Backdraft (15 page)

He swirled his tongue around her nipple, licking up the chocolate sauce with fierce determination. “Mmmm,” he said, moaning against her tender flesh. “I don’t know what tastes better: you or the chocolate sauce.”

She knew he intended to torture her by drawing this out as long as possible, but she couldn’t imagine a more delicious form of torment. She was on fire; it felt like hot lava flowed through her and only his tongue could extinguish the flames. “Oh my God,” she whispered, squinting her eyes behind the barrier of silk. “That feels incredible.” When he turned his attention to her second nipple, she thought she might crawl of her skin.

“So sweet, so fuckin’ good,” he muttered, twisting and twirling his tongue around the tight nub. “I can’t get enough of you.”

She knew the feeling. If she had a heart attack now, she’d die a happy woman, content in the knowledge that life didn’t get any better than this… being ravaged by a gorgeous man, but not just any man, the love of her life. “I love you,” she whispered. She felt his smile against her abdomen as he worked his way down her torso, slowly, thoroughly licking up all of the warm chocolate sauce.

He tore his mouth away from his quest and said, “Goes double for me, baby.”

By the time he reached the apex between her legs, she felt ready to combust. As a doctor, she knew it was improbable that she would pass out from the sheer force of an orgasm, but if the tension in her body was any indication, she may be getting ready to buck science. Her toes and fingers curled into the mattress, and her body trembled with an ache bordering on painful.

“Now this is what I’ve been waiting for,” he said, positioning his broad shoulder between her legs.

“You’re not the only one,” she said, barely able to force the words past her quivering lips. As soon as she felt his hot tongue swipe her opening, she was bucking and whimpering, begging him not to stop. He was so thorough, making sure he bathed every crevice with his tongue, taking her to the edge and back again. “I need to come,” she cried, heaving on her restraints. She was certain her wrists and ankles would reveal the evidence of her impatience tomorrow, but she couldn’t care less. Her entire world began and ended with the tiny bud between his teeth.

“Impatient, aren’t we?”

“No… please… don’t… stop.” She didn’t even recognize her voice as her own. It sounded as though she ran a marathon in the time it took him to work her into a mind-numbing frenzy.

“Never,” he said, letting his fingers in on the action. “You want me to take your ass tonight, baby?” Thrusting two fingers in and out of her tight pussy, he kissed the inside of her thighs. “Say it, tell me you want it.”

Right now, she’d agree to almost anything. “I’ve never… oh God…yes… right there.”

Curling his fingers in, he found that secret spot that only he seemed to know was there.

“You like that?” he asked. “I can’t wait to feel you erupt in my mouth as I fuck your ass with my fingers. Tell me you want that.”

“Yes, no, I don’t know. Please just…”

“Are you afraid?” he asked before flicking his tongue over her clit.

“I don’t know. I’ve never…”

He growled. “You know how much I loved taking your virginity the first time. It’s gonna be even better this time.”

“Yessss…” she cried, pressing her pussy into his face as she felt herself gushing and throbbing in his mouth. She tried to still her shivering body, but it was pointless. The tremors continued to wrack her, as though intent on reminding her that she’d surrendered control of her body, her orgasms, her pleasure, to this one man, and he intended to take full advantage.

She finally felt him concede when the weight on the mattress shifted and he straddled her waist. “Now I want to fuck your tits, honey.” Squeezing them together, he said, “God, they’re so perfect. Look at that, a perfect valley for my dick. Open your mouth.”

She didn’t hesitate to comply. It seemed like forever since she’d tasted his salty essence on her lips. At the first hint of his pre-come on her tongue, she licked her lips, hoping for more. “Fuck my mouth,” she whispered.

He chuckled. “As tempting as that sounds, it’s been too damn long since I’ve done this.”

The sorrow stole her breath when she imagined how many women had experienced the same pleasure in recent years. She tried to focus on loving him with her mouth at every opportunity, but she knew she was failing miserably when he pulled back, easing his body down beside her.

“Honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t want to complain now that they’d finally found their way back to each other, but she had a hard time getting past the knowledge that they had lived worlds apart since the last time they were together as a couple. She was always selective about the men she slept with, while he’d apparently been anything but selective. Sex was something special they’d once shared, an intimate act reserved for the two of them, but everything had changed since then.

After pulling the blindfold off her eyes, he kissed her cheek. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She didn’t want to tell him, but she couldn’t allow anything to come between them, ever again. “I know you’ve had a lot of lovers.” She looked down at his chest, refusing to look him in the eye. “Were you in love with any of them? I mean, was it like this with any of them?”

Cupping her face, he said, “Honey, making love to you is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”

She wanted to believe him, more than anything, but this was still so new. She once knew him better than she knew herself, but that was a long time ago. Things changed, people changed. “I haven’t been with very many men since we were together.”

“How many is not many?”

She was embarrassed to admit it. Ten years punctuated with long spells of celibacy would seem incomprehensible to someone like him. “Just a few, including Craig and Chris.”

“So only one other man in all that time?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes.” Part of her wished she’d never initiated this conversation, but she knew moving forward meant moving through the pain of the past.

“Was it serious?”

When she failed to respond right away, he sighed. “Did you love him?”

 “I thought I did.”

Cursing, he got up off the bed. “You know what, I don’t want to know.” Raking his hands through his hair as he paced the floor, he said, “I don’t want to know that you fucked other guys, or that you fell in love with someone else, or that you managed to get over me while I was just going through the motions every goddamn day, just trying to survive without you.”

“Are you telling me you’ve never loved anyone else?” Asking that question may be the stupidest mistake she could make. She didn’t think she was ready to hear the truth.

He stopped pacing long enough to look at her. “You don’t get it, do you? I built this wall to protect myself, and no one could break it down. You destroyed me; I couldn’t let that happen again.”

The unshed tears in his eyes rendered her momentarily speechless. She knew she’d hurt him, but she hadn’t understood the depth of that pain until now, or how much that one night had cost him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He held his hand up. “Please, don’t.” He sighed. “You’ve already apologized. I’m ready to move on; we need to move past this if we want to have a future together.”

“Do you really think that’s going to be possible?” she asked, praying her fears were unfounded. “Can you forget what happened between me and Craig that night, or will you think about it every time you see us together?”

He moved to the end of the bed, working to unfasten the ties binding her ankles. He remained silent as he released her hands, and she feared he may be setting her free, literally. Was he getting ready to leave because he realized he couldn’t forgive her mistake?

“Please, say something,” she whispered.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You came back into my life out of nowhere. I’m still trying to sort this out, figure out what it all means.”

She reached out to stroke his back, wishing she could say or do something to ease his pain. “You have every right to feel this way, but I don’t know what more I can say or do.” She knew now would be a good time to tell him the truth about what happened that night, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “If you don’t think you can get past it, I’ll understand.”

“How can I not get past it?” he said, taking her hand in his, kissing her palm. “I don’t have a choice. I love you. I
need
to be with you. There’s no one else for me, Maya.”

Her heart clenched at his somber words. She wished she could claim he said them with unreserved joy, but he was obviously reluctant to admit the depth of his need for her. “I feel the same way. The way I feel about you…”

He looked her in the eye. “Tell me. I need to hear it.”

“My love for you isn’t something I can control, it just is. It’s as natural to me as breathing. It’s been ten years, but I still think about you all the time. It’s like when someone you love dies. They say that time heals, but everyone knows that’s a lie.”

“Yeah, it sure is,” he said, lowering his head. “It’s funny you should say that. That’s the way it felt when we split, like someone died. You were still alive, but I knew I couldn’t be with you, not the way it used to be.”

She knew talking through this would be a bridge to lessen the gap between them, but it was even more difficult than she expected it to be. Seeing someone you love in pain and feeling helpless was difficult enough, but knowing that you were the cause of it was torture. “Do you think it can ever be the way it used to be?”

He leaned over, dropping his head into his hands. “I don’t know. Hell, is that what we’re after here? Do we really want to re-create the relationship we had when we were two dumb kids who didn’t know shit about life?”

Going back to that state of innocence, when their relationship and their love for each other seemed untouchable, sounded pretty wonderful to her, but she knew it wasn’t realistic. They were adults now, with immense issues facing them. “No, but I don’t want to be so cynical that we don’t believe we could have that kind of love again.”

“I don’t know that we could have that again, or that I even want that.” He chuckled, but it was a muffled, shaky sound. “I was totally blind-sided by what happened. I don’t ever want to be caught off guard like that again.”

She knew he was telling her he could never trust her like that again, and she understood his reservations, but confronting their new reality still hurt like hell. “So, where do we go from here?”

“We take it one day at a time,” he said, quietly. “You were right earlier. I was trying to rush into something because I was scared to death of you losing you again, but you were right. We have one hell of a long road back.”

“Think we’ll ever get there?” she asked, almost afraid to hear his answer. He was being brutally honest now, and she knew they needed that, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for the unvarnished truth.

He turned his head, running a fingertip down the side of her cheek. “I know we will. It’s going to take time and patience, but I have no doubt we’ll get there.”

She smiled, turning into his palm as she closed her eyes. “I needed to hear you say that.”

“We’re going to be stronger for this, baby.” He chuckled. “I hate to say that it happened for a reason, but I know we’ll appreciate what we have a hell of a lot more than we would have if this was never an issue.”

She was so grateful that he was willing to make the effort to meet her half-way, to lower his defenses and let her in one more time. “I would never do anything to hurt you like that again.” She didn’t expect him to believe her now, but she would eventually prove to him that she was sincere.

“I know that. In my heart, I know that, but that little voice inside my head still likes to taunt me every now and again.”

“What do you mean?”

He lay down on the bed beside her. Linking his hands on his stomach, he stared up at the ceiling. “It tells me that I’m not good enough for you, that you cheated on me because you needed more than I could give you.”

She curled into his body, resting her head on his chest. “You couldn’t be more wrong. What happened with Craig was a mistake, a stupid mistake. I never even thought about having sex with him before that night. I sure as hell wasn’t thinking that he could give me something you couldn’t. How could you even think that?”

Running his hand up and down the length of her back, he said, “When the woman you love has sex with your best friend, it does a number on you, sweetheart. I wish I could say that I was able to just brush it off and tell myself that it was your loss, but that would be a lie and I don’t want any more lies between us.” He sighed and said, “I made myself crazy wondering what I’d done to drive you into his arms.”

Kissing his chest, she could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath her lips. A heart that was beaten and battered, thanks to her and Craig and the secret they still shared. If she thought it would help, she would consider telling him, but she had no doubt it could only hurt. “You didn’t do anything. It happened because we both had too much to drink, and Craig was doing God knows what else that night.” Caressing his chest, she asked, “How are things between you two now?”