Page 49 of Never Broken

Well brought up, schooled in propriety and decorum, I should have run away and screamed and yelled and—oh, now I was ruined, ruined. Eighteen years’ worth of straight As and gold stars and proper deportment just to let a slave kiss me—and kiss me likethat.

Not only chemistry anymore. Physics, too. Torque. Velocity. Gravity. Things powerful and explosive and dangerous, unavoidable and immutable, capable of blowing off all the chains and locks and bars in the world.

His mouth was moving farther along my jawline now, finally arriving at my neck with a playful and exploratory little nip, prompting me to flip up my chin, my mouth forming a wondrous O directed up toward the crumbling ceiling plaster.

“Touch me,” I whispered breathlessly. “Now.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. I just want your hands on me.”

He obeyed immediately, his rather large, rather graceful hand sliding underneath my tank top. Instantly, the juxtaposition of the hard metal chain on his wrist against my softest and most vulnerable parts sent a sublime shiver shooting through my body as if it—my body, that is—just wanted to race ahead to get to the good part and didn’t care what else had to happen to get there.

Idid, though.

The kisses that had started out gentle gradually became more assertive: warm, wet, famished nibbles aimed at the exposed skin around my ear, shoulders, and neck. His fingers trailed up from my navel and across the sides of my purple lace bra, pulling the fabric aside; I sharply inhaled when my nipples poked out and greeted the cold basement air. While he—ever the scientist—puzzled out the straps and hooks with one hand, he stroked the inside of my thighs with the other, caressing the soft tissue of my bare leg all the way down to the back of my knee, cupping and lifting it lightly up close to his side.

That’s when I felt his excitement for the first time, unable to help letting out a short, sharp gasp when I felt it, straining against the insides of his shorts and digging, bold and brazen, against the bare skin of my leg. He barely seemed to notice, as keen as he was on exploring—and claiming—the new world ofme. Not quite sure what to do with it yet—if anything—my hands ventured behind him instead, landing tentatively on his broad back, eagerly and breathlessly working their way around that wondrous strip of soft skin and baby-fine hair just above his shorts and beneath his shirt, my fingers breathless with anticipation as they kept ranging farther. But they stopped immediately when I collided with the pain.

How the hell could I ever forget that he’d beenbrutalized? He still wore the lifelong marks of the old wounds and the distressingly new. Fuck, the file. The gouged, puckered disaster that was his back, starker than even the cinderblock and metal of all the places they’d caged him.

What am I doing? He can’t—and I shouldn’t—and—I snatched myself away. What if I’dhurthim?

“It’s okay,” he whispered reassuringly. “I’m okay. You can touch me, too, if you want.”

I managed a smile, though every part of me still hesitated. “Are you sure?”

He raised an eyebrow, then went in for a playful kiss. “Are you kidding?” He kissed me again. I’d frozen up, and he knew it would melt me. “You know I know what pain feels like, Lou. And this isn’t evenclose.”

Buoyed, I returned his kisses with relief, even brushing some golden strands out of his face to reach it better, while he went right back to business, unfolding his fingers again on the inside of my thigh, the tips brushing just under the seams of my panties—also lacy and purple, though, oh so creatively, a different shade from my bra—and over the mound, every centimeter he explored reducing a greater percentage of my insides to warm goo.

The intercom buzzed nastily from around the corner, dropping us out of the heavens. Was thereanywherewe could go to be alone?

He looked away, his eyes startled, but not panicked. Not yet. “We?—”

“Keep going,” I said, a purr verging on a growl. “Just a little more. Please. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” he breathed into my ear. “I promise. But you have to help me, yeah?”

“Okay, I?—”

He quieted my mouth with a kiss. He forgot about the hooks, just sent one hand boldly straight up under my bra to firmly enclose my breast and claim my nerve endings with his calloused fingers. His other hand I clasped gently and guided along—to save time, to make it easier for him, but God, hewasalmost there already, magic boy—coaxing it to curl into the delicate space where my clit hid, shy and blushing in its solitude. A team effort. We were both rewarded with a long tendril of euphoria unfolding throughout my body, my knees dipping in response, and I whimpered as loudly as I dared to encourage him topush even harder against the outside of my mound, even as his knuckles still just barely brushed against the outer edges of my soaking folds. My back stretched and went rigid as he drove that powerful hand firmer, confoundingly delivering more and more of that incredible friction to my clit, its divine pulsations rhythmic and close, now. I somehow signaled to him,harder, and I kept my eyes squeezed shut, my manicured nails clawing into those massive shoulders and tugging at all that shining hair, already slightly damp with exertion, pulling his head close to rest briefly on my shoulder.

There was infinitely so much more to want—yes,ofcourseI wanted to touch him. To reach for whatever awaited me beneath those strained shorts, for one thing. To undress him completely, to have him undressme, to touch and tease and watch every gorgeous inch of him swell and brighten and come alive, to invite him to do the same forme, to moan as loud as I dared, toscream, to lay all afternoon in a field of wildflowers—but there was no time, no space, and yes, that was the fucking housekeeper shouting from the top of the stairs, her intercom buzzing having gone ignored—and this was all we would get, for now or maybe ever, and I muffled my outburst, following his lead, back braced up against the wall, arching, catlike, then the sudden release, my body becoming a gauzy ribbon floating blissfully to the floor. He caught me just in time.

My eyes fluttered open to find him gazing right back, shoulders heaving. He shook some of the damp golden hair off his face to reveal a little bit of wonder in his eyes, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“What just happened?”

He rested his head on the wall, catching his breath, but glanced back with the trace of a smile. “Among other things,” he replied, “something you can never, ever tell your dad.”

With no answer, the housekeeper had given up, and he’d mashed the intercom, coming up with an elaborate excuse involving yard waste and wheelbarrows and the end of monsoon season that made absolutely no sense to me except that it somehow bought him five minutes longer by my side—five minutes we had to spend talking instead of fucking, unfortunately, if only because we had to figure out just what the hell we were going to do with …this. Whateverthiswas.

“Are you okay?” Fuck, I couldn’t leave him to go dochoreslike this.

He sighed. “Well, I’ve been through worse torture.I’m kidding,” he added before I could gasp in horror. “Seriously. I’m fine. Come.” He wrapped his arms lightly around my waist and drew me closer so we were face-to-face again. He did seem relaxed, genuinely satisfied just to have satisfiedme, and the wonder and curiosity in his eyes were enough to indicate that he believed there’d be a next time.

Next time.Fucking hell. I was already never, ever getting overthis.

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