Her chocolate eyes are wide now. “I thought—”
“You thought one and done? No, ma’am. If you wanted someone without stamina, you should have slept with Landon. You let me into your body, and I’m real comfortable here. I’m a soldier first and foremost, and I’m not leaving until I know every inch of this terrain.”
Still cradling her in my arms, I slide my right hand down her flat stomach to the bare skin of her cunt. She jerks away when I find her folds, but I’m persistent. A steady finger fuck brings her to inexorable orgasm, and she sobs in my arms as it takes her. “I know,” I say, kissing her forehead. This is what she needed. It’s what I needed, too. To hold her in my arms as she releases every dark thought. “Let it out. I’m here. You can trust me with this. You can fall apart.”
I stroke her through the last of her climax. When she’s done, I lick the desire off my fingers. My fingerprints are already wrinkled with the proof of her arousal. Gently I carry her down to the bed. She’s sweaty and exhausted, and we’re only getting started. I stroke my cock, which is ready for its turn again. I press the head to her lips. “Lick,” I say, my body strung tight. I’m leaned over her like a predator, and I can reach her cunt with my right hand. “I’m going to come down your throat this time. And when you drink me, that’s when I’ll finally flick your clit and let you come again, too.”
She doesn’t tell me to stop. I knew she wouldn’t. All we have is tonight, and I’m going to squeeze every drop of pleasure from her lithe body while I have the chance. I learned early in life that nothing lasts forever.
Sooner or later someone is going to leave.
Sooner or later that someone is me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Misty Danielle Copeland is a ballet dancer for American Ballet Theatre, one of the leading classical ballet companies. In 2015, Copeland became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in the company’s 75-year history.
Bethany
In my dream there’s warmth and grass and green eyes that sparkle with sensual promise. Sunlight brushes its thumb across my cheek. I stretch with my eyes closed, but instead of the plush earth, there’s only silky sheets. Reaching my hand to the left, I feel for the solid body that should be there. The sheets are cool. My eyes fly open. I’m alone in the bed. Alone in the room. Maybe even alone in the house. Disappointment surges in my chest.
He’s gone.
That ancient fear rises into the back of my throat. Maybe sex was all he wanted from me. My body at his beck and call. I pull the sheets over my head with a frustrated groan. I am too old for this fear to still be following me around like a vengeful ghost.
“Go away,” I tell it, but it doesn’t budge. I throw the sheets back. Josh’s T-shirt flies out of the tangle and hits the floor next to the bed. Good enough for me.
I hear the clanging as soon as I step into the hall.
Josh is in his personal gym, one floor above me, lifting weights. I find him in the cramped space, the racks squeezed together, too close for comfort, because he moved them to make room for my dancing. Sweet relief. He’s not gone. He’s just involved in the manly pursuit of lifting heavy objects. For once I’m not the one being watched. I’m watching him as if he’s on a stage. I lose myself in the way his muscles work. His bare skin glistens in the morning sun streaming through the windows. Joshua North is a hell of a sight, shirtless in his gym. I watch him unabashedly until he catches my eye in the mirror. A knowing smile moves across his face, and then it’s back to concentration as he puts the weight in the rack and leans on the bench.
Standing behind him seems like the most natural thing in the world, so I do it, skimming my hands along his shoulders and looking at him in the mirror. His eyes trace the line of his T-shirt against my thighs. He looks for a good long time, making me hot under the T-shirt. “I’m going to see your brother,” he says.
The relief scatters like sidewalk chalk under a downpour. All that courage I gathered to find him here, and now this? “My brother?” It doesn’t make sense. “That’s what you were doing the night everything blew up before. You came back with blood on your clothes. On your face. And then you walked away from me.” I can’t stop my grip from tightening on his shoulders. I can’t stop my nails from digging in. So I let go instead. “What the hell, Josh? Is that the future we’re headed toward?”
“Of course not.” He’s so matter-of-fact that it pisses me off even more.
I take a step away from him, putting distance between us even in the mirror. “When are you going? I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Oh, I hate how that firm tone makes me feel underneath all my anger. I hate how my body responds in spite of every single effort my mind makes. Ignore it. “Yes, I am.”
“Absolutely not.”
“He’s my brother.” I plant my feet and stand up tall.
“He’s a traitor and a murderer.”
My reflection flinches in the mirror, and heat skims across my cheeks. “He became a murderer because of me. That first time—he was protecting me.”
He gives me a look in the mirror that makes me want to avert my eyes. He knows the truth now. He knows the full story. “That wasn’t murder, and you know it. That was self-defense. That was putting down a rabid dog.” Josh stands up from the weight bench and turns to face me. “I don’t blame him for killing your father. That’s one thing he did right in his life, but everything he’s done since then? That’s not on you. That’s on him.”
I’m standing here in bare feet and Josh’s T-shirt, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to lecture me about my own brother. That doesn’t mean he’s going to forbid me from leaving his house. I lift my chin an inch. “If you respect me, then you have to take me with you.”
The moment shimmers between us. My heart runs wild. I don’t know what he’s going to do. If he shakes his head, if he dismisses me, then this can’t go on. None of it. I’ll leave his mansion right now, and I won’t come back. I rehearse my reaction in my head. No yelling. No tears. Just a cold acceptance, a quick turn on my heel—
“I agree.”