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Heather
Scared of him? This gruff man who I suspected could be a softie at heart?
Roarke had given me no reason to fear him.
“No.” I held back the incredulous laugh that wanted to burst out with my reply. “No, Roarke. You don’t scare me.”
“But you are scared,” he concluded. “Is someone after you?”
Yes. By sneaking out and leaving David the way I had, I could count on him always chasing after me. With the nature of his narcissistic and abusive personality, he would never give up on making me bend to his will again.
I couldn’t say that. It was too big of a truth. Too wide of a topic. And it was too dauntingly scary of a conversation that I wanted to avoid it forever.
Banishing my ex from my mind wouldn’t happen. The things he’d done and said would scar me forever.
In this quiet, private moment with Roarke, though, I wanted to be greedy and selfish to not think about what I was running from.
For the first time in many years, I was confident I could be safe to simply live in the moment. To be present. To appreciate this, right here and now.
I bit my lip and shook my head.
“Heather?” he prompted.
No. No more talking. I leaned in, meeting his gaze as I came close enough to kiss him. Pressing my lips against his gave me a repeat hit of desire and need. This simple brush of our mouths, so warm and soft together, was enough to quiet him.
But not for long. He lifted his hand, cupping my face, but it wasn’t just a possessive hold to keep me close. He used his strength to hold me back so he could peer into my eyes. “Please. Meet me in the middle, Heather. I can tell something is intimidating you.”
I shook my head, standing to close the distance between us. One kiss wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to satisfy my lust for him. It wasn’t enough to cool this attraction that cranked up the tension between us. And it wasn’t enough to get him off his goal of talking.
No more talking. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He furrowed his brow, staring at me like he was trying to search for an answer I wouldn’t freely give him.
“You don’t want to talk about it,” he said, echoing me. It should’ve been a question, but he stated it.
I shook my head, swallowing hard.
“What do you want?” he asked, lowering his voice to a husky rasp. His hand slid further back, threading his fingers in my hair. The slight massaging touch sent shivers racing over my skin, and I licked my lips.
“This?” He lowered his mouth to me, closing them over my lips and kissing me deeply. It wasn’t a forceful push, a demand to yield. Instead, he teased and tortured, prompting me to acclimate to his dominating pressure.
When he broke the kiss, we were both panting hard.
I swallowed again and nodded, staring into his light green eyes and praying he could read the need there. I had no business wanting him, but I was helpless to resist him.
“Yeah,” I whispered, lifting my hands to his face. The beard was gone. A faint stubble covered his face now, and I appreciated how much better I could see him. How the light facial hair gave me a chance to feel him.
“This is what you want?” he teased as he put his hands on my hips and pulled me closer. I smacked against him. His groin to my low stomach. His hard chest unyielding to my breasts. And my lips sealing against his perfectly to give me another rush of heat and need.
Yes, this was what I wanted. No more talking and just his demanding mouth bruising mine.
I moaned, raising my arms to drape them over his shoulders. He smoothed his hands from my sides to holding me over my back, trapping me close. Flush like this, there was no escaping the heat that grew between us. Arousal claimed me and shut off all thoughts. With this bliss under his lips, parted so I could find his tongue and duel for a taste, my worries ceased to matter. My concerns fell to nothing, and all I could do was feel. All I wanted to do was feel him and bask in this sharp switch-off of my worries and woes.
I cinched my arms tighter, using the closeness to pull myself higher for a deeper, sounder, wetter kiss. His responding growl thrilled me, goading me into getting another one. The idea that I was the woman to make him grunt and growl like an animal was wild. The thought that I could have this power, this possibility, egged me on to taking all he offered.
“Fuck, Heather.” He panted, whipping his hot breaths on my cheek as he reared back. He didn’t go far, though, trailing sloppy, sucking kisses down my neck that made my pussy throb that much more. “Look at us. Look at this.”
I didn’t want to open my eyes. It would be too much of a distraction. Staying behind my closed lids, I could stay in this hazy, vague spell of his touches and kisses that electrified me inside out.
“You want this?” he asked again, sucking below my ear, at the tender spot where my jaw ended.
I gasped, pushing against him and needing more friction to match what his mouth did. My skirt wasn’t thick. Just simply maroon cotton, but I damned every layer between us.
“I...”
He picked me up, his big hands molding over the cheeks of my ass. “You need this?” he asked, kissing me further. I let my head hang back, giving him access as he turned us, keeping me secure in his grip.
I’d never felt so small, but in a good way. Dainty and cherished, treasured. Not petite and inferior to be taken advantage of, like with Dav—
No!
He had no right to trespass on this moment. He couldn’t sneak into my thoughts now.
I whined a desperate sound and pulled back from Roarke at the moment he rested me on the edge of the high table. Clattering to the floor, the first-aid kit fell. It didn’t pull me from this moment though. Memories and comparisons with my ex wouldn’t either.
Roarke was giving this to me. He was offering me an escape with him, and I needed it. Mentally and physically, I had to have this with him, now.
I pulled at my shirt, wishing the tiny metal snaps of my blouse didn’t stay together quite this stubbornly. With another harder tug, I jerked so hard that a seam ripped. White halves of cotton hung open, and Roarke didn’t wait.
He growled, gazing at the top swells of my breasts confined in the white lace. Then he dipped his head down to kiss along the hem of the cups.
“You want—”
I groaned, smashing his head to my chest as I leaned back with one hand behind me.
His answering chuckles sounded filthy. Wickedly bad but so good as he continued kissing and sliding his tongue along the hem of my bra. His right hand stayed on my ass, and as he slanted me over the table, teasing my breasts, he pushed me until he stood between my legs, parted wide for him.
“You’re determined to want this,” he said, tugging a bra cup down so he could close his lips over my nipple, “but I’m going to get the truth out of you yet.”
“Oh, I want,” I said, not caring how out of breath and needy I sounded.
“And it’s past time you open up to me, gorgeous.” He sucked and tugged on my nipple as he moved his hands. His left one tugged the other cup down so he could roll my nipple between his thumb and finger.
“You want me to open up?” I taunted. I spread my legs wider, pushing my pussy toward him in a search for more friction.
He laughed again, that gritty, sinister chuckle that turned me on even more.
“I’m not an idiot to be manipulated anymore,” he warned as he shifted his mouth to my other breast. I keened at the pressure of his suction there, making my nipple bead harder as a spark of need hit me in my uterus. It clenched, aching along with my pussy for his touch.
“I’m not manipulating...you.” I could barely speak at this rate.
“You won’t,” he rasped, easing his hand around me. From my ass, where he clutched me, he slipped his fingers forward and pulled on my panties. “You won’t manipulate me,” he swore as he raised his head to mine and kissed me hard.
I moaned into his mouth, holding the back of his head so he wouldn’t part at all. As he tugged and slid my panties lower, I squirmed and rocked on my hips to help him get them off.
I was soaked. Exposed to the air, I was chilled from the smear of my juices on my skin.
But I wasn’t cold. Not with him here.
“You want this,” he taunted with liquid heat burning in his smoldering eyes.
I nodded as he stroked his fingers along my folds.
“And you want me,” he added before he kissed me harder for a long, torturous moment of his slow, light dips of his finger inside me.
I thrust into his hand, showing that I did.
“But I want some answers, too.”
I kissed him harder, not committing to that. It was wrong. It was greedy, but I needed to come.
He didn’t push for a reply. It seemed he was content to state his demands, his requests, and leave them hanging in the air. Before I could blink, he pulled back. Grabbing the chair he’d vacated, he slid it closer to the table and dropped into it in one continuous move.
Seated now, his face between my legs, he kept his stare on me as he lowered his mouth to me. This first kiss on my sensitive skin jolted me. I flinched, surprised by how close I was to coming already. The last ten minutes were a blur, a frenzy of fraying my nerves and teasing, but I didn’t try to shy away.
He looked at me, watching me watch him, as he swiped his tongue up and down, licking me clean. Moving his hands to my legs, he urged me to lean back more. Draping my thighs over his shoulders, he got me right into place for him to feast.
Licking and sucking, he left no spot untouched. He speared his tongue in to piston into me, then he moved his lips up to my clit and sucked. His fingers stayed on me, rubbing or thrusting when his mouth was elsewhere. I’d gotten oral before. One other man had put his lips on my pussy and sampled me there, but I’d never been subjected to actually coming.
Not like this.
Within a moment of his hot mouth on me, I shattered apart. The hit of relief that overwhelmed me threatened to ruin me, because I’d never, ever had an orgasm that fast or that hard.
“Fuck. Roarke!” I didn’t shout out, lacking the power in my lungs to really let loose. Panting and managing shallow breaths, I focused on not passing out from the dizzying speed with which he made me come.
He didn’t stop as the waves of pleasure coursed through me. He licked and hummed his appreciation as he moved his hands to my ass, as if holding me to his face to get every last drop. To wring out every last bit of ecstasy out of me.
“I...” I whooshed out a long sigh, wrecked and weak with a drugging need to sleep. Sated and satisfied, I was two seconds from falling back and napping right here on the damn table.
But just to snap the idea of resting or relaxing far out of my reach, someone had to knock on the door.
“Heather?” Nevaeh called out.
You’ve got to be kidding me!
I sat upright, staring down at Roarke.
He went still, his head between my legs, his lips wet and parted. Narrowing his eyes, he shook his head to tell me no.
