Tiffany…

Oh, my God, I couldn’t get enough. I would never be able to get enough. I arched low to the bed as he grabbed my hips and slammed himself into me, against my body, his cock going impossibly deep and it hurt so good.

I practically yowled like a cat in heat as that heavy, tight sensation started in my pussy, somewhere around where his cock slammed into my cervix. I know most women couldn’t stand it, couldn’t take it, but when I was in the right mood, like now, I fucking loved it.

“Harder, oh god, please! Right there, oh, right there!” I don’t really know how I formed the words, or that I was even saying them, but I could hear them and it was my voice so I must have been.

“You like that?” he asked. “You want it like that?”

“Yes!” I cried and it was as much in answer to his queries as it was an exclamation over the orgasm rippling out from my center. It was probably the most extraordinary sensation I had ever experienced. It was as if the stars had fallen from the heavens and taken up residence in my center, nestling there for just a moment before exploding out along every nerve ending, lighting me up from the inside out, trapped by my skin and stuck, leaving me glowing far past the final wave of beautiful devastation.

He’d parted the red sea of emotional pain for me, just like I’d asked, but as with all things, what goes up must come down and I crashed hard. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Like at all. He leaned over me, gathering me close as I dissolved into raging, wracking sobs.

So what a man wants from a woman while he had yet to go soft inside her, I thought harshly.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he murmured and it was exactly what I needed from him when I needed it. I still didn’t understand how he did that so well.

He moved from between my legs and lay beside me, pulling me into him, holding me tight while the storm of emotion swept over and through me. I held onto him, and, it was like I clung, not to a man of flesh and bone, but to my very last shred of sanity in the incredibly cruel and twisted drama that my life had become.

I wept until I had absolutely nothing left and he was so patient and so kind, smoothing my hair out of my tears, kissing my forehead, my eyelids, and even the tip of my nose.

“I know it’s bad, eh, but I’m not going anywhere,” he promised and I realized I was all cried out. I felt my body ease from its stiff posture and he smiled sadly at me and I could read from his expression that he was absolutely miserable for me. That he genuinely lived in my misery right along with me and it was both a comfort and the most distressing thing because I didn’t want him to hurt. Not because of me.

“Never because of you,” he said and I realized I had said what I’d been thinking out loud. “You make me the happiest I’ve been in a long time, Wahine.”

“I don’t understand that,” I said, honestly.

“You don’t have to understand it, just believe it,” he told me and I sniffed. He thumbed some stray tears out from underneath my eyes and smiled saying, “Let’s get cleaned up.”

“Okay,” I murmured. He got up and handed me one of his tees, pulling on a pair of loose shorts. He pulled a couple of towels from the top of the closet and his hair from its loose ponytail, tossing the hair tie on top of the dresser. I hugged myself and he held out a hand to me. I reached out and twined my fingers with his, and stopped for a moment, just staring at our hands.

“What is it?” he asked and I looked up at him, just so overwhelmed by how much I felt for him but now, of all times, was so not the time to say it.

“Nothing,” I lied, and he drew me to him.

“Won’t make you tell me,” he said softly, “But you should know you don’t ever have to be afraid to tell me anything.”

“I know that,” I said quickly, my pulse suddenly quickening in the side of my throat.

“No judgments here,” he whispered and I swallowed hard.

“I know that, too,” I murmured. He nodded and pressed lips to my forehead and led me across the hall to the bathroom.

It was a locker room, sort of, in here. Tile floors with a bank of three showers, a urinal, and two toilet stalls. A bank of two sinks was right as you walked in, and there was a low bench just outside the shower bay.

“Reminds me of this swimming pool I used to go to when I was a kid. The mom thought it was a good idea all of us kids learned to swim and the lessons were free for kids like me. I liked it there.” I closed my eyes and breathed deep, but the smell of chlorine was absent from the room, though the smell of clean was there. Of cleanser and disinfectant, also of new, like this place had barely been used and like it wasn’t that old. Not freshly built, the scent of new caulking and sealant was too faint for that.

His hands lightly fell on my shoulders and I jumped, my eyes flicking open to his strong, tattooed face that was somber with an emotion I couldn’t readily define.

“What?” I asked.

“Just you,” he said back.

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“You’re so beautiful to me. Just so sad at the same time. Even before this.”

“I’m happiest when I’m with you,” I said, and it was true. It was just hard to find any bit of light right now.

“I see that too,” he said.

I sniffed and he pulled me close and simply held me for a time.

“Will you read to me before bed?” I asked.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You sure about that?” I asked and I meant it to sound teasing, but I don’t know that it came out that way. He went to his knees, carefully, hands slipping up the hem of his tee to rest along the top of my thighs, just under my ass.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, I figure if I were going to get you to look at me, I needed to come down here.”

I blinked and frowned slightly. “I don’t understand.”

“The floor, Girl. You’re always looking at the floor.”

“I am?”

“Yeah.”

“I hadn’t realized,” I said and he got back to his feet. He smiled faintly, his fingertips traveling around my legs and up my hips, dragging the tee with it as he stood. I raised my arms and let him drag the soft material over my head. He dropped it, lying beside the towels on the bench.

I was suddenly fascinated, completely mesmerized by his movements as he slipped out of his shorts and went into the shower, turning it on, getting the water warm before reaching out to me. I went to him and he drew me under the spray, tipping my head back and letting my hair soak, the water from the shower-head sluicing it back from my face.

“You’re an extraordinary woman,” he whispered and I stepped closer to him and pressed my lips to his. I loved that he said these things to me, out of the blue, but at the same time, for reasons I couldn’t understand, they embarrassed me and so I kissed him to silence him and his compliments. The only way I knew how to tell him I loved them, but also, that I was uncomfortable hearing them.

He washed me. Carefully, mindful that I might be, and actually was, sore. Of course, it was that delicious kind of soreness that only a really good fuck could provide.

“Just lean against me,” he murmured as he washed my hair and I did. Holding him around his waist carefully.

I felt so disconnected from everything. Wrung out and exhausted, but not tired. It was confusing. I couldn’t really hold onto a single thought in my head and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. So I let him take care of me. I let him do everything and stood in my zombie-like state and fell ever more hopelessly in love with him, which was terrifying to me now.

I mean, what if Silas found out? He would hurt Nik, possibly even kill him, just to hurt me.

I found myself fetched up hard against his chest and trembling, my lips pressed to his shoulder as he held me and soothed me. I hated this. I hated what I’d become, this trembling, anxiety-riddled thing.

Things blurred and the next I knew he was drying me off, but I couldn’t remember him turning off the shower. Then we were cuddled in his bed, but I don’t remember walking back across the hall.

“You’re exhausted,” he said. “Just sleep,” but I couldn’t, not really.

He read to me and I don’t know what it was he read from one of his many books off one of his many shelves, but that didn’t matter so much. What mattered was I was safe, I felt loved, and I was carefully cradled against his chest as his rich, melodic, accented voice lulled me word by word, minute by minute until I saw, felt, and heard nothing, claimed by sleep.