to bring me near climax.

“Please,” I croaked, because his words were killing me. He’d told me before that there were other beautiful bodies, that mine was nothing special, and I’d been so turned on to be just his receptacle, just this thing that he used for his own pleasure.

But I’d never known this. Never known how aroused I could be from his love, from hearing how I was a place to put his cock but I was also
more
. How I was someone he wanted to look at and please and adore and command. I’d underestimated the possibility that the two could coexist, never quite believing that I could be both used and cherished. Both owned and valued. Not to this extent. Not this completely both.

Without warning, Reeve spun me around and threw me backward to the bed. I raised myself up to lean on my elbows. He still had his bottoms on, minus any underwear, I realized from the way his erection tented out from his body. And as he stood above me, staring at me, eyes dark with lust and devotion, he stroked his cock through his pajamas. It had to be painful with how strained and large he was, with how he pulsed under his palm.

“Wider,” he said, his teeth gritted. “Spread your legs wider so I can get to all the places I’m going to be.”

I bent my legs, widening until I was completely displayed for him. My breathing grew heavier, and I curled my fingers into the sheets, anticipating his next move. He’d strip. He’d brace himself over me. He’d jut into me and I’d be destroyed.

But the devil teased me. He taunted. Leaving his clothing on, he bent over me and flicked his tongue across one nipple. Then, he moved to the other, closing his teeth around the sensitive area and jerking his mouth up until I yelped in ecstasy.

“Where should I touch you next?” He bit down over the curve of my breast down my belly, hard enough to leave a trail of teeth marks as he lowered himself down my body. “Here?” He thrust his tongue into my navel, and I writhed as intense shock waves rolled through me.

He slid to kneel on the floor, wrapped his hands around my calves, and pulled me to the edge of the bed. “Or how about I touch you here?” He brushed across my clit with the tip of his nose, and my thighs clenched.

“Don’t worry, Blue Eyes. I’ll spend plenty of time touching you here. But first…” He inhaled deeply, his lip curving up into a naughty grin. “I could bottle your scent. Wear it as cologne.”

“You’re so dirty,” I grated, enraptured with how he sprinkled filth over his romantic odes. It was a brilliant technique – extending my torture, giving me vulgarity like footholds to keep me climbing toward our final destination.

With his eyes pinned to mine, he stuck out his tongue, slowly, deliberately drawing out the anticipation before flicking it across the head of my clit. Pleasure zapped down my legs and throughout my lower belly like an electrical storm, and I bit my lip to keep from bursting.

My response seemed to delight him. He stroked a thumb down my seam, gazing at it with admiration. “I’d never thought I was fit to glimpse heaven until I put my head between your thighs.” Circling the rim of my cunt with his thumb, he licked across my clit again. And again. “The taste of you should be forbidden. It’s the fruit that causes gods to war.”

“God. Reeve.” It was excruciating how he drew it out, how he lapped at me leisurely, while his fingers explored farther inside my hole, never hitting the spot where I wanted him most.

He wanted me to tell him, I was sure. Tell him exactly where to stroke, tell him how hard to press and how fast to go. “There,” I urged when his touch got closer. “Almost, almost.”

I was so close, too, and I wouldn’t come until he got there, until he caressed me just so.

Except I was wrong. Because he never got right to the spot, the spot that I knew he had memorized better than I did, and his tongue never did more than tease, and yet I fell over the edge, my orgasm nudging through me at a snail’s pace. It was almost more affliction than relief, the way it never quite exploded, the way he never let it fully end.

“Good girl,” he praised me, trailing his fingers to the rim of my other hole. Using my moisture to ease their entry, he pushed into me, two digits at once. At the same time, he plunged his tongue into my pussy, again only brushing near the most sensitive spot of my vaginal wall.

It was overwhelming – the orgasm that plodded along without resolve, the increase in sensation from both areas at once. I whimpered and tried to pull away, but Reeve put his free hand on my belly to hold me in place.

He continued to torment me like that for several long minutes. Or maybe it was hours, time was lost to me in that state of suspended bitter bliss. I threw my head back in agony. Eventually, he moved his hand from my torso, and I felt him shifting. I lifted my neck and found him wrestling with his bottoms, pulling them down so he could stroke himself while he fucked my cunt and ass with his fingers and his mouth. The sight was so hot, so arousing, and when he added a third finger to my tighter hole, I exploded, coming so hard that my legs and arms and neck muscles all strained and shook.

Still he kept up the punishment.

I wriggled away, unable to bear it. When he grabbed my hip to stop me, I turned inward, to my belly, trying to close myself off in whatever way possible.

Immediately, he pulled his face and hand away, and smacked me hard across my ass cheek. “You aren’t done until I say you are,” he said so gruffly, so brutally it made my insides dissolve.

Gripping my thighs, he twisted me to my knees and pulled me back to the edge of the bed. His mouth found my cunt again, and this time he added his fingers to hit my G-spot, instantly spiking my orgasm up even higher, higher than I’d thought possible, until I was crying and drowning in ecstasy.

He brought me down slowly, gently, easing up with his attack little by little until he’d wrenched out every last bit of my climax.

“This isn’t all,” he said behind me, almost apologetically as he rubbed the cheek he’d spanked. “It will be easier on you if you tell me how to touch you next.”

I didn’t think I could stand to be touched anymore at all. My body was fire and ice all at once, a ball of sensation that flared with the slightest aggravation. Exhaustion pulled at the edges of consciousness and, if he had let me, I would have succumbed to it without a second thought.

But I knew he wouldn’t let me go yet. And, as sure as I was that I couldn’t take anymore, I was also sure he wouldn’t be happy until he’d annihilated every part of my being.

So, with my face pressed against the bed and my ass in the air, I picked my poison. “Touch me with your cock. Put it inside me.” Because I knew he’d demand a more specific location, I clarified. “My cunt. Put it inside my cunt.”

“My girl,” he said, scooting me forward. The weight of the bed shifted as he climbed behind me and thrust his cock inside.

He wasn’t as relaxed as he’d been with his mouth, but his tempo was more moderate than it could have been. I sighed into the bed, grateful that he’d taken me this way, from behind, where I could let the emotional connection between us fade away and simply enjoy being used. Enjoy him, the length of him, the pressure of him, how full he felt inside me.

I scooted my knees in to tighten the hold around his cock, and, soon, he pulled my arms back, using them to leverage his weight as he bucked against me. Sounds fell from my mouth, soft rhythmic mewls that echoed his thrusts and spurred him deeper inside of me. I cherished each noise – the slap of balls against my thighs, the sandpapered texture of his voice as it praised and cursed and grunted and groaned.

“You’re so easy to ride,” he commended. “So easy to maneuver. I can bend you so easily, shatter you.”

“You already did,” I sighed, still weary from the orgasms he’d forced upon me.

“Not all the way.” He tugged me back so my back pressed against his chest. Wrapping his hands around to fondle my breasts, he raked his teeth across my collarbone. “I want you destroyed. I want you completely annihilated.”

I didn’t have the energy to disagree, but I felt edgier in this new position, exposed, open for him to play like a musician strumming his instrument.

“Rub your clit,” he instructed. “Rub it like it’s me rubbing you. Firmly. Faster.” An orgasm began to build, and Reeve moaned as I tightened around him. “Just like that. Good.”

He increased his speed, clutching onto my breasts as handholds, and I closed my eyes and let myself just feel and enjoy.

“I love you,” he whispered harshly at my ear, and my breath caught. He’d said it in so many ways, but never directly. Never so forcefully. Never in such a way that I had to take it as a gift rather than a fact, where I had to accept it and languish in it. Every thrust of his cock painted the words inside me. Every rock of his pelvis against mine.

“I love you,” he said again, like a creed. “I love you so thoroughly it feels like you’re in my DNA. Like you must be part of my genetic code because there’s no part of me that isn’t linked to you. My love for you is so consuming on the inside that there’s barely room.”

He moved a hand to my throat and pressed it against my windpipe ever so slightly, slowing the oxygen just enough to make me heady and weak.