Page 62 of The Opposite Effect

A grin curls on my lips when she fails to sound a single protest to my demand. My grin turns into a full smile when she digs her fork into her now cheesy eggs and raises them to her mouth. Just as her fork disappears between her pouty lips, she locks her wintry eyes with mine. The huge smile etched on my mouth gets wiped right off when she releases the most provocative fucking moan I’ve ever heard when the eggs hit her taste buds.

I was wrong earlier. Sex isn’t Clara’s weakness. It is her ally.

I thought I had our whole dynamic worked out. She would be a strong and independent woman until we stepped into the bedroom—then, she’d happily hand the baton to me. But I was wrong.Very fucking wrong.Not only does Clara have me over a barrel outside the bedroom, but she also has me by the throat inside as well. All it took was hearing that one little moan topple from her lips, and I’m ready to do anything to hear those noises torn from her throat in the middle of ecstasy.Anything at all.

The last ten minutes have felt like I’m an inmate serving a life sentence with no chance of parole. It’s been torturous. I devouredevery scrap of food on my plate within thirty seconds, shamefully displaying that my patience to have Clara beneath me has worn thin. Clara, on the other hand, has taken her sweet-ass time enjoying her first meal in over sixteen hours.

If that isn’t bad enough, she savored every last bite with soft little moans and slow, gentle chews. If I didn’t want her to know her little ploy to unravel me was working, I would have dragged her across the table and force-fed her. And no, I’m not referring to food.

Once the last smidgen of avocado is smeared off Clara’s plate and popped into her mouth, I seize her wrist and yank her across the table. A limited-edition hearty giggle topples from her mouth and jingles through my ears.

Her laughter transforms into a throaty moan when her new straddled position has her feeling the thickness of my cock. Any defiance her eyes have been wearing the past ten minutes fades into the horizon when I pull my shirt over her head and discard it on the floor. Her eyes grow darker, switching from an icy blue to the color of a dark ocean. I wait for her to speak, to put up a protest about me stripping her bare without first seeking permission. Not a word seeps from her lips.

The voluptuous swell of her chest is thrust into my face—as if she’s offering them to me—when she slings her arms around my shoulders and draws in nearer. I connect my eyes with hers before taking one of her taut pink nipples into my mouth. A hiss parts her lips when I swirl my tongue around her tweaked bud.

“Brax…”

Fuck, I love the way she says my name.

As one of my hands moves to secure a handful of her curvy ass, the other cups her spare breast. The tightness of her nipples firms as my mouth and fingers work her at a chaotic pace,eliciting more purring moans. My cock stirs, loving her hearty moans but hating the constraint of my jeans.

Like she can hear the silent protests of my cock, Clara slides her hand underneath my shirt and fiddles with the button on my jeans. Her throaty moans turn into a feral groan when her fumbling movements are unable to unclasp the fastener. A chair scraping across the wooden floor thunders through the room when I abruptly push my chair away from the table. I feel her smile against my lips when I undo the button of my jeans and slide down the zipper. A deep growl vibrates through my mouth as she slips her hand inside my jeans to stroke my cock.

Clara pulls her lips away from mine and stares down at me, her eyes sparkling bright, her lips swollen from our kiss. For a woman who protects her heart with an iron fist, she’s open, vulnerable, and utterly unguarded. She’s exposing sides to her I’ve hoped to see but have never witnessed. She holds my gaze as she speeds up her strokes, her focus solely devoted to taking me to the brink of ecstasy.

Her affectionate—almost loving—gaze has my chase to climax strengthening and my heart swelling. Every minute I spend in her presence makes me more beguiled by her. And from the doting blaze sparking Clara’s arctic-blue eyes, I’d say I’m not the only one becoming entranced.

When the shriek of my landline sounds into her ears, Clara’s strokes halt, her head snapping to the side. I ignore the interruption, not willing to harness my desire to claim her any longer. I bite down on her nipple before jerking my hips upward, trying to recapture her devotion.

My plans go to shit when a deep voice sounds over my answering machine. “Brax, it is Daniel from Caramine Care. Don’t panic, but your grandma took a turn this afternoon…”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The heavy stomps of my boots bounce off the walls and cluster in my ears as I stride down the narrow corridor of Caramine Care. My heart is thrashing in my chest, still panicked about my earlier phone call with Daniel. Although he downplayed the seriousness of the situation, I’ve still arrived at Caramine Care within twenty minutes of his call. My grandmother means the world to me. She’s the woman who raised me, and the woman who owns a vast majority of my heart.All but the little snippet enlarging to accommodate Clara.

The instant Daniel’s message sounded through Clara’s ears, she slid off my lap and secured my shirt off the floor. She stood at my side biting her nails as I returned Daniel’s call. I didn’t need to speak for her to know the urgency of the situation. The concerned expression on my face told the whole story. I was gutted.

Although Daniel assured me my grandmother was comfortable and resting, I knew the twisted feeling in my stomach wouldn’t settle until I saw it with my own eyes. That sick feeling spread from my stomach to my heart when I suggested that Claracome with me. I tried to smother the panic in her eyes by pretending it wasn’t about her meeting my grandma, that it was just killing two birds with one stone. She could visit her friend while I checked on my grandmother’s condition. The soulless gaze that filled Clara’s eyes the night she was mugged returned stronger than ever.

She blinked back tears before mumbling, “Friend? What friend?”

Her chin quivered, exposing she knew exactly who I was referring to. Deciding to play stupid, I said, “The person you were visiting the day I bumped into you at Caramine Care.”

Any walls I crumbled between Clara and me the past twenty-four hours reformed before my very eyes. She took a stumbling step backward, her retreating strides only stopping when she crashed into the kitchen counter.

“I can’t visit her today,” she mumbled, her voice the weakest I’d heard. “I can only visit her the first Sunday of the month. It’s not the first Sunday of the month.”

“Visiting hours are whenever you want them to be,” I replied, my eyes drifting between her haunted ones. “You don’t have to stick to a schedule.”

Worry churns in my stomach when her pleading eyes stare into mine, begging for me to drop it. Her face is ashen, and her eyes are pained. I draw in a deep breath before briefly nodding my head. Relief fills Clara’s eyes. Although I want her to open up to me, I know if I push her too much, her retreating steps will reach my front door. Willing to do anything to ensure she will still be at my apartment when I return from visiting my grandmother, I simply drop the conversation and act like I can’t smell the fear oozing from her pores.

It is a fucking hard feat.

My grandma’s rheumy eyes lift to the door when a creak announces my arrival. She sighs softly before shifting her gaze to the window illuminating her room with an orange hue from the afternoon sun beaming inside. My brows tack together when Penny—the nurse my grandma tried to set me up with—exits the bathroom adjoining my grandmother’s room.

Penny smiles a greeting as she saunters to my grandmother’s bedside. Any concerns about my grandma conjuring up a ruse to force Penny and me together dampen when my eyes zoom in on a bruise on my grandma’s wrist while Penny carefully checks her pulse.

After completing a set of observations on my grandmother, Penny mutters something quietly into her ear before gesturing to talk to me in the corridor. I lift my index finger in the air, requesting a minute. When Penny enters the hallway, I walk to my grandma. The twisted, sick feeling in my stomach intensifies when my eyes zoom in on a bruise on her right cheek.

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