He sat down and moved gingerly to his knees, tugged her bottom forward and nudged her knees aside.
“Stone? What…what are you doing?”
“This.” He kissed the down-soft skin of her inner thigh, then again closer to her core. She sucked in a breath and held it as he licked at her opening, and he held his own breath as his side protested. The ache was nothing to the pleasure of hearing her moan as his tongue flicked against her slick wetness. He licked again, and Wren pressed toward him, seeking more. He gave her more, found her clit and sucked it into his mouth, suckled it until she couldn’t hold back the moans. She leaned back against the wall, moaning, lifting her hips, pressing her opening to his mouth. He slid his hand beneath her ass and lifted her, lapped her sweetness, set her down and slid a finger inside her, curling to find the perfect spot, high inside, making her groan low in her throat, animalistic sounds of raw pleasure.
She came suddenly, arching up and groaning, holding his head in her hands and pressing him against her. “Stone…oh god, Stone!”
He didn’t relent as she came, but increased his pace, licked and suckled and fingered her faster until she pushed him away, gasping and limp in the stream of water. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, rising to his feet. “You’re so sexy when you come.”
She gazed up at him from beneath hooded eyes. “You make me feel things I didn’t know were possible.”
“Good.”
She reached for him, the tightening at the corner of her eyes revealing the ache of movement. Neither of them would let the pain get the better of them. He stood in front of her, let her touch him. She grasped him in her fist, the water on his back now, and her eyes roamed from his face to his chest, to her hand around him. She took him in both hands, slid her fists around him. A smirk crossed her lips, and then she bent her head and pulled him closer, took him in her mouth. He gasped, groaning as the hot wetness of her mouth surrounded him, the sharp tug of pleasure filling him as she moved her mouth up and down, then licked him, worked the base of him with her hands.
A few moments more, watching her take him in her mouth, and then he pulled her up and carried her out of the shower, set her on the bed, both of them dripping wet. He shut off the water and returned, found her waiting, watching. She reached for him as he crawled across the bed toward her, grasped his aching erection in her fist and guided him into her, curling her arm around his neck and murmuring his name as he slid deep.
He kissed her breasts as he moved slowly inside her, taking his time finding the perfect rhythm. “Wren…” he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, except that he wanted her to know what this meant to him, how incredible this was, but he couldn’t find the words.
She put her palm to his cheek and pushed his face up to meet her gaze. “I know.” She lifted her hips to meet his, clutching his ass with one hand and pulling him against her. “You don’t have to say it. I know. And me too.”
How did she know? But she did. He let it come out in his eyes, in the way he refused to look away as they moved together, refused to even blink as they found a rhythm together, faster and faster, their eyes locked, exchanging roiling emotion, letting the pain and the fear and the worry leach away, all of this known and shared between them as they moved together. She saw it, what he wasn’t saying, what he wasn’t even thinking, but was feeling; what he’d thought impossible. She kissed his chin beneath his lip, the corner of his mouth, her hands on his face, holding him so he couldn’t look away.
And then, in a moment that passed out of time, their worlds came apart in a rapture of bliss, a synchronous detonation, something beyond pleasure, a potency neither of them were prepared for.
Wren’s eyes watered, tears leaking down her cheeks, and Stone felt something tight in his chest, heat behind his eyes, words stuck in his throat. He kissed the salty liquid away, and she pressed his face to her breasts.
“Don’t say it yet, Stone. Not until we’re home. No matter how many times we do this until then, don’t say it.” Wren whispered the words in a fierce growl. “I need that to look forward to. I know it, I see it. But don’t say it.”
Stone slumped to his side, groaning in pain as the ache he’d denied came to take its due. “I get it, babe. Until we get home.”
Wren rolled into him and nestled in the crook of his arm. They both dozed, and Stone was on the verge of sleep when the room phone rang, a shrill, sudden blast. Stone scooped the handset from the cradle and put it to his ear. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Who is it?”
“Dis José, from hotel desk. Some man, dey look for a girl, and a white man. Talk about it, dey lookin’ for you, I tink. I don’t say nothin’ to dem. But dey lookin’. You maybe go away now. Side door, quick-quick.”
“You know the guys looking for us?”
“Dey work por him. You lib in Manila, you know him. I know what he do. My sister, she neber come home one day, she dead now. For her, I tell you. Go away now, quick-quick.”
“Thanks. Check under the mattress, later.” Stone tossed the phone into the cradle and slid off the bed. “Come on, babe. Gotta go. They’re here. They found us.”
Wren didn’t waste time with questions. In seconds she was dressed and repacking the little backpack with the bottles of water. Before leaving the room, Stone stuffed one of his few remaining $100 bills under the mattress, tossed another Vicodin into his mouth and swallowed it dry. Then, hand in hand, he and Wren descended the staircase to the ground floor and escaped out the side door, out into the humid Manila midnight.
14
Wren held onto Stone’s hand for dear life as he led her in a quick walk through the nighttime bustle of Quezon City. The streets were crowded, cars coming and going, busses and jeepneys and three-wheeled rickshaw things, horns honking, voices shouting and laughing in Filipino and English and dialects and languages unknown.
She hurt, still, and she felt the need, still, but it was fading. She didn’t feel as feverish, and the need was distant, manageable. She hoped it would stay that way. She was afraid, deep down, that the need wouldn’t ever go away completely, that she’d always feel the hunger in her bones for a drug she’d never willingly taken. Just like she knew she would never forget the darkness, the heady forgetting euphoria, the pain of a fist against her cheek, a foot against her ribs.
Wren pushed those thoughts away as she jogged behind Stone, her bruised ribs aching with every step, hurting with every breath, but she knew she couldn’t stop or slow down, no matter how much it hurt.
She distracted herself with pleasant memories, focusing on the way Stone had held her when the nightmares had taken hold of her, the way he’d never let go and never lost his calm. She ran behind him, watching his broad shoulders shifting. She focused on the memory of his close-cropped head delving between her thighs, the stubble of beard on his cheeks scraping her sensitive skin, his hands spreading her legs apart, his tongue doing wicked, delicious things to her core.
She’d never imagined sex could be like that. In the past, it had been pleasant, fun, even hot. But with Stone? It was earth-shaking. Each touch was fire, each kiss was molten, each slide of skin against skin pushed her closer to a volcanic detonation. Her nerve endings seemed hyper-attuned to Stone’s every touch and kiss. But yet…it went deeper than mere physical sensation. She felt his emotions radiating off of him. She knew he wasn’t a vocal man, he wasn’t given to explaining the way he felt, but he didn’t need to. The way he felt was obvious in the way he held her, the way he kissed her. His eyes explained for him, his hands communicated what was in his heart. The odd thing was, that despite his claims, when Stone did start talking, he was actually fairly eloquent.