Strong Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #1)(47)
When I glance back, Muse’s eyes are on me, her fingers dancing over some lacy spikes of tall fern undergrowth.
Her question pricks my anger, probably because it serves only to remind me that things can never be different. Not for a guy like me. “You mean why couldn’t I have a family, have a normal life? Grow old and live happily ever after?” She nods. “Wake up, Muse!” I bark. “What kind of life could I offer a woman? A child? Fear? Stigma? Danger? I would never do that to an innocent. Never!”
I regret my vehemence. Muse looks taken aback.
“Is that how you really feel? Like you’ve got nothing more to offer than that?”
“It’s not how I feel. It’s what I know.”
She starts to say something else, but my expression stops her. I turn and walk on ahead, annoyed with this conversation and the things it’s making me feel.
We walk in silence for another half hour or so, until the trail turns to go up a fairly steep incline. I start up it, pausing to reach back and offer Muse my hand, thinking she might need the help. She looks at it with disdain, waves me off and then climbs up and around me, turning only to give me a sassy wink before she continues following the path up the hill. Now I’m stuck watching the muscles in her legs and ass clench and shift as she picks her way upward.
She’s only slightly out of breath when we reach the top.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she says quietly, reverently as we stand on the small peak overlooking the lake. She holds her hand over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun as she glances off into the distance. “Looks like there are more houses down that way, but this end . . . it’s practically deserted.”
I nod. “That’s the way I like it.”
She turns to me and smiles. “I guess I should’ve been more concerned about that this morning when somebody was stripping me out of my clothes in broad daylight.”
“Why? You have a beautiful body.” Pink stains appear on either of her cheeks. It charms me this morning just like it has every other time it’s happened. I reach out and touch one satin-covered cheekbone. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Thank you, but I . . . I don’t know, I’d just be embarrassed for anyone to see us . . .”
Suddenly shy, she glances quickly away and then down at her feet as she shrugs, trailing off. When I hook a finger under her chin and lift her face back up to mine, I find her more breathtaking than the view.
“For anyone to see me sucking your perfect nipples?” Her pupils dilate, black nearly eclipsing green. Blood rushes to my cock. My pulse speeds up. My chest feels tight, like I’ve been running rather than walking. My reaction to her is that immediate, that profound.
“That and . . .”
“And me putting my hands on you?” I ask, easing her tank top strap off one shoulder and down beneath one plump breast. I tug the lacy cup of her bra until one pink, pebbled nipple is exposed. “My lips on you?”
I bend to draw the button into my mouth, running my tongue around it and then sucking it gently between my teeth.
“Or was it the rest you were worried about?” I ask around her flesh as I ease my hand down the back of her pants to squeeze her firm ass. “Like when I put my fingers inside you?” From behind, I spread her until I can feel the warm wetness of her core. It’s like a siren calling to my fingers, to my tongue, to my dick. Every part of me wants to taste her, to be inside her, to feel her and consume her.
She arches her back, pressing her breast into my mouth and her ass into my hand, giving me deeper penetration into her. She takes a fistful of my hair and holds me to her, her shallow breathing a ragged rasp in the stillness.
I lean back, releasing her nipple to look into her face, the sensual expression nearly my undoing. Her eyes are at half-mast and her lips are parted on a silent moan as I probe her with my finger.
“I think that’s the first selfish thing I’ve heard you say.”
Her gaze is cloudy, foggy with the haze of what I’m doing to her, making her mind slow to grasp.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I think the world would be a better place if everyone in it could see your face when you come. If they could watch your beautiful body move against my hand, against my mouth, against my cock like the graceful motions of a ballerina. I think they would all love me and hate me at the same time if they could see it.” Her breaths are growing louder, her hips working rhythmically with thrust of my fingers, trying to ride them to her orgasm. With our eyes locked, I slide my other hand down the front of her pants, slipping a single finger between her slick folds until I feel the tight little muscle that I want. I press in and rub, matching the cadence of my fingers, and I watch the few seconds that it takes her to come apart in my hands. “But they’d never forget it,” I tell her when her mouth drops open and her knees buckle, when her face flushes and her eyes nearly close. “Just like I won’t. Sarò sempre pensare a te.”
Watching Muse’s face is fascinating. It’s so expressive, so open. So soft and real. Each time she comes is slightly different, like the location and intensity plays out on her features. This slow, unexpected build took her by surprise and it shows. But her genuine pleasure and awe are also there, as plain as the trees at her back.
I capture, catalog and file away a thousand minute details every day. I already know that these are some that I will pull out and examine often. And when I do, I’ll be able to conjure the warmth of the sun on my face, the scent of the fresh air mixed with her lilac skin, the way she melts in my hands. And her face. Her beautiful, angelic face.