Been Loving You Too Long (17 page)

The cream lace bustier with strategic embroidery was like something from his most erotic fantasies.
 
How many times had he dreamed of seeing her wear something so utterly feminine yet undeniably carnal?
 
“Christ, you’re killing me.”

He watched her step out of the dress, still wearing heels and stockings.
 
Taking her hand, he tugged her with him, toward the waiting bed.
 
“Lie back,” he ordered.
 

Ophelia climbed onto the bed, each movement a studied seduction.
 
She reclined against the pillows, her dark hair spreading out around her, rose petals adorning the sheets beneath her.

He paused to take in the sight, savoring the moment.
 
“I’ve been thinking about you like this all day—Hell, I’ve been thinking about you like this for half my life.”

“Then, why are you still so far away?” she challenged.
 

Vincent shrugged out of his jacket.
 
He’d discarded the tie long ago.
 
His shirt and pants followed quickly.
 
He was eager to feel her against him, to feel the silk of her skin on his, and to fill his senses with her.
 
Kneeling on the bed beside her, he skimmed one hand over a stocking clad leg, down to her foot, he removed her stiletto and pressed his thumb into the arch of her foot.
 

She groaned in response, her head falling back.
 
“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You always seem to find the perfect spot!”

Smiling, he wrapped both hands around her foot and gently massaged.
 
“It isn’t hard to imagine that your feet hurt after you spend the better part of the day walking around in a torture device.”
 
Glancing at the leather pouch still tethered to her ankle, he asked.
 
“Feeling superstitious?”

“It’s supposed to be a good luck charm.
 
Kaitlyn threatened my life if I removed it.”

“I’ll take a little good luck.” He massaged her aching foot. Kissing her ankle, his tongue traced the delicate bones there.
  

Another moan escaped her as he slid one hand up her calf, his fingers digging into those tight muscles with just the perfect amount of pressure.
 
When he treated the other foot to the same magical touch, she had to grip the sheets beneath her.

He didn’t return her foot to the bed that time instead he draped her leg over his shoulder and positioned himself between her parted thighs.
 
He traced the lacy pattern on of her stockings with his fingertips before moving further, until he touched the tiny strings of her panties that crested over her hips.
 

“Vincent,” she murmured.
 
“Please!”

“Please?”

“Hurry!” she demanded.
 

Gripping those little elastic bands, he tugged them over her hips.
 
When she was bared before him, he touched the soft damp folds, brushing lightly over them with his fingertips.
 
He savored the slight tremble of her body beneath him.
 
“I don’t want to hurry.
 
I want to enjoy every second of this...to hear you scream my name, to feel you shuddering beneath me, to know that you might be the good girl to the rest of the world, but for me, here in this room, you’re wild, wanton.”
  

Sliding one finger into the slick heat of her body, he traced small circles around the hardened bud of her clit.
 
Watching her hands clenching the sheets, hearing the soft cries that escaped her, only increased his own desire for her.
 
But there was more that he wanted to do.
 
It wasn’t enough to just take her.
 
He wanted to make her burn, to make her forget the horrible aftermath of the first time he’d taken her.
 

Hurting Ophelia wasn’t something he ever wanted to do, though he knew that it was inevitable.
 
It didn’t ease the regret, or the belief that somehow, by giving her all the pleasure he could, he was in some way making amends preemptively.
   

Nuzzling her mound, pressing his lips against tender flesh, he inhaled the intoxicating scent of her.
 
Sweet and spicy, it called to him on a primal level. “I’ve missed the taste of you,” he whispered hotly, his breath dancing across sensitive skin and leaving her gasping.
 

“Why are you torturing me this way?” she moaned.
 
“Would you just put your mouth on me for the love of God?”

He did, but only for a moment.
 
Tracing her dew slicked flesh with his tongue he tasted her thoroughly, savoring the spice of her. “It’s only fair.
 
You’ve tormented me for years—always so ladylike.
 
Tidy hair and prim dresses that covered a body made for sin.”

Ophelia screamed as if she was dying from need.
 
. “I’m ready to sin right now and you want to talk to me death!”

He chuckled again and shifted slightly, parting her thighs even further.
 
When he placed his mouth on her again, there was no mistaking his intent.
 
He devoured her with his lips, teeth and tongue.

Even the rasp of his stubbled chin over tender skin left her screaming for him.
 
Her hips arched up against his mouth, lifting fully from the bed as she pleaded for release.

Holding her hips, lifting her to him, he closed his lips over her clit, sucking gently, until she shuddered beneath him, her body going taut and then limp as she sobbed out his name.
 

Moving over her, Vincent took her mouth, kissing her thoroughly even as he guided his cock to her entrance.
 
Nudging into her welcoming heat, he savored the tremors that still wracked her, the rhythmic clenching of her sex in the aftermath of her release.
 
Pressing deeper, he bit out a harsh curse.
 

She was so achingly tight, so hot and wet around him that he wanted to simply lose himself in her, to thrust deep and hard until he spilled himself inside her.
 
Feeling her body clench around him, he pressed his head against her shoulder and fought for control, for some hope of making her cum again before he shot like a horny teenager.
 

Ophelia sighed contentedly, but it quickly became a moan as he moved inside her.
 
Curving her legs over his hips, locking her ankles behind him, she lifted herself against him, taking him even deeper.
 

They groaned in unison, their gazes locked together as intimately as their bodies.
 
He flexed his hips, delving deeper, his thick length touching every sensitive nerve ending, making her gasp his name.
 

Her eyes never left his as he lowered his mouth to her aching breasts, drawing one taut, sensitive nipple into his mouth, suckling deeply and then stroking gently, soothingly with his tongue.

~~****~~

Ophelia rocked her hips against him, matching the slow, easy rhythm that he set.
 
The hot, aching need clawed through her, twisting inside her, but somehow she found the strength to let him set the pace.
 
As the pleasure built, she mentally conceded that patience truly was a virtue.
 
She could see the tension coiled in him, the fire banked in his eyes as he drove her up again, building the pleasure inside her.

When her eyes shuttered, her senses overwhelmed by the pleasure, by the beauty and perfection of him, she closed her arms around him, holding him closer, clinging to him in a way that made her feel weak.
 
Still, she held on, unable to let go of him as she felt the ripples begin deep inside her.
 
“Vincent!” she cried, her nails digging into his shoulders as each wave crested inside her.
     

With the last of her strength, she clenched tightly around him while pressing her lips to his neck, her teeth scraping lightly against his salty skin.

His movements became less smooth, less controlled, as he drove into her again, his body shuddering against hers as she felt the heat of his essence spilling inside her.
 

The only sound in the room was their ragged breathing.
 
They clung to one another, neither of them willing to break the spell. Everything else was uncertain, but there was this one thing that would always work between them.
 

Her fingers trailing over his back, drawing delicate circles on his sweat slicked skin, Ophelia wished they could stay there forever.
 
It would be so much easier, she thought, if they never had to speak, if they never had to discuss anything between them.
 

She could tell him everything she needed to with her body, that she loved him, accepted him, that she needed him.
 
Whether he could admit it or not, she knew he’d told her those same things.
 

A sad smile played at her lips as she closed her eyes and savored the feel of him so close to her.
 
Enjoy the moment, she told herself.
 
Take it for what it is, and when the time comes, let it go.

~~****~~

It was hours later when the dream came.
 
Vincent could feel the panic, the cold dread that gathered in his stomach as the screaming grew louder.
 
The accusations and the tears from the front seat of the car were nothing new.
 
How many times had he heard it?
 
Even at ten years old, he’d become immune to the ugly names and the venom his parents spewed at one another.

He’d known even then that this time was different.
 
The car was swerving all over the road, going far too fast on rain slicked streets.
 
Justin was wailing from his car seat, terrified by the screaming.
 
Kaitlyn sat beside him, huddling against his side, her tiny hand tucked into his.
 
His mother was begging, pleading with his father to stop and let them out.
 

Vincent gripped the sheets in his fists, sweat beading on his skin as the memories invaded his sleep.
 
Trapped in the dream, reliving those moments he murmured a soft protest.
 

The car was spinning wildly, his father hitting the brakes.
 
He had one large hand on the wheel, the other was fisted in his wife’s hair, holding her in the vehicle even as she pried at the door, screaming and crying.
 

The car had stopped, but his father had never let her go.
 
“Get out!
 
Get the fuck out and take her bastard with you!” he screamed.
 

With trembling hands, Vincent had unbuckled all of them, climbing out of the car as the fight raged.

His mother had stopped her crying and was screaming and clawing at his father then.
 
There was no clear cut vision of who was the victim and who was the abuser.
 
They both liked to play those roles in equal parts.

Getting out of the car, Vincent had no idea what to do, so he just stood there.
 
The gates to the house were right behind them.
 
Vincent willed them to open, but they refused, and the keypad, to which he’d never been given the code, mocked him as the rain drenched his jacket and Justin shivered against him.

Panic hit him then, with his baby brother in his arms and his sister clinging to his side.
 
He wanted to push them both away and run, to escape from it all—but he didn’t.
 
He just stood there and watched as the car sped off.

The crashing sound as it hit the guard rail was so loud, and the splash that followed as it sailed into the swollen river was deafening.
 
There were other sounds that even in his dreams, even as much as he longed for them, he never heard.
 
There were no screeching tires, no squalling brakes.
 
Standing in the rain, he knew, even as a child, that it had been deliberate.