Nikki
What the ever-loving hell?
My heart is a fool. I suppose its inability to keep itself from reacting to his fantasy body, head turning face, soul penetrating eyes, and Gigantor cock is understandable. No mere mortal heart can keep itself from beating like hummingbird wings when confronting a combo like that.
I’m not unaware of the inordinate number of women who have fallen victim to Dalt’s god-like physical attributes. But you would think after the way he drop kicked my stupid heart, I would be able to see beyond his fool’s paradise exterior beauty.
When I fell in love with Dalt, I thought he was beautiful inside and out. He impressed me as being warm and caring, and even loving. Then I witnessed the cruelty lurking underneath the stunning exterior. In Dalt’s case, beauty is evidently only skin deep. Good, common survival sense should tell me to back away and stay far away from him.
Pacing the floor in my bedroom, still wrapped in my towel, the ever-present ache for him thrums through me, pummeling my common sense into submission. The devil and angel sides of my subconscious clash. The devil’s tempting need swirls and whispers to me, You can’t go on like this, especially not now when he’s ten feet away from you and naked in the shower. The angel argues, There’s so much more you want from Dalt than the incredible multi-orgasmic sex. She’s a very liberated angel. The devil snaps back, You can’t have it. He’s already promised those things to someone else.
Argh. I can’t deal with this inner conflict any longer. It’s making me crazy.
Take what you can get, the devil taunts. Use him to fulfill your need just as he used you and then move on. I don’t give Miss Goody Two Shoes time to respond. I jump in Mr. Id’s corner and decide I can play pump and dump just as well as Dalt can. Jesus. I may have taken one too many psychology classes for my own good. Whatever. I can do this, use him and toss him away. This time I’m going to be the one in control. I’m going to fuck him right out of my universe and walk away.
***
I don’t bother to knock. When I walk in he’s standing in the middle of the bedroom, also wrapped in a towel, his back to the door. The towel is hanging low on his hips and one glimpse of those broad shoulders and the outline of his tight, round ass, has my heart beating like it’s trying to get out of my chest. The sight of his massive body and drool worthy muscles standing in Trace’s flowery pink and white bedroom would almost be comical if I wasn’t as turned on as a nuclear power plant. I think I just ovulated.
When he turns around, the way his surprised expression quickly morphs into a half-lidded gaze filled with oceans of simmering lust would dissolve my panties—if I were wearing panties. The teasing rivulets of water slide down the hills and valleys of his supernatural eight-pack, disappearing under his towel. My gaze follows their journey. In my mind the droplets look a lot like my fingers. I force myself to remember what I’m doing here, remember I’m the one in control.
“We need to talk.” I step further into the room.
“Talk?” The word catches in Dalt’s throat and comes out in a constricted squeak. I can’t miss the gigantic pole tenting his towel. Well, that was quick.
“After.” I drop my towel and plant a defiant hand on my hip. Dalt takes a long gaze up and down my naked body.
“Holy fuck, Nik. You’re my perfect Strawberry Bud.”
Where does he get the unmitigated nerve to call me that bullshit nickname? Wait ‘til Tracey hears that one.
He crosses the room and is standing in front of me before I can blink. “God. I’ve missed you, baby.”
I smack his hand away when he reaches out for me. “I told you not to call me baby.”
“Ookay.” Dalt runs his fingers back through his wet hair like he’s unsure what to do next. The move only succeeds in making his thick black hair more disheveled and his appearance more fuckably hot.
I remind myself how perfect this is. I’m succeeding in making the normally adept sex-god feel a little unsure of himself. I’m the alpha male in this hookup today….I mean alpha woman. Alpha person? Whatever. I’m controlling this little get together today.
Use him and toss him away, my devilish mantra.
I slip two fingers into the waist of his towel and pull it off. His long, thick, porno-size cock springs out in front of me. Christ. His body parts are too good to be true. They belong on a Tumblr page for Hot Men We’d Like To Fuck. I hold back the groan working its way up my throat.
He gives me a cocky half-smile like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. When he leans in to kiss me, I turn my head away. His long, hard shaft grazes my stomach. Sliding my hand down between us, I wrap my fingers around his thick cock—almost, because my fingers can’t reach all the way around Gigantor. With as firm a grip as possible, I pull him closer to me.
“Fuck. Take it easy ba…uh…Nik or I’m going to come before we even get started.”
“Losing your stamina, baby?”
“No. I can go all day and night with you, hon…Nik,” he smiles.
Smiles.
Why isn’t he as strung out as I am? He tries to kiss me again and I turn my head once more. If I let him kiss me, I’ll be unable to keep this up. I’ll melt into his arms and overwhelming willpower.
“Is everything okay, Nik?” He leans back and gazes down at me from under his impossibly long black lashes. My eyes linger on his for just a moment but it’s long enough for a tremble of anticipation to move through my body. I ward off the sensation and force myself to appear indifferent to his sexy bewitchery.
“Everything’s fine,” I say curtly, bringing one hand up to his shoulder. “I want you to go down on me.” Using the hand still clenched around his cock and the one on his shoulder I push him down to the floor. Unfortunately, as he drops to the floor Gigantor pops out of my grip, because not even he is long enough to cover that distance.
“Are you kidding me?” He leers up at me from his kneeling position between my legs and chuckles.
“Don’t you want to?” I spread my legs a little wider right in front of his mouth. God. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this Fifty Shades of control thing up. I can already feel the imminent orgasm clutching at my insides as he glares up at me through eyes filled with liquid desire and he hasn’t even touched me yet.
“Want to? The only thing I want more than eating you is to be balls deep inside you. But you seem a little…I don’t know…angry?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Forget it. I’m not going to beg you to—” I don’t get a chance to finish my sentence. Dalt scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?” I punch his back and kick my feet in protest as he walks toward the bed. The thought occurs to me to pinch his perfect, lickable bubble butt in retaliation. Um, no…bite it.
Mmm. Yeah. Bite it.
If I could reach it.
He flips me onto the bed and all thoughts of what I want to do to his delicious ass fly out of my dirty little mind.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I snap at him.
“Same thing I was going to ask you,” he gibes right back. “What the hell are you doing, Nik?” He grabs my ankles, pulls my ass to the edge of the bed, and bends my legs.
“Stop it, Dalt.” I try to drop my legs but he’s still got my ankles in a firm grip and won’t let me move them.
“Oh. Now you want me to stop?” He drops to his knees in front of me. “Isn’t this what you want?” He takes one long stroke at my center with his tongue and I’m on fire with the heat of a million stars.
“Ooo. Mmmm. Yeess. I mean no.”
“No? How about this?” He uses his thumb to rub slow, teasing circles over my clit.
“Oh God. Yes. Dalt.” I push my hips forward. I need more. It’s been so long. I need him now.
“I want that too, baby,” he whispers and stops touching me.
Why is he stopping? Don’t stop!
When I open my eyes, he’s standing between my still bent legs. Gigantor is throbbing, apparently angry and straining to explode.
“Dalt. Please.” I reach out for him, all remnants of me being the one in control gone. I don’t care which one of us is the alpha person, I just want him inside me. I want the overwhelming sensation of the way only he can fill all the emptiness I’ve felt since he left me. And yes. I do mean literally and metaphorically.
He climbs over me, placing his knees on either side of me, and wraps his hands around my waist, sliding me up the bed, then gently pushes a pillow under my head. Stretching out over me, he pushes himself up on his forearms, one on either side of my face. I can still feel his cock throbbing with angry, unfulfilled pulsations on my stomach.
Every part of my body is lit up with the electricity generated by Dalt. “I want you,” I whimper and wriggle underneath him in an attempt to position him where I need him. But his powerful body is pressed so firmly on top of mine I can’t move.
“I want you too, Nik. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But this isn’t happening until you tell me what’s going on, and why you’re so angry with me.”
Seriously? At a time like this he wants a dissertation on the Most Disgusting Way To Dump Your Fuck Buddy—Or How to Get Your Douchebag Father To Do It For You?
“Is it really necessary for me to have to explain why I’m angry?” The bitter memory of his past actions floods my thoughts, extinguishing the raging fire between my legs. “Did you think what you did wasn’t going to destroy me and make me hate you? I’m not like you, I’m not made of stone. I’m just mortal flesh and blood.” I punch him in the shoulder in an attempt to make him move. “Get off me.”
Another colossal mistake. What was I thinking? Being here like this isn’t going to erase Dalt from my life, it’s only going to make the remaining roots of my love for him wrap around my heart like tentacles and obliterate what little fragments he’s left of it.
He doesn’t budge when I punch his shoulder. He just keeps piercing me with those limpid blue eyes.
“What did I do, for chrissakes?” he persists.
This is ridiculous. He’s pressed between my legs, his hard cock throbbing and he wants to have a conversation about the horrific way he treated me.
“Just because you sent Darth Vader to do the horrible deed, doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive you.” I pummel my fists on his chest. “Get off!”
This time he grabs both of my wrists with one hand and holds my arms over my head. “What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About. Nik?”
“Your father? Remember him?”
“My father? What the fuck? You never even met my father.”
“No? How about the time you were in Boston for an away game and I stayed here to prepare for our camping trip when you got back? Remember the romantic little trip to the island we had planned?”
“How could I forget? It’s all I thought about the whole time I was away. I almost blew the game thinking about it. I couldn’t wait to get back and have you all to myself for the whole weekend. But when I got here you were gone and you wouldn’t answer my phone calls. What the hell does that have to do with my father?” All signs of longing are gone from his eyes, replaced by darkened storm-filled fury.
“Are you actually getting angry with me?” He’s good. Somehow, he’s going to twist this to make it my fault he’s the offspring of Satan. “Did you think you could send Sat…your father to buy me out of your life and I would just take the fifty thousand dollars and think fondly of you? I’m not a whore, Dalt. If you were engaged to someone else, you should’ve been honest with me.”
I can’t bring myself to tell him his repulsive father threw in an inappropriate stroke of my face with no added compensation other than offering to take me to dinner. Discussing this much of the sordid interaction while lying naked under him is outrageous and sickening enough.
“You didn’t need to pretend you wanted to be with me and then pay me to leave you alone. It was—ugh. Just get off me…please.” I drop my head to one side because even though he still has me pinned under him, I refuse to let him see the stupid tears welling in my eyes.
He loosens his grasp on my wrists and sits back onto his legs. Correction. Since I’m still underneath him, he’s sitting on my legs. I glance sideways to note Gigantor appears somewhat defeated.
Dalt places a finger under my chin and turns my head to him. “Nik, are you telling me my father came here while I was away and…and offered you money to…to stay away from me?” His voice trembles when he speaks.
“He told me you sent him because you didn’t have the courage to do it yourself. He made it sound like you’d done the same thing lots of times before to other girls.”
God. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I can’t listen to any more of his lies. I should’ve gone home yesterday.
Dalt doesn’t say anything for a moment. He drops his chin to his chest. “And you took the money and left,” he whispers.
“What!” I pull my legs out from under him, use my foot to shove him away from me, and sit up leaning on the headboard. “I didn’t want your fucking money! I didn’t need your financing. I wanted you. I needed you. I was in love with you. But that was before I found out you were engaged to someone else and just using me as a seminal receptacle until you could get back to her.” I pull my knees to my chest and drop my face onto them. I just want to curl up in a ball and disappear, make him disappear, make the last two years disappear. Everything except Chloe.
“You…you were in love with me and yet you believed I would do that to you? That I could ever do that to you? Is that the kind of man you think I am?” His words are so hushed now they’re almost inaudible. I feel the rustle of the bedcover and glance up to see Dalt pulling it across his lap.
This is the first time in our relationship Dalt has been uncomfortable being naked in front of me.
The disconnected thought crosses my mind.
When I raise my head Dalt is staring at me. His demeanor is…what? Devastated? Disappointed?
“Your father…he…he said—”
“I’ve never been engaged to anyone, Nik. My father has a business partner with a daughter. They’ve been trying to push us together for years, but neither of us is interested. We grew up together. We’re friends, just friends. My father probably found out about you and decided he needed to put a stop to our relationship.”
“He found out about me? Was I a secret you were keeping from him?”
“No, you weren’t a secret. I just wanted to wait to tell him until after our weekend together. But Garrett called before I left for the game and I was so excited I couldn’t wait. I told him.” He swipes the back of his hand under his eyes.
Is he…crying?
I can’t hold back the bitchy words from pouring out of my mouth. “Told him what? You had some poor stupid farm girl wrapped around your little finger?” I can’t stop myself, even though one tiny part of my already fragmented heart is breaking again when I see the anguish in his eyes. I don’t understand why he’s anguished. He’s the one who demolished us.
Dalt shakes his head. A crease forms between his brows like he’s trying to figure out what language I’m speaking.
“No, Nik. I told him you were wrapped around my heart. I told him I was in love with you and I was going to tell you when we went camping. He must’ve told my father. They work together. They’re close. Closer than I’ve ever been with my dad.” He scrubs his hands over his face.
“You…you were in love with me?” I whisper because I’m sure this is another one of the million dreams I’ve had of Dalt, my Prince Charming, pleading with me to come back to him, telling me how he loves me and needs me more than Malibu Cinderella and I don’t want to wake myself up from this one until I hear him say it.
His shoulders begin to shudder and for one horrible second, I think he’s crying but then a throaty chuckle pushes through the fingers still covering his face. He’s laughing? I don’t know what’s worse, his crying or laughing after what I just told him.
“That’s it?” he sniggers.
“It?”
He drops his hands from his face but he’s not smiling now. “You stayed away from me and hated me all this time because you believed him?”
“I…”
“Fuck! Nik!” Dalt runs both hands through his hair and tugs at the strands wrapped around his fingers. “Why didn’t you just ask me? How could you believe him?”
What is he saying? I can’t…
“Did I ever give you the slightest indication I wanted you out of my life? Think about it.” His hands are resting on his thighs now “And if I did want us to break up, I would’ve said so and walked away. Why the hell would I need to pay you? Why didn’t you trust me enough to ask me?” Well, his words and his eyes are pleading with me but they’re not the words Prince Charming is supposed to say.
Oh God. What have I done?
The ramifications of what he’s saying are slowly creeping through the caverns of my brain. Torrents of emotions surge through me, one rolling over the other: confusion, guilt, shame, shock, hurt, anger.
Why didn’t I trust him?
Why didn’t I know he was a much better man than the one in his father’s cruel scenario?
Even though the current anger I’m feeling is for my own accountability in destroying our relationship, I hang onto a thread of self-protection. I direct the anger at Dalt and roll with it, like any self-respecting woman who has just been informed she’s royally fucked up her own life would do.
“Trust you? Why would I? How could I know what your father said wasn’t true? You talked about working with Garrett at your father’s company all the time. I thought you were close to your father. As far as I knew you were willing to give up hockey, the one thing I knew for sure you did love, to go work with him. I thought if you were willing to give up the thing you loved most in the world to work with him, throwing me away would be insignificant. I assumed you would be more than willing…”
“Nikki.” He reaches out for me. “I never wanted to throw you away. You…you were my world.”
I…what? There he is. Charming is finally delivering his lines.
For the first time I notice another tattoo on the underside of his forearm; one that wasn’t there the last time we slept together. It’s an infinity sign. Around the curve of one side is printed the word love and around the curve of the other is printed…
Oh my God! It says Nikki.
He had my name branded on his arm, giving me ownership to all his Grade A perfection.
“When…when did you get this?” I whisper, tracing the symbol with my fingertips.
“The day after the keg party, the last time we hooked up.” Dalt watches my fingers tracing the tattoo. “I thought we were going to be okay, that you had finally come back to me. When I woke up the next morning and you were gone, I just figured you had something to do and I went out and got this.” He places his hand atop mine to stop my fingers from stroking his arm. “I planned on showing you that night, but when I tried calling and texting you…well, you know what happened. Fuck. What a gi-fucking-gantic fucked up mess. I know I never said the words ‘I love you,’ but Christ, Nik, how could you believe the things my father said?”
I don’t know what to say. I’m drained in the same overwhelming way I was the day his father offered me the money to get out of Dalt’s life.
“I…I don’t know Dalt. How could I not believe him?” I shrug.
How am I going to explain something I don’t even understand myself? He’s staring at me like he’s waiting for the rainbows of oh-that-makes-sense words to pour from my mouth.
“It was…awful. I was so in love with you. You were my…my everything…my hero…my…don’t laugh…knight in shining armor.” He doesn’t even grin. “Someone I didn’t think even existed outside of novels, and even if he did, I would never be the one to have him. I didn’t need a hero, anyway. At least, that’s what I told myself. But then, there you were. You did exist. You were real. My feelings for you were real. And I needed you, after all. Then when your father…I don’t know…knocked you off your white horse and blackened your armor, I was blind with anger for letting myself become weak enough to believe in the fairytale. I couldn’t think straight.”
“Life isn’t a fairytale, Nik,” he whispers.
“But it was. You were my fairytale come to life. You filled my world with every fantasy I had ever been afraid to let myself dream possible when it came to love. All I wanted was you. I wanted to call you or drive to Boston and confront you and curl up in your arms when you told me it wasn’t true. But it was so…so painful. The things your father said crushed me. I didn’t know what to do. I went home to try to figure things out.” I sweep my thumb under his eye to sweep away the lone tear clinging to his cheek.
He grabs my hand, squeezes it, and holds it still. “For two years, Nik? All that time, when you finally came back to school, you couldn’t just ask me?” He’s still squeezing my hand and shredding me with the devastation filling his eyes.
“It was…complicated by the time I got back. Are…are you saying your father…he…he lied about—”
“Everything.” He drops my hand and I shudder at the loss of his touch like a silly girl swooning in a silly fairytale.
“Complicated? ‘Do. You. Love. Me?’ Four words. How complicated is that?” He doesn’t wait for me to come up with an answer to his challenge. I don’t have one to give him anyway.
“My father’s a very powerful man. He’s used to getting his way, especially when he believes his way is what’s best for Garrett and me, or at least is the best way to control us. He wanted us to work for his production company when we got out of school. So that’s what Garrett did and what I’m supposed to do after I graduate. He wants us to marry wealthy girls from the types of families he perceives to be the right kind of people. I guess when Garrett told him I was in love with you it had him worried. I’ve never gotten serious about a girl before. He figured he could buy you off and get you out of my life. Fucking hell. It would be comical if it wasn’t as fucked up as a Shakespearean tragedy. He probably got a good laugh. He managed to split us up and it didn’t cost him a dime. He must have been pretty pleased with himself over that deal. He likes to win.” Dalt blows out what sounds like every bit of air in his lungs. He sits there, shoulders slumped. I don’t know what to do, what to say.
Yeah. A comedy of errors. Did I say something about not being a stupid girl? Turns out I’m an incredibly stupid girl after all. I should have known, should have realized the guy I knew, the man I fell in love with, would never have been part of his father’s sleazy scheme.
Tracey was right. In the short time she’s known Dalt, she understood him better than I ever did. Dalt’s not cruel. He’s never been cruel. He’s thoughtful, honest, and kind. All the reasons I put him up on a white horse and fell in love with him. In fact, the first time I ever saw him lose his temper was at the quad the other day when he went after Cliff. But that’s exactly what a hero protecting his woman would do. Right?
I’ve wasted two years of our lives. Spent two years missing him, wanting him, hating him, loving him, without being able to tell him. I want to wrap my arms around him. Hold him, tell him everything is fine, we’re fine. But this is a fuck up of epic proportions on my part. Star Crossed Lovers, a Shakespearean fuck up. He loves me, I hate him. I love him, he hates me. How can he ever forgive the way I mistrusted him; the horrible things I believed about him? And God! Chloe! How do I tell him about Chloe?