He was foolishly delighted with himself for making her smile. “I would never ask you to choose one over the other,” he assured her. “I'll keep you well stocked with both.”
She trailed her fingertips over his torso. Her eyes dropped, widened. He looked down, realizing that he had exceeded the waistband limit. His flushed, swollen cock was poking its head out hopefully.
“Don't worry,” he said thickly. “I know you're tired. I won't bother you again. I just want to hold you while you sleep.”
She swirled her fingertip tenderly around the head of his cock, her eyes fascinated. “Bothering me? Is that what you call it?”
He stared down at her circling finger, fighting for self-control.
“Bother me again, Seth,” she whispered. “Just bother me sweetly and softly. Like you promised. OK?”
He was off that bed in an instant, scooping paper, cutlery, condiments, all to the carpet. Stripping his jeans off and sheathing himself in a condom, in flat-out record time.
She lifted the duvet, inviting him into the dark, fragrant warmth of her secret female self. It made him drunk, crazy-wild with lust and longing. Sweet and soft, he repeated to himself, thinking of his promise, the candles, the chocolate. Sweet, soft and romantic. That was what she wanted from him, and that was what she'd get The duvet floated on his back as he mounted her, as light and puffy as a cloud.
She was so silky-soft and warm and strong, cradling him. Her slender arms wrapped around his neck and her legs twined around his. Sweet and soft, he repeated to himself. Official boyfriend-type sex. Not power games, or moon-crazed animal, or Conan the flicking Conqueror, or any of the other assorted craziness that his perverse sexual imagination could churn up at a moment's notice. He wanted to hold her, as close as he could. He wanted to make her feel incredibly good.
He wanted to make her feel safe.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done, keeping it slow and soft. Her perfume went to his head like a drug, and the candlelight turned her hair to swirls of bronze highlighted with glinting flashes of gold. She was so gorgeous, he could have come just staring at her face. He had to close his eyes, grit his teeth to hang onto his self-control.
She was wet and soft from the last time, and damn lucky for him; he was so desperate, he could never have survived a bout of foreplay. She let out a low, shaky moan as he prodded and pushed himself inside her. Their eyes locked, speechless. He was humbled. Awestruck at the mystery of it. It had never occurred to him before how intimate that moment really was. How enormous the act of trust on her part.
He had never thought of sex in terms of trust. Only of pleasure, his duty to give it, his due in return. A simple and straightforward exchange. He had followed his instincts in pursuit of pleasure all his life, but now they were leading him down paths that he had never trod. Sex with Raine was like nothing he had ever known.
He started rocking inside her, and suddenly they were kissing as if the world were about to end and her arms were wrapped around his neck. His strokes got deeper, and soon she was taking all of him, slick and deep, her hips jerking up to meet his.
He pulled away from that mind-melting kiss, laughing.
“Cool it,” he protested. “You said sweet and soft, but if you go crazy on me, what the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Oh, shut up.” She pulled his head back down to hers.
Her hips heaved and bucked beneath him, and he used his weight to hold her hi place, letting her churn and struggle and strain against him. Creating something firm and strong for her to break herself against, like a wave crashing on a rock, an explosion of foaming ecstasy, and he was the rock. He held her back, not letting her rush, or panic. Coaxing her towards where she needed to go, not driving her. Letting her pleasure unfold, over and over, blooming sweeter and hotter every time. He made her come, over and over, sweet and slow and careful. The hot, clutching pulses of her orgasm milked him ever closer to his own, but not too close. Not yet. Not until she felt safe enough to let go completely, to launch herself and fly. Not until he had fashioned a net to catch her, as big and soft and beautiful as the whole sky.
Raine lay beneath him, limp and exhausted with pleasure before he finally let himself go. Pleasure rushed and pounded through him, so hard and furious that he lay there, clutching her and trembling for a small eternity before he even remembered who he was.
The last thought he had, after he got rid of the condom, was of how incredible it would be to make love to her without latex. Usually it didn't even cross his mind. He hadn't had unprotected sex since he was too young and dumb to know better, two-thirds of a lifetime ago. How amazing it would be to bathe his naked cock in her scalding heat, to explode inside her. To fill her with himself, his seed.
Seth refused to let himself examine that thought, electing instead to slide into real, deep sleep. For the first time in what felt like forever.
At first, it was the classic contradiction; the horror of surprise side by side with a terrible sense of inevitability. Her father, pointing. Herself, leaning to look. Blood oozing out of the marble, like the credits in old B-grade horror movies. She looked up, and it was not her father, it was Victor, smiling. He grabbed her braids and yanked on them hard, making tears spring into her eyes. “Toughen up, Katya. The world is not kind to crybabies” His voice boomed in her head, loud and metallic.
She was at the Stone Island dock, dressed in the green frog bathing suit. Her hair was braided tight for swimming, and her mother was wearing a yellow sundress, laughing. The big dark man with the mustache plucked her green frog glasses off her nose, and was holding them too high for her to reach. Taunting her, dangling and yanking. Dangling and yanking. The sunglasses were prescription, and without them everything was blurry. The mustached man was laughing like it was all so funny, but it wasn't at all. Tears of frustration gathered in her blurred eyes, no matter how she tried to blink them back, and Victor was sure to scold her again if he saw them.
Her father's sailboat was floating away from the dock. He was waving good-bye, and even with her blurred eyes she could see the bleak sadness in his eyes. It crushed her to see him so defeated. He gestured at the three laughing adults, getting smaller and smaller.
“Remember.” He was too far for her to have heard him, but the word reverberated in her head as if he had spoken it directly in her ear.
This was it, she knew it. She would never see him again. He was getting smaller, only his shadowy eyes could be seen, like the eyeholes of an aged skull. Panic exploded, and she was screaming after him, begging him to turn back, come back, she would save him, she would think of something, she would do anything if only he would please, please come back and not leave her all alone—
“Raine! Jesus, wake up! It's only a dream, baby. Wake up!”
She struggled wildly against the strong arms that were holding her. Then it all slipped into focus. Seth. Sex, chocolate, candle flames guttering in a pool of blood-red wax. The island. Another dream.
She collapsed against his warm chest and dissolved into tears, but they didn't last as long as usual. His fierce embrace radiated heat through her body, relaxing her. The tears subsided, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry I woke you,” she said.
“Don't be an idiot,” he said. 'That was a hell of a nightmare.”
She nodded, resting her hot forehead against his chest.
“You want to tell me about it?” he prompted.
“No, thank you.”
He hugged her tighter. “It might help. So I've heard”
She shook her head He kissed the side of her face that wasn't pressed against him. “Suit yourself,” he said. “If at some point you change your mind, I'll still be interested.”