Page 62 of Deliver Me

“I want you to.” He wanted that more than he wanted anything else, but she pulled him in for another desperate kiss and as soon as he let her go she pulled his shirt over his head and then started working to get his zipper down. He made a mental note to buy something better than the thin white boxers that the prison provided him.

“Christ,” he swore, sucking in a deep breath as her fingers brushed against his stomach.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he said, gripping her jaw as he pushed his lips roughly against hers. “You’re fucking perfect. Keep going … please.”

Her breath slipped from her lips on a shuddering exhale when she tugged him free of his clothes. “Much bigger than I expected,” she murmured, tipping her head to look at him as her fingers continued to explore, exploring the new textures and his reactions to her touch. “So hard but the skin is so soft.”

“Mia,” he said, dropping his head to her shoulder. He wasn’t certain if he was begging or praying.

“Show me,” she whispered, the edge of need turning it nearly into a whine. “Please.”

He urged her to lean back, supported her with his arm as he pushed aside her underwear and explored her folds to gather the wetness of her body. He coated his fingers and began to stroke his hardened length as she watched intently and writhed on his thigh.

After a few minutes of observing, she reached between her legs without prompting, rocking back to make room for her fingers as she copied what he had done and coated her palm with her own shimmering arousal. Her fingers wrapped hesitantly around him, and he let go to put his hand over hers and guide her until her caress became confident. She ground against him harder, her thighs tightening on his and her hips began to move in earnest as she chased her own release.

He grabbed her hip with one and urged her on as she rode his thigh, his other hand coming up to squeeze her breast. His lips found her throat again, tasting the soft flutter of her pulse and the slight tang of sweat on her skin. She was breathing harder, hips jerking erratically, and he knew she was getting closer as he leaned down and captured her nipple between his teeth.

“Come for me,” he commanded. “Baby, please.” He was desperate, his own orgasm creeping up as she tightened her grip on him.

The words seemed to be all the encouragement that she needed, and she came with a husky shout, her head tossed back and her body convulsing with the strength of her climax.

The sight of her coming apart in his arms was enough to snap his own restraint and he came before he could warn her. He pulled her in close, his teeth sinking into the soft rounded slope of shoulder as he spilled over them both, coating her hand and his stomach in hot waves. “Sorry,” he mumbled quickly, trying to shift her off of him so he could clean the mess off of her, worried that she’d be disgusted or angry.

“It’s fine,” she said softly, clinging to him as she gathered the fabric of her skirt and used it to wipe them clean, first her hand and then his stomach. She curled against him when she was finished, her lips finding his for a lazy kiss.

“Are you okay?” he asked, rubbing his jaw on her hair and breathing in the floral scent of her shampoo. He’d wanted to go slower, to focus more on her pleasure this first time, but she’d taken him by surprise with her enthusiasm.

“Better than fine,” she said with a giggle. “But I think we’re going to have to wash your jeans before you can wear them shopping tomorrow. I’m going to have to put them in the laundry downstairs.”

“I would help you but …”

She giggled again. “I don’t think my neighbors are quite ready for the sight of you naked in the laundry room. You could make dinner, though, while I toss them in. There’s ramen in the pantry so we can clean up and then take care of all that.”

He followed her into the bathroom and then watched as she stripped off her clothes, a blush creeping over her cheeks. The shower was barely big enough to fit them both and the meager water pressure delivered a spray that was mostly cold, but he rubbed the soap into her skin and helped her wash away the slickness between her legs.

“I’m sorry,” he said, running his hands over the marks his teeth had left in her shoulder.

“Don’t be.”

He’d been with women that had much more sophistication, but none that had ever looked at him like she did. Like he was something precious and valuable. Stains that he’d thought were permanently embedded in his soul seemed to fade away when she looked at him like that.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight in the shower as the cold water poured over them.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Gabriel sat up quickly, his breath coming hard and fast as his heart raced in his chest. His senses were still lost in his nightmare, fractured pieces of his past slipping through his consciousness and the smell of expensive perfume clinging to his nose. It made him feel like he’d been in some strange woman’s hotel bed seconds ago and erased the decade since. He could almost still feel the hands on him, but the memory of Seth’s voice was the worst of it.

“Fucking rich women in fancy hotel rooms is a privilege, if you’re tired of that, you can start sucking dick in dark alleys with the rest of them.”

The hands after that hadn’t been gentle and after he’d tried to run … Even Chris had heard him screaming. He’d learned that at the trial. His shame at what they had done to him was not his own private humiliation, after all.

Desperate to clear his mind, he reached—as he always did when the nightmares came for him—for the grounding familiarity of his surroundings. The hard cot beneath him, the steady drip of the sink, the stink of sweat and ammonia, all usually brought the cold wave of reality to clear away the conjurings of his sleeping mind.

He found none of those things.

Instead, there was the soft dip of a mattress, the steady tick of a bedside clock, and the scent of a different lover than the ones in his nightmares. She was curled on her side beside him, face soft and relaxed as she slept and one hand resting on the pillow beside her face.

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