Page 48 of His Virgin Vessel

Chapter Eighteen

Asa

For some time now, I had been trying to push Corinne back in the direction of the father who was, in his own clumsy way, trying to help her. It seemed like maybe I had finally succeeded. That was all good, and just in time, too. There was a reason that I was leaning on the subject so hard tonight, because this might be our last night together.

By my count, this was the fourth time that a night had been our last night together. We seemed to make a habit of it. But this time was not just a question of whether it was the right thing to go our separate ways. There was a decent chance that I would be in jail this time tomorrow, and a decent chance that I wouldn't be coming out again for years. If I could leave her and her dad with a better chance at reconciliation than when I met her, then perhaps my presence in her life was not for nothing. Corinne was a fragile person, however much she tried to pretend she wasn't. She needed someone to lean on, and if it couldn't be me, then her dad was the best choice by far.

Perhaps my going to jail would be the best thing for her. Then she could make a clean break and start a new life. If that was the case, then I would go with a light heart. And there was a good chance of it happening. Porter had made it all sound pretty straightforward, like there were just some forms to fill out, and I thought Corinne had believed it. But I knew better, and Porter knew it. I had caught his eye at one moment, when he was explaining things, and an unspoken acknowledgement passed between us that much of this was for Corinne's benefit. Deputies do not get to decide who gets to do an informant deal, and deputies who are old school friends with the man they are trying to get registered as an official informant are looked on very suspiciously indeed. This was a long way from a done deal. The truth was that a lot would depend on how Brian Dugas reacted, and that did not speak well for my chances. I hoped that Corinne would not take it too hard if things went contrary to how we hoped. I didn’t want her to blame her father, or for our little conversation tonight to be for nothing.

Well, not quite for nothing. It had given us a genuine intimacy that, perhaps, had not existed before. We had been physically intimate of course and quite a lot, really. But, although I had felt something for her that I had never felt for any other woman I had slept with, there had always lingered the great unasked question: was this just sex? When the sex was that good, that frequent, that intense, there was always that possibility. But to talk as we had talked, and of what we had talked, so easily, so comfortably, and so normally - that had answered the question once and for all. No matter how great the sex was, there was undoubtedly more between us than the physical.

There had been a few times in that conversation when I had heard Corinne drifting in the direction of the dreaded 'L' word. She had always pulled back from actually saying it, afraid, I imagined, that I would not have been able to say it back, or worse that I might have felt coerced into saying it back when I did not really mean it. I was very grateful that she had not said it. Not because I didn't feel it, and not even because I didn't want to say it. I did want to say it. I'd known for a long time that I had fallen for Corinne Dugas, in a way I had never imagined possible.

I had never really believed in 'love.’ It was just something for people who struggled to get laid—a sort of sexual safety net. I certainly didn't need that. If I did believe in it in any way, then I supposed it was a little like what I felt for Fiona. She was someone who was always there, a friend who was also a lover and equally adept at both, someone I cared for and would be sorry to see hurt. But falling for Corinne was like seeing the world differently. It was like everyone else ceased to exist. Much as I liked Fiona, if a pretty girl came into the bar, then my eyes went straight to her. But when I was with Corinne, I saw the pretty girls, I knew they were pretty, but it just didn't matter. I thought that falling in love required you to change, but that was wrong. You didn't change, but the whole world changed around you, like a lens, focusing you on the only person in it, the only person who still existed.

I wanted to say all that to Corinne, or even just the three little words. But some habits die hard, and over the years, I had gotten very used to being Asa Covert, president of War Cry, a man who didn't say 'I love you.' Even knowing that, knowing that the reason for not saying it was some stupid macho guy thing, I still couldn't bring myself to actually do it.

Corinne cuddled up next to me. "Should we go to bed now?"

"Yeah," I said.

I had to tell her. I might never get another chance to do it face-to-face.

"Corinne?" I began.

"Yeah?"

"Nothing."

I'd been in fights; I’d been in chases; I'd been cornered by men with knives who were intent on skinning me. I'd taken a bullet, and I'd faced it all without backing down. But sometimes I could be a total pussy who should have been ashamed to call himself a man.

If I couldn't tell her, then I had to at least let her know. I hoped that all I had tried to do for her, all my easing her back towards her father and helping her see herself for who she truly was would give that message, but it needed to be more personal than that.

I shed the last of my clothes and came up behind Corinne, undoing her bra and peeling it away from her body.

She giggled. "Do you know it's been almost twelve hours since we've had sex?"

I said nothing. This would not be like that. She was always looking for sex to be different every time. Well, this time would be very different, and not just for her.

I swept her up off her feet into my arms, and she draped her arms around my neck, kissing me as I carried her to the bed. I kissed her lips, her cheeks, her forehead and her closed eyes before moving on to her neck. I worked my way on down her body, spending long minutes on her breasts while she purred in pleasure. She let out a whine of keening frustration as I kissed her lower belly then pointedly skipped over where she most wanted me so I could kiss her feet and begin working my way up her long slim legs.

"Oh, you're making me crazy," she sighed, writhing like a cat on heat.

"Seems fair." I murmured my reply between kisses. "I don't think I've done a single sane thing since the day I met you."

My kissing tour of Corinne's lithe, taut body reached her inner thighs, and she whimpered as I drew closer to her core. I could feel the heat coming off of her, radiating her desire. She grabbed a handful of my hair, tugging me closer to her, but I resisted. Let her pull as hard as she wanted, but we were going to do this at my pace, and she would appreciate that in the long run.

Finally, having worked my way around it for so long, I descended on my ultimate goal. Corinne gasped sharply as my lips brushed against her, and my tongue snaked out to lap gently at her nether lips.

"Oh, my ..." She could not even finish the sentence, but pulled harder at my hair, threatening to tear it out by the roots. Still, I continued at my own slow speed, building her passion up by degrees, converting frustration to satisfaction with each lick. She was incredibly hot, and I felt I might burn myself on her as I kissed, nibbled, and occasionally allowed my tongue to dip inside her.

"Oh, Asa ... Oh, Asa ..."

For the last hour, I had been gently guiding her to the edge of a precipice, and now it was time for her to leap. I buried my face in her. Corinne cried out, immediately biting her lip to silence herself, for fear of waking Porter. Involuntarily, she folded her legs about my head, as if trying to draw the whole of my head inside her. Her thighs pressed against my ears, blocking out the rest of the world. To me, at that moment, there was no world but Corinne No sight, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, but that of her. She was the world, and I wanted no other. It was a wonderful world in which to live, and I made the most of my time in it.

I felt Corinne writhe against me. The grip of her legs on my head tightened. She clawed at me with her hands, and humped her hips eagerly at my face. Then, in an instant, she tensed. Her hands left me and, though I could not see, I knew from past experience that she had them over her mouth, as was her habit when she didn't want to be heard reaching her climax. I tasted her as she seemed to explode into my mouth.

Her grip loosened, her legs fell away from my head, letting the rest of the world back in, and she fell from me, limp and exhausted to the bed.

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