Night Is Darkest (4 page)

Mason and Tyler exchanged glances above her but didn’t come any closer.

To her embarrassment she collapsed, broken, against the mattress as the hot tracks of her pain renewed. Some of her anger rallied, causing her to speak without considering the ramifications. “You p-promised Rob you’d take care of me.”

“Low blow, doll. We
are
taking care of you. Just like Rob always wanted. We’re leaving you the hell alone instead of taking advantage of the situation.” Mason sounded resigned.

Shame spread color across the displayed skin of her chest. The burning in her neck and cheeks assured her face flamed as well. But she’d play dirty if she had to. She couldn’t handle even one more loss.

“Just like everyone else in my life. Fine. Get the hell out and don’t come back. Ever.” Lacey let the grief, rejection, and aching arousal pour out of her at once. She didn’t have the energy to resist anymore. She sobbed, her entire body limp as a ragdoll. She couldn’t even bring herself to straighten her clothes or cover the vulnerable spots their tussle had exposed.

“Let’s go, Tyler.” The bed shifted as Mason departed but, though she braced herself for the second jostling, it didn’t follow. “Ty! Move it!”

The intense order would have scared her into action but still the mattress didn’t rock. She couldn’t see through the torrent of tears filling her puffy eyes to gauge the situation but she refused to allow hope to infiltrate her crushed heart. It would only end up hurting twice as bad in the end.

“I-I can’t.” Gentle fingers swiped moisture from her cheek. “I can’t leave her like this, Mason.”

“You should.”

“I know.”

“Don’t expect me to stand by and watch you ruin a lifetime of friendship.”

Lacey listened to their exchange through a fog of pain. She wished he’d do a hell of a lot more than observe Tyler comforting her but the conviction in his tone made it clear he wouldn’t touch her again.

“I’m sorry, Mason.”

No reply followed Tyler’s apology but the snap of footsteps fading down the hall served as answer enough.

Then strong arms enveloped her. Ty sat cross-legged on the bed and scooped her up close to his heart. She laid her head in the crook of his neck and clung to his muscled shoulders. This time her tears were borne of relief.

“Shh, little one. I’m not going anywhere.” He rocked her until her sobs faded to hiccups then stopped altogether. “You’re not alone. Never alone. I’m right here.”

He rested his lips on her forehead in a tender gesture. It felt so right to discover solace in his embrace. She tilted her face up, offering much more than platonic intimacy. Tyler covered the damp skin with butterfly kisses, sipping the last of her tears from her cheeks.

Lacey turned her head, capturing his sexy mouth. When he hesitated, she enticed him with lingering caresses of her lips and tongue. He tensed as the rapid rise and fall of his chest rocked her. She clasped him tighter. Her nails sank into the powerful slab of his knotted back.

Yet he refused to return her kiss. She glanced up to find his eyes squeezed shut. She watched the pounding of his pulse in his temple. Though inexperienced in the art of seduction, she attempted to goad him into breaking his restraint with tiny bites on his full lower lip followed by soothing laps of her tongue.

A cry of despair echoed around him when he put a miniscule gap between them. Struggle as she might, she couldn’t force their mouths back together. Her desperation would have been horrifying if she didn’t need him so badly. His eyelids cracked open and the single momentary glimpse he took did him in.

“Oh, God, Lacey. I’ll probably go to hell for this, but it’ll be worth it.” His fierce declaration obliterated the last shred of her rationality. She lunged up, crushing him in her embrace when words couldn’t suffice. Of course, he understood. “Shh. I need you, too.”

Fantasies came alive as he capitulated to her desire, devouring her with a frenzy of passion that rivaled her own need.

“I want you closer,” she whispered between the intense clash of their lips. He lowered her to the bed, rising above her on outstretched arms. Compared to the polished women he usually selected for liaisons, she worried about what he saw.

She shut her eyes against his intense inspection but he descended over her prone form and whispered in her ear. “Even with your red nose and swollen eyes, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Lacey. Don’t hide from me now.”

He solicited a gasp when his teeth inflicted a wet trail of love bites along her neck to her collarbone. Then his fingers slipped beneath the straps of her bra and nudged them off her shoulders. The side of his smooth, clean-shaven cheek nestled in the valley between her breasts as the tip of his tongue darkened the edge of the purple satin cupping them.

She arched her back, pressing the aching tips closer to his exploratory touch. Tyler obliged her by surrounding a pebbled nipple with the moist heat of his mouth. He sucked the flesh through the thin covering until it stood out in proud, glistening profile when he moved on to the other. While he ravaged her needy flesh, she heard the dual clunks of his shoes hitting the floor after he toed them off, his long legs dangling from the end of the bed.

Lacey wanted to lose herself in the pleasure rising inside her. She reached between them to work the top button of his shirt free. In her haste, she fumbled around with the coordination of a newborn. A frustrated moan signaled her distress.

“You want me to get naked?” Tyler asked. “Are you sure this is what you want, little one? I can stop right now, just say the word.”

“Don’t you dare,” she panted. “Make me forget about everything but you.”

“I can arrange that without taking my clothes off. I can take care of you.” He brushed a lock of hair from her neck. “There are other ways if you’re not sure…”

“I need it all. Please.” She left no room for misunderstanding.

He shucked his uniform in less time than it took for her to mourn the departure of the heat his close contact had generated. She’d admired his lithe build numerous times before when they swam during the steamy summers or when he helped Rob and Mason work on the house but nothing compared to the up close view of his six-pack abs when his emerald eyes blazed with sexual intent. Her stare wandered along the path of honed muscle to the scrap of black cotton shielding the impressive bulge in his boxer briefs from her hungry eyes.

“Take them off.” She didn’t ask.

“Not yet, Lace. I won’t last. I want to make you so hot it burns away all our sadness. At least for a little while. I can’t stand to watch you suffer.”

Tyler dipped forward to ensnare her mouth in a passionate kiss. While he stole her mind with fluid strokes of his tongue, he eased her shoulders from the bed. He peeled her shirt and bra away as if he unwrapped a fragile gift. He licked his lips then gulped, “So pretty.”

Then he was back, skin on skin. She nearly shrieked at the electric glide of his chest against hers. The smooth expanse of his pectorals brushed across her nipples as he licked a meandering path along the center of her body. He paused long enough to plump each breast before he worked his way lower still.

His tongue rimmed her belly button, sending sparks through her abdomen. When she bucked beneath his sensual assault, he wrapped his hands around her hips to lock her in place. He continued the sweet torture with glancing contact between his lips and the exposed swatch of her midriff until his mouth latched onto the material of her skirt.

She watched in fascination as Tyler unfastened the button with a shake of his head then lowered the zipper with his teeth. The operation tucked his chin against her mound. A moan echoed through the room as the blunt pressure drove her further up the spiral of ecstasy. It lifted her higher and higher with each pump of blood blasting through her veins. If he hadn’t restricted her motion, she would have ground her pussy against his face for the moment it would have taken to jump over the edge into climax. Days—no, years—of suppressed urges and violent emotion threatened to erupt.

He chuckled against the damp barrier separating her from what she wanted most. The triumphant laughter lifted a burden from her heart. “You’re so responsive, so demanding and greedy. I love it.”

In one seamless motion, Tyler knelt between her legs and yanked the skirt from her body. He tossed the material over his shoulder without thought, his focus never straying from between her legs.

“You shave?” The question came out more as a groan when he took in the smooth lay of her matching satin thong. He stared up at the ceiling and blew out a sigh.

“Wax.”

“God help me.” His fingers balled into fists at his side for the space of several ragged breaths. “And this underwear! Do you always wear such fucking hot lingerie under your baggy scrubs?”

Before she could affirm his suspicions, he shook his head while clenching his chest.

“Don’t tell me, I’ll never survive knowing you’re walking around the hospital in these.” His fingertip ran along the frilly bow topping the thigh-high stocking until it intersected with the garter belt securing it in place. A shiver shook her. She expected him to unhook the silk then roll it down her leg. Instead, he raised his ravenous eyes to hers. “They stay on.”

His hands skimmed along the stockings until they reached her boots. He unzipped them then added the leather to the growing collection of clothes on the floor. The anticipation of a more intimate touch built until she could hardly refrain from begging. Again. Tyler crawled between her legs, spreading her thighs with the bulk of his torso as he approached her core. His hands slid beneath her. In a sudden movement, he cupped her shoulders and tugged her close until his face buried in her crotch.

The cool breeze generated by his inhalation teased her soaked folds through her drenched panties. “Mmm. You smell delicious. I can’t wait to taste you.”

True to his word, Tyler’s hand moved in a flash from her shoulder to rip her thong away before tucking beneath her thigh once more. This time, his fingers caressed her arms until he braceleted her wrists, trapping them by her sides. Though his hold was light—his thumbs stroked circles over her pounding pulse points—the forced immobility ratcheted her arousal to epic proportions while freeing her to enjoy his ministrations instead of attempting to please him in return.

He dove for the dewy lips of her pussy, now bared to his whims. The first dab of his tongue against her swollen flesh threatened to rocket her toward a supernova orgasm. She’d wanted him for so long, to have him teaching her how amazing sex could be seemed like another fabulous dream. She feared waking unsatisfied as usual but even her vivid fantasies hadn’t prepared her for the intensity of the real thing.

The long laps he used to trace her slit had her panting for release before he even brushed her clit. Then he thrust his tongue inside her pussy, fucking her while he devoured the arousal coating her channel.

“Mmm.” He hummed his appreciation for the flavor of her desire, sending a wave of pleasure up her spine. It took all the self-control she possessed to withhold her orgasm when he burrowed deeper into her pussy then sucked her clit with gentle pulls.

“No!”

He froze.

“I want you inside me when I come. Please, Ty. Please.”

“Don’t worry, little one.” He lifted just enough to murmur reassurance. “I promise I’ll give you want you need. Let go, let me taste your passion.”

He worked a single broad finger inside her clinging passage. The muscles of her pussy clenched around the invading digit. It felt so much bigger than hers had on the nights she’d pleasured herself while thinking of him and Mason. When he resumed his teasing suction on her clit, she didn’t stand a chance at resistance. Tyler curled his finger until the pad trapped a super-sensitive spot against her pelvic bone.

She shattered. Spasm after spasm squeezed his hand and tongue while she screamed his name.

When the orgasm had waned to delightful aftershocks, he withdrew from her slick pussy. Lacey basked in the release while Tyler rose up and stripped off his underwear in one fluid sweep. His raging cock bobbed thick and heavy against his thigh.

Her eyes widened when she measured him with her stare.

She wanted to torment him in kind but, before she could make her request, he had tucked the flared purple head of his cock against her opening. Her lingering contractions caused the orifice to kiss the tip of his hard-on. The heat of his erection singed her sensitive skin. Instead of flinching, though, she thrust her hips up, yearning for him to impale her.

“You’re so tight, Lace. I don’t want to hurt you.” His hand guided the blunt cap of his cock up and down her slit, nudging her still throbbing clit on every pass.

“Please. Take me.” His glans lodged in the mouth of her pussy as she shivered beneath his teasing strokes. Though she doubted he could rekindle the intense pleasure he’d gifted her with, she craved the intimacy of full intercourse. She needed to welcome him into her body. Then they would be joined in ecstasy as well as grief. “Now.”

She reached for him, wrapping her hand around the nape of his neck to tug him forward. The full length contact of their sweat-slicked bodies caused her to moan. His heated weight bearing on her fanned the embers of her lingering climax.