Protege(78)
“Collette.” His husky call was an opiate to her lust, tickling her dazed mind as she was carried away on a cloud of need and desire.
Her body jerked against the solid door. He f*cked her without reserve or apology. Every emotion, every flaw was there, exposed in those vulnerable moments of raw need for her to feel.
It had never been just a job to him. He had too much depth to see this as something shallow. He might not love her, but he liked her, wanted her, and that—she suddenly understood—was why he’d pushed her away and separated them with walls. His boundaries were crumbling and he was finally letting the real him show through.
Her mind wouldn’t stop spinning as this became clear, an untangling ball of yarn that unknotted all the tension inside her and spun new complications, puzzles she had yet to figure out but looked forward to solving. This was real and with the awareness that the facades were gone, came the liberation she’d been waiting for all along.
Her entire body broke into a sweat as her mind flashed with vibrant shades of white. Her muscles locked and pulsed as though outside her command. And as he filled her, everything inside her loosened and snapped like a bolt of lightning, breaking free of the glass that had caged her all these years.
There was no time to worry about presentation or impressions. Her body simply took over as her body coiled and held him greedily, his seed pumping into her. Her mind was so high that coming back to earth was a free fall she didn’t need to think about landing.
Everything was soft and jelled together in a rhythmic play of muscles tightening and blood flowing. It was the most peaceful place she’d ever visited, and shocking that it was inside her all along. She only needed him to take her there.
He lifted her and carried her up the stairs. Her eyes never opened, her consciousness funneling in and out. They were in the hall, then his room. She smiled at the familiar scent of his sheets.
He pulled her close—warm, so very warm. And then he simply held her, not like he’d done before. This time he held her as if she were precious and dropping her would absolutely devastate him. He held her like he would never let go. He held her like he needed to hold her.
She sighed, her nose pressing into his chest as he laid kisses on the top of her head. “My peach,” he whispered. “Mine.”
She smiled. Yes, she was his.
***
“My mother’s retired but was incredibly successful from the start of her career.”
Her hand brushed over his brow as he softly told her about his family. She hung on every word, craving the welcome into every crevice of each secret he held. “Are you close to her?”
He shrugged. “In a sense. She never neglected me, but she also never cuddled or held me as a young child. I had au pairs since I was six weeks old.” He gaze turned unfocused. “She was a very career-driven woman, strong.”
“Did it bother you, the way she was? Is that why you’re drawn to submissive women?”
His gaze held hers. “No, because in truth, I think it takes more strength to be submissive than it does to be anything else. Your battle to trust is internal. No one can ease the struggle for you. It’s beautiful, something that’s always captivated me. I think, deep down, my mother craved someone strong enough to gentle her, someone she could trust to protect her long enough to show her internal softness. It saddens me to think she’s never found him.”
“Maybe she has and just hasn’t introduced you.”
“Perhaps.” He pulled her closer, his fingers twirling the end of her curls. “Do you remember your mother?”
“She was gentle. I remember that. Mostly I remember how much my dad adored her, maybe because I rehashed those memories so much as a child, trying to make sense of everything. Sometimes I wonder if I exaggerated them in my head over time. No matter what, they don’t compute with his actions, but I know he loved her. Maybe he loved her too much. Her going to someone else killed him. It made life worthless.”
“Do you forgive him?”
“No.” She likely never would. “My mom’s dead. She can’t suffer anymore. My dad will die in a prison cell. But I have to live my life never knowing what it is to have a normal family. He took that from me. I blame him for every bad home I was forced to endure. She may have destroyed their marriage, but he destroyed my childhood. I don’t think any other time shapes a person more than those years.”
“It must have been very difficult.”
She didn’t want pity and was glad his comment struck her more as sympathy. “It was, but I lived through it.”
“Tell me your best memory from when you were in foster care.”
She thought of moments that were happy, but so many of those moments were borrowed, herself an outsider permitted to look in and steal a bit of the emotion vicariously. She tried to think of a moment during her adolescence when she was truly happy, and it hit her.
“One family took me to visit my dad. They didn’t tell me where we were going and I remember being scared at the sight of the prison, thinking it was the scariest orphanage I’d ever seen. But then I realized where we were, and my dad was suddenly there. At first I didn’t recognize him. His hair had whitened and he looked thinner, yet brawnier than he’d ever been at home.”
“What did you do?”
“I let go of my foster mother’s hand and I ran to him.” She smiled, recalling how hard the earth pounded under her feet and how she willed her legs to get her to him faster. “He held out his arms and swept me up and I breathed him in. I’d forgotten the scent of his skin, but in that moment it came back to me, more familiar than ever.”