Page 86 of Omega
“I thought you just didn’t like me,” I said.
“I felt guilty as hell about it. But I couldn’t stop. I felt dirty and sick and fucked up, coming into my hand while thinking about you. And then I’d have to see you and talk to you, and that’s all I could think about, what I’d done while thinking about you, just a couple hours before. And then you’d prance around in a slinky bikini and your tits would be bouncing and your ass would be swaying and I swear to fucking god I’d pop a semi just looking at you.” He rolled to his back and scrubbed at his face with both hands. “Doesn’t help that I’m damn near twenty years older than you. Makes me feel even dirtier.”
“You’re forty-two, you said?” I rolled to my other side, so I was facing him. He nodded. “I’m twenty-seven, so that makes you fifteen years older than me. Not twenty. And it doesn’t make a difference, anyway.”
“Fifteen years, Layla. I was a sophomore in high school the year you were born. I was a decorated combat veteran by the time you graduated from high school. It does make a difference.”
I put my hand on his chest. “Your age is honestly the least of my concerns, Nick. For real. I don’t care.”
“You will. At some point, you will.”
“Why? What makes you so sure?” He didn’t answer. I sat up, faced him sitting cross-legged. “I can answer your question now, Nick. I could have when you asked it before, but I just…was too scared. Idoneed you, Nick. I need you. I want you. I’ve fought it for…a long time. I don’twantto need you, even now. I still don’t want to need you, but I fucking do. Not just to get me out of here, to keep me alive and out of Vitaly’s hands. I need you…inside me.”
He finally glanced at me, lips quirking. “Reeeeally?” He drew the word out and infused it with lecherous sarcasm.
“That’s not what I meant, but yes, that way too.”
“What changed? Between then and now?”
“The fact that I felt scared and empty when you walked out. The fact that even with everything I’ve been through in my life, the thought of losing you made me cry when nothing else ever has.”
His eyes fixed on mine, green and roiling. “Layla, god. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Yes you did.”
“I let you cry. Alone. For nearly a fucking hour.”
“I needed it,” I said. “For you, for all that back there, Cut and Vitaly and everything. For…so many things. I needed to cry alone. I needed to wake up, I guess. To see things for how they are.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face, letting out a sigh.
“Fucked up. I’m fucked up. You’re fucked up. This whole situation is fucked up.” I let out a breath. “But I know now that I don’t want to go back to Detroit. I don’t want to go back to living alone, working three jobs and going to school. After what I’ve been through, sitting through lectures and taking tests seems…stupid.”
“What do you want, then?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll have to figure that out when we’re back on theEliza, I guess.”
“Thresh has our flight out of here covered. So we can head out whenever we’re ready.” He rolled off the bed, stood up, and then bent to retrieve his shoulder holster.
“Wait,” I said. “We’re not done.”
He shot me a quizzical look. “We’re not?”
“Nope.” I scooted to the edge of the bed, set my feet on the floor. Gazed up at him. Let him see the heat in my eyes, the need, and the desire. “You left before we were done.”
I took the holster from him and set it carefully on the floor. Reached up and unbuttoned his shirt from the bottom up, and when the last button was freed, I ran my palms up and down his chest, leaned in and kissed his stomach, roamed my palms over his shoulders, brushing the shirt off. He let out a breath that was equal parts relief and pleasure as I unbuttoned his pants, shoved them down over his hips.
His dick swung free, unfurling and swaying and hardening to full erection as I gazed at it. I curled both hands around his shaft and stroked him slowly. And, of course, because it was right there at the perfect level, I had to taste him. Between my lips, tongue sliding over the tip, tasting flesh and a hint of my own essence on his skin.
But then he pulled himself free and pushed me backward. “I don’t think so.” Nick lowered himself over me, climbing onto the bed, and his mouth descended to mine, his tongue slid over my lips and two fingers brushed over my clit. “Jesus, Layla. You’re wet already.”
“You do that to me. You have this effect on me, and I don’t get it. I mean, I’m always ready, but…there’s something about you that just makes my pussy drip, all the time.” As if to emphasize my point, his fingers speared into my opening with a wet squelch. “See what I mean?”
He pulled his fingers out of me and lifted them to his mouth, licked my juices away. “I love the way you taste. Sweet as fucking sugar.”
“Liar. I taste like pussy.”
He laughed. “True. But a very delicious pussy.” He moved down my body. “In fact, I think I need a better taste.”