Amalia...

I had to know. I had to know if what the old man had hinted at was true, and I knew it was a dangerous game, but it was one I thought I could control… Ha. This was a Pandora ’s Box. Something, that once opened, would release things into the world that I could never put back. As much as I feared change, I feared things always staying the same more. Enough opportunities had been missed and I needed to know…

“Oh it’s an ‘l’ word, all right, but that’s not it.” His voice was low, as intense as I’d only heard it a scant handful of times and it nearly broke me. The implications were beautifully devastating.

Just like that, Kyle had taken control of my little game, as if I had been standing solidly on the shore one minute and he, a rogue wave, had swept all the sand out from beneath my feet, sending me tumbling into the sea.

I drew back and searched his face and it was there, every single dangerous implication that Dragon had hinted at outside laid bare. There was only one reason a man, especially a man like Kyle, would drop everything and ride to the rescue after seventeen years apart… but I needed to hear him say it. I was desperate to hear him say it first.

He brought his hands up from the water and cupped my face, drawing me carefully, sweetly to him. He kissed me and I felt a wicked throb of relief. As if my soul had finally been given that sweet shot of morphine after a long, painful, wasting illness. I wanted to let him sweep me under. I wanted to give up and drown in him but I had to know, no, I needed to hear him say it, like it was my air to breathe and I had none, like I was suffocating without it. So, I pulled back; even though it almost physically hurt for me to do it, and I asked…

“Why didn’t you stop looking? Why did you come for me?” No more games, not between us…

He smiled at me then and I could swear, if angels were real, I was looking right at one and then he said, “Because, I love you.”

I let myself go, sliding down over the top of him, taking him inside of me, and pressing my mouth to his, even as his arms went around me and he pressed me to his chest. I wasn’t a weak person, I had never been, but in that moment I melted, let myself be vulnerable, because it was Kyle, and I loved him, too. I always had, I always will.

I moaned into his mouth and his thumbs skated through the slick tears I hadn’t noticed escaping down my cheeks. I rolled my hips, grinding against him, his body in mine doing amazing things; the water, swirling around us, warm and soothing in its base element, matched on the outside the pleasure coming from within. I’d done a lot of kinky shit over the years, and the way Kyle touched me told me he was certainly no virgin either. Still, I did with him what I’d never done with anyone before… I let down my walls and became intimate with him. Let him into my being on a base sub-level, deeper than I had ever let anyone, man or woman.

I had never let anyone into my soul before. I probably never would again, but it was Kyle, and he loved me, and it was the first time that I could ever remember anyone loving me without condition… hell, at all…

His hands smoothed up my body to cup my breasts. He thrust his hips up gently to meet my descent and I gripped the edge of the tub to either side of his shoulders, just concentrating on the feel of him. He took one of my nipples into his mouth and I gasped, tipping my head back, my braid trailing in the water.

He gripped the barbell in his teeth and growled, the vibration through the sensitive flesh surrounding it causing my pussy to clench tighter around him. He grunted and moved to the other side to give the other breast the same consideration and it drove me wild.

I was used to fierce, hot, and most of the time, punishing fucks, but this wasn’t that. Not even close. This was a carefully choreographed dance between the two of us. Kyle’s every movement careful and deliberate. He was so controlled and it half drove me nuts and half made me melt.

“Gonna have to stop,” he whispered against my skin, planting a kiss in the center of my chest.

“Why?” I gasped.

“I want out of this damn bath and to take you to bed,” he murmured.

That sounded nice, even to my euphoria-soaked mind. I liked that idea, but not enough to give up the feel of him inside me. Not yet.

I cupped his face with my hands and pressed my forehead to his, rolling my hips insistently and he half chuckled half groaned.

“Fuck, Mali…” he rasped and it was a far cry from the boy who wouldn’t swear, even as a teen, for fear of disappointing his mamma.

“Just a little longer,” I begged breathlessly.

He gripped my upper arms firmly but carefully and I stilled, groaning. He leaned up and kissed me and that soothed my irritation some. I knew he was right, that once we were out of the bath and in the bed we could go as long as we’d like… I just… it’d been so long since I’d been in his presence and never like this before. I was reluctant to stop. Scared I would wake up at any moment, back in the hotel room, or worse, back in my brownstone to discover that it was all nothing but a beautiful, tragic dream.

I got up, and he followed suit less than a half second behind me. He got out of the tub first and held out hands to me to help me over the side without slipping. The cement was cool, and faintly gritty beneath my feet. Before I could look up I was enveloped in a large, fluffy gray towel, Kyle’s hands rubbing my body briskly through the absorbent material.

“Bed,” he ordered with a crooked grin, and then he swatted me on the ass. My mouth dropped open and he laughed, toweling himself off briskly. I whisked off my own towel, wound it up and he dodged running, twisting his body away and just barely missed the snap. I took my time laying my towel back over the wooden rack it’d come from and followed him over to the bed.

He pulled aside the mosquito netting for me and I got up onto the thick mattress, walking across the cloud-like comforter on my knees. This was yet another clue his friends weren’t nearly the assholes I’d initially thought them to be. It was a real bed, like from somebody’s house. The mattress was thick and comfortable, the head and footboards real and beautifully carved wood. They’d also taken the time to hang mosquito netting from the ceiling of this place in copious enough amounts to really protect us from the biting insects.

Kyle got up onto the bed with me and turned to make sure the netting overlapped properly and to keep the little bloodsuckers out. I couldn’t resist, I knelt up behind him and curled my arms around his body, kissing his shoulders and back. He let out a sigh, shuddering under my touch, body loosening and relaxing, bowing his head and letting me have my way, which was nice. I mean really nice. One of the things I had always appreciated about Kyle was that he let me do things and didn’t veto much, so when he did, I could usually tell that no matter how good of an idea it sounded to me, it really wasn’t. He’d always been my compass growing up; as teens… my true north.

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same, I guess... however, none of this was ever something I had imagined happening. I mean, the whole sleeping together. I had wished for it, for Kyle to do what I had always been afraid to do. To close the gap between us and put his mouth on mine, god, more times than I could count. Especially after we’d reached that age of hormones and desire… but he never had. Always the careful one, always the good twin.

“I want to ride you, like before…” I murmured against his warm skin and he put his hands over mine and pulled them away from his body, twisting and laying down for me to do just that. I swung a leg over his narrow hips and he reached between us to raise his cock from his stomach so that I could slide over the top of him.

The desire in his eyes was raw and powerful, stealing my breath with a single look. His hands slid up my body to cup my breasts, teasing my erect nipples with his thumbs. It was perfect, and I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of him deep inside me, touching the most intimate parts of me, evoking pleasures that were simply marvelous without my having to do anything. It was like he touched every wanting, aching, nerve just right, and I was almost scared to get moving because if it felt this good sitting still, I was almost afraid of how good it was going to feel when I started to ride him.

His hands glided to my hips, his strong fingers digging into my flesh just so and I got with the program, biting my lower lip, hands on his rippling stomach, I rolled my hips. Sparks swept out from my core, flitting along fibers and nerves, lighting me up in a way I’d never felt with any of the encounters, casual and not, that I’d had before. That was just it, though. Nothing about this, about Kyle, was casual and none of my other meaningful relationships ever were... How could they be when the other person didn’t even know my real name?

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes, head tipping back as I did it again. The feel of him, deep and fitting my body like a key, twisting in my locked heart until all my secrets came spilling out. God, the connection with this man was unreal. Our bodies were poetry in motion, breath spilling, world narrowing, hands gliding over damp flesh, smoothing over one another to make sure we were both whole and unharmed by the years and experiences that were lost to one another by the cruel twist of fate that had pulled us apart.

He thrust up gently to meet me when I came down on him the next time and a sweet cry of surrender escaped my throat. I was perilously close to orgasm, just by benefit of him inside me alone. I could never remember that happening with anyone else before, not that I thought much about it beyond that. All I knew was that this was what it must feel like when you found your other half and finally became one whole.

I mean, there were second chances, and then there was this, which I didn’t even have a name for. All I knew was that I was incredibly wet. Wetter than I had ever been in my life, turned on to the nth degree, and it was both wonderful and terrifying, the euphoria of being astride the only man I think I’d ever loved almost too much, and I think he sensed that. His hands smoothing over my skin as we rocked into each other until finally, his arms went around me, and faster than I could blink, Kyle Cochran crashed over me and swept me under, both figuratively and literally.