Page 49 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
He didn’t say anything, but his jaw had tightened. I waited a moment, then said, “Be back by five, please. Good luck with the job search.” And then I got up, went around the table, bent, and kissed her cheek. “We’ll talk later,” I promised. “It’s a change, that’s all. And change is hard.”
Hemi
Once again, I’d copped it from both sides. I’d planted flowers for Hope.Flowers.All right, I’d had them planted, but it was the same thing. And what had she done? She’d put her hand on my arm to stop me telling Karen that Charles was driving her to Brooklyn. She’d let me know that Karen would be getting a job, and thatshe’dbe deciding that. I couldn’t even trust my own grandfather, it seemed.
I heard the faint sound of the front door shutting, and still I waited before I turned my head to look at Hope. She was standing next to Karen’s place, one hand on the chair back, poised for action as if I’d have jumped up and wrestled Karen to the ground to keep her from leaving.
“Hemi…” she began, but I was done talking, and done listening, too. It was warm out here, even in the shade, and that dressing gown was clinging to her. Her pale skin shone against the deep vee of the neckline, and even as I looked at her, those two hard points appeared beneath the white silk.
We hadn’t made love since before we’d left New Zealand. The first night here, she’d fallen asleep the minute she’d gone to bed, and last night, she’d fallen asleep before that. In the mornings, of course, there had been Karen. I finally had what I’d needed all along, Hope in my bed every night, but I’d barely been able to touch her, and she wasn’t my wife.
It hadn’t been one bit easy to resist last night, whatever I’d told her. When I’d helped her take off her soft top and shorts, I’d thought it was going somewhere. I’d laid her down on the bed, unfastened her bra and pulled her thong down her slim thighs, and she’d sighed and turned toward me, one hand opening, then curling closed along with her eyes. My hand had drifted down her hip, over her bottom, and I may have done a bit of touching. Just to see if she’d wake up, or maybe just because I’d needed to.
But I hadn’t done more than that, had I? I’d undressed and climbed into bed, tugging her close, spoon fashion, and she’d murmured something, had taken hold of the arm I’d draped across her body, clung to it…and then had fallen all the way asleep again, leaving me hard, aching, and thoroughly unsatisfied in a way I didn’t accept. Except that I had to.
I’d held her safe all night all the same, and been glad to do it. But last night was over, I’d been looking at her all morning, and I was done waiting.
She opened her mouth to say something again, and I didn’t let her. Instead, I took her hand and tugged her closer, then jerked hard so she spilled into my lap with a surprised gasp.
“Hemi,” she said again, and I laid my fingers lightly over her mouth.
“No more talking,” I told her. And then, because her mouth was one of nature’s perfect creations, I ran my index finger slowly over the sharply indented top bow of it, then the plump lower. Her mouth parted, just like that, and I smiled.
She wanted to be kissed. I knew it. So I didn’t do it. Instead, I nudged the fabric of the robe gently apart and traced its edge. Softly, fingers against silken fabric and silkier skin. Up and down, in the spot where she was so sensitive, between her breasts.
“So pretty,” I told her. “Do you want to be touched, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Please.”
I didn’t, not quite yet. I kept that one hand tracing, and with the other hand, I pulled her hair back from her neck, brought her close, and bit. I got the moan I needed, so I kept doing it. Licking at her, kissing, sucking, giving her gentle love bites, and then not being quite so gentle. I knew I’d be marking her skin, and I didn’t care. I was easing her dressing gown off her shoulder, exposing her breast, tracing closer, then closer still. Circles and spirals, as if I were painting her, tattooing her to match my own moko. Making her mine. She was draped across my arm in the same way she had been on that rock in Waihi, breathing hard, and this time, I wasn’t stopping.
When I bit down on her earlobe and, at the same moment, took one of those sweet peaks between my fingers and squeezed, she jumped and moaned. And that was when I lifted her, set her on her feet, and said, “Stand up, sweetheart. Open your eyes.”
She was rocked, but she obeyed. In this one way, I could get what I needed, and I was taking it. All of it. Her eyes opened, her mouth parted, and she was standing there, barefoot and half-naked, waiting for me.
I took the silken tie of the dressing gown in one hand and tugged gently, unfastening the bow. Then I put a hand on either side of the silken material and drew it slowly apart, and there she was.
“Stay there,” I told her. “Don’t move.”
“Hemi.” Nothing but a breath. Protest or invitation, I didn’t care. I was drawing the tie out from the loops of the dressing gown, and she was watching me do it until, at last, I had it in two hands, and I stood to face her. The pink tint was rising in her cheeks, her breasts lifting with each panting breath.
When I eased the dressing gown off her shoulders and it fell to the ground in a whisper of fabric, she drew in a breath. And when I passed the wide silken tie between her legs, her blue eyes opened wide.
“It’s been too long,” I told her. “And you need this, don’t you?” I pulled the tie up, gave it an exploratory tug, one hand to the other, and she gasped.
And then I started to play.
Hope
When Hemi told me to stand up, I very nearly couldn’t. And I when I opened my eyes to see him sitting there, looking his fiercest, commanding my obedience…well, it worked. What can I say.
I was on my feet, rocking some, breathing hard, too aroused to think of anything but my need to be touched, to be finished off. And knowing that nobody could do it like Hemi. Then he pushed the robe off me, and I knew I was naked, there in the open air, and somebody might see, and I didn’t care. I was aching, and he still hadn’t touched me right, and didn’t he know how much I needed it?
Then he passed that length of silk over me, the lightest abrasion, as rough-gentle as his tongue could be, and kept doing it, and I wasn’t able to be quiet anymore. He was going faster, and I was spiraling, then he was slowing down and letting me fall back, when that was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Hemi,” I said when he gentled the touch and slowed so the fabric was barely dragging over me, pure silken torture. “Please. I need…” My legs were trembling, and so was the rest of me.
“What do you need?” he asked me, his voice as rough as I needed the silk to be.
