12
HOME
VALENTINE
The war within me was a furious onslaught of need versus fear versus memory versus nightmare. She stood naked in front of me, tanned taut skin, lush curves, long blonde hair sleep- and wind-mussed, eyes reddened and wet with tears. She was trying to hide her emotions from me, trying to be strong for me, but I could read her like a book. She couldn’t hide from me, and I hated that she felt like she had to. She needed me. She wanted me. What had happened between us on the boat… had fucked her up, no matter what she said. But she was soldiering on. Forgiving me. But yet…she doubted. I felt it. I saw it in her.
It hadn’t been right. She’d done it for me; she’d given herself to me because she’d seen my need. But that hadn’t been me. Hadn’t been us. It was something I couldn’t wrap my brain around, something I couldn’t adequately define or explain to myself.
And now here she was, naked and willing. Telling me she loved me. Begging me to touch her. To love her. And Jesus, I wanted to. Needed to. I needed her. I had to remind both of us of who I was. I had to know Gina hadn’t somehow stripped me of my capacity for love and gentility and passion; just as importantly, I had to know she hadn’t robbed me of my strength or my masculinity.
But I felt fear. Deeply rooted, powerful, gripping, paralyzing.
Fear isn’t manly. When I ran from Gina and her father, I had some money and my name. I never used a fake name. Never pretended to be anyone other than myself. Yet when I ran from the Karahalios clan, I was running not just from the specter of death, from what Vitaly wanted me to do, from what Gina wanted me to do, but from my own lack of control with Gina. I’d acquiesced to her in so many ways. I’d given in again and again. I’d done things, let her do things I hadn’t wanted to. All because I had been afraid. More than I’d ever reveal to Kyrie, or even admit to myself. I had buried all that as deep as it would go once I was free of Gina, and I’d left it there, buried and denied, for almost a decade. And now it was all coming up. Coming back. Scenes from the past flashing before my eyes.
I was paralyzed.
Not just by what Gina had done to me while I was cuffed to that bed. I could get over that. I’d resisted her. She hadn’t broken me. I held on, held out.
No, the real nightmares came from the memory of nights in years past, nights I’d spent wondering what Gina would make me do next. I’d been just a kid. Not a virgin when we met, not by any means. Not innocent, but in no way prepared for the madness and insatiable cruelty of a woman like Gina. I’d been afraid of her. Damn right, I had been. Still was. Evil I do not fear. Death I do not fear. Violence and blood and torture I do not fear. The unpredictable blood lust, the cruelty for the sake of sadism, and the way she savored fear, delighted in agony, relished manipulation and madness—that I feared.
So, standing there with Kyrie naked and waiting for me to be her man—the man I was, the man I had been and should be, all I could feel was the fear of bygone days. Remembered fear. The feeling of filth on my skin after Gina finally left me. Wanting to scrub my skin until it bled to get the film of self-loathing off.
When I finally escaped to New York, I hadn’t touched a woman for more than a year. Couldn’t look at a woman, couldn’t bear to be touched, kissed, or spoken to unless it was for business. And the first time I did finally take a woman, it had been an escort. A prostitute. The terms had been laid out ahead of time. There would be no date. No illusion of romance. She would not speak. She would not touch me. If she wanted me to stop, she would say my name: “Mr. Roth.” At which point she would receive half-pay and would leave immediately. The first time, I’d been a bastard. I paid her triple. I hadn’t hurt her, but I’d been gruff, harsh, demanding. I’d done what I needed to do to relieve the ache, and then I sent her home. I hadn’t spoken a word. It had been brusque, cold, and cruel. The next time, with the next prostitute, I’d forced myself to go slower, to be kinder, gentler. As time went on, I learned a balance. I established my demands at the outset. Made it abundantly clear that this was to be a one-sided transaction, nothing more. It was about me taking what I needed and being done. Then one of the escorts broke the rules. She kissed me. She touched me. She’d refused to pretend to come. They all pretended; I knew that, and I didn’t care. This one, she didn’t pretend. She let me do what I wished, and then she’d…kissed me. Asked me if I wanted to try again, but this time not for business, no money changing hands. Just a man and woman in bed together. She wanted to come, too, she said.
I went with it. I didn’t follow her lead, but instead of merely taking what I wanted, I paid attention to her physical cues and tried to make her come. In so doing, I discovered a deeper pleasure. Something hotter and more intense than my own orgasm. Making that escort—whose name I never even asked—feel pleasure gave me something, did something to me.
When the night ended and the girl finally went home, I sat on the balcony of my high-rise, thinking. Reflecting. And I decided to embark on a quest. Instead of taking pleasure, I would give it. Under my terms, under my control. So I sent the escort a check for half a million dollars and a note thanking her for teaching me a valuable lesson.
And then I met Kyrie.
There had been other women in the years between that first meeting and sending Kyrie the first check. But when I made my decision, when I knew without a doubt that I had to make her mine, I stopped seeing anyone else. I cut ties with the escort service. Erased all the phone numbers of willing and discreet women I had on call. Over a year, not a single touch, not a look. By the time I had Kyrie sleeping in my guest room, I was crazed with need. I’d built up Kyrie in my mind. Made her into this…goddess. This was a woman who would change my life, a woman without compare. I made her into something no person could ever live up to.
And then…Kyrie did the impossible. She not only lived up to my expectations, but she shattered them. Defied them. Surpassed them and made me need her all the more desperately. God. And then I told her my secret, expecting it would be the end. She’d left. I’d wallowed in despair. But she came back, and she pushed me. Gave me life back. Healed me. Made me believe in love.
I’d told her I loved her, but I hadn’t known what love was. I needed her. Wanted her. But love? What was that? I didn’t know.
She’d taught me. She was still teaching me.
Her voice in the present shook me out of my silence. I’d been lost in my thoughts for who knew how long, the water from the shower sending steam billowing around us.
“Roth?” Her voice was soft, hesitant. She held out her hand to me, an invitation. “Come in the shower with me. We don’t have to do anything. Just be near me. You don’t have to do anything or say anything. Just…be here with me, okay?” The resignation in her voice sliced deeply, cut me down where I stood.
I was failing her.
I was still in my underwear, but she pulled me into the shower anyway, and I let her. She adjusted the water so it wasn’t scalding, and then backed under the spray, facing me, letting the hot water stream down her back and onto her hair, plastering the blonde locks to her skull and pasting them to her cheek. She tilted her head back and ran her hands through her hair, scraping it backward, letting the water run over her face and into her mouth. I couldn’t look away. I watched as she spat a mouthful of water out and watched as it merged on her chest with the sluicing rivulets from the showerhead above. I watched as she twisted in place, letting the hot water beat on her perfect skin till it was pink. I watched as she found the shampoo, my eyes following her curves as she bent to take the bottle out from beneath the bench, and I watched as she lathered the shampoo into her hair.
I was cold, getting wet from the mist and the steam without being under the hot spray. My boxer-briefs were wet, molded to my skin.
I watched, but didn’t touch. A thousand thoughts boiled in my mind: Did I deserve to touch her? Had I violated her? Had I raped her despite the fact that she’d been willing? Was that possible? It didn’t make sense, but there it was. I felt as if I’d somehow violated the woman I loved. Broken her trust, hurt her. Broken something between us.
And yes, I felt the stigma of what Gina had done to me. The shame, the helplessness. Shame, too, at the fact that even now, through the guilt and the confusion and the fear, I knew that the sex we’d had on the boat, when I was in the grip of the drug, had been the most wildly intense sex we’d ever had. And I think Kyrie knew it, too, adding to her internal conflict.
But there she was, telling me she needed me. Telling me she wanted my touch. By hesitating, by allowing doubt to rule me, I was letting Gina win. I was giving in to weakness by letting my fears and doubts keep me paralyzed.
Kyrie deserved more from me.
She rinsed the shampoo from her hair and worked in conditioner, and then began lathering shower gel onto her skin. She started at her shoulders, worked down her arms, her waist. I swallowed hard, watching her.
Her sensual beauty cut through my fears, her blatant need for me shredded my confusion, and the vulnerability in her eyes slashed away my doubt.
She swept the soapy washcloth over her breasts, scrubbing at the pink tips, sliding her slippery palms under one breast, and then the other. My throat swelled shut, and my heart began to beat. For the first time in a scrambled frenzy of days, I felt my pulse hammer hard, felt heat in my skin, felt desire hardening me, and I wasn’t afraid of it.
I had to take back some semblance of myself.
I am Valentine Roth, I told myself. I am in control. I will not be reduced to a weakling by the likes of Gina Karahalios.
I forced myself to believe it. I felt it, and clung to the flimsy scrim of determination.
I met Kyrie’s pale blue eyes with mine, letting her see into me, not hiding the roil of conflict, not hiding the hunger, the need, the fear, the uncertainty.
It was all there, but I was in control of it.
I had to be.
I clenched my fists and released them, letting out a slow breath. I pushed down the sopping-wet boxer-briefs and kicked them aside. The wet fabric hit the marble wall with a slap, hung there for a moment, and then slid to the floor. Kyrie’s eyes widened, and her nostrils flared, and she froze in place, the washcloth hovering at her belly.
I took a step toward her, finding my voice. “Don’t stop now, Kyrie.” My voice was low, a growled murmur. “Keep washing yourself for me.”
Her lower lip trembled and her mouth slightly parted, her eyes freighted with the same weltering myriad of emotion that boiled in mine. She ran her tongue along her upper lip, not a seductive move, but one of doubt. I stood mere inches from her, the peaks of her breasts a hair’s breadth from my chest. If she took a deep breath, our flesh would meet. But she didn’t. She wasn’t breathing, and neither was I.
This was, we both knew, a moment that would define us.
It would either remake us, or it would destroy us.
She touched the washcloth to her stomach, moved it in small circles, her eyes on me. I could see the hope blooming in the blue pools of her gaze, and it was such a delicate flower, so fragile, such a slight thing, needing a gentle touch to foster it into life. I moved to stand beneath the stream of the water, and her gaze raked over my body, head to toe and back to my crotch. Under her gaze, I felt myself twitch, harden, and burgeon into full erection. She blinked hard and squeezed the washcloth, put a dollop of shower gel onto the white fabric and squeezed and wrung.
And then she extended her hand toward me. “I think I’m clean,” she said, her voice tremulous.
I felt the washcloth touch my chest, and if I wasn’t breathing before, all capacity for breath left my body in that instant, feeling the washcloth on my skin, feeling one of her hands on my chest, slathering the soap across my skin. Her other hand slipped up to slide across the ridge of my shoulder, resting with her thumb near my clavicle and her fingers at the base of my neck. The washcloth arced over my chest, down my side to my hip. Her head tilted up again, her eyes fixing on mine, and then she leaned in, slowly, slowly, eyes lifted to mine, watching my reaction. The water rained down hot, scouring away the soap. Her lips touched my skin, and my heart stopped beating. I felt it stutter in its rhythm, and then she kissed me again, sliding her lips over my heart, and it resumed beating with the gentle warm slide of her lips, pounding harder than before. I blinked against the water on my face and watched her kiss my chest over my heart, once, twice, three times. She slid the washcloth around to my back and ran it up and down, up and down, all over my back, leaning in against me and kissing my chest, my shoulder, the hollow of my neck, slow kisses, careful kisses, switching from hand to hand, caressing my back with the soap and her hand and the washcloth.
My throat was thick, a hard lump lodged there.
Kyrie let the water rinse away the soap, and she moved around behind me, and I felt her breasts slick and soft and wet and firm against my back. Her hand moved over my chest, over my sternum. I leaned back, pressing my back to her front, and she breathed against my ear, her lips at the shell of my ear, not whispering or kissing, just there, breathing, a presence. The washcloth moved to my hip, across my belly to the other hip.
God, the touch of her lips, the soft heat of her flesh against mine, her presence, calm and comforting, the love and the hope and the determination exuding from her…I soaked all this up and let it spread like a healing salve over the wounds within me.
I sat down on the bench, and Kyrie moved around to stand in front of me. My hands rested on my thighs. We spent a long moment in the hot stream of water, my gaze roaming from her face to her breasts and down to her core, to her thighs, hers moving over me in the same way, as if relearning my body, my features, as if seeing me for the first time.
“I need—” Kyrie began, but couldn’t finish, her voice giving out.
“What, Kyrie? Tell me.” I looked up at her.
“Your hands. On—on me. I need you to—to touch me. Please. Anywhere. Just…hold me—touch me….” Her voice shook, cracked. “Please.”
As if her plea was a key unlocking invisible shackles around my wrists, my hands lifted and came to rest on her hips. She breathed out, a gasp of relief. Her eyes closed, and I could feel her trembling all over. Nerves? Fear? Need?
It was all three, I sensed.
I slid my palms up from her hips to her waist, and she rested her hands on my shoulders. I ran my palms across her back, smearing the water on her skin, tasting shower spray on my lips. I closed my eyes, and felt myself falling forward. Falling. Falling. My mouth parted, and my lips touched her flesh, hot, silken, wet, the skin of her stomach under my mouth. A kiss. Her voice scraped out in a breathless moan, almost a sob. I moved my hands back down her spine to hold her hips once more, and my lips slid up her flesh to kiss her ribs, and then between her perfect breasts, and now my hands were holding her to me, cupping her ass. I wasn’t aware of grabbing her there, but I had, at some point, and she was leaning into me, into my kiss. I massaged the muscle and flesh of her ass, kneading, caressing.
I rested my head on her stomach and let out a breath. “Kyrie. God, my Kyrie.” It was a prayer of relief.
“Yes, Valentine. Yours. Your Kyrie.”
“Why?” I kissed her again, right between her breasts, and then looked up at her. “Why?”
She knew what I was asking. “Because you made me yours. Because I want to be yours. I love knowing I belong to you.” She cradled my head in her hands, fingers curling in the hair at my nape, thumbs grazing my cheekbones, my ears. Tipped my face back, so I was looking up into her tumult-rife blue gaze. “And Valentine…you’re mine. You don’t belong to her. You belong to me. Don’t you?” That last was equal parts plea and demand and declaration.
“Yes….” I breathed. “I do. Completely.”
I was gazing up at her from between her breasts, and now she took a deep breath, swelling her chest and letting it out. Her eyes remained on mine as she shifted, twisted her torso just slightly, and now her nipple brushed across my face, slid down, and fit between my lips. I took the taut peak into my mouth and tasted her, and my eyes fell closed, my hands still splayed on the firm, generous bubble of her backside.
The taste of her skin, the heat of the water, her hands on my face and in my hair…my universe had shrunk to these things.
I gave in, letting my need take over.
Letting my love take over.
I twisted, pulled at Kyrie’s hips to bring her to a seat on the bench, and I moved to my knees in front of her. Our faces were at eye level then, and she spread her knees apart, pulled me into the “V” between her thighs and wrapped her arms around my neck. Crushed me to her, our bodies clasped together, my arms going around her waist, hands on her back, in her wet hair. Water splattered on us, still hot. Time was forgotten. Everything was forgotten as she palmed my cheeks and our eyes met, hers wet with tears, mine wavering and vulnerable.
She kissed me. Or, I kissed her. Both at once, perhaps.
It was not a deep, endless kiss. It was a burst of passion, a momentary eruption of need between us. And then I removed my lips from hers, bent, and kissed the slope of her left breast, and then the right, and then took her right nipple into my mouth. I felt rather than saw her head tip back on her neck, and she held tight to my skull with shaking hands, fingers trembling in the wet plaster of my hair. The other nipple then, a reverent kiss, tongue sliding gently over the pebbled peak. And downward, a kiss to her belly.
“Roth…?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My mouth was busy kissing, sliding my lips across her wet skin, kissing her hip, the crease near her thigh. The muscle of her quadriceps, then in and around to the soft inner skin. I knew by taste and by touch the sweetness and silk of her core, knew indelibly each fold, each and every millimeter of flesh. She shivered, sighed, and let her thighs fall apart. Giving in.
Trusting.
How could she still trust me? But she did, and I wouldn’t question it.
But I would earn it.
My thumbs traveled delicately from the apex of her vagina down the slick warm crevice of her opening, down the seam, parting her ever so gently.
A kiss, at first. Just a kiss.
She sighed, a deep frantic breath.
“I love you, Kyrie.” It was a murmur, a muttered admission. Barely audible, perhaps drowned by the noise of the shower.
She knew. But I had to show her.
Nearly falling backward on the bench, holding on to my head, she flicked her eyes open and craned her neck to look at me, a panicked need on her features. “What did you say, Roth?”
I looked up at her. “I said, I love you.”
She seemed to melt somehow, inside. “Oh, Valentine. Valentine. My love.” Her eyes spilled tears, and she swallowed hard.
I kissed her other thigh then, as I had the first, outside to inside, my thumbs caressing her soft, damp skin. She breathed out hard, sucked in a breath, and clung to me. The next time my lips touched Kyrie’s flesh, they pressed against her opening, and my tongue parted her and slid in. She gasped, and I tasted her essence. She clutched my head, my face, and I swept my tongue up and in, lapping at her, parting her further. The marble was hard beneath my knees, but I didn’t care. The water was still hot but beginning to cool off. I didn’t care. I tasted her, my thumbs keeping her spread apart for my tongue. I found the small, hard nub of her clitoris, and I tasted that as well, and this time she whimpered, her fingers curling feverishly into my hair. I flicked my tongue against her clit again, and again, and her hips moved in time with my tongue.
I slid the middle finger of my left hand down the seam of her pussy, and then in, pushing in, and in, and she leaned back and lifted her hips, expelling a harsh breath. I delved into her slick warmth with one finger, curling up and in, sliding out, then back in. Kyrie’s grip on my head tightened, and she pulled me closer, sucking in a breath and letting it out with a moan.
“Valentine, oh god. That feels good, baby. Keep doing that.”
I glanced up at her as I slid my tongue against her clit, and her eyes met mine. Her gaze was hooded, heated. I held her stare as I slipped my ring finger in beside the middle, and then found the rippled rough patch of skin high inside against the inner ridge, caressed it, suckling her clit between my lips.
She bucked against me, whimpering. Pulled my face against her core, and I tongued her in a slow rhythm, speeding up with tongue and fingers as her writhing turned frantic, as her gasps turned desperate. When her ragged breathing and bucking hips reached a frenzy, telling me how close she was, I slowed nearly to a stop.
“No, no, Valentine, don’t stop, please don’t stop. I need to come. I need you to make me come. Let me come, baby, please.”
“You’ll come when I’m ready to let you come.”
She moaned in protest. “Now. Please. I’m right there!”
But I didn’t let her. I stopped entirely, withdrawing and shutting off the water. Unfolding a huge white towel, I wrapped Kyrie in it, lifted her into my arms, and carried her to the bed. I laid her down gently and used the excess fabric to dry her off head to toe. Her skin was flushed, her cheeks reddened, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, her knees pressed together. Her eyes were wide and tender and vulnerable and desperate. She arched her spine off the bed, rubbing her thighs together. She reached for me, sitting up.
“I need you,” she murmured.
“I need you, too,” I responded. “More than you could ever know.”
Kyrie tugged the towel out from underneath herself and handed it to me, watched as I dried myself and then tossed it aside. I crawled onto the bed, scraping my palms across her tits and down her belly, and then I gripped her thighs. She let out a sigh, spread her thighs apart for me. She reached for me, sliding her fingers into the wet hair above my ear.
When I moved my face nearer to her core, she shook her head. “No, Valentine. No more of that. Please. Just make love to me.”
I paused, hesitated, and she sat forward, taking my face in her hands. She tugged at me gently but insistently until I moved upward, leaning over her. “You don’t want me to—”
She didn’t let me finish, her palms still on my face. “No. I don’t need that. All I need is you. I just need us.”
All I could do was kiss her. It wasn’t just a kiss, though. It was more. It was a plea. An admission of need, a declaration of love.
When you live with someone, your relationship inevitably moves past the honeymoon, exploratory stage where each touch and kiss is new and thrilling. It becomes more intense in some ways, though. The newness fades, replaced by familiarity. You know how she’ll respond. You know, just by the way she looks at you, that she wants you. You don’t need the buildup, the kiss that moves into desperation, the slide of palm over skin that becomes a caress and then a frantic removal of clothes. You don’t always need the foreplay. You look at each other, and you know. You just know. You reach for each other, and you merge. Rhythm is instinctive. You breathe in synch. Your hips meet, hands find flesh, foreheads touch, eyes flutter and flicker and lock. You slide into her. You don’t need to look or guide yourself in, you just fit. You match. She lifts her hips just so, and you’re there, and she lets out a sweet sigh of love as you fill her, and then everything fades and you find your rhythm and your completion together, and you don’t need to say a word.
Kyrie and I had that. Months of traveling the world together gave us the kind of intimacy and familiarity with each other that usually takes years to develop. I knew her reactions; I knew just by the expression on her face when she needed me. We made love silently much of the time. No words, no frantic cursing. Just bodies moving in perfect synchronicity.
I think her favorite moments, however, were the times when I took her exactly the way I wanted her, when I didn’t ask her what she wanted, when it wasn’t sweet or tender or thoughtful. When I just took. She loved those moments. She blossomed in those moments—she came alive, responded with fervency. She not only took what I gave—or rather, succumbed to my giving—but she pushed me, demanding more, the flames of fierce sexuality fanning hotter and hotter.
She needed that now.
Darkness fallen around us, the sounds of the unsleeping city loud beyond the window. We both needed to know, regardless of the hell we’d endured, regardless of what was still coming, that Kyrie was mine, and I was hers, and we would have each other and be okay.
So I kissed her. To reclaim us.
I kissed her and tasted the fear on her lips, tasted the tears, and breathed in the tortured doubt. I kissed her, and it wasn’t a sweet kiss. It wasn’t a slow-burning kiss. It was fiery and demanding. I let the desperate determination saturate me, let my bone-deep need to retake control bleed out of me, and I knew she tasted it on me, felt it, breathed it.
I was lying on my back, and she was on her side next to me, her breasts crushed against my ribs and her mouth demanding on mine. I gave her all of me in the kiss, let my hands catch in her hair, clutch her skull and press her closer, press her into the kiss, the kiss…. It expanded and deepened and unfolded, fracturing into a million scintillating pieces, neither of us breathing yet not needing to, needing only the kiss, our lips and our mouths and our heartbeats and our hands. Her palm strayed across my chest, arced down my waist, and never ever before had I felt the ache of touch, felt the burden of needing her so fiercely. I could only kiss her and swallow my fears, drown my nightmares in the sweetness of her lips and the influx of her breath in my mouth as we both broke to gasp and blink and clutch at each other.
The city outside our tower was silent, forgotten. Muted.
Stars, atoms, pain, orbits, politics, enemies…all faded into nothingness.
There was only Kyrie. Only her mouth devouring mine, her hair cascading around my face, tickling my cheekbones and pooling on the pillow.
I had to hold her. My hands hungered for her. I found her skin, feathered my touch across her spine, around her shoulders, down her waist and the ridges of her ribs padded by lush flesh. I curved my palm around her hip, caressed her ass and her thigh and her arm and her hand on my cheek, and the kiss stumbled and tripped and burst open into something beyond kissing, moving from starlight to nova, from incendiary explosion to atomic detonation.
She was touching me as well, her needing fingers tracing my biceps and my chest and the arc of my hip and then descending to my legs, the hair on my thigh and the curled thatch of hair around my cock, and now her hand wrapped around me in a slow, hesitant caress. I gasped, breaking the kiss, my heart hammering at the feel of her hand on me.
A stroke then, a sweet gentle downward sweep stoking the fires in my belly. The frenzy of my heartbeat becoming tympanic thunder, and her teeth pulled at my lower lip and her knee slid onto my thigh.
This was a ferocious yet fragile thing between us.
Kyrie’s hand left my cock, and her knee pressed into the mattress on the other side of my body, and the “V” of her spread thighs cradled my waist. She was above me, and I was panting and panicking, instantly weak and gasping and frantic, fists in the sheet and eyes squeezed shut.
“—Breathe, Roth…breathe for me. Come on, baby. It’s okay. It’s me. It’s me. Look at me, baby. Look at me. Can you open your eyes?” I heard her voice, but all I could feel was the weight of Gina on me, all I could feel was the helplessness, shackled for her pleasure, at the mercy of a woman who had none.
Palms on my cheeks, thumbs beneath my eyes, wiping gently. Lips on my cheekbone, my jaw. “It’s me, Valentine. It’s Kyrie. Open your eyes and see me. Look at me.”
I heard her voice. I knew it was Kyrie. But the panic didn’t allow me to respond.
I fought it.
I am Valentine Roth, and I am in control.
Shaking all over, trembling, gasping raggedly, I forced my eyes open. Saw through the waver of unsteady vision the perfect beauty of Kyrie St. Claire. Not Gina. The weight of her body on top of me was familiar, beautiful. Her hair was blonde and thick and still damp, hanging to one side. Her eyes were blue, deep cerulean, loving and concerned. This was Kyrie. My Kyrie. I made myself stare at her, drank in the beauty of her, soaked up the reality of her here with me. Let her presence sink in, let the truth of now replace the fear of what had been.
I forced my fists to unclench from the sheets, and Kyrie took one of my hands in hers, threaded the fingers of her right hand through my left, the back of my hand against the pillow by my head, her weight resting on our joined hand. And then her left hand merged with my right, and she was leaning over me, hair a curtain blocking out the world.
“You see me, baby?” Her voice was so small, tiny but insistent.
“I see you.”
“You know me? It’s me.”
It was still hard to breathe. I couldn’t look away. Didn’t dare. The endless blue ocean of her gaze held me, and I willingly let myself drown into her.
“Don’t look away from me.” She drew her knees up, shins to the mattress, calves under her ass.
“Never.” I felt my rabbiting pulse turn to hammering thuds as she lifted her hips.
She writhed on me, sliding her core over my hardening cock. She held my gaze, moving her body in a sinuous rhythm, bringing me to raging erection with the slow, wet slide of her pussy. I couldn’t breathe and didn’t need to, because she was kissing me and giving me her breath.
“Ready, my love?” She stilled, hovering over me, the tip of my cock nestled between the lips of her pussy.
“Yes…yes.”
“Look at me, baby.” Her brows drew down, and her mouth hung open.
“I am.” I stared up at her, my hands tangled in hers, her breasts swaying so her nipples brushed my chest.
“I love you,” she said.
It was a frozen moment in time, the momentary pause before we joined, before our bodies merged, her eyes on mine, the sound of her voice echoing in my ears. And then, before I could respond, before I could summon the three syllables roiling within me, she impaled herself on me.
Kyrie ducked her head and bowed her spine out, letting out a breathy moan and grinding her hips against mine, burying me deep, deep, deep inside her heavenly slick warmth.
I let her move. I let her glide and stroke and moan and grind and slide. I held her hands and stared up into her blueblueblue eyes, and I didn’t dare even breathe. She shook, and fought for breath. She shuddered, hovering over me, my cock drawn almost out, her eyes boring and drilling into me, demanding that I see her, see her, feel her, feel the cracks between us filling, feel the broken linkage binding us together repairing.
I saw.
I felt.
But I couldn’t move. Not like this. Not with her above me. It was a war within me. The wounded portion of my psyche refused to be buried, refused to be ignored, and this, weighted down by the woman I loved, this was not okay. I wasn’t over it, I wasn’t healed, and pretending wasn’t going to work.
I was a man in control. Of myself, of my surroundings, of those whom I employed. Of my life, my emotions, my reactions. I didn’t allow anything into my life that would threaten my control. I refused. For ten years, I refused. And then I brought Kyrie to my home, brought her into my tower and let her into my life. That was the beginning of the end of my control. She had a way of worming under my control, wiggling into every crevice of my life, of my soul, of my mind, and taking over. My control, where Kyrie was concerned, was nonexistent.
Being held hostage by Gina, having every scrap of control taken away from me, that had left a deeper scar than I cared to examine. Not just mentally or emotionally or sexually, but in every aspect of my life. Of my sense of self.
I had to reclaim it, but I didn’t know how.
Kyrie was a woman who should never be sad. Never feel pain. Never ache, or be lonely, or afraid. She was too beautiful, too perfect, too lively and strong and wonderful for such negativity. Life engendered pain. Living, if you did it properly, left you vulnerable to pain. I’d spent ten years not living. Alive but moving through life empty of vitality, full of purpose but devoid of that spark which makes life worth living. Kyrie had given me that, and I now saw her own spark guttering, darkening, wetted and tamped down.
I couldn’t let that stand.
I owed her more than that.
I could foster the spark within her. Fan it into flames, and warm myself on its heat.
Sometimes, I think, when you don’t know how to take another step for yourself, you have to focus on someone else, and take the step for them. Live for them. Be strong for them, even when you have so much within yourself in need of healing.
Kyrie collapsed forward, buried her face in my neck, her hands trapped between our chests, her palm to my heartbeat, and she sobbed, her entire body convulsing as she climaxed. “Valentine…please….” She lost her voice then, choking and gasping. Her hips drove downward, and then she drew forward, hesitated, fluttered her hips ever so gently, and then pounded down, crying out into my neck. “God, oh god, oh god, Valentine—fuck, I need you. I need you. Baby, please, please, I need you.”
I slid my palms down her spine, closed my eyes, and drew a breath filled with the scent of her skin and the damp, clean odor of shampoo from her hair. I drew in the scent of Kyrie, filled my hands with the curves of her ass. I breathed her in, caressed her flesh, felt her shuddering above me, heard the plea, and felt the paralysis break.
I lunged upward to a sitting position, Kyrie still impaled on me, and I wrapped my arms around her neck, nipping at the tender hollow at the base of her throat, at the fragile sweep of her neck. Kyrie whimpered, clung to me, snaked her arms around my neck and crushed me closer as I pivoted us together and slid to the edge of the bed. She gasped in surprise when I stood, cupping my hands under her ass, supporting her perfect weight with my hands and with the tension of our joined bodies. Standing, her legs wrapped around my waist, her arms around me, her face buried in my throat, kissing, sucking, biting.
I felt the clench of her pussy around me and reveled in the pulsing squeeze of climaxing muscles. I had to move. Had to fill, and retreat. Had to hold her as if to merge every inch of our bodies, every atom and molecule of our beings.
“Kyrie….” I ground my hips up against hers, and felt her begin to move with me, a juddering grind of her body down mine, meeting my upward thrust with a slow downward stroke of her own.
“Valentine. God, yes. This.”
“I love you, Kyrie. I love you.” Heat billowed within me, a surging tidal wave of fiery need spreading through me, setting me alight from toes to fingertips, scalp to soles, soul to mind to heart, all of me igniting as we found a mutual rhythm together. “You feel this? You feel how we fit together?”
“Yes!” She gasped, sobbed, lifting her face from my neck and gazed up at me with wet eyes, red-rimmed eyes. Her hair was unbrushed and wet and tangled, her skin damp from the shower.
She had never been more beautiful to me than in that moment.
I cupped the pale flesh and muscle of her ass, lifted her up, and then slammed her down onto me as I thrust up with all the power in my body. She cried out wordlessly, hanging her head and grinding onto me.
A glimmer of moonlight shone through the open doorway and reflected off the mirror in my closet. Kyrie rolled her hips against me as I strode across the bedroom and into the closet. She whimpered raggedly as I set her down and pulled out of her.
“Wha—what are you—what are you doing?” she demanded. I grabbed her shoulders and turned her in place to face the three-way mirror. “Oh.”
“Look at yourself, Kyrie. Look how beautiful you are. Look at us together. Watch us,” I told her. “Don’t look away.”
I slid my hands over her breasts, cupping them, lifting them, kneading their fullness. I pinched her nipples with the thumb and forefinger of each hand, rolling her thick, sensitive pink buds until she gasped. I took one of her hands in mine and moved our joined fingers together down, down, between her thighs.
“Let me see you touch yourself, darling. Let me see you put your fingers in your pussy,” I growled in her ear, sliding my middle finger and hers into her opening. “Let me see you get your fingers wet.”
Kyrie sucked in a sharp breath as our fingers slipped into her pussy, and I curled my digit inward, scraped high on her inner wall, finding that spot and guiding her touch.
“Just like that, Kyrie. Keep touching yourself. Don’t stop.” I withdrew my fingers and watched as she rubbed herself. “I want to watch you come, just like this. Come for me, Kyrie. Make yourself come.”
I pressed two fingers to her clit and massaged her in a slow, gentle circle, and felt her hips move, a slight flutter to match my circling touch. Her mouth fell open and her eyes went wide, and I sped up, pausing every now and then to pinch her clit between my fingers, to flick it, rub it, and then move in ever-faster circles around it. Her free hand reached up to clutch at my head, her eyes not on mine in the mirror, but on our hands moving at her sex, at the way her hips began to grind and gyrate. Her tits began to sway and bounce as her motions became more and more frantic, her thighs trembling, her legs falling open wider.
“Put two more fingers inside yourself, Kyrie,” I ordered, my lips moving against the shell of her ear. “Fuck yourself with your fingers, my love. Let me see you do that.”
“Oh, oh…ohhhhh, god, Valentine.” She slipped her index and ring fingers into herself, her digits curled to rub against her G-spot. “I’m close, I’m so close.”
“Are you watching?” I demanded.
“Yes…yes, I’m watching.”
Her knees began to dip as I swiped faster and faster around her clit and her three fingers fucked harder and harder inside herself, and her eyes began to flutter, her breath coming shallow and harsh.
“I—I’m coming, Valentine, oh…Jesus, I’m coming—” She broke off, teeth clenched together, her entire body straining, and now she was screaming through gritted teeth as an orgasm tore through her.
I bent at the knees then, pulled my fingers away from her clit and grabbed her hips, jerked her ass backward. She planted her palm on the mirror, her eyes flicking up to mine. Shaking all over, still tensing and moaning with the aftershocks, she leaned forward, opening herself for me. I gripped my cock in one hand and dragged it against her clit, pushing until she rocked forward with a groan.
“In me…I need you in me, Valentine.”
“You need my cock, don’t you?”
“I do, god, Valentine, I need it so bad.”
I pulled the tip of my dick between her slick labia and drove up into her tight, wet opening, growling as I felt her still-quaking inner walls squeeze immediately around me. Bare inside her, our eyes locked in the reflection of the mirror, I pushed deep inside her, until my stomach met the solid, round expanse of her ass.
“Ohhhhh…yes, yes, baby, YES!” she gasped, her voice rising to a shout as I drew back and rammed back into her.
“You like that, don’t you, Kyrie?” I gripped the crease of her hips in my hands as I glided my throbbing cock out so I nearly lost her heat, and then pulled her ass into my thrust, growling with pleasure when the generous mound of flesh jiggled.
“I love it…fuck, I need it.”
“You need it, do you?” I pulled back again and thrust deep, hard.
“YES! I need it so bad.” She squeezed her eyes shut briefly as I set my favorite rhythm, pulling out slowly and fucking in hard and fast. “I need you…you, I need this…shit, oh god that feels so good—I need us.”
One hand flat against the mirror to prop herself up, bent nearly double, her tits swaying and bouncing with each slapping clash of our bodies, she opened her eyes as wide as they would go and kept her gaze locked on mine.
“Touch yourself, Kyrie. Right now, while I’m fucking you, touch your clit. Make yourself come again.”
I watched as she slipped her other hand between her thighs and put two fingers to her clit, catching her lip between her teeth and immediately finding the rhythm she needed.
And now, her fingers moving in synch with the rhythm of my driving hips, her brows lowered and her breath came faster and faster, and she started pushing back into me, slamming her ass into my thrusts, harder and harder. Her gaze flickered down and then to the side, watching us in profile in the side mirror. I looked in the opposing side mirror, and now we both watched, watched my thick, wet cock sliding out of her pussy and then burying into her body, watching her whole body rock forward with the power of my thrust, her tits swaying forward, my balls slapping against her taint.
Her fingers moved in a blur then, and I felt her pussy clamp down, felt her body coil and tense as she prepared to come. As soon as I felt her begin to come, I slapped her ass hard, synching the crack of my hand on her flesh with driving, relentless fucking,
“OhmyfuckingGOD!” Kyrie cried out at the smack, arched her spine up, writhing as I drilled into her, giving in to my own rising urge to orgasm.
“That’s not my name,” I growled.
“Oh…oh my fucking Valentine?” It was part statement, part question, breathless as she came.
“That’s better.” I jerked her backward into my thrusts, our eyes meeting in the central mirror. “Is this what you wanted? Is it, love? You want me to talk to you? Tell you how good you feel? You want me to tell you how perfect your sweet little pussy feels when you squeeze my cock like that? You want me to tell you how much I love fucking you? I can’t live without this. I can’t, darling. I won’t.”
“You don’t have to. Keep fucking me, Valentine. Please. Please keep fucking me. Just like this. Fuck me forever. Fuck me until I beg you to stop.”
“Would you? Beg me to stop?”
“Never. I’ll only ever beg you for more.” She put both hands on the mirror now and pushed back to meet my thrusts, to fuck me back. “Just like this, Valentine. Don’t ever stop.”
“I won’t. I promise. I love you too much. I love this too much.”
“You—fuck, Valentine, you’re so big. So big it almost hurts. It hurts so good, though.” She caught her breath and started over. “You remember the last time you fucked me in this closet?”
A flash of memory seared through me as I neared climax: Kyrie, bent over against the mirror, hands on the glass, feet wide apart just like now, a vibrator in her asshole, her wide round ass jiggling and bouncing as I fucked her harder and harder, her screams filling the room, tangling with my own growls.
“God, that was incredible,” I said.
“Yeah, it was,” she agreed. “But…this…this is better.” She met my rhythm, and I felt myself losing control, grinding hard and deep, and she rolled her hips against me, her eyes piercing mine. “I want to feel you come, Valentine. Come for me. Right now, baby.”
Heat billowed through me, pressure in my balls tightening and ratcheting until I was growling and groaning, my hips flush against her ass, my cock buried deep and pushing in to go deeper.
“I’m coming, Kyrie.” I pulled out, on the verge of detonation, and then slammed home. “Kyrie…god, my love…I’m—I’m coming—” She rocked with me as I exploded inside her, shouting as I came. “You’re my everything….” I gasped, groaning as another wave of seed flooded out of me and filled her. “This is…everything. My god, Kyrie…I love you so much…I need you…I love you—”
Her eyes wavered with the intensity of the moment, our gazes locked as I thrust one last time, unleashing a final burst of come within her. “I love you, Valentine.”
We stilled then, my cock still buried inside her, both of us shaking. I pulled out, and she straightened, twisting in my arms. Our mouths crashed together, our arms and hands and legs trembling, our hearts beating in mutual frenzy, our tongues tangling. We broke apart, gasping, and Kyrie took my hand, led me to the bedroom. I let her go as she crawled on the bed, her ass waving side to side with a sultry sway, and even though I’d just come, I was twitching with renewed need. She rolled to lie on her back, knees lifted, thighs parted.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” I murmured. “So beautiful. And all mine.”
“Say it again, baby. Tell me I’m yours.”
I stood at the foot of the bed, drinking in her beauty, thickening into erection as I stared at her. “You’re mine, Kyrie.”
“Yes. I’m yours.” She reached for me. “Come here, Valentine.”