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CHAPTER 23
Her Sweet Kiss
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Whitney didn't remember falling asleep. She didn't even remember having felt sleepy enough to do so, but she must have done, for she was very aware of waking. Though it was a slow, groggy business. She fought it; going so far as to press her face deeper into her pillow in an attempt to convince her brain that it was still sleeping time, even though she knew the effort was entirely wasted.
God, she was tired. Grief did that: collect in the layers of the body like cement, weighing heavy, sapping strength and energy. She wanted to sleep for weeks, if she could. In fact she was not all that certain she hadn't done just that, judging by the dull ache in her muscles and the state of her mouth – dry and scratchy as cotton wool.
She turned her head, smoothing her cheek across the pillow. It was an interesting texture, smooth, warm, but unusually firm.
Wait.
Not a pillow.
The events of the day rushed back to her in a stream: waves of heightened emotion and action more strenuous than perhaps she'd been prepared for, all of it culminating in her breakdown in the kitchen where she'd latched onto Jason and clung like a barnacle while proceeding to sob her guts out. And apparently she hadn't moved from that spot.
Good gravy, how long had they been there? How long had she been asleep, draped on top of him like a weepy blanket and a thoroughly less than useful one at that?
Opening her eyes to narrow slits, she noted the tightness in the skin of her face – the direct result of so much crying. Her eyes felt puffy, but not as much as they might have, probably thanks to the nap. Yet as she blinked a few times to adjust, she found herself confused.
She wasn't on the couch. She wasn't even in the rec room, but the tiny little bedroom upstairs. They were in roughly the same position as she remembered; Jason sitting up, with her curled up against him, only now they were on the untouched double bed. He had his back propped against the wall at the head of it, the leg she could see from where she lay propped up on a bent knee. She had been draped with a blanket, the edges tucked carefully up around her shoulders. Care had been taken to cover her feet as well, though in her sleep she appeared to have poked one out from under the edge. And the light…she couldn't put her finger on it, but the light was wrong.
She must have stirred or made a sound, for the hand resting still against her back moved then, smoothing gently down the length of her spine and back up. Calming and sweet.
Stretching out her legs, she lifted her head from where she'd been using his chest as a pillow to look at him.
"Sorry," she said, her voice cracking slightly. Oof, she needed water something serious.
As if he'd read her mind (or just recognized the need), Jason lifted his hand from her back and reached for something behind her. He produced a glass of water, which she took gratefully and gulped – at first with difficulty, and then with a surprising gusto.
"Thanks," she sighed when she'd finished, and he returned the half-empty glass back to what she assumed was the tiny little bedside table she remembered glimpsing during her walk-through. "But I'm so sorry, I did not mean to fall asleep on you."
Rubbing her face with a hand she suppressed a yawn and sat up a little straighter, tucking her knees under the bend of his. She had almost forgotten the blow to the face she'd taken yesterday, might have if she hadn't felt a faint twinge. Faint being the key word. The soreness was almost completely gone. She was impressed – the cold cloth must have done more good than she'd expected.
"How long have I been out?"
She wasn't sure how he would answer that question, indicating the hours, maybe. But he held up his left hand, palm open and held aloft, and brought it down in an arc. She blinked at him, trying to decode, and he patiently repeated the gesture, wiggling his fingers slightly as if that was supposed to help. Which, it kind of did, though she didn't know how.
"Is that—sunset?"
He nodded, and she glanced over her shoulder toward the window. It was propped open, which must be why it didn't smell like dust and musty fabric in the little room, but it wasn't dark outside – rather the light was soft, fresh, like that of early morning. It couldn't have been later than five or six when they'd gotten back to the lodge, which meant she'd been asleep for close to twelve hours.
"Jesus, Jason!" she exclaimed, mortified. "You could have just moved me…" Well, he had moved her, technically speaking. "I mean, you didn't have to stay!"
Jason just regarded her, completely unbothered by her embarrassment. Calmly, he reached for the table again and produced a covered plate: the lunch she'd prepared before losing her shit and dissolving into sobs.
At the smell of peanut butter her stomach gave a loud and undignified growl. Fortunately her grief hadn't messed with her appetite.
He truly was a nurturer. He had cleaned out this room enough for it to be habitable, had changed the bedsheets at the very least, and brought her somewhere more comfortable than that shitty couch to sleep a good six years off her life. Not only had he stayed with her, he had known she would need food, even if she might not be hungry. But of course he had. If she needed something, he would provide it. She was his chosen mate, after all.
If a hint of a blush stained her cheeks at that particular thought, she ignored it, and took the plate.
He remained right where he was while she ate, stroking her back absently. She was a bit flustered by eating right there, basically on top of him, but he was so unconcerned that she eventually relaxed.
After eating everything down to the last scrapes of peanut butter, she handed him back the plate, and, happily full, leaned heavy back against him. She rested her head on his shoulder and tucked her arm around his waist, content for her world to be reduced to the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing for a moment.
What a contrast in extremes he was. He had shattered every bone in a man's torso for attacking her, then turned around to comfort and anchor her through the most violent stage of her mourning. He was like…a German Shepherd, a Pit Bull – a big dog with a fearsome reputation, fully capable of doing incredible damage while also being protective, fiercely loyal, and a lovey, tail-wagging sweetheart. Some might have said that was her influence, but she knew better.
While she might be certain that he'd always had the capacity for such caring and love, she couldn't be sure how much of it had been so badly worn by time and anger that he'd had to rebuild from the foundation. Even if that wasn't the case, even if it had been no more than a matter of opening a door in the mind, doing so had been a choice all of his own making. Not hers. Whether it had been for her sake or not, that was his business and no one else's.
It was something her mom had told her more than once, starting even before Whitney had been quite old enough to fill in the intended context; that not even the most powerful love from the strongest and most determined of women would ever be enough to change a man. He must change himself, and if he was not driven to do so then nothing in heaven and earth could make him. She had been in her mid-twenties before it occurred to her to wonder how much of those wise words had been inspired by the father she had only crumbled and fleeting memories of.
Thoughts of Ellen hurt a little bit. It didn't sting the way a fresh wound would, just a dull, sore ache. Healing, but still very much there. Yet the pain didn't prevent Whitney from wondering what her mother would have made of this strange adventure of hers. She probably would have laughed. A lot.
Which reminded her…
"Yesterday, when I said I had things to do before I came back, I was really only going for my mom." The hand at her back stilled mid-stroke, something she only vaguely noticed. "The doctors had said she had a few weeks, maybe a month, but she'd always outlasted the timelines before. I thought if there was a chance she'd powered through, I could be there with her at the…"
He'd gone stiff beneath her, fidgeting subtly as though abruptly and intensely uncomfortable. She lifted her head to look at him just in time to catch the flash of pain and guilt in his eyes before he angled his face away. And of course…she should have realized how this would sound, how hearing it would affect him.
If anyone could understand what it was to lose a mother, it would be him. He related to her pain, deeply so, and it was clear that the thought of having been the cause of some of that pain, even if only secondhand, would have been devastating.
"Hey."
She lifted her arms unthinking, about to cup his face and turn his head toward her before suddenly freezing. Whether or not he was comfortable with her touching the mask, she couldn't touch it like that. She wouldn't be trying to remove it – she would never have done such a thing – but reflexively, especially right now, it might feel that way.
"Look at me, please?"
His head turned, very slightly, but not completely. And he definitely wasn't looking at her.
Laying her hand against his shoulder she rubbed gently up and down his arm, the way he had done to her back. "You didn't know," she murmured, "you didn't know me. This is not your fault."
His breath left him in a sharp huff – disbelief, but also disagreement. He very clearly thought it was his fault, and to a degree, she understood that. It was a fact that if not for him, she wouldn't have been stuck there. But it was also a fact that he hadn't done it out of malice. He hadn't purposefully trapped her in order to keep her from her dying mother's bedside. That mattered.
It was also a fact that she could have told him at any point.
"If I'd told you, would it have made any difference?" she asked, and his head jerked toward her, surprise and question in his eyes. "I could have told you. I didn't because I didn't think it would matter, and because I didn't want to think about it. Maybe it would have changed things, maybe it wouldn't." She found his hand and slipped her fingers between his. "Please don't punish yourself for this. I don't blame you. You shouldn't either."
He was frowning, his eyes averted down, evidently unable – or unwilling – to take her words to heart.
"I wasn't even going to come," she added idly, running her fingertips gently down his the length of his. "Here," she clarified, "on the camping trip. I wouldn't be here at all if not for Mom. She told me to come, to live my life for me for a few days instead of just sitting at home waiting for her to die. And here I am."
She smiled faintly.
"It's almost like she sent me here. Like she knew, somehow." He was looking down at their hands, watching her trace the lines in his palm by feel. But she had no doubt that he was listening. "My life back home is gone. I poured everything I had into Mom—my friends, school…my job is definitely gone. The house is just a place full of sad memories. I didn't even grow up there. I have to start over."
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling tired again. Tired and a little overwhelmed and, weirdly, rather nervous for what she was about to say.
"My life is here now," she told him quietly, "with you. If you want."
Now she was the one avoiding his gaze. She could feel him looking at her, feel the weight of his eyes like touch against her face. Something brushed her hair. One great hand cupped the base of her skull, pulling her gently forward until her forehead met the fiberglass brow of his mask. Not unlike the way he'd told her goodbye yesterday, except this wasn't a goodbye.
It was a yes.
Guided purely by emotion, she laid her hands against the sides of his face and pressed her mouth to the not-quite-smooth surface of the plastic shielding his mouth. He couldn't feel it – not like she could – but she knew he had realized what she was doing when she felt the curl and twist of his hand in her hair, balling into a rigid fist at the base of her head. The way his breath touched her lips in a sharp, short burst, as though his lungs had suddenly stopped working in time to the hitch in his chest.
It wasn't quite as satisfying as she might have hoped, and not really what she wanted, but she was not unaware of the likelihood that this was probably the closest he'd ever come to being kissed by someone that wasn't his mother, and in quite this way. The sheer magnitude of sorrow and happiness and wonder and bitter sweetness that knowledge instilled in her was enough to completely overwhelm her.
Tucking her face into the curve of his neck she blinked back the tears that had begun to blur the corners of her eyes. He had taken his coat off, she noticed, and his shirt smelled rather more strongly like soap than she remembered. She rubbed her nose in his collar as she inhaled.
"You washed your clothes last night," she mused aloud. Evidently he had not spent the entirety of those twelve hours pinned under her sorry, comatose self. Knowing it made her feel a little better.
She twisted, trying to wedge herself closer while not accidentally kneeing him in the balls. It was a bit of a struggle. She was fighting her jeans: comfortable enough to walk around in but not so much for sleeping or lounging. The fabric was twisted around her legs and the band too tight around her hips for her liking just now.
With a grumble of annoyance she sat up, turning within the loose circle of Jason's arm. She was preparing to shift sideways, clamber over the leg he had stretched out along the length of the bed, fully intending to just strip out of her jeans and think nothing of it, when she paused. He was just sitting there, regarding her with a kind of quizzical fondness. Yet she could feel the hardness of him flush against her belly, her thighs. His body was relaxed, at rest, yet her skin went hot and her lungs seemed to tighten suddenly, though the nature of the contact hadn't changed.
She was not quite as graceful as she might have liked getting her feet to the floor, and once she did she found herself no more settled by the flat, cool hardwood. She wasn't nervous, exactly…a little giddy, a little anxious, maybe. Some might have questioned whether she was thinking straight, which she would have met with the argument that she doubted anyone was ever really thinking straight where certain things were concerned.
Slowly, she lifted a hand to the little row of buttons at the front of her shirt.
Was she actually going to do this?
Yes. Yes, she was.
She might be tired and in the middle of grieving, but there was nothing wrong with seeking comfort from someone who loved her. And if that comfort was a tad on the lascivious side, well, there was nothing wrong with that either. He was the one who'd brought her to bed – not that he would know there was any meaning to that aside from the obvious.
The shirt itself didn't require the buttons to be undone in order to remove it. They were superfluous, more for look and style than purpose, but they did function. Her fingers twisted to slip them free and as she'd hoped Jason's eyes flicked down to the movement, watching closely as the loss of each button deepened the valley of her cleavage ever so slightly further.
Gripping it by the hem, she slowly lifted, pulling the green tee up and over her head. Her hair fell around her neck and shoulders, tickling the middle of her back over the clasp of her bra.
The trill of uncertainty was completely normal and to be expected. She was fairly confident, and much more so with him than she had been with anyone else to begin with, but there was always the niggling voice at the back of the mind, all worry and delicate hope. Catching her breath she looked at him, and all traces of that wary uncertainty were instantly dashed.
He was staring at her as if he'd been struck over the head with a cast iron pan, at once dazed and intent. His back was ramrod straight and he'd turned his body slightly toward her, right knee bent to lower his foot to the floor – not like he intended to stand or move, but rather like he'd needed to in order to steady himself. All she'd bared was her shoulders and her stomach, but he looked at her as if she was the most glorious thing he had ever seen.
Uncurling her fingers, she dropped her shirt to the floor. Then, trembling lightly, she brought her hand to the front of her jeans.
~/~
For well over an hour Jason had remained steadfastedly in place on the couch before removing himself. He had done so with incredible care and a slowness developed from hunting to keep from waking her, settling her gently atop the couch cushions.
He would have been content to simply stay there, but the urge to act had been nudging at him rather insistently. For one, he hadn't removed the machete before pulling her down onto the couch, and the handle was digging somewhat painfully into his side. For another, the couch itself was hard and uncomfortable and too short for her to lie down properly, and if she didn't she might wake stiff and sore. He had debated whether or not to reassemble the floor-bed, but found himself stumped by the return of the cushions to the couch and not knowing where to find a replacement. Which was when it occurred to him to check upstairs.
He knew from looking in through the ground-floor windows there was no bedroom there, but upstairs, he wasn't sure. And while he was decidedly less than enthusiastic moving around in parts of the building without her, the need was strong enough to combat his discomfort. Which had worked out in his favor.
The bedroom was small, but the bed itself was good-sized and in decent condition. He stripped it and remade it with the fresh sheets stored in the chest at the end – clean and smelling of something potently floral – which he managed with only a bit of difficulty and some minor confusion as to how the mattress cover worked. The window required a bit of force, the seal tight from years with no use and the frame warped from weather. But he got it to open without breaking it, pushing it wide to let fresh air in the way Whitney had done with the downstairs windows and doors. Used the old sheets he wiped up as much dust as he could from the floor and the furnishings, and declared it passable.
The endeavor left him covered with dust. Far too much to simply shake off, which necessitated a trip to the stream. He decided that if he would have to get them wet, he might as well wash his clothes in earnest, and did so, grateful that the sun had come back out (and how fittingly so) to dry them at least most of the way. It took several hours, which distressed him somewhat. But when he returned, clothes dry, it was to find Whitney exactly where he'd left her.
His heart squeezed. She was so exhausted, so deeply asleep that she had hardly moved at all.
Grabbing a blanket from the folded stack on the seat of a chair, he draped it over her, then lifted her carefully into his arms to carry her up the stairs.
He laid her on the bed, leaving her just long enough to fetch the plate of food she'd abandoned in the wake of her tears, some water, and candles in case she woke during the night. Then he returned, kicking off his boots, unbuckling the worn leather straps from around his waist and thigh in order to set the machete down next to them, and lowering himself gingerly to the bed he wasn't actually positive would hold his weight – it did. Gathering her warm weight against his body, he adjusted the blanket so that it covered her bare feet, and sank back against the wall with a silent sigh.
When dawn had come this morning he had not, in any sense, expected the day to end this way. He had not expected to see her again, much less feel her slow, steady breathing under his hand at her back. Yet here she was. Much to his shock, and his wonder.
She slept all through the night and well into morning, shifting only a few times to unfold her limbs or nestle her head deeper against the plain of his chest. He had no idea how it could be as comfortable as it seemed to be for her, but it didn't matter how so long as it was. It meant that he could hold her – spend hours doing so, soaking in the scent and warmth of her. He was quite sure he could happily spend days doing just that. Eventually he would prefer her to be awake, but for the moment there was nothing he wanted more.
When she finally woke it was with a dry throat and an apology. Very like her, he noted fondly, to fuss about being an inconvenience when she was anything but. Tolerating her fretting he pressed her to drink and to eat, pleased when she did so without protest – though he had been resolved to make her if she proved obstinate.
He had almost managed to forget the reason for her tears the night before, and thus the ultimate reason they were in this room on this bed. Being so occupied with caring for her had almost been enough to banish it from his mind. Almost. Until her mention of it brought back every twinge and stab of horror and guilt and despair.
Unlike the night before, his reaction was not lost amidst the violence of her grief. She was alert to it almost immediately and was shockingly quick to absolve him of blame.
"Please don't punish yourself for this," she pleaded, her hand small and cool where it curled around his own.
Maybe she was right, and even if he was at fault that she might be too. Maybe he wasn't solely responsible for this awful thing. She didn't think so, and that he believed. He believed her reassurances now as he assuredly would not have before, purely for the fact that her having returned was proof enough that even if she held a fraction of a grudge it was not enough to keep her from him. He wished it were quite so easy to fully believe it of himself, to wash himself clean of the guilt she wanted him to shed. He would have for her, but he didn't know how. Blame seemed embedded in the fibers of his very being.
She told him details of how she had come to be there: on his land. Things about her mother, beautiful, and bittersweet. The ache in her voice was an old one, comfortable in a way only frequency and long suffering brought. There was relief in her too, he noticed, for someone beloved no longer in pain, as if her mother having left the world behind allowed Whitney to finally begin to heal the wound festering in the face of the sickness. It was not something he could directly relate to, but he could understand it. And was glad of it.
She told him about the life she had left, whittled down and scraped to the bare bone. A matter of survival as he had never quite thought of it, but that he felt to his core.
"I have to start over," she had said, a weary note to the words. And then, far more softly: "my life is here now. With you."
His eyes jumped to her face, shocked, because surely he had misheard.
She wasn't looking at him, but rather down at their hands where she was trailing her fingertips down the inside of his hand. She looked uncertain…shy.
"If you want."
He reached for her, unoccupied hand wrapping about the nape of her neck to pull her face to his until her brow rested against the farce of his face and he squeezed his eyes shut, loathing that he could not feel her skin. He felt her lift her arms, felt the faint pressure as she cradled his head between her fine, small hands and touched her lips to the shielded mouth-space of his mask.
He felt her heat through the fiberglass, her breath against his mangled lips, and she might as well have shoved her hand into his chest – slipped it right between his ribs and taken his beating heart between her fingers.
She lowered her face to his neck, her nose cool against his skin before she buried it in his shirt collar.
He was vaguely aware of her speaking, though he couldn't hear for the faint ringing in his ears. A moment later she was moving, twisting as if uncomfortable. He blinked, and they were face to face, her hips pressing into his stomach – sharp bones and soft flesh and heat. The pattern of her breath changed, became just faintly shallower, high in her throat. Then she was slipping away, climbing somewhat awkwardly over his leg to stand up. He assumed she must need something and had gotten up to retrieve it, but for the space of a moment she simply stood there, looking at him as if deliberating.
It would have been a lie to claim he felt no hint of worry under that look. It was a thing bordered on indecision and he knew it had something to do with him. Still, he remained where he was and waited.
What followed caught him completely by surprise.
There was a tiny row of buttons at the front of her shirt, a detail long ago noticed but never really considered until now, as her slender fingers began working them free. The movement drew his gaze automatically and once there, he found himself snared, his eyes locked to the inches of skin bared in the wake of those buttons, the shadowed line framed by the parting fabric.
Her hands lowered, folding around the bottom of the shirt and sliding it up, and he watched – enthralled – as a smooth abdomen was revealed, sleek muscle and soft flesh under skin pale as milk. She pulled the clothing over her head, causing her hair to tumble down around her shoulders in loose waves. The color was dark in the early dawn light, the red reduced to a low smolder like banked coals. He could finally fully see the wire-framed garment that strapped around her ribs, a muted beige-brown shade like the inside of a hazelnut against her skin. It perfectly hugged the swell of her breasts, and he wondered now if that was its purpose.
Heat was creeping along his skin. He had no conscious knowledge of moving, but he realized he had shifted enough to plant one foot on the floor, trying, he suspected, to brace himself against falling (fall where he wasn't sure) – something he was glad of when she lifted her hands to the top band of her denim pants, pulling the closures open.
His pulse quickened, his mouth suddenly dry as bark.
She folded the cloth down her hips, revealing a pair of black underthings. True, he hadn't been able to see as well as he would have liked, but these seemed to fit her better than the blue had, and something about the stark contrast between them and her skin was far more striking. She pushed until the denim slid the rest of the way on its own, unveiling the length of her legs. Familiar, but still so damn beautiful.
He hated that he couldn't tell her. How beautiful she was. Girls – women like her deserved to hear it, to have it repeated over and over, breathed like prayer into their ears.
Delicate as a bird she stepped from the pool of fabric at her feet, nudging it aside with her toes. Her elbows bent, reaching behind her own back to reach something, and he heard a tiny plastic snap as though something had broken. The elastic straps of the wired garment slid down over the slopes of her shoulders.
Had his heart stopped beating? He wasn't sure, and he didn't care.
She placed a hand over the thing as if holding it in place, just for a moment. Then she let it drop, sliding down her arms to the floor.
He was gaping, his eyes wide and his mouth open – hidden, thank goodness, by the mask.
Hers didn't look all that different from the other female bodies he had seen, not that he'd ever really taken a great deal of time to study them. He'd spent more hours obsessively absorbing the pieces of her he could see than any of the fully naked women that had crossed his path before: the slender arch of her neck, the length of graceful arms, the way the soft slopes of her calves curved into delicate ankles. That alone should have warned him that even the elements of sameness would be in no way the same.
He had never looked at the dip of a woman's waist and wanted to lay his hand there to feel how soft she was. Not before her. He had never seen the arc of a hipbone and wanted to follow it with his fingertips, or trace the natural line that fell from the hollow of the throat down between the breasts. He had never wondered what a woman's skin would feel like next to his. Never wanted to touch anyone so badly that not to was an agony. The way he wanted to touch her, taste her, enfold himself around her. He didn't even know what precisely it was he wanted. Just…her. Whatever she wanted. Whatever she would allow.
When she tucked her fingers beneath the hem of her underthings he felt the heat curl, the low, searing grip of hunger tight and thick in the pit of his stomach. She slipped them down from her hips much the same way she had her jeans, until she was left standing before him, completely bare and utterly breathtaking.
She let him look for a moment, chewing maybe a little anxiously at her lower lip, before she stepped toward him.
His inhale was sharp as a knife slicing down his throat when she lowered herself to perch on the edge of the bed next to him, her knee close enough to graze his thigh. The warmth of her seemed to scald straight through his trousers. A chilled sweat had risen along his spine, and suddenly he didn't know where to look. The only reason he saw her lips curve with the smile was because his eyes had darted nervously upward, seeking somewhere safe.
Her hand found his arm, pulling lightly at his sleeve. His skin prickled at the touch.
"Your turn."
~/~
She was not the first woman he'd seen, but she was the first to matter. He needed no words to tell her that.
It was the only time she had been in this specific kind of situation and had not even a fleeting thought about her not entirely perfect figure: the extra softness framing the curve of her belly, the angular boniness of her joints, the faint iridescent streaks of the stretch marks across her thighs and hips from growing too much too fast as a pre-teen. Not a single one. She might know logically that the flaws she saw in the mirror were nowhere near as noticeable or severe to any eyes but her own, and that most men didn't give a damn about flaws when they were just happy to have a chance to look at a naked girl. But sometimes it took seeing that lack of notice in order to believe it herself. Oddly, wonderfully, enough, at no point in her little impromptu strip tease did she suffer insecurity of any kind.
He took in every inch of skin she gave him with the relish of a man starved. By the time she got to her panties he looked like he was going to pass out, and holy crap did it make her feel desirable beyond reason.
She moved back to the bed, unsurprised when he went rigid at the brush of her knee. He sat stiffly, his usual measured poise gone stilted and awkward, his hands clasping and unclasping where they rested atop the sheets at his sides. He shifted, restless, yet he made no move to touch her as she was fairly certain he wanted to.
Laying a hand on his arm, she bid him to turn slightly so that he faced her, and tugged gently at his sleeve.
"Your turn," she teased, hoping to ease some of his tension.
He met her gaze, a flicker of cautious comprehension in his eyes. Slowly, he lifted his hands from the bed, holding mask in place and reaching behind his neck to pull his shirt over his head. He clutched it between his hands, twisting the cloth once, twice, before setting it carefully aside. His fingers flexed, grazing the edge of his waistband and her stomach fluttered, at once excitement and nerves and elation – but it was as if the longer she looked, the more insecure he became. Though all he did was lower his hand back to the bed, he seemed almost to fold in on himself like the boy he'd never had the freedom to be.
It was possible that he might have been too caught up in the moment to feel it before, but he seemed all too aware of his own inexperience just now. That, or…was it doubt?
She might have been baffled at how he could question her attraction to him by now had she not possessed the knowledge she did of his background. Years upon years being told that he was ugly and freakish could not be smoothed away immediately, not even by her. It would take determination, and time.
Both of which she possessed plenty of.
Rising up on her knees, she moved closer until she was pressing against his thigh, setting her palms along the solid arc of his collarbone. Doing so brought her arms in, pressed her breasts together, and she experienced a swift, shivery pang of delight when his eyes dropped to them briefly before he dragged his stare resolutely back up to her face.
"Touch me," she invited, partly because she guessed the direction would steady him, but mostly because her skin felt tight and feverish and she wanted him to put his hands on her.
To her relief, it worked.
She was hardly a dainty waif of a girl, but when he took her waist between both hands it felt as if he enclosed it completely. He didn't, at least not quite, but it felt that way. He surrounded her, overwhelmed her. It was exactly she wanted, yet nowhere near enough.
The edges of his thumbs skimmed down, pausing over the slight indentation of her navel and bringing a soft shiver to arrow down her spine. There was wonder in his touch, as if he were feeling the fabric of the universe, not just the skin of a girl he'd only known a few weeks. Yet there was familiarity too, a kind of knowing next to the newness. Comfort, safety. He might be uncertain, but he felt safe with her in the same ways she felt safe with him. She had never known a man who had any concept of how vital that was.
He shifted, angling his body more directly into hers. Yet he still seemed tentative, so when she felt the gentle pressure at her sternum, the heat of his palm urging her backward, she blinked at him, surprised.
He pressed again – a question. A request. He wanted her to lie down.
She obeyed, intrigued and delighted by this completely unprompted action; something that had occurred to him organically and that he'd wanted enough to ask for. Unfolding her legs, she settled back onto the slightly too-soft mattress, stretching an arm up over her head in effort to remind herself to relax even as her stomach fluttered with eager anticipation when he shifted to lean over her.
His hand slipped up, loosely circling her throat. Not in a way that might suggest he pictured squeezing, but as if he were admiring something he thought beautiful. She detected a sense of deliberate care to his manner that she suspected was in effort not to startle her, rather than simply his own trepidation. Even though she had been the one to assault him first – both times. It was sweet, and she felt her cheeks warm slightly with a flush of pleasure she couldn't hide if she'd wanted to. She knew he could see it and reveled in that, hoping he recognized it for the compliment it was.
Fingertips grazed her chin, her mouth. The pad of his thumb brushed her lower lip, following the shape of it, pressing gently. It was an automatic thing to let her lips part, realizing only after she did that this was what he'd wanted. Goodness, he really did like her mouth.
She didn't know why this affected her so much, she really didn't. But there was no mistaking the liquid pool of want in her belly, or the restless craving for friction which had her squeezing her thighs together.
She had the most wicked impulse to lick his finger, but she suppressed it, not wanting to interrupt him.
His touch slipped lower, down between her collarbones, so light and soft that it nearly brought her goosebumps. Ever so carefully he followed the dip and swell of her left breast, grazing the nipple, and she was absolutely not in control when her spine arched. She thought it might startle him, but he seemed more curious than alarmed. He repeated the touch, with intent this time, letting it linger. The rasp of callus at his fingertips against her was nothing short of delicious and she whimpered, her hand curling into the sheet above her head.
He was growing braver with every second, every breath. When his touch traveled across her sternum to her other breast it was with much more surety. His hand curved with the shape, not quite cupping the weight of her, watching with open, burning fascination as he teased the tip to a stiff point. The muscles between her thighs clenched, hot and needy. She squirmed, thighs parting reflexively. Another involuntary noise formed in her mouth, and no sooner had the sound left her then his eyes were there, absorbing the look on her face, the arch of her neck when he ran his thumb over the tight nipple so slowly that she felt the ache echo deep in her cunt.
He was so focused. She wasn't used to this level of intensity and was somewhat taken aback by what an incredible turn-on it was. Though it really shouldn't have surprised her.
She missed it instantly when he left her breast, his palm smoothing softly along her ribs and the slight slope of her stomach. He traced the faint remnant of the bruise at her hip. Apologetic, regretful, but he didn't flinch or recoil from it, for which she was grateful.
He bypassed the place she wanted him the most in order to stroke down the slope of her thigh. The touch was tender, impossible to mistake as anything but loving, for all that his eyes were searing. He seemed to relish the feel of her, running his hand along her shape as though feeling something rich and lustrous like velvet.
Then, palm tilting upward, he brought his touch to the slick heat of her, fingers sliding just the way she'd shown him to part the outer folds.
"Huhhn…"
The moan caught in her throat, her back curving helplessly at the sharp, sweet throb in her flesh. She spread her legs a little wider, knowing he was studying her as he hadn't been able to before, and somehow knowing it caused her eyelids to flutter.
He dragged his fingertips up, grazing her clit, and she was completely unable to stop the involuntary rock of her hips at the bust of pleasure, or the choked gasping whine from spilling out of her mouth. It was almost embarrassing – might have been, in fact, had he been anyone else and had she not been tipped so deep into her own sensory overload that she could no longer care.
Christ on a goddamn cracker.
She had only ever felt this good when she had touched herself. It would not have been a lie to say she was somewhat alarmed by it.
He took note of the reaction, and immediately turned his attention to the tight, throbbing spot. And thank god for a man attentive and determined enough to realize the clitoris was their key to a happy woman. He followed her every sound, every infinitesimal hint of movement like a map – attuned to the subtle inflections which told him what things were good and which were very good.
She writhed, gasping, one hand tangling in sheeting. The other found his thigh and her fingers bent, nearly clawing at him in effort to gain some kind of purchase upon the rough cloth of his pant leg.
He'd stopped exploring. She didn't doubt he was enjoying himself, simply from the way he touched her she could tell he wasn't simply doing what he thought he was supposed to, or just to get on with it and hasten to move onward. There was a genuine relish there, as if he derived pleasure directly through hers, and it was sexy as fuck. But even dazed and half-mindless as she was, she understood what he might not completely be aware of. It was easier to focus on her, less uncertain. More controlled. It allowed him to not dwell on whatever it was that had made him nervous and strained before she'd given him something else to focus on. She thought she might understand, and while it worried her a little bit, she was completely beyond the ability to think rationally.
Not when he seemed determined to one-up his own record of giving her the best orgasm of her life.
She lingered on the precipice for long, agonizing minutes, never quite able to reach it...and she couldn't be sure he wasn't doing it on purpose, drawing out the pleasure until she was a shuddering, desperate mess. It might have seemed too early to give him that much credit, but it sure as heck didn't feel that way. She was nearly panting by the time she reached the cliff and fell.
It wasn't as intense as the last – a gradual, rolling tidal wave rather than a brutal snap – and not quite so emotionally charged. But it was long and luscious and flooded her with such ethereal bliss, and fucking hell she was going to get those goddamn pants off if it was the last thing she did.
~/~
To say Jason didn't understand why he was so apprehensive would have been an untruth in the absolute.
He should have been thrilled at the prospect of repeating any part of the activity of two nights ago, should have been thoroughly absorbed in the lovely creature settled beside him in nothing but her skin. And he was, truly. But he was also, inexplicably, afraid.
The way she looked at him when he pulled the clean shirt from his body...he almost couldn't believe how he'd missed it before. But then he was still having difficulty believing this was real and not simply a fragment of imagination tangled in desire. But it must have been, because there she was, trailing her eyes over his torso as though there was nothing she would rather be looking at.
She wanted him to copy her, to rid himself completely of clothing as she had done, but he didn't dare. He was already becoming tight and hot, and as good as it had felt when she had touched him, he was incredibly nervous for reasons he could not piece together with any sense of coherency – a convoluted tangle of private and dangerous and strange.
He wanted desperately to touch her. The urge was a dull ache in his hands, gnawing in his gut. Yet he hesitated.
It wasn't that he sought permission – she had said he didn't need it. No, it was something else. Quite simply, he didn't know what to do. She seemed to want something very specific but he had no idea what, and he was so afraid of making a mistake, of committing some error in his ignorance. He wanted her to stay with him, wanted to please her, to make her happy…but he was at a total loss as to how and crippled by the terror in not knowing.
He had never been more relieved than when she took pity on him, sliding close, enveloping him in the clean, sweet scent of her, and told him.
"Touch me."
Vague as it might have seemed, something in him loosened, relaxed.
His hands came up, circling her waist – the narrow point between the flare of hips and the swell of breasts. He could reach all of her like this, feel every line and curve. But he wanted to look at her too, and the best way he could think of to have both was for her to lie back.
She seemed surprised by the guiding hand he laid against her, spanning across delicate collarbones, yet she relented almost immediately, unfolding the length of her sleek, beautiful body along the pale gray sheets. She lifted one arm above her head, the position inadvertently thrusting her breasts upward.
His groin tightened.
He felt for the bloodbeat in her throat, tracing the lines up to her face. The place at her jaw where the stranger had struck her was still a bit red, probably still a bit tender as well, but they had thankfully kept it from swelling. Good. He turned his attention back to the stubborn little chin, the lush mouth.
Why he wanted her to part her lips was beyond him, but he did, and took an oddly violent satisfaction when she responded perfectly to the subtle pressure he'd exerted. The way her lashes lowered slightly, as if to say she knew exactly why he wanted it even if he did not, sent a lick of fire down his spine. With effort, he dragged his gaze, and his touch, lower.
He had seen bare breasts often enough that they had ceased to be strange or novel. He knew how they looked, the structure, the way they moved. But none of them had belonged to her, and he found himself gaping as he had when she had let the wire-elastic cage fall away and revealed what lay beneath.
Her skin was such a precise shade of cream, pale and almost luminous in the right light. It was the same here but for the very tips, where the color was the same wild rose pink as her lips. He let his fingertips skim down the soft flesh, pleasantly surprised when her back curved, pressing herself into his touch. It was so uncontrolled, a reflex driven by pure pleasure and seemingly anchored in that pretty pink center.
To his fascination, when he touched her again it was to find the flesh tightening beneath his fingers. He repeated the action with the other breast, at which she shifted, making a small sound in her throat like an echo of discomfort, and he worried briefly that he was causing pain.
He glanced up at her, and the sight of her – the look on her face – was indescribable.
Her eyes were glazed, her hair spread like mahogany made liquid about her head. The arm that had rested so serene and relaxed above her was tight with strain, her fingers tangled in the sheet beneath her. He could smell her, the salty-sweetness that he now understood came in tandem with the dampness he would likely find between the thighs she was pressing together as if to satisfy a need for touch.
His touch.
Quite deliberately he dragged a fingertip across the beaded point, his insides clenching with hot, savage delight when she squirmed and arched her neck, biting at her lower lip.
The rest of his study was somewhat feverish, though he did pause at her hip, studying the bruising there with a regretful frown. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted – something which she seemed to know, thankfully. Still, he resolved to be more careful, and though he knew she wouldn't feel the vow in the caress of her thigh, he hoped she would understand on some level that he would never bruise her again.
His eyes lowered, settled on the short, tidy gathering of dark hair at the apex of her thighs – another thing seen before but dismissed before he could ever become truly curious. He had felt it when he'd touched her before, ever so slightly coarse but also strangely pleasant.
As before, looking at her here tapped into some part of him based purely in things deep and powerful and demanding. The reddish curls glistened, and the sight of it cut his breath short and turned the blood in his veins white-hot. Instinct guided the curve of his fingers, delving into the soft, slick heat, the scent of her thick in his lungs. The instant he touched her she rewarded him with a breathy, almost keening sound and widened the part of her legs as if to grant better access. He took greedy advantage, angling his head to study the sweet, warm place.
He had thought his own anatomy strange, but hers was so much more intricate and fascinating. The soft folds of flesh almost resembled a flower in terms of shape and texture, and yet not at all. Flowers were pretty enough, but they didn't make his body ache and burn, nor incite such an urgent craving to be closer.
Tracing his fingertips along the length of the petal-like folds he grazed something that had Whitney's spine arching sharply, her hips rolling almost helplessly up against his hand. She made a strangled, desperate sound deep in her throat that he felt reverberate all the way down to his toes. He needed no more than that to tell him this place was one to study as thoroughly as possible.
He probed gently, finding a tight bud tucked within the flesh, the texture similar to that of the tips of her breasts but not quite the same. From the way the lean muscles in her thighs strained and her breath left her in something edged upon a whine, this was the source of the response, and he set himself to producing it again.
He paid close attention to every sound she made, every twitch, every hint of movement no matter how subtle, until he had gathered enough information to know that slow strokes drew languid shudders and that tight, focused circles caused her to twist and arch and gasp almost frantically. Her head tossed to one side as she pressed her hips into his touch. He felt her hand at his leg, her nails raking down the length of his thigh. Her eyes were half-lidded and hazed as though delirious, her lips parted and the rise and fall of her chest gone rapid and shallow with her breath.
The tightness of his trousers was past the point of discomfort now and his mouth was watering as if in response to a ravenous appetite, which…in truth felt an accurate description. He might as well have been devouring her: savoring the soft, pleading sounds spilling from her tongue, the delicate tremble in her thighs, the slickness of her pleasure, the way she bent her knee slightly to change the angle of his fingers and her soft cry when he took heed of it.
He could see it build this time – saw it in the almost pained set of her features, the unsteady, urgent arch of her body, felt the throbbing pulse like the contraction of a heartbeat centered between her thighs as she shook and gasped, and broke upon a rush of liquid fire.
Killing had never given him power. Not really, and certainly not like this. Death was simply a price to be paid, a debt owed of which he was merely the collector. It was satisfying in its way, but emptily so. The sense of triumph that overcame him when she sagged, limp and trembling, the satisfaction, the power…it was like nothing he had ever known.
If the rest of his life was occupied with nothing but the pursuit of bringing her pleasure like this, it would be a life well and fully spent.
~/~
For a minute or so she couldn't really move. Either her abdominal muscles had revolted or she had forgotten how to use them, which was really fine by her. She spent the time riding out the ebbing spasms, and looking at him, trailing her eyes along the heavy muscle of his arms and shoulders, somewhat hypnotized by the gleam at his chest and the hollow of his throat – still stunned she had the ability to bring him to the point of perspiring.
Jason, for his part, was currently examining his own hand, absently rubbing his fingers together.
She hovered on the edge of mortification for a moment when she realized it was the hand he had touched her with and that he must be studying the texture of the wetness from her body. But he looked rather captivated by it, pleased even, instead of baffled or disgusted, and her mortification leaned toward a shy kind of relief.
Her palm was still resting upon his leg and she let it stroke down toward the knee in a gesture of affection, somewhat surprised to find she hadn't gouged furrows in the thick fabric. At her touch his eyes moved back to her, soft and bright on her face. He reached, great hand curving with the slope of her hip…and he hadn't wiped his hand clean. It didn't occur to him that he should, because it wasn't gross or unclean to him – he'd had far worse things on his hands, after all. It was at once sweetly endearing and unexpectedly sexy.
He mirrored her affectionate touch by running his hand up along her waist and ribs, the unhurried caress drawing a faint, echoing pang of pleasure from between her legs.
With a steadying breath she managed to coax her body to sit up. She wobbled a little, and Jason's hand curved automatically to support her back. Was that a worry frown clouding his eyes? Sweet man. He hadn't yet figured out that being a bit unsteady was to be expected.
But he would.
She let her hand slide slowly up the length of his thigh, turning her wrist to direct it ever so slightly inward. The muscle coiling tightly beneath her palm, the touch at her back flexing compulsively.
Discreetly she glanced toward his groin and experienced another reflexive, fluttering clench in her belly at the impressive signs of strain beneath the thick dark cloth. How she wanted it out of the way. Badly enough that she felt her fingers twitch. But she had not forgotten his reluctance earlier, and that alone was enough to cement her decision.
She wouldn't do it for him. She would affirm and encourage, but he had to make the choice for himself. He had to want to do it, otherwise it would be coerced and she was very much not in favor of that – and honestly, it was fine if he wasn't there yet. More than fine. Nothing was stopping her from repeating what she'd done last time, plus without the restriction of the chair she had more freedom, and more reach.
By then she had regained enough core stability to tuck her knees under her and she did so, angling her body so she was facing him directly. Bracing her hands upon his chest she leaned forward, brushing her lips across the hollow of his throat.
He sucked in a hard breath, his chest swelling as it filled his lungs. Her palms curved with the shape of his pectorals, firm and solid, the pound of his heart like thunder. She nuzzled her nose against the base of his neck, both affectionate and – or so she hoped – soothing, then she kissed him, pressing her mouth to the thick arc of muscle connecting neck to shoulder. She traced the shape of him with her lips, with slow, open-mouthed kisses – tasting the salt of his skin and breathing in the heady, musky scent of him.
He was fighting (and failing) to keep his breaths even. Each one left him shaking, a faint tremor she felt in his hand at her back and the obliques strained tight under her fingertips. He hadn't been half so responsive when she had touched him before. She wasn't sure if that was because he hadn't realized what she was doing or because she was using her mouth – or both – but she liked it; the soft shudder that rippled through him every time she slid her hands across his skin, the way his hand flexed when she let her lips drag to a new spot instead of lifting her mouth.
Her fingertips slipped upward along his ribs, inadvertently brushing one nipple, and he released a heavy huff of an exhale, powerful stomach muscles contracting. Intrigued, she drew back to look at him. Overall he was rather pale, though not quite as white as she was (thank you pasty Scottish ancestors), yet his nipples were a soft, dusky brownish pink.
With a smile that might have been just a bit wicked, she ducked her head and swiped her tongue across one.
He emitted a harsh grunt of surprise. His hand flew to her nape, coiling in her hair and clenching into a fist before suddenly releasing as if burned.
She went still, frowning. She couldn't tell if that had been a good reaction or a bad one – if he had been encouraging or redirecting her. The only thing she was certain of was why he'd stopped, and it was because he was way too worried about hurting her.
And Clay had been so adamant that she couldn't know that she was truly safe with him. She had never been more safe.
If she had to choose, she would rather a man be too gentle than too rough with her, especially one quite so strong. But she wasn't glass. She wasn't hollow-boned and paper-skinned and she didn't want him to be consumed with caution, to treat her like she would shatter instantly if he gripped a little harder. She didn't believe for one second that if she had drawn his attention to the bruising grip he wouldn't have let up immediately – that he wouldn't have ripped himself from the brink of release to do so. He wasn't going to break her now.
Drawing back, she reached for his hand where it rested just a bit too lightly at the back of her neck. Folding her fingers around his she twined them into her hair and softly pulled.
His eyes narrowed on her face, sharp as a hawk's.
"You won't hurt me," she told him patiently. Adjusting her grip around his hand she pulled a little more firmly, enough to force her own head back, exposing her throat while he watched closely, processing. "I'll tell you if I don't like something," she added, turning her hand to slip it free. "Just like you'll tell me, right?"
Though he didn't nod for her, something in his gaze told her she had told him what he needed to hear.
"So did you want me to stop, or keep going?"
It was an opening. He could choose to answer the way he usually did when she issued an either/or question, holding up a finger to indicate which was the correct one, which was what she thought he would do. When she felt the light pressure at the base of her skull it was with pleasant surprise.
He used no more force than that, and she understanding that they had a ways to go before he would be able or willing to direct her more assertively. Which was completely fine. She didn't need much direction in this case.
Leaning back into him, she pressed her lips to his skin an inch or so above the place she knew he wanted her. Then an inch below, teasing by mouthing at the ridge of muscle lining the protrusion of a rib. He let out a short breath of frustration, arching toward her as if in unspoken plea, and she relented. She brushed her lips across the nipple, tracing the shape with the tip of her tongue until he stiffened and his fingers curled tightly amidst her hair. She felt the vibration of the groan, centered deep behind the solar plexus and radiating into her palms where she gripped his waist, rich and wonderful in spite of its silence.
Then, abruptly, he leaned away from her, pushing up off the bed so swiftly that she nearly tipped sideways onto the floor and had to catch herself with a hand.
She peered up at him, more than a little startled.
"I'm—" she began, reflexive apology halfway out of her mouth when she realized two things. First, that he was breathing heavily, but in the way of exertion, not of fear. And second, that he was reaching for his fly.
Yes. Yes, yes, please yes.
Her stomach twisted, the butterflies alight with a sudden flurry of elated trepidation as she watched him.
He was frowning slightly, having to concentrate on the zipper to counter the tremble in his hands. It was sweet, all that fierce focus in order to accomplish such a small task. He paused part of the way through – his gaze darting swiftly to her as though the earlier uncertainty had creeped back to sink its teeth into him. She was prepared to reassure him, though the reveal of those extra inches of taut flesh below his navel were doing a number on her concentration, but evidently he didn't need her to.
Heavy ribcage expanding with a breath he seemed to brace himself. Then he tucked his thumbs under the band and shoved the fabric down.
She was not expecting the lack of underwear, though perhaps she should have – clothing big enough to fit his frame must have been difficult to come by. Still, she had not been prepared to suddenly see so much of him so fast. Her eyes widened, the flush at her cheeks deepening to the point where she could feel it spreading down her neck and chest as she took in the solid flanks and powerful thighs, the faint line of pale hair leading down to the thick jut of his cock.
He was...well, he was proportional. Which meant, like every other, this part of him was rather larger than average. She stared, trying to calculate. She'd only been intimate with two other men and neither of them had been quite so...intimidating.
"Ok," she murmured, more a textured exhale than an actual word.
Contrary to popular (for whatever reason) belief, size did, in fact, matter. But not in the way everyone seemed to think. It wasn't a matter of girth, but rather of length. A woman's body could not simply expand itself to adjust to the size of its male partner; there was a definite ending point in the form of the cervix which did not appreciate being intruded upon in 99.7% of cases. Or so said everything she'd ever read. And believed, if her pelvic exams were any indication.
It was very likely – and probably more along the lines of definitely – that Jason was simply too long for her. At least for certain things. But that just meant she would have to be creative.
As a rule, penises were not pretty. They were appendages of purpose, not aesthetic, and while there were certainly women in the world who claimed to love the look of them, Whitney was not one of them. Thus it was with no small measure of surprise that she took one look at Jason's and thought it…while not pretty, definitely more appealing than average. Perhaps it was that his hair was so pale and fine, lending an almost automatic appearance of tidiness – which was ironic considering she had once mentally insulted his apparent lack of care for things like grooming (wrongly so at that). Maybe it was the shape of it, the almost elegant curve. Or maybe it was simply that she was so ridiculously attracted to him and that he was obviously just as attracted to her.
Tentatively she reached, giving him every opportunity to step back – to deflect or turn away. But he didn't, and she took him gently in hand.
He wasn't absurd, but the space between her fingertips was much less than she remembered from the last time she'd had her hand on someone's cock. He was also incredibly warm: the skin smooth and velvety-soft. She might have imagined she could feel the throb of his pulse against her palm, but she did not imagine the ruddy flush at the tip, nor the bead of moisture there.
The second she touched him he jumped as though electrocuted, seizing her wrist in a grip just a little too tight for comfort before quickly correcting it. When she glanced up to meet his gaze it was to find his pupils blown wide and just the tiniest bit of alarm.
"I'll stop if you want me to," she said, deliberately projecting a calm she didn't entirely feel, and a reassurance she did.
He hesitated, but she understood the hitch in the shake of his head. This was new and he was nervous, which was absolutely to be expected. Though he was not ashamed, she was pleased to note, or else he was hiding it incredibly well – which she frankly doubted.
Though he had let go of her wrist, she waited a moment before moving, just in case. When he didn't stop her, she stroked down his length, relishing the sharp, uncontrollable jerk of his hips and the choked sound lodged in his throat.
Releasing him, she slid backward across the bed and held her hand out to him.
"Come here?"
She phrased it as a question so he understood he had the option to refuse her, but he didn't seem inclined to. He moved forward, the muscle in his long legs bunching as he struggled to shove the socks from his feet by stepping on them much the way she did when she was tired, or in a hurry. She didn't suppress her smile.
The grace that had briefly left him before returned out of nowhere. He sank almost panther-like to the bed as it dipped beneath his weight, the box-spring giving a faint whine that went completely ignored. She wondered vaguely if some of the nerves had been more a result of simply not knowing what to expect, either from her or himself, and that with her approval made evident they ceased to be a problem. Either way, he had risen up on his knees to mirror her, broad and scarred and imposing.
He reached for her, his arm winding about her waist and pulling her across the bed toward him.
She heard felt his breath stutter at the contact – at her skin on his – and tipped her chin up to see his eyes were dark and fever-bright.
Though she trusted him completely, she wasn't sure she would ever completely be rid of the small creature acknowledgement of just how easily he could hurt her if he chose to. It might no longer manifest as alarm, but it was there. It was there now as he lifted her bodily against him as easily as if she were a child, rendering her small and dainty and starkly, blatantly female next to his size and bearing. Once it would have frightened her to be those things with him. Now it just made her hot.
His hand rested low across her back, holding her close so that her breasts brushed his chest and the length of him was trapped, hard and searing against her belly. Her insides shuddered, new heat pooling slick between her legs, responding on a purely physical level to what the primordial center of her brain recognized as a strong, capable, virile male to whom she should submit immediately.
He had put them back in the position they'd been in before he had suddenly decided to rid himself of pants – probably due to the discomfort – and she wasn't sure if it was because he didn't know what else to do or because he wanted her to continue where she had left off. She was hoping for the latter.
She ran her hands up the dip and swell of his biceps and along his shoulders, cradling the base of his head between them. She leaned forward, using his body as leverage and arching her back slightly to reach that tender little place at the back of his jaw. Her lips parted, her breath a light brush across his skin for an instant preceding the touch of her mouth. She kissed softly, dragging her lips up to the lobe of his ear and giving it a playful lick.
Something rather like a growl rumbled through his chest – a low, soundless vibration. In another creature she would have thought it a warning, but not in him. Not when he had just lowered his hand to the curve of her ass and pressed her closer, his palm and fingers splayed wide across her flesh.
Oh, jesus, yes.
She kissed a path down the side of his neck, following the path of his pulse. Then, curious to see if the affect would be similar, she retraced the line she had made with the tip of her tongue – a long, delicate lick. His spine curved, hips arcing in blind reflex up against her stomach. His grip on her butt tightened when he did, inadvertently pressing her down so that the base of his cock dragged across the soft rise directly over her cunt.
Oh, god she wanted him inside her.
But that was not going to happen. For one, she was nowhere near prepared enough for that. She hadn't had so much as a finger for over a month and he was thick enough that she would need warming up. For another, she was not so far lost to her lust that she couldn't remember that if he bled, and if he ejaculated, then he was alive enough that there was a chance – if maybe an infinitesimal one – that he could impregnate her, and no matter how small that wasn't a chance she was able to take. She'd gotten the condoms specifically for this reason...which were, of fucking course, all the way downstairs.
Sharp noise of frustration in her mouth, she planted her hands against his chest and pushed at him until he got the signal and adjusted, unfolding his legs so she could straddle his thighs, and pushing again until he dropped to his back.
If she had known nothing of Jason beyond his size, his strength, and his capacity for violence, she would have assumed any inclination he had toward sex would be anything but submissive. Yet he seemed quite content to follow her lead. Eager, even, like a puppy paying close attention to the new commands being taught him, as though he were trying to commit whatever she did to memory.
Though it was a bit difficult to think of him as a puppy in this particular setting.
He lay there beneath her, all firm, rough muscle and aroused male flesh, one hand sliding along the dip of her waist down to her hip as though he couldn't quite restrain himself from touching her.
Holy shit, but he was a beautiful man.
Bracing her palm against the rigid surface of his abdomen she wrapped her hand around the base of his erection and ran her thumb down the thick vein along the underside. The muscle under her hand clenched, his cock throbbing in her grip. He shuddered and strained, tension cording in his neck and shoulders. He wasn't going to last very long, which was to be expected. It was one thing to feel her through fabric, but to have her hand on him was likely far more intense.
She stroked him gently, and then again a little more firmly when he thrust up into her hand with a reflexive roll of his hips. He shifted restlessly, thighs flexing between hers. She circled the flushed head with her fingertips, spreading the pearly moisture at his tip with her thumb, and he nearly arched off the bed, a harsh, prolonged breath that she knew to be a moan slipping from his mask.
His grip had slipped to a point high at her thigh, somehow maintaining the presence of mind to keep his fingers splayed and the pressure measured. She suspected he was trying to channel most of the force to the other hand, which was clutching the edge of the mattress, digging so deep that she would be shocked if the imprints ever completely went away. Still, the purchase he had on her was not insignificant – pulling her a fraction of an inch closer to him as though on some instinctive compulsion to feel the heat of her cunt on him. She was sorely tempted to oblige that compulsion, tip her hips forward and drag his length against her.
Her belly clenched, the muscles tightening greedily, liquid and shivering and alarmingly strong.
That was…new. She couldn't remember ever feeling this level of arousal again so quickly. She tended to need quite a bit of time before it was possible for her to orgasm again rather than just feel overstimulated and uncomfortable. She wasn't actually sure if that was what this was, but she was more than willing to go with it. Not, however, at the expense of potentially putting him in cardiac arrest. So she kept her hips to herself, challenging as that was, and made do with her hands.
He was shaking – literally shaking – the rise and fall of his chest rapid, almost frantic, so close to the brink that it was almost painful to watch. And then his back bowed, his entire body coiling with a glorious tension as the pleasure tore and bled. He pulsed in her grasp, spilling in a hot rush across his own heaving stomach, the back of her hand.
This time the engulfing sense of delicious victory was not impeded by her terror of having assaulted him against his will.
Oh, she'd assaulted him all right.
But he had been absolutely and thoroughly willing.
~/~
She looked different after, mussed and rosy. She nearly seemed to glow, though he couldn't be sure that wasn't simply his own love for her reflected back at him.
He could feel himself smiling – a soft thing, at once tenderness and pride. She looked thoroughly pleased. And what was more, she wasn't retreating from him, stiff and suddenly cold. Her eyes were closed, the fringe of her eyelashes dark across the skin below them, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she lay, draped across the bed as though boneless, basking in what he hoped was something like the euphoria he remembered. She certainly didn't look as though she was questioning her decision to engage in this sharing of flesh and touch with him this time.
No indeed. His fingers were coated with the slick evidence of her pleasure; something which heartily gratified the bestial, possessive thing in him. A thing hell-bent on doing whatever it took to prove that there was no better choice of mate for her than he was.
Tipping his head down he examined the clear, slightly viscous substance. Which really didn't feel at all like blood now that he was paying attention, the musky-sweet scent of it so much more appealing than the tang of metal. The light pressure of her hand at his leg shifted, and he looked up to see her eyes were open; hazy and warm in a way that made him think of a humid summer day, only far more pleasant. She was smiling at him, a small, satisfied curve of her lips which stoked the flame of that animal pride.
He had moved to touch her, toying with the idea of slipping his hand back between her legs and bringing her to that lovely writhing, gasping state again, when she sat up, a little shaky. He could feel her hand sliding up along the inside of his thigh and the muscles in his belly twitched with an eager trepidation. But she didn't settle her hand over his groin the way she had done before.
Folding her knees underneath her, she raised her arms to rest her hands upon his chest. Her head tipped forward out of his line of sight the split instant before he felt the heat of her breath on his skin.
Her lips ran along his skin, grazing the ragged band of scarring that marred his shoulder. His scars had never truly bothered him, not even when she had first looked upon him, unflinching. He had never really considered them part of what made him monstrous, and it was only now that she kissed him as though the marks weren't even there that it occurred to him they might have mattered. Not that he had the focus to think on it now. She seemed determined to map the surface of his chest; her mouth open and hot and languid, taking her time, inhaling slowly and deeply as if breathing him in.
Her hands were at his waist, sliding around to his lower back and then around again, fingertips joining her mouth in the pursuit of painting him in liquid fire. He could feel the length of her thigh pressed to his, and he had a lightning swift urge to use his hand at her back to pull her sideways into his lap and have that lush, soft weight against him, when she did something with her hand that sent a thick wave of pleasure sliding down his spine. Then he felt the dart of her tongue, and the wave became a jagged bolt of lust.
His hand was in her hair, gripping tight and half a breath away from forcing her back to that place and bid her touch him there again.
Instantly he let go, stricken with a sudden horror. How could he have thought to do such a thing? Even imagining it was wrong. The idea of forcing her to do anything made his blood sour with a noxious blend of guilt and disgust.
He felt her touch at his wrist, folding her fingers with his in a way that would forever make him think of when she had guided his hand beneath her underthings – he tried to ignore the inappropriately-timed twitch of enticement in his groin at the image. Instead of disentangling him from her hair however she urged his fingers to curl and to pull, ever so slightly.
He stared at her, baffled.
"You won't hurt me," she said calmly, and something in her tone made him wonder which she meant: that this in particular wouldn't cause her pain, or that he himself was incapable of doing so. Neither was correct, and yet somehow both seemed to be.
She pulled again, and her chin tipped up, showing him the long line of her throat the way an animal might have shown submission. It was like an open invitation to look and so he did, following the path of pale skin down to where it led: slender arms and shoulders, bare breasts soft and full as ripe fruit.
"I'll tell you if I don't like something, just like you'll tell me, right?"
His eyes lifted back to her face, turning her words over in his mind.
She was reassuring him, telling him that she wouldn't keep silent and allow him to hurt her, yet he couldn't brush off the inkling that she had been telling him more than that. Did she want him to pull her hair? That didn't seem right…and the idea didn't especially appeal to him. He was missing something, something tucked between the demonstration and her assurances to be communicative.
"So," she continued, though he hadn't answered her first question, "did you want me to stop, or keep going?"
His pulse jumped in his throat. Stop? He didn't think he'd wanted anything more than her mouth on him – the strength of that wanting having alarmed him. He nearly shook his head before he remembered that she wouldn't know to which choice he was referring…when it suddenly struck him.
Was she referring to the impulse he'd had to physically hold her in place against him? But how could she have known? Unless it wasn't actually the depraved thing it had seemed to him in the moment. Was she saying he could – and that it was permissible to – communicate with her this way? Tell her what he didn't like, or, in this case, what he did?
One thing was clear, she wouldn't move until he answered her somehow, and something told him she wouldn't respond favorably to his usual method. He felt suddenly shy. It was different, asking her to touch him rather than the other way around. But he wanted it to the point of need, and badly enough to fold.
Cupping the base of her head he exerted a light, guiding pressure, just enough to be felt before letting up. Whether it was the kind of answer she was looking for or not it seemed enough. She ducked her head, lips pressing gently against his chest as he'd wanted her to, but not quite satisfactory.
He arched his back, trying to coax her to move. And move she did.
The heat of her mouth was incredible, bringing with it a rich surge of pleasure. The touch of her tongue a lick of fire, striking melting sparking along his nerves as she traced a tight circular pattern into his skin.
The ache in his groin had been a steady, chafing annoyance since the moment she had set her fingers to the buttons of her shirt, but at the soft slide of her tongue the pressure reached a point of pain he could no longer endure.
He shoved himself away from her to stand, hand dropping to the band of his trousers to relieve the constraint. He had the zipper halfway open by the time his brain caught up with him and he stilled.
She had wanted him to remove them, hadn't she? He thought she had…the way she was watching him from her spot in the center of the bed, anticipation bright in her lovely green-brown eyes certainly implied she did. He hoped that was the case, for he felt as though if he didn't get them off he was going to chafe raw and bloody.
Before he could second-guess himself into cowardice he wrenched the zipper the rest of the way down and freed himself with a grunt at the drag of the rough fabric against his flesh, somewhat dismayed when the relief was minimal and fleeting.
He had performed a cursory examination of himself when last he had bathed. While familiar enough with it to understand the rudimentary structure and purpose – purpose which appeared to have been only part of the entirety. It seemed odd for an organ seemingly intended for the use of emptying the bladder to also produce such heightened, and intensely separate, sensation, but the oddness seemed rather insignificant when he considered the nature of that sensation. As well as Whitney's apparent appreciation for it.
Although she didn't appear appreciative just now.
For a lengthy moment she just stared at him, her eyes wide as though in shock or alarm. He glanced down at himself, hard and swollen and aching. It was alarming. Should he put it away? He wasn't sure he could fit back into his trousers, but he would do it if she asked him to, discomfort be damned. Yet when he looked back to her for direction it was to find the expression had left her, replaced by something that resembled awe, or…admiration? He was clearly addled in the head. All his blood did seem to centered everywhere but his brain.
It didn't occur to him to stop her when she reached. But then her hand closed around him and his body clenched with a violence near to blinding.
Lashing out he seized her wrist. It was too tight – he knew it was. He could almost feel the bones creak, and he loosened the force of his grip, trying to remember why he'd grabbed her in the first place.
She was peering up at him, her face serene, framed by the burning hair tumbling down over her shoulders to veil her breasts. "I'll stop if you want me to," she said, her voice even and gentle as if she were soothing a creature she had stumbled across and startled without meaning to.
No. No, he didn't want that. It was just that her had was so small and hot and smooth…it alarmed him just how good she felt.
He released her, hoping it was a satisfactory answer because he had lost the power to nod.
She responded by sliding her hand down the length of aching flesh. Pleasure burst along his spine, behind his eyes, deep in his thighs and he gasped, his body arching in uncontrollable reflex.
When he blinked the sparks from his vision it was to see her moving back toward the other side of the bed, her hand lifted, fingers curling in toward her upturned palm as if to beckon to him.
"Come here," she bid, and he had no thought to do anything but obey.
He sank to his knees upon the sheets, snared her around the middle and drew her to him, wanting her close, to sink into her yielding softness. The pressure of her lush little body against his swollen flesh a thing near torment.
She cupped the back of head in her hands, arching herself upwards to bring her mouth to his jaw. Her breasts met his chest, the tips beaded taut against his skin, her mouth skimming the backmost edge of the bone. She laid her open mouth to the sensitive place, breath sweet and warm. Her sly little tongue darted along the lobe of his ear and he couldn't contain the growl, couldn't stop himself from sliding his hand down along the dip of her back and filling it with the smooth, rounded flesh of her backside – hauling her up another inch or so.
She seemed to like that, for she made a tiny, pleased noise and set her mouth back to his skin, trailing lingering kisses down his throat.
His fingers flexed, his other hand folding around the slope of her thigh. Then came the white-hot streak of ecstasy when she licked a long line back up the side of neck and his hips arced upward, a helpless jerk of motion as his body strained toward her.
Every ancient animal instinct in him was railing – screaming – at him to do something. He had no idea what, and for the first time the hole in his knowledge was more than a passing annoyance. It grated, fiercely, clawing inside him with frustration he didn't know how to appease.
Whitney seemed to echo his frustration, for she let out a hard, aggravated breath that had him wishing he could apologize for his obvious failing.
She was pushing at his chest, shoving at him insistently. At first he was confused, not understanding what she wanted. To let her go, maybe? Or…no, she was copying the request he'd made for her to lie down, if with a bit more aggression – which he found he rather liked. He complied, holding her secure while he rearranged his own limbs, amused when she continued to shove until his back met the mattress.
He took advantage of the opportunity to look at her, enjoying the play of the early morning light over her skin, the way her hair fell down her back as she settled above him – more than a little overwhelmed by the sight of her.
He felt her knees frame his sides, her thighs a pleasant pressure against his own. Her fingertips grazed the tight plain of his stomach, which contracted, hyper-responsive to the touch. He saw something in her eyes change, soften briefly before glossing-over with heat right before she took hold of the length of rigid flesh between his legs and he was lost.
He shuddered as she handled him, sure, firm strokes along the shaft from root to end. If it had felt good feeling her through the barrier of clothing it was nothing next to what it was to have her hand on him. He was bleeding sensation, pleasure rippling through him in luscious waves; staggering, clumsy and dazed, toward that something he very desperately needed yet couldn't name.
He forced one of his hands from her, groping blindly for something to grip and sinking his fingers into the side of the bed, pulling the fitted sheet halfway off. He would not bruise her again. He refused. But she was not making it easy to remember himself and he almost feared his effort would be in vain.
Before long he was moving with her, utterly unable to stop his hips from arcing up into her touch. When she paused, running her thumb along the very tip he thought he might snap his own spine in two for the lightning stab of pleasure. It burned all the way up his back to his brain and his heavy breath shattered upon a moan that was pure anguish.
Absently he wondered if this would be the thing to kill him. If so, he would welcome death and gladly. After everything, if it came by her hand, it would be well worth it.
Her hand slid slowly up, twisting gently – and it broke him.
Pleasure wracked him, wrenching swift and sure. He convulsed, clawing at the mattress, and she eased him through it, as he shuddered and throbbed and as a hot fluid substance surged over her fingers to pool upon his abdomen. He was – somewhere in the innermost recesses of his mind – mildly horrified; more by the explosive nature of it than the fluid itself. It was a mirror of her own liquid pleasure, nothing more. And he didn't quite have the capacity to hold to anything but the languid bliss causing him to melt right into the bed.
As if from far away he became aware of Whitney moving, sliding from where she'd sat astride him – which he weakly wanted to protest. She had not, he realized, left the bed. Merely leant to reach over the side for something and reemerging with her own shirt in hand. After using it to wipe down the back of her hand she folded the green cloth and smoothed it across his belly with an almost doting tenderness to clean up the mess of his release. Finished, she tossed the soiled garment lightly back to the floor.
Tossing him a smile that was an almost feline contentment she stretched out beside him. She laid a hand against the flat space between his chest and collarbone, her arm cushioned in the seam between his own arm and his body as she tucked herself against his side.
His heart squeezed beneath his breastbone when she pressed a soft kiss to the crest of his shoulder, his veins flooded with euphoric warmth and so much love for her he felt as if he might burst. That she was there with him, her skin to his, as if he were any other normal man worthy of her touch, her smile, because she had chosen to be…it was miraculous.
He was, every part of him, hers. Whatever she asked of him he would give her. Whatever it took, whatever the cost.
NOTES:
I told you things were gonna get fucking steamy. How are we feeling about that?
This was SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE. JESUS. I feel like it got away from me a little bit, both in length (hurr) and in the level of dirtiness. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised by the first one because it's me and I am infamously long-winded. But the second one surprised me. I guess I've been as thirsty for these two to just stop dancing around it and bang already as they were. I don't think I'm alone there.
This is actually just the first half of what was originally going to be one chapter until I hit the twenty-page mark and saw how much of what I plotted I still had left and realized I'd need to split it up. I try to keep my chapters at or under 25 pages for the sake of attention span, time, and Ao3's size limitations. So…I guess what I'm saying is standby for more sex!
You may have noticed that I didn't give Jason some crazy massive dick. I know some folks are into that and there is no shame coming from me, but I find there tends to be a bit of a trope/stereotype/expectation…I don't know what to call it, but it feeds into something of a toxic body-standard for men that I'm not into. So for the sake of realism (as much as there can be in this kind of fanfic), Jason's just a big dude. And also for the sake of realism, that can be a problem. But it's also possible to make things work anyway. Going to step off my soapbox now.
Someone commented – I don't remember where or exactly when – on how I'll write the same scene twice to focus on the two different perspectives, which I do mainly because this is an intensely character-based story. It's actually really interesting to write sex this way. Whitney's perspective is a bit cruder because of the language she uses, and Jason's is reliant on simile because he doesn't really know this language in a way to fit it to the context. Maybe it's just me, but I find that interesting.
As always – massive, MASSIVE thank you to every single one of you for reading, fav/following and your life-giving comments. Right now, the positivity and love is everything. I did want to mention that, unlike Ao3, doesn't allow for ease of replying to comments, which I dislike. I'm already insanely long-winded in my notes, so I don't reply. But that does not mean I don't read every single one multiple times and wish I had a way to legit respond.
I'm going to go back to writing now, because I am going to ride this train until either it stops or I do.
Be safe and be well.
Until next time!
