His Greatest Pain (4 page)

Chapter
Five

Ace
grabbed Lauren’s hair behind her head, pulled her closer so that she fell
forward and had to brace her hands on his thighs, and groaned against her
mouth. God, she was really doing this, really letting Ace kiss her. No, she
wasn’t letting him kiss her, because she was kissing him back just as
powerfully.

She
could tell where things were going, could sense that the sexual chemistry was
climbing higher and higher, and that soon neither would be able to control it.
Doing anything sexual with Ace after they’d been friends for this long, wasn’t
the route she should be taking. They should be talking about things, but she
couldn’t stop, especially not when he stroked his tongue along hers.

He
pulled back, breathing hard, heavy. They stared at each other for several
seconds, the heat and arousal bouncing between them, and intensifying until she
was suffocating from it. She pulled back another inch, trying to breathe, to
get more air into her lungs.

“Come here, Poppy.” His voice was low, hoarse,
and there was a touch of dominance in it. There was a part of Ace that
commanded people without having to do much more than give them a look.

Lauren licked her lips and moved closer to him
until they could have kissed again. It would have been easy enough for him to
move toward her, but she knew this wasn’t about who could surrender the most,
but how much they wanted each other.

“I’ve wanted this for so long, Poppy,” he said
and looked down at her lips. He reached out and cupped her cheek with one hand.

She’d seen the fresh wounds on his knuckles
from the fight tonight and the healing ones from his previous ones and
workouts. He held her cheek in a tight, almost painful grip. It was like he was
afraid she would move away again. She wasn’t, not in this lifetime.

“I’ve wanted this, too, Ace.”

He closed his eyes and breathed out. “Poppy,”
he said softly. He brushed the pad of his thumb along her cheek.

Back
and forth, back and forth.
God, his eyes were so green, so light. Lauren
felt herself leaning forward even more, felt his warm and sweet smelling breath
brush along her lips, and shivered.

But they didn’t kiss, and instead he moved the
hand that held her face to the back of her head. He tunneled his fingers into
her hair, tightened his hold on the strands until the pain mixed with her
already climbing and repressed arousal, and then broke free into this explosive
tingling sensation along her entire body.

“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you,
how much I want you now, Lauren.” He searched her face with his gaze. “Ever
since that first day I went to school, and you were there, making me feel like
I wasn’t the biggest fucking outcast in the world…” He breathed out, and she
felt her emotion swell for this man.

“Oh, Ace. I’ve wanted you for just as long,
but I’ve never known how to even bring this up.”

He took his hand off of her face and had it
clenched tightly in a fist on his thigh. She looked down at it, let her gaze
run over the sharp tribal lines of ink that started at his wrists and moved up,
eventually melding in with the other tattoos that lined his forearm and bicep.

“I was afraid I’d lose this, lose you. I was
afraid if I went further, told you how I felt, I’d ruin everything.”

She looked at him again after he spoke.

“I’m so fucking in love with you, Lauren. God,
I am so fucking in love with you.” His lips were so close to hers that if he
just leaned forward an inch he could kiss her. She was so desperate for him, so
desperate with her arousal and love for this man.

“I love you, too, Ace.” She stared right in
his eyes. “I’m in love with you.” She heard him
swallow,
saw the way his throat worked.

“No one will ever compare to you, Lauren.”

She closed her eyes and breathed out this
stuttering gust of air. God, she’d never thought this day would come, but she’d
imagined it enough. Lauren was filled with lust, need, and desperation. She had
never been this wet, never wanted a guy this much. Her heart was thundering,
and she swore her wetness was soaking clean through her panties.

She stared at his body, at the sheer power he
exuded. He was so much bigger than her five-foot-three, a whole foot taller.
Ace’s muscles were also so pronounced. Lauren wanted to run her hands over the
tattoos that covered his flesh, over the hard dips and lines that made up the
definition. Lowering her gaze to his crotch, she felt her heart pick up at the
massive looking bulge pressing at the fly of his jeans.

“God, Lauren, I want you so bad.” His voice
was so harsh, so low and deep. “I need you.
Christ
,
I need you, but I don’t want to fuck things up.” And then he had his mouth on
hers and his tongue speared between her lips. She wasn’t kissing a fighter, or
a man that had been traumatized in his childhood and now lived with that
corruption deep inside of him. No, she was kissing Ace, the man she’d always
been in love with.

He slid his hands down her shoulders, over her
arms, and gripped her waist tightly, clenching his fingers into her hips and
releasing them again. Before she knew what was happening he had her hauled up,
was standing, and pulled her close to his body. Tilting her head to the side
Lauren deepened the kiss. He groaned, and she loved that she’d been the one to
bring that out in him.

He started walking them backward until she
felt the cold, hard wall greet her back. He hadn’t broken the kiss, and the
deep rumbles that left him had her inner muscles clenching almost painfully.
Ace opened his mouth wider and deepened the kiss, and then moved his hands to
the edge of her shirt and started to slowly lift it up. But then he stopped
when her belly was exposed. He rested his forehead against hers, had his eyes
still closed, and groaned. “Please tell me this is okay, and that this won’t
ruin us, Lauren.”

She stared at him, breathed out as she let his
words play in her head. Placing her hands on
his
,
which were clenched in her shirt, she started lifting them higher, exposing
more of herself. “I want this, and I don’t want this to ruin us either, but
bring us closer, Ace.”

He made a small noise, almost sounding pained.
He was grinding his erection into her belly now, and a gasp left her at the
huge feel of it. She let her head fall back against the wall, and she closed
her eyes. Lauren placed her hands on his pecs and gently pushed him away,
something that was hard as hell. He took a stumbled step back, his head
downcast and his blue eyes trained right on her. He was breathing so hard, like
he had just run a marathon. She loved him, had always loved him.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a low tone, his
voice gruff.

For several seconds they stood there, just
staring at each other. Finally she nodded. “I’m more than okay.”

“I
want you, Poppy,” he gritted out. “I want this.”

They
stood there several more seconds, neither speaking, but the sexual chemistry
and
electricity bounced between them. She’d pushed him away
not to stop this, but to progress it. She grabbed her shirt and pulled it all
the way up and over her head.

“I
want you, too,” she breathed out. Ace stared down at her chest, and she saw him
clench his hands into tight balls at his sides. He moved his gaze up and down
her body, but she didn’t feel embarrassed that she was on the curvier, plumper
side.

“God,
look at you, baby,” he said and ran a hand over his mouth, and she saw that he
was shaking slightly. “Your body is so fucking gorgeous.” And then he was right
in front of her again, kissing her, licking her lips and sucking her tongue
into his mouth as he ground his erection into her bare belly now.

They
deepened the kiss, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him
closer. She didn’t care where they did this as long as it was done.

“I
want you, but not like this.” He broke away and took her hand in his. Ace led
her further down the hallway and toward his room. But right before they made it
there he stopped and had
her
pressed back against the
wall again. His mouth was right back on hers. “I can’t keep my hands off of
you, not even long enough to take you to the room,” he breathed out against her
lips.

They
slid their tongues together, pressed and moved them to an erotic motion, and
she started shifting on her feet, the pulse between her thighs intense.

He
broke the kiss and started dragging his lips up and down her throat, murmuring
along the way. “I’ve been thinking about this moment for
years
, baby.”
He started sucking at the base of her neck, and she let her head fall back
against the wall, hearing it thump from the contact. “I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve had to jerk off thinking about you, thinking about what you looked
like without anything on,” he breathed heavily. “I ached for you, Poppy, so
damn badly.”

Lauren
loved the nickname he used, loved when he called her that, especially when he
was aroused, like he was right now. She breathed out his name, because that was
as far as her voice would travel.

“Tell
me, Poppy. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you want, do
anything for you.” He pressed his erection into her belly again, harder this
time. She moaned low in her throat. God, she wanted this.

“I
want you inside of me.”

“Fuck,
Lauren. You can’t say that shit to me unless you want me to come right in my
damn jeans.”

She
swore she felt his cock jerk behind his pants after she spoke. It seemed they
wouldn’t be making it into the bedroom, because in the next few seconds Ace was
tearing his shirt off, and going for the button and fly of his jeans. Once he
had his pants off, she took in the sight of him in only his boxer briefs. His
black hair was more disheveled, and his blue eyes were still half-lidded. But
it was his body that had her transfixed at the moment.

All
Lauren could do was
stare
at the hard outlines of his
muscles, at the way his shoulders were so broad, at how his pecs were so
defined. His abdomen was rippled from his six-pack and framed by that V of
muscle. And then there was his hard, bulging biceps and the colorful and dark
ink that covered every inch of him that she could see.

She
swallowed the hard lump in her throat and saw that he looked the epitome of
controlled and dominating.

He took a step closer to her, and she lowered
her gaze to his erection that was only held in place by the thin layer of dark
material of his underwear. He was close enough that when he finally reached out
and gripped the back of her neck, pulling her closer, he didn’t have to lean in
to kiss her. But that soft, slow kiss started to became frantic, hard, and
almost violent in its eroticism.

He had his hands on her breasts, clenching and
unclenching the mounds through the material of her bra, and in the next instant
he had that article of clothing pulled from her body. She felt the tug of the
elastic and underwire on her flesh as he ripped it from her, and heard the
sound of fabric rending. God, that was hot.

Her jeans and panties were next to go, as was
his underwear, and then they were pressed together naked, his cock hard on her
belly, and the tip slickened with his pre-cum. His hands on her breast were
almost painful as he squeezed and released her flesh, and then he slid those
hands down her sides, moved one of them to cup her ass, and had the other one
right over her pussy. A gasp left her when he speared his fingers through her
soaked folds, and the gruff sound he made had her heart beating faster.

“Fuck, you’re so wet for me, Poppy.” He
murmured against her throat as he continued to move his fingers up and down.
“We’re really doing this, aren’t we, baby?”

She nodded, not able to find words. Lauren
didn’t know if he was aware of the low grunts he made, or the fact he was
pushing his dick into her stomach, back and forth, harder with every passing
second. But she wasn’t going to stop him, because feeling Ace like this had all
sanity and common sense leaving her.

He teased her for several more seconds,
rubbing her clit every time he stroked his fingers up her cleft, teasing her
hole on every down stroke, and leaving her so thoroughly on edge that she was
ready to beg him to fuck her. He removed his hand, brought it up to his mouth,
and spread her wetness that was clearly visible on the digits across his lips.
He spread them along the top, and then bottom lip, and before Lauren could say
anything, or even make a sound of deep-rooted need, Ace was kissing her.

He made her taste herself on him, almost
demanding she surrender as he gripped her hair behind her head and tugged at
the strands. She stroked his tongue with hers, and moaned at the musky flavor
of her wetness on his lips.

Ace broke the kiss and started moving his
mouth and tongue down her neck, along her collarbone, and stopped when he was
right above her breast. The small, hard, and hot pants of his breath bathed her
flesh, caused her nipple to harden even further, and had her clenching her
thighs together painfully.