Page 19 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

I flung the shirt away and attacked his belt, but as I started to shove his jeans down, he stilled my hand, dug into his pocket, and fished out a string of condoms. A long string. He flung them onto the futon.

Ah. Well and good that he was prepared, but the calculated gesture struck me as a provocation. He shoved his jeans and briefs down, stepped out of them, and kicked them away.

Oh, yes. He was perfect. His huge cock thrust out, thick and high, bobbing with its own swollen weight. “Touch me,” he directed.

My hands rejoiced as they closed around that velvety supple rod, his vital pulsing heat, his velvety skin, his steely hardness and heat. He more than filled my hand.

I loved his gasps as I stroked and twirled my hand, pulling him, milking him. It made me feel like a goddess, handling storm clouds, thunderbolts. Fearlessly playing with devastating power as if it were my own personal toy, made for my amusement.

“I know this thing of me leading started out as a precaution to keep me from freaking out on you,” I said. “But it’s changed. It’s turned into a kinky power game.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But if a woman as proud and strong as you plays along with my kinky power game without telling me to fuck off, it means she really wants me, right?”

I swirled my hands around his cockhead, making him gasp. “It turns you on,” I challenged. “Telling me what to do. Admit it.”

He grinned. “Busted. But in my own defense, everything about you turns me on.”

“Aw, cute. You think you’re so smart, huh?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “Not at the moment.”

“I know your tricks,” I said breathlessly. “You’re showing me how completely you’re in control of the situation, right?”

His eyes went thoughtful. “Not exactly,” he corrected. “I’m showing you how completely I’m in control of myself. I think you need to be reminded.” He gathered up a hank of my hair and kissed it, with that lovely, secret smile glowing in his eyes.

He was so sweet, it made tears well into my eyes, for no reason I could understand.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I said, my voice wondering. “You have a split personality, Jack. Either you say the exact wrong thing that makes me want to smack you, or you say the exact right thing.”

“Yeah?” he prompted. “Which makes you want to ...?”

“Um, grab you,” I said primly.

His grin flashed. “Go for it, then. Grab me. I love it.”

I took him at his word, caressing him with slow, sensual pulls. His hands clenched, flexed, trembled. “So I never say anything neutral, like please pass the peas?”

“What peas have we eaten? We haven’t gotten that far in our relationship.”

And we never will. According to you.

I shoved the bleak thought away. I would not let anything screw this up. Not my fears, not the Brian fallout. Not even the plain, undecorated truth.

To hell with the plain truth. Who needed it. I would just live the fantasy for now.

It was time to change the vibe and distract us both, so I kneeled down and unzipped my bright purple down sleeping bag with the lavender nylon lining, spreading it out over the futon mattress.

I curled up, tits stuck out, hair wild and touseled, and looked up seductively through my eyelashes at him. “So? And now?”

He sank down, his face still cautious. “Do you need to be on top?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I think I’m shaking too hard,” I confessed. “I don’t think I’d even be able to stay upright. I’m melting.”

He looked worried. “But I’m big. I wouldn’t want you to?—”

“Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my finger at him. “Don’t you worry. I won’t flip out on you. I know where I am, and whom I’m with.”

He smiled, cautiously relieved. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, God, yes,” I assured him. “And I love it that you’re big. It’s hot. Bring it on.” I twisted my hand appreciatively over his cockhead, spreading around the slick precome.

His face and neck went rigid. “Oh, God,” he muttered. “You’re laying all the responsibility onto me, huh?”

“You can take it,” I informed him cheerfully. “I have faith.”

He put his hand on my belly, stroking me with a light hand. As if I were some delicate, exotic creature that he didn’t want to frighten.

I stared at his hand, blinking at another rush of tears. Moved by how worried he was. Tender and gentle. Big, yummy, succulent. And he needed to get on with it. Now.

I grabbed the hand that was petting me and gave it a yank. “Get down here,” I ordered him. “I want to feel you. On top. All over me.”

He allowed himself to be dragged down. I opened my legs and tried to roll him over on top of myself, but he pulled away from me.

“Wait. Hold on.” He groped for the condoms. “Let me deal with the practical details before I completely lose my mind.”

He fumbled the latex on one-handed, and finally, I managed to pull him down on top of me. I twined my arms and legs around him and squeezed. The sweet shock of his hot body against mine opened the leaky tear faucet again, and off I went.

Jack looked into my wet eyes, alarmed. “Vivi? Are you okay?”

“Fine, great, fabulous,” I assured him. “You just feel wonderful. It makes me weepy, but don’t worry about it. Not a problem. It’s all good.”

He stared into my face, his eyes soft, and kissed the tears away from my cheekbones and my temples.

Oh, Lord, he felt so good. My hands were going crazy with so much to choose from: his thick shoulders; his powerful back; his taut, muscular ass; that dark, shaggy mane of silky hair tickling my neck.

The urgent prod of his cock against my thigh.

He wasn’t hurrying me at all, but I felt it, eager and stiff, throbbing hopefully while he kissed my neck, my breasts.

Caressing my pussy, spreading my lube all around to ease his way.

The wild fluttering anticipation kept rising. This was really happening.

He lifted his head, unexpectedly and gave me his now familiar master-and-commander stare. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

I tried not to giggle. It was too frivolous for the vibe. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I want to hear the words.”

I reached down and gripped his cock, squeezing it through the thin barrier of latex. “This is another kinky power game, right?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

I writhed beneath his weight, arching until I could press the thick bulb of his penis against the slick opening of my pussy, and with some breathless wiggling, forced him inside. He felt huge, unyielding.

“Please,” I whispered. “Put your cock into me.”

He stared into my eyes, shifted his weight, pressed deeper.

I gasped and bit my lip. “Oh, wow.”

“Relax,” he murmured, his voice strangled. “I’ll go really slow. It’ll be good.”

He did, and it was. I had braced myself for a sting, but he barely moved, just hovered over me, rocking gently, kissing me with all his incredible skill, melting me while he caressed my clit with his thumb.

His kisses were a silent language that some deep part of me understood. Something inside him, coaxing and pulling at something inside me. Beseeching me to soften, bend, and melt for him, then demanding it. And there was no way not to give him what he wanted when I wanted it myself so badly.

He made me come again, deep and hard and wrenching, and when I opened my eyes and remembered who I was, his cock was deep inside me. Huge and hard and throbbing. I could barely move.

But he was in no hurry. He rolled me onto my side, draping my leg over his, and we kissed, embraced, hips pulsing lazily together. Slowly, gently rocking.

Time stretched, creating a magical space around us.

The room with its flickering leaf shadow was a verdant bower.

Colors seemed unnaturally strong. The sleeping bag was the splayed petals of some voluptuous, sexual flower, and the two of us writhed and undulated inside its glowing, silky depths, utterly lost to pleasure.

At some point, I realized with some surprise that I was not uncomfortable at all anymore.

My body had relaxed around him. He was easing in and out of me in slow, teasing thrusts, with a skillful swivel and slide that tenderly stroked over every wonderful, throbbing hot spot inside me.

I jerked and shuddered with each plunge.

He was so attentive, so sensitive, feeling his way with unerring instincts.

His passionate attention unlocked every closed, fearful place inside me and sparked an endless string of delicious explosions.

We were fused, a single moving, surging glow.

I could not stop the tears in my eyes from slipping out and rolling down, tickling my face, but he just kept tirelessly kissing them away.

It took me a long and delicious interval to convince him to let himself come. To persuade him that he would not hurt me or scare me if he did. He finally picked up the pace, and I clawed him into action, inciting, demanding. Sinking my nails into his ass, pulling him deeper.

He finally gathered me up tightly against him and gave it to me harder than I would ever have dreamed I would want it, but I did.

I was transformed. There were no walls or locked doors inside my mind to slam up against. He’d gotten past them all.

I was all softness, eagerness, pleasure.

It was so good. I loved it all, his fierceness, his strength, his vigor, his size, jarring me, ramming into me as the energy gathered, and then, his hoarse shout.

That hot blaze of explosive energy, pumping out of him—I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved it. I loved ... him.

The terrifying thought reverberated through me as our mutual climax wiped us out. When I opened my eyes, we were side by side, limp and damp and spent. Arms and legs entwined. Still panting.

He gazed into my face, touched my cheek with the tip of his finger. “I can’t believe how soft your skin is,” he said.

I grabbed his hand, and kissed it impulsively, my terrifying realization shining inside me. Part pleasure, part a keen, stabbing pain. It wanted so badly to be shared. But I couldn’t. It was premature, stupid, ill-considered. It would ruin everything.

I snuggled up to him, hiding my face against his chest, and we stayed that way until the afternoon sun began to lengthen and turn a warm gold.

Finally, he brushed my hair off my face. “Want to go and plant that Eranthis hyemalis with me?” he asked.

I was taken aback. “Right now?”

“I don’t know how much of a chance they have to root now, but we could give it a shot,” he said. “What the hell, right? I’d hate to see them just wither away without even giving it a try. Doesn’t seem right.”

I thought about that for a moment. What an ironic choice of words. And he had no clue. I could tell from his face. He was just talking about flowers. His mind was hardwired that way. Straightforward and literal. Calling a flower a flower.

I didn’t know how much of a chance the two of us had to root. Not much, maybe. But I was going to give it a shot, by God.

I sat up. “Yes,” I said, reaching for my clothes. “Let’s go plant those little guys right this very minute. They deserve their shot.”