Page 31 of Redeem

He said he understood and I believed him, but understanding and wanting to see what I was, were two different things.

He returned to the chair he had just left, me in his arms. The warm, soft press of his lips against my forehead, then against my temple almost broke me, but I stayed rigid. Didn’t relax, didn’t do anything but sit in the strong cage of his arms.

“It wasn’t that,” he whispered.

I had kept my eyes lowered, but I heard something in his voice that required a response. I looked up.

“What wasn’t that?” I asked.

He looked at me with deepened eyes and I breathed out hard, the depth of the emotion I saw there taking me aback.

“It’s just…”

He trailed off, my own lack of facility with words showing in his expression. But unlike me, he wasn’t silent long. Instead he looked at me again and said, “The thought of it. The thought of you being hurt… Not being here,” he said.

He shook his head, frowned, as though the thought, expressing it fully, was something he couldn’t bear.

He swallowed, looked down, then looked at me again. “I don’t want to think of it. Don’t want you to either.”

I thought my heart would explode from the depth of emotion that went crashing through it.

He simply wanted me to be here. I was wowed by the simplicity of the thought, overwhelmed by it.

So overwhelmed that words would not do in this moment. I stretched up, making myself as tall as I could, and covered his lips with mine.

Fourteen

Ciprian

When Dana kissed me, reason, honor, told me to break away.

I didn’t.

Didn’t have the power to, especially when she flattened her breasts against my chest. On instinct, I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulled her soft curves closer to me.

We kissed each other hungrily, the need for Dana sending my blood to boil. Hers boiled too if the eagerness of her kisses, the way her hands seemed to touch me everywhere at once were any indication.

I set her on the floor and leaned down, recapturing her lips with mine as I filled my palms with her soft ass. I wanted to fuck her more than I wanted my next breath, kissed her deeper, trying to drink her in.

Ding.

I froze, looked toward the sound, my confused mind not processing what it meant.

I smiled down at Dana, smiled deeper when she brushed her lips against mine again.

“It’s time for dinner,” she whispered.

Dana

Ciprian and I ate a near-silent meal. Of course I would have found it difficult to talk anyway. Before dinner, Ciprian had showered and changed clothes, and through the meal I had to use my energy to not stare at his biceps, the tight T-shirt that pulled across his chest.

It had been quite a challenge, and through the entire meal, I found myself staring at him, again imagining being caged in his strong arms, watching and feeling his big body as he took me.

I’d been so preoccupied that I hadn’t even tasted my dinner, and my pot roast was excellent, even if I said so myself. After dinner, I cleared the table. And now I had my back turned, pretending to focus all of my attention on the kitchen, but in truth I was almost totally preoccupied with Ciprian. Remembering the feel of his lips against mine, anxious to feel them again, feel so much more.

That would happen.

It seemed a given now, especially when I thought of the way he had stared at me, his gaze intense but also soft, something in it telling me that he wanted me as I did him. Still, despite that certainty, I was tense, nervous. I wanted him to please me, but even more, I wanted to please him.

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