Page 9

9

SELENE

D ane’s body is lean like a mountain lion. Muscles ripple beneath his taut, tattooed skin as he sweeps me off my feet. Literally. I yelp as he scoops me into his arms and carries me toward the storage container house.

He lifted me up as if I weighed nothing. My hand plays at the junction of his shoulder and neck. Thick strands of muscle stand out in stark relief. He would make a great movie monster. Just slap some prosthetics on him and he’d be a holy terror.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he says with a sigh as he carries me inside.

My heart melts like chocolate and molds itself into his name inside my chest. I don't think anyone has ever told me that before. Not directly.

“You’re the first man who’s said that to me.”

“You must have dated a lot of blind guys.”

He kisses me before I can come up with a retort. Maybe that’s his superpower. Getting me all hot and bothered every time I want to be snarky. The snark has been my armor for a long time. I had to grow up fast and basically act like a parent to my brother .

At first, I made the snarky comments to protect myself. But at some point I started to weaponize them for offense. I preemptively cut people to ribbons with my acid tongue to keep them off balance, and to maybe show them that if they were thinking of hurting me, I could hurt them back. Albeit verbally.

But Dane seems so earnest, it knocks me off my guard. I forget to be snarky and cynical and just let his presence wash over me. I find it soothing and exciting all at once.

I can feel how strong he is, and how easy it would be for him to hurt me. But I trust him not to. At least, not physically. I don’t know if I can really trust him with my heart.

I’m afraid if I feel this too deeply, it will all be ruined. I should probably put a stop to this before it gets much deeper, but I don’t want to. I’ve wanted to feel his body against my own almost from the moment we met.

So I let myself get carried away, literally and figuratively. Dane takes me into the bedroom and lays me down on the mattress. Sweat gleams on the rippling, catlike muscles on his torso. I reach up and trace the acorns of muscle around his abdomen with my fingers. My giggle takes him off guard.

“What?”

“I mean, it looked taut, but touching it is something else! I bet you could bounce a bowling ball off your stomach.”

“I’d appreciate it if you never tried.”

He leans over and takes my mouth again. I let myself ride the heady waves of uncertain delight. I don’t know where this is going in the long term, but right now I want him inside of me in the worst way.

We only just met. It seems insane, but I want him. Maybe I even need him. I’m going to have to be careful that I don’t fall for him, though. The world is just too uncertain for any of that.

His kiss deepens, grows more possessive, and I lose my train of thought. It’s hard to be cynical when you’ve got a jungle cat pinning you down in his claws and purring in all the right ways .

His fiery mouth latches onto my neck, my shoulder, leaving molten fires of pleasure in its wake. I love the way he enjoys driving me crazy. Dane might be reserved most of the time, but right now I’m getting the full brunt of his passion. And loving every minute of it.

Powerful hands caress my body, cupping my breasts, smoothing over the curve of my hips. His fingers worship me as they go, taking delight in finding all of my most tenderly held secrets. Dane slides his fingers inside me, eliciting a sharp moan and a wave of delightful throbbing pulses.

“Selene.”

He speaks my name like the single word of a powerful magic spell. It enthralls him, his tongue caresses every syllable. His fingers find their way to my flower, and help it to bloom. He strokes my G spot, nearly driving me crazy. His emerald eyed gaze drops down between my legs, widens as if he’s marveling at what he sees.

“You’re so sexy from this angle, Selene.”

My skin purples in spite of my supposedly liberated attitude. I’ve never been with someone who makes me feel so…appreciated. He acts like viewing my naked body is a gift from the gods.

He holds his thick cock steady with a one-handed grip. I whimper a little bit in anticipation as he lines up for entry. Our eyes meet, and then he glides into my pussy, slow and easy. My eyes squeeze shut as pleasure pulses through me.

Our bodies are joined together. I think our spirits are, too. Our hearts are much too guarded at this stage. But slowly, we begin to unwind our coils, revealing secrets to each other.

He rocks his hips forward, and my mouth flies open to let out a cry born of anything but pain. I cling to him with arms and legs, our limbs intertwining like serpents. The feel of his naked body against my own is nothing short of sublime.

There’s nothing to be done but lay back and enjoy the sensory feast. Dane gauges my reactions, adjusting his movements in kind. He feels so good inside of me, his throbbing member pulsing with his heartbeat. I’m still glowing from his attention earlier. My body is primed and ready for this ultimate physical intimacy .

Dane’s hips pump stronger, faster, giving me just what I can take. He keeps scaling up as the cries issuing from my mouth grower louder, higher in pitch. It’s so intuitive, so easy to let myself go with him. I can trust Dane with my body. Maybe I can trust him with more. I want to. I really want to.

Especially given how magnificent this feels. It’s like our bodies were made for each other. We work out a rhythm between us, a secret dance that only we know the steps to. His face looms over my own. Dane’s face changes to an expression of sheer pleasure. He’s no longer fighting his desire, but using me to fully sate it.

I feel him warm and throbbing within me. I shudder and writhe, as if my body wants to draw him in even deeper. Our bodies rear together, then apart, then together again, until my scream of passion splits the air. At the same time, his cock throbs inside of me, pumping me full.

Dane covers my body with his own, kissing my cheek, my neck as I shudder through flashes of golden pleasure. My mind floats out somewhere above our interlocked bodies, awash in shimmering particles of electric ecstasy.

Dane sweeps my hair back over my head with his palm. Our eyes meet, and I smile through post climactic bliss. He smiles back, then kisses me soft and sweet.

“Looks like you took care of the getting laid thing after all,” I say because I like to be awkward and ruin things.

He just chuckles, and lets my weird comment slide.

“I guess no one else interested me until I met you.”

That hits a little too close to home. It’s something I find I want to hear come out of his lips, but it still sets off all my panic alarms. In the past, the guys who have started off sweet to me wound up being huge pricks before it was all said and done.

I don’t have any evidence he will be different, but I really hope he will be. Since I don’t want to think about where this is going, I focus on the present instead. Namely, the fact that I have a hot as hell naked guy in my bed, laying on top of me, and it shouldn’t be too hard to get him to make love one more time before we collapse into sleep…

I stroke the taut muscle on his forearm with my finger, and hook my leg over the back of his. Biting my lower lip, my hands busy themselves below his waist. I take hold of his member and stroke, marveling at the way it twitches in my hand. My efforts are rewarded as his cock once again grows swollen and stiff in my busy grasp.

“You’re insatiable.”

“Maybe, why don’t you try and find my limit?”

He mashes his mouth on top of my own with a powerful kiss. My heart thumps into overdrive. Blood thunders through my veins, carrying signals of fiery passion with every touch of Dane’s skin against my own.

Dane rears up, his sinuous body moving like a serpent. He grabs my legs and flips me over onto my belly as if I weigh nothing.

He climbs on top of me, his body sliding over my skin. A guttural moan forces its way out of my lips as he grabs me under the hips and lifts my haunches in the air.

I feel him warm and firm against my thighs. I lift my hips in the air, inviting him back inside. Tomorrow can take care of itself, right now I’m only worried about tonight.

I bury my face in the blankets as he glides in past all of my defenses. Dane lets out a tight gasp as his hips slap into my own for the first time. I lean back into him, my mouth flying open.

His hand grabs my hair near the scalp and pulls back firmly, but not violently. Plenty firm, though, giving him more control over my body. The extra tension helps build to an even bigger release. I can feel myself careening toward the edge of a monstrous crescendo. It’s almost scary, like going over the first big dip in a roller coaster.

He pulls back hard as he finishes inside of me. My sharp gasp becomes a sharper scream as I fly over the precipice and lose myself in the most intense physical delight I’ve ever known. It’s like golden fire pumps through my body with every heaving convulsion, every ragged gasp which blasts back out of my mouth as a wanton cry.

We collapse together on the bed, our sweat mingling together. He pulls me close, spooning me with his leanly muscled body. I nestle up against him, patting his arm as if to say, ‘good job, buddy.’ I haven’t had that intense of an orgasm in…well, ever.

“Selene, I could do this forever.”

I laugh and wriggle my bottom against him.

“Your spirit is willing, but your flesh is a bit on the soft side and you’re about to fall asleep.”

“I am not.”

So he says, about ten seconds before his first snore hits my ear. I sigh and let my eyes close. It’s not long before I drift off to sleep, too. The nightmare about Justin does not return, thankfully. I don’t know if it’s because I already had it once tonight, or if being in Dane’s arms is the cure for night terrors.

All I know is, it feels like dreamless oblivion has consumed me when I open my eyes some time later. I have a confusing moment where I don’t know what time it is. What time did we even get to the compound? Late afternoon? And then I’d taken a nap, and we ate, and had wild, passionate sex…and then I’d slept.

I finally manage to wriggle out from under Dane without waking him and check the phone. Three in the morning. Well, my sleep schedule has been torpedoed all to Hell. I should try to go back to sleep, but I’m not sure if I can.

I roll over onto my stomach. It was fine and dandy to put off my emotions when I was in the heat of the moment. It’s quite another thing to be so cavalier with my feelings now that those passions have cooled, albeit temporarily.

I look over at the sleeping Dane and sigh. How in the Hell did this happen? I wound up in bed with him in record time. Shouldn't I regret that? Or feel like a slut? For some reason I don’t, and that’s what really scares me.

Because I should be regretting this. Dane is all wrong for me. We’re so different, in so many ways. People tell me I wear my heart on my sleeve, sometimes to my detriment. But Dane takes it in the exact opposite direction, to the extreme. He doesn’t want to give anything away .

That makes our lovemaking all the more precious. Not everyone gets this kind of access to Dane. Only now, I’m starting to worry. Have I gone too far, too fast?

Isn’t it just a matter of time before Dane proves that he’s a typical man and lets me down?

I always feel this way after I sleep with a guy. But usually, the sex isn’t all that great. Or even downright bad.

By contrast, this was the most mind-blowing sensual experience I’ve ever had. I didn’t know it could be this good, honestly. I always thought men couldn’t get past their own orgasm enough to care about mine, except on a superficial, trophy level.

It was obvious that Dane found my pleasure important. So we clicked in bed, and then some. Did that mean we could click in other areas of our lives?

I’m dancing around the question burning the most at the back of my mind: Does this thing I have with Dane have legs? Will it last, or is this just a fling?

I really want it to be more, but I can’t, I won’t, hope for it to be that. I have to accept the fact that a really strange circumstance pushed myself and Dane together.

I doubt we would have naturally met in real life, because we run in different circles. We might have bumped into each other because my cousin Emory is with Cole from the Platinum Security office, but most likely not. I mean, Dane doesn’t even want to work for the firm long term.

I have to accept that we might not have anything more to look forward to than a purely physical relationship. One that will very likely end once my brother is found and we’re out of danger.

So I’ll let myself have this thing, whatever it is, with Dane. I won’t let him into my heart, however. I’m going to keep that walled off so I don’t get hurt. I really don’t want to get hurt again.

It’s a shame, too, because he’s the perfect guy in so many ways. I just don't think we’re going to be interested in each other in the long term. He just got out of the Navy, and I just started my dream job. Now is probably not the time to be getting tangled up in something like this.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling and listening to Dane’s soft breathing, and keep trying to convince myself I’m not going to let myself fall in love. Who knows, I might even convince myself.

But if I do, I’ll just be lying.