Page 6

Willa

I t’s hard to believe that this could ever end badly when it feels like paradise to start it, but I’m much more of a realist than anyone suspects, and I know I have to be careful. I need to promise myself here and now that I will always hold Atlas’ heart like the treasure it is. It might not be involved yet, but if we ever get there, I’ll take care with him, whatever it costs me.

I knew kissing Atlas would be spectacular, but my brain pretty much splinters apart as the deep current of desire flows through me unchecked and unfettered at last, pretty much wrecking me.

“Should we… is this… Willa, are you sure?”

I taste the smoky dark sweetness of his mouth, sweeping my tongue over his lips, eradicating the need for words, but I still feed him the one he needs to hear. “Yes.”

He tries to angle me towards the couch, but I grasp his shoulders and tear my mouth from his, panting at the heady pleasure drunk sensation.

“That couch is for sale. If we- uh- well, if we anything on top of it, I can’t in good conscience sell it and moving it out of here would be a pain in the ass. It would never make it upstairs, and if I ruin it, I have to keep it forever.”

“Not a problem.” Atlas hikes me up by my hips. I didn’t expect it, especially not how easily he did it. I lock my legs around his waist and let him stumble up the stairs to the second floor, all the way through it, and then up the second set to my apartment.

I shouldn’t call it that. Living quarters, more like.

If it was in New York, it’s the kind of place that would rent for twelve grand a month or something obscene. It’s two thousand square feet, which is more than double the size of the bungalow Lynette and I shared in Seattle before she sold it and moved to Hart for good.

Atlas slams the door shut. I didn’t distract him by kissing him. I know he’s fine, but I was still worried about him after he passed out earlier. He shouldn’t be lifting me.

He flicks on the light. “I’m fine,” he growls against my lips before curling his fingers into my ass to prove just how fine he is.

I love his mouth. I’ve had ten thousand wicked thoughts about his lips. Probably more. My brain has conjured images that came along with a wave of guilt and a small sense of hopelessness. In my defense, I couldn’t stop what my head churned up like dust rising in the air after a long, hot summer, but I could control what I did about it.

I’ve never allowed myself to have a real fantasy about Atlas. Dreams, yes. Hopes, yes. Hopelessness… that too. But I’ve never touched myself while thinking about him. That would have crossed every line ever.

It makes it so much better to kiss him now. To lick at his lips, to nibble and bite. To stroke his tongue with mine and trap his groans in my mouth.

He’s a good kisser. I know that I am too.

I don’t know why most women feel the need to say that they don’t like sex. The notion that we shouldn’t is so antiquated. I was young the first time I did it. I told Lynette that I wanted to, and instead of telling me I couldn’t, she got me on the pill. And then she said she’d rather I didn’t, but if I was going to, I needed to be safe in every way. No sneaking around, no places where I could get hurt or taken advantage of, and no risks. She made me take responsibility and I’ve owned it ever since.

I might have been wild in the past, but that all stopped the day I moved to Hart. A lot of things stopped. I haven’t dated anyone. Haven’t had sex since arriving here.

The day I moved to Hart was the day I met Atlas. Ever since the first time I saw him in the little rental house where Lynette and I would be staying, helping furnish it with the rest of the club, in all his breathtaking, golden glory, I didn’t want anyone else.

And. Now. I. Am. Starved .

I break the kiss and wriggle so that Atlas sets me down. As soon as he does, I shove him against the metal door. He’s huge, so when I say shove, he backs up a step, but he gets the idea. He helps me tear his gray t-shirt off.

“Fuck, Willa,” he groans as I tear open his belt. The buckle is huge, a big metal bowed angel, probably custom made.

I wrench his jeans open and drop down to my knees on the hardwood floor we spent days and days refinishing.

I pull everything down his thickly muscled thighs. Jeans and boxers. I leave them like that, pretty much tying him in place.

I’m so fucking hungry for him that I’m vibrating. I’ve never had an adrenaline rush like this. I’ve never wanted another person like this. I’ve never wanted to know someone the way I want to know Atlas. I’ve never loved anyone from the outside in and the inside out, never wanted to plunge into their depths, to stand beside them, to walk in their light and let them luxuriate in my own.

I’ve never truly wanted a partner or to be someone’s partner.

It feels so different with Atlas, so right already, because for once, this isn’t about the sex. It’s damn well about the sex, but not for the sake of it. I want this because I want his laughter, his trust, his time, his friendship, and his heart. I want to make him feel good because he’s special to me, not because there’s an expectation of pleasure in return.

His cock is painfully hard. It’s long and thick, with a slight bend to the left side. Not a crook or anything weird like that, just a gentle sway. The tip is swollen and already leaking shiny precum in a glistening strand.

I sweep my head low and catch it with my tongue, humming at the sharp salty taste of him before I bring my face right up to him and inhale his scent.

It’s animalistic, I know, but I love the scent of him here. How he smells freshly showered, but still manly. He’s blond everywhere, though he’s excelled at manscaping. I go for the element of surprise and also give into my base desires, running my tongue over his balls, licking a hot path up his shaft, all the way to his tip.

His hands smack the door behind him, hard.

I wrap my hands around him, shucking off my shackled restraints, and dig my fingers into his tight ass while I take his cock all the way to the back of my throat in a single motion. I swallow against the gag reflex, opening my throat and forcing him as far back as he’ll go.

I’m not a sword swallower or a miracle worker, but I take at least half of him.

“Fuck!” Atlas’s head slams back against the door. His spine collapses against it. I fall back with him those few inches, pulling back and using my hand along the base of his shaft to work him while I take him to the back of my throat again.

I dare to look up after I work him for a few passes. His eyes are barely blue anymore. They’re deep black and burning, his pupils blown out. He has this slack look of amazement that comes from unexpected pleasure. I love that I can give this to him. I love that just for right now, he’s given me complete trust.

I drink my fill of his gorgeous, hard face. I don’t turn away for so long that eventually his hand peels off the door and strokes my hair, almost reverently before his fingers dip through the strands. His fingertips feel so good pressing into my hair that I almost purr. I change up what I’m doing, licking along the side of his shaft before swirling my tongue around the base of him. I breathe in that deep, raw male scent as I cup his balls in my hand.

My whole body aches to have him buried inside of me. I’ve never felt so empty. My panties are soaked beneath my dress. When I imagine our positions reversed, me pinned to that door, Atlas on his knees, his hot mouth sealed to my pussy as he eats me like a wild beast, my walls clench in on themselves, aching so brutally that my thighs buzz with electricity. This is for him, though. I’m getting plenty of pleasure from the torture of giving it.

“Atlas,” I whisper against his cock. I trace the veins up to the tip, lapping at him, teasing his slit and the underside of his head until my tongue is coated in the salt of him again.

I got rid of my fake nails after moving to Hart, and I keep them trimmed short enough now, but I still love sparkly polish. I scrape them down the inside of his thigh, digging in just hard enough to leave a bright red line along his sensitive skin.

“Willa,” he groans, his hands falling back against the door to brace himself. His whole body flexes, his abs standing out stark with every panting breath.

He’s more beautiful than any statue I have ever seen, any work of art.

“Yes?” I flutter my lashes and look up at him.

He opens his mouth, but no words come out.

“Did you want me to do this?” I lock my mouth around his cockhead and take him slowly along my tongue, pushing forward until it feels like he’s wedged halfway down my throat.

“Fuck. Fuck!”

I can feel him vibrating with the effort to control himself. If he even flexed his hips right now, he’d probably do real damage to me. He stays perfectly still until I’ve pulled back a safe distance, keeping him on my tongue, but no longer choking myself. A sigh explodes out of him, and he pushes forward just slightly.

“I want to fuck your mouth so badly,” he admits, his tone a dark growl.

“I know. I can feel how hard you are. I can feel you throbbing against my tongue when you’re in my mouth.” I cast my eyes up, finding his on me, his face wrecked by the force of his desire. “Would it make you even harder to know how much I want you in my pussy, Atlas? In my asshole? Does it make you want to lose control knowing that you could do anything to me and I’d fucking love it?”

His jaw slackens in amazement at my words. I don’t see my being polite and kind out there in the world and being absolutely depraved in the bedroom as being a bad thing. I’ve never seen it as wrong or felt ashamed of the things I like.

“Do you like seeing me down here on my knees for you?”

He nods, still not able to say anything.

“I’m so wet right now that I’m going to start dripping down my thighs soon. Would you like to know how I taste?”

“Yes!”

He trembles like a caged animal, still afraid to touch me, afraid to lose himself and let himself go. Afraid to trust again. Afraid that this will ruin us and wreck our world.

“Not yet.” I flatten my hand to his hard abs. The hairs circling his naval and trailing down tickle my palm. “First I want to know what you taste like when you’re coming in my mouth.”

He hesitates, a wounded light flashing in his eyes, doubt crashing down on his brow in a hard frown. “I- you can’t tell just by- by- what it looks like. That’s why I had to have those tests. There’s still… something there.”

I trace my nails down his thigh before I cup his balls gently. I lick along his shaft, sucking the tip of him, teasing him and worshipping him.

“I know you’ve spent a year doubting yourself. It’s been painful and hard. But look at me.”

He is, and I hate the shadows still there, still haunting him.

I lick down the length of his cock and back, sucking his tip before meeting his eyes again. “Perfect,” I hum. “Everyone has their demons. Don’t let this be one of them. I know that it matters to you. It matters so much, and that’s okay, but don’t hate how you were made, because you are perfectly constructed. Your body holds the most gorgeous, generous heart. You’d die for the people you love, but you know how to live too. There’s not a person alive who knows you who wouldn’t say that you’re one of the best men out there.”

“Jesus Christ. Stop that.”

“No.” I skate my tongue over his cockhead, humming as I take him into my mouth and then releasing him. “You need to hear it. You need to know. I don’t just want you because you look the way you do. I want you because, in a world full of good looking men, you’re unique. I want you for what’s under your skin too.”

“Bone and blood. That’s all we are.”

“Bone and blood and your brain .”

“You can’t prove to me that I’m not some version of broken. I know that medically- I- I wasn’t put together properly.”

I won’t scoff at him. I know how deeply this has wounded him. He explained to me, after months of hinting around it, that he was born without a vas deferens. He can have children, but only with medical aid. He told me that it was basically like he’d been given a vasectomy at birth.

And fucking Jodie used that as her excuse to leave him.

“I might feel the same way if it was me,” I tell him honestly. “I’d be devastated and ashamed, but then I’d need to find my way past that. Don’t let the one percent unhappiness be your world, you deserve to be happy.”

I know, on the outside, he doesn’t. But the inside is a different story.

He’s fighting with himself, and I can’t make him believe something overnight. I take my mouth off him and sit back on my heels, “Look, if you’re having second thoughts and don’t want to do this, that’s okay.”

His lips twitch. He sighs, but there’s humor in it. He’s still half enraptured, and so hard that he’s throbbing right in front of me, but he suddenly looks so very tired. Physically exhausted, and mentally and emotionally too.

I unzip his biker boots and help him step out of them. I peel off his jeans, but slip his boxers back up, tucking his very hard cock in at an awkward angle. I can’t say I’ve ever dressed a man before.

I plant kisses on his abs and up his chest, over his pecs, and up his collarbones to his neck.

I bet that no one has cherished this man’s body before. Not properly.

They might enjoy it, but have they ever paid any attention to anything other than the obvious spots? They probably look at him and think he fucks hard and well. He probably does, but has anyone ever bothered to discover what he likes? To teach him for himself? I went straight for the obvious parts, but what about ticklish spots, a soft whisper of fabric over tender skin, a whisper of lips against his earlobe?

My bed is a queen, but big enough for both of us if we huddle tight. It’s over at the far end of the wide open space, past the living room and kitchen, past my shelves of books, down by the bathroom.

I flick the lights off behind him. One switch controls everything in here but the lamps. Threading my fingers through Atlas’, I guide him straight to my bed.

“What are we doing?” his tone is almost fearful, like he expects me to peel back the blankets and reveal a python that he’s going to have to cuddle up beside.

I pull back the antique crazy quilt. It’s too hot for it anyway. The white cotton sheets will be more than enough.

“Sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”

“Yeah. Just camping out, but closer.”

He gets into the one side almost reluctantly. I slip in beside him. When I snuggle closer, wrapping my arm around his shoulders, the metal bedframe creaks. It’s a haunted sound in here, melancholy because the acoustics echo off the brick walls, hardwood floors, and open ceilings.

Gravity is going to fight me. My arm will be numb in a few seconds if I keep it at the height of his shoulders.

I flip around, guiding his hand over my hips until his arm is slung around me. I press back into him, but not hard enough to grind against his cock.

“What are we doing here?”

“Just… just taking a minute.”

He goes quiet. We both do. The fridge hums. Loudly. I kind of like the noise. Outside, it’s not nearly late enough to be totally quiet, and the sound of vehicles on the street every now and then is comforting. We both breathe together, in a different cadence.

“You’re tired,” I whisper into the growing dark. I like sleeping with the blinds open to let in the light first thing in the morning and to allow the moonlight to keep me company. “Don’t worry. I still plan on worshipping every inch of you soon enough.”

“You’re still in your dress,” he protests, voice extra husky.

“That’s okay. It’s comfortable. I like this. Lying next to you. It feels…”

“Hot and sticky.”

The air conditioning doesn’t chill up here the same way it half ass works downstairs. I don’t mind that. I’m always kind of cold anyway.

I snuggle in just a bit tighter. “Hot and sticky, I agree. It’s awesome.”

He’s tense for a few minutes, but then he clearly gives up on the idea of leaving. Whatever storm wages inside of him, calms.

Not more than a few minutes later, he’s asleep. Curled around me protectively, incredibly.

I can’t believe this is real.

I’m tired too, the heat of the day and all the activity have sapped my energy, but there’s no way I’m going to sleep. At least not for hours yet. Maybe not all night. Not until I’ve memorized the pattern and sound of every single one of Atlas’ breaths.

He might be bigger and stronger and the one holding me, but I feel every bit as protective of him.