Dair (The Wild Side #3)(7)

They were ready for her.  I caught her to me, holding her tight, my face buried in her hair.

She tipped her face up to me, eyes closed, glasses askew, her whole body shaking, and threw her arms around my neck.

I lifted her, and she wrapped her legs about my hips.

I lowered my mouth to touch her trembling lips.

“Jesus, can you not do that in front of me?” the bastard growled.  “You’re already making me regret this.”

With that, he slammed the door, and I heard when he drove the outside bolt home.

I had no notion why, but he’d locked us in together.

CHAPTER FOUR

I took a ragged breath in and an unsteady step back, sitting on the bed.

I pulled her between my legs, pushing her baggy sweatshirt up to expose her taut naval, then up higher, to her ribs just beneath her br**sts.

Her sweats hit low on her hips, and one glance at her emaciated torso (and my very precise memory of her body) told me she’d lost some weight.

I was troubled by this, but I didn’t ask about it.

I wasn’t sure I was prepared to hear the answer.  I knew it wouldn’t be good.

I buried my face against her warm belly, breathing in her sweet, familiar scent.

I’m not sure exactly what I would have done (likely fallen on her and started f**king like an animal) if she weren’t crying, and trembling so, and clutching me to her like she’d never thought to see me again.

And chanting my name, again and again, like it was her own personal prayer.

Inside of every man existed two natures, and never had my own dual temperaments been more apparent than they were then.

I felt equal parts tenderness and hunger.

Love and base desire.

Relief and frustration.

I pulled her on the bed, spread her out on her back, and got on top of her, head on her chest, hard, of course, ravenous, of course, but I didn’t act on it, not for a long time.

Instead, I held her.

It began slowly, carefully, the touching.  Just feather light ones—at first.  My hands moved along her hips, up her sides, squeezing lightly, feeling tenderly.

A remembering touch, as it sank into my mind and body that she was here, in my arms again.

I lifted and bent her leg around me, stroking the long length of it, my cheek on her breast, ear to her heart.  I stayed glued there while my hands wandered, reacquainting themselves with every lithe, lush bit of her.

She was like a cat; she loved to be touched.  She arched into my hands as I stroked her from head to toe.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, one hand rubbing soft circles into the tender skin behind her knee.  “Has that bastard . . . hurt you?”

She gasped deeply once, then let out a trembling breath.

I glanced up and watched as she carefully took off her glasses and set them on the nightstand.

Something about those glasses tickled some agitated part of my brain, but I was too distracted just then to pin it down or even focus fully on worrying about it.

“No, Dair,” she sighed.  “He hasn’t hurt me.  But we cannot talk about him.  We can’t talk about any of this, not if you ever want to leave here.”

“Shh.  It’s okay now.  We’re both leaving here, and soon.  I’ll find a way.”

“Oh, Dair,” she whispered, her voice equal parts affectionate and exasperated.  “I wish it were that simple.”

“It is.  I’m taking you home.”

“Do you even know where we are?”

“No.  Do you?”

She shook her head, eyes wide, lips parted in an invitation I was finding harder to resist by the second.

“Don’t worry, honey,” I whispered, leaning down to kiss her.  “I’ve got you.”

The kiss was hot and wild, her soft lips giving but somehow that just meant they took more.  Like my willpower.  They swiped that clean away from me.

I groaned, thrusting my tongue into her mouth, taking, pillaging, seeking what I could get while she was here, with me, before she left again and took yet another piece of me with her.

I pulled back from her, gazing with heavy lids at her mouth.  Her lips were swollen.

The sight drove me wild.

I wanted to come inside of her right that instant.  I ached with it.

I rubbed my stubble over her pulpy bruised lips, along her jaw, down her straining neck.

I fingered her messy braid, then set to work tugging it loose, running my hands through it, in it, massaging her scalp until she went limp.

I lavished my soft, adoring attention on her, head to toe, still fully clothed, repenting with tenderness for what was to come, because I knew it wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, anything approaching tender when we came together this first time.

After I’d finished kissing each one of her adorable toes, I moved back up her body to fondle her pillowy br**sts, skimming my fingertips over her sensitive ni**les, filling my palms with her until she was panting as she arched her back.

I pushed her sweatshirt up to her collar, palming her bare, her coral crests swelling into my hands.

I took my mouth to them, rubbing my lips so lightly along her skin that she was begging me to suck her.  I tongued a straining nipple, drawing it hard into my mouth, gentling to suckle softly, then sucking hard again.

She began to chant my name.