“Why?” The question slips out, more admission than wonder. “Why are you making me feel good?”
This is supposed to be punishment. If it’s not about hurting me—then what?
He doesn’t answer right away. I think he won’t answer at all. His mouth is open, kissing and licking and sucking me, languid and slow. Only when I’m shuddering on the brink does he pull back. “I never stopped wanting you. I fucking dreamed about tasting you. Even when I was overseas, when it had been years since I’d seen you, when I fucking hated you, I still wanted to lick your clit until you came, until you poured your cream on my tongue.”
The admission shouldn’t surprise me. Isn’t that what Candy has been telling me? And maybe I always knew. It wasn’t an accident that he ended up at the Grand. He came to make me pay, and there was only one way to do it. I always recognized the lust in his eyes, even though it made me feel different than every other man. More afraid, more helpless. More strangely hopeful.
It isn’t his desire that surprises me, though. It’s the fact that he admitted it, that he made himself open and vulnerable. The way he almost humbles himself as he focuses on my clit, sucking and licking until I’m moaning, as he shoves his fingers inside and curls, as he seeks my pleasure with every part of his body.
My orgasm slams into me like a tidal wave, powerful and devastating. I rock through the spasms, crying out his name. And he answers me with soothing touches, soft sounds while I collapse on his dining table, spent and utterly limp.
In the Grand I’m always active, always working, always dancing and twirling and shaking my ass. At the club I’m a sex object, something plastic—like a dancer in a jewelry box made to dance whenever it’s opened.
Blue turns everything upside down. He doesn’t make me dance. Doesn’t let me do anything. He turns me into a woman again, one who’s hurt and betrayed him, one who’s been hurt and betrayed. This is the last thing I wanted—to feel again. Physical pain I accepted, almost craved. What he does to me is deeper than that. He roots out every old wound I have. And the salt is the tender way he kisses my mound, an intimacy that has everything and nothing to do with sex.
* * *
I wake up in the dark, warm and naked and alone. Satin sheets enfold me, still cool against hot skin. Sleep swirls around me, threatening to drag me under again. It’s too comfortable here, as if I were tucked in. Except that would be a dream. No one has ever tucked me in. Until now. That’s the only way I could have gotten here, carried by the man who’s still here.
There’s another presence in the room. Enough nights spent hiding in the closet have taught me to tell when I’m alone or not, have taught me to measure a threat in the feel of the air.
I don’t feel threatened, but it’s not a surprise to look sideways and see Blue there.
The way he’s sitting, though—that’s a surprise. He’s shirtless, his broad back curving as he rests his elbows on his thighs. His hea
d rests in his hands. He looks defeated. It’s the pose of a man vanquished, and I ache to see him that way.
“What’s wrong?” The question pours out of me without thought, like water rushing to fill a void.
His awareness of me fills the air. I think he stiffens slightly, the broad muscles of his back shifting beneath shadow-dark skin. He doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t respond.
I push up and throw the covers off. Nakedness doesn’t bother me. The way he looks bothers me. A man bent too far.
Broken.
He doesn’t move as I approach him from around the bed. He doesn’t even look up.
Every time I’ve stripped for him in this apartment, I’ve been rushed and afraid. The opposite of how I am in the club—confident and sensual. Here in the dark, I find a new way to dance. It’s not quite Lola, the seductress. And it’s definitely not the scared Hannah from before. It’s someone new that slides my hands down my body, moving for him, touching myself.
I know what moves he likes from watching him at the club. From watching him watch me.
I cup my breasts and plump them like an offering. His head lifts only enough to watch me through hooded eyes, the angles and shadows of his face severe. I take my nipples between thumb and forefingers, pinching until it hurts, twisting until it feels good again.
“What you do to me,” he mutters, and it doesn’t sound like a compliment.
Even so, pleasure fills me. I know exactly what I do to him—but even if I didn’t before, I hear it now in the lust-filled husky voice. I see it in the bulge of his loose-fitting sweatpants.
I turn to give him a view from behind, dropping low and working my way back up so he can see the darker skin between my legs. When I turn back to meet his eyes, he still looks haunted. Maybe more so. I’m turning him on, but it’s not enough to chase away whatever demons found him tonight.
The carpet is plush on my knees, so much more forgiving than the concrete in the VIP rooms.
I half expect him to push me away when I kneel. This isn’t on his terms anymore. It’s on mine. He lets me run my hands down his body, over the ridges of his abs and the hollow spaces pointing down. His cock flexes at my touch, and I push the loose band down to free him.
Only when his cock is in my hands, bared and dripping wet, does he speak again. “I thought I could fuck you and not feel anything again. I thought I could have you and forget you. But that was impossible from the start. I’ve never been able to forget you. And you make me feel everything, Lola. You make me feel alive.”
A soft sound escapes me before I silence it on his cock. My lips press against the head, half kiss, half caress. His whole body jerks, and I grasp his erection in my fist.
“That’s right, gorgeous,” he groans, cupping my head in his large hands, guiding me. “Make me yours.”