His hand cupped my cheek, and when he spoke, his voice was ragged. “How the fuck was I given you? Out of all the men available, you were led to me…you could do so much better, Sophia, and yet, I can’t bring myself to give you up. I never wanted another woman after Charlene burnt me, but hell, I want you more than I want my next fucking breath.”
I leaned closer to him. “You seriously underestimate yourself, handsome. And for the record, I don’t want you to give me up so just get that thought out of your mind if it ever enters it.”
His lips crashed down onto mine, and he stole my breath with a kiss that felt like he’d put all his emotions into. We were a tangle of arms, legs and bodies pressed hard against each other, hands all over each other, and mouths desperately seeking what we were both looking for in our lives – love.
When he pulled away from me, almost breathless, and eyes crazy with desire, he growled, “I need you in your bedroom, naked and kneeling beside your bed, waiting for me.”
As he said the words, his hands moved to my t-shirt, and he pulled it over my head, and discarded it on the floor. His eyes shifted to my breasts as he undid my bra and removed it, too. And then his gaze moved lower as his fingers deftly undid my shorts and slid them down. He helped me step out of them before dropping them on the floor. I watched his face as his fingers slipped inside my panties and he removed them. I loved watching his eyes flare with desire for me, and tonight it was clear how turned on he was. My own desire sizzled through me like a heat that only he could cool.
He brought his eyes back to mine, and rasped, “Go.”
I did as he said, and a few minutes later, I kneeled naked next to my bed, waiting with anticipation for what he would do to me. When he entered the room, my pulse quickened at the sight of his powerful body. He was in the middle of taking his t-shirt off as he walked through the door, and my eyes were drawn to his broad, muscular chest.
He dropped his shirt on the floor and flicked his jeans button to undo them. A moment later, the rest of his clothes fell to the floor, and he came to me, naked and ready. He held something in his hand, but I couldn’t work out what it was. A ball, perhaps.
I faced the bed, and he stood behind me, and placed his hand on the top of my head. He ran his hand gently down my long hair, and then gathered it all into his hand in a ponytail. Pulling gently, he tilted my head back to look up at him and asked, “Do you know what this is, Sophia?” He held the ball up for me to look at.
I shook my head. “No.”
Heat flashed in his eyes as if my answer had pleased him greatly. “I’m going to put this inside you. It has a bead in it that moves when you move.” He crouched and dipped his face to mine so he could speak close to my ear. “I am going to make you move so fucking much that this little ball is going to get you so goddamn wet that my dick will slide through you without even fucking trying.”
My breath caught, and my core went into the kind of meltdown a girl has when she feels like all her Christmases have come at once and she can’t believe her good fortune.
Thank you, God, for giving this man to me.
I remained silent, and he gripped my hair a little harder. “I want you to move to the end of the bed. When you get there, I want you to stand with your back to it and place your hands out so they are resting on the mattress.”
The control in his voice, and the commanding tone he took, turned me on and called to a need I never knew I had before I met him - the need to hand control over to someone else.
I did as he said and waited silently at the end of the bed. He took his time, and when he finally stood in front of me, he held two pairs of my panties. Reaching for one of my hands, he tied it to one of the bedposts before repeating this with my other hand. Then he slid his hand around my neck and through my hair so he was holding my head. Dipping his face to mine, he bruised my lips with a demanding kiss. God, I loved the way he kissed me. It signaled his possessiveness over me, and while I knew a lot of women who weren’t into feeling possessed by a man, I now realised I craved a man who needed me in that manner.
He ended the kiss, and brought his hands to my breasts. Massaging them, he said, “Fuck, your body is gorgeous, sweetheart. Why do you ever doubt that?” His eyes were focused completely on mine while he waited for me to answer his question.
I swallowed back my hesitation. This part of my soul was a part I chose to avoid as best I could. “I don’t know,” I said softly, not wanting to admit to him the truth.
His eyes narrowed on me. “I don’t believe you. Tell me.”
Shame washed over me, and I wished I could break free of his restraints and run far away from this question. “I don’t want to.”
He held his tongue for a beat, and then he kissed me again. When he pulled away from my face, his eyes were softer. Taking a step back, he let his gaze drop to my body and took it all in. Slowly.
Usually, I liked his eyes on me, but today, I felt so self-conscious in my own skin now that he’d put the focus on me that I dropped my face and refused to watch him looking at me. I couldn’t do it. All my feelings of being inadequate and fat rushed at me – bad memories I wanted to bury deep and never think about again.
And, oh God, then he dropped to his knees in front of me, put his hands on my hips, and pressed his mouth to my stomach, and kissed me. He spent a few moments kissing my stomach before moving his lips all over my body, kissing every inch of skin. His hands ran all over me, too, and he kept murmuring over and over how fucking beautiful I was.
When he made his way to my mouth, he looked into my eyes and said, “Tell me why you believe what I see when I look at you isn’t a beautiful body.”
He’s not going to let this go.
I closed my eyes as my heart beat faster, and my breaths quickened. When I opened them again, tears sat on my eyelashes. “I’ve always seen myself as fat, even when I was a nine-year-old kid who was far from fat. My mother was always on a diet when I lived with her, and everywhere I looked on television and in magazines, they talked about counting calories and not letting yourself get fat. So I began counting calories at the age of about twelve. And then, I did become a little overweight, but instead of counting calories, I just kept eating.” My voice cracked as I admitted the sad truth of my hurt. “It made me feel good when nothing else in my life did. I don’t know why, and I’ve never worked it out, but it is what it is. About five years ago, when the doctor told me I was obese, I finally took control and lost the weight. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And the really shitty thing? When you’re fat, you think that if you could just get skinny, it would make your whole life better, and everything else would improve. Well, it doesn’t. And you have to keep on top of it just as much as when you were trying to lose weight. It’s fucking hard.”
He listened to everything I said and didn’t say a word.
I want to die.
I’d just laid my soul out for him, and he wasn’t saying anything.
I’d never felt so vulnerable in my life – naked in front of a man with my heart bleeding all ov