Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights) (11 page)

Her zipper came down with a muffled, metallic sound. Big, blunt fingers invaded her panties, stroking through her wet folds without a hint of gentleness. The first contact of skin on skin paralyzed her in its long-awaited perfection, but his middle finger’s rough jostling of her clit woke her limbs up. It stung in a brutally fantastic way. A way that would bring an orgasm tearing through her middle without consent, and she couldn’t allow that. Not a chance. Not yet.

Lita slammed her thighs together and attempted to crawl away on her elbows, crying out in surprise when James pounced on top of her. Not with his entire weight, but enough that she had no chance of freedom. That fact didn’t stop her from struggling, bucking up into his immovable hips with her backside. His arm wrapped around her upper half, putting his forearm beneath her mouth, so she bit him.
Bit
him until he repositioned them with a threatening growl and captured her jaw. Lita was a total prisoner now and it caused shivering thrills to race from the tip of her head downward, curling her toes.
Yes. Don’t let me move. Keep me.

“What are you fighting me for, plaything?” He rasped into her ear. “You’ve been asking me for this all morning. ‘Come and get it, James.’” His hips rolled against her bottom. “I heard you even if you weren’t saying it. I can hear you
now
.”

“No.”
Yes. I’ve been begging
. “I didn’t ask…I don’t—”

Lita’s protest died when the jean shorts were yanked down her body, along with her panties. Her lips fell open to suck in frantic breaths. They were outside doing this. Her pants were down, exposing her.
Outside
. And she wanted what would come next so bad, her fingers curled into the dirt, grinding the grains against her palms and creating abrasions. The same way
she
wanted to be marked. Claimed. Corrupted.
Now, please, now.

Their bodies were so close, the back of his hand grazed her bare backside as his zipper was brought down. When he heaved a groan, she knew he’d removed his erect flesh, could picture its ruddy girth clasped in his hand. The way he stroked its length above her imprisoned body. Looking down on her. Preparing to
take.

Using what felt like his knee, James shoved her thighs apart, dragging her wider knees in the damp earth. “Next time you’ll think twice about heading into the woods alone. Won’t you, little girl?”

A whimper tumbled from her mouth. Depending on who was listening, the sound might have been distress or arousal. Her thighs could have been shaking out of fear or anticipation. She could barely keep up the pretense of non-consent anymore. Another minute and she would be screaming for him to get inside her.

She felt the fleshy head of James’s arousal slide through her core, pausing at her entrance. “Oh God, oh God…” she chanted, voice cracking.

James jerked her hips up, leaving her bottom in the air, her cheek pressed against the ground. “He can’t help you, either.”

When he seated himself inside her body, it took Lita’s scream a few seconds to work free of her throat, oxygen was at such a premium. Even when the piercing cry finally found its way into the air, James’s hand cut it off after only a few seconds. Her vision wavered under the attack of his body on hers. No quarter was given. No mercy. He was a hostile man determined to use her body as an outlet for lust. His hips dipped down and rammed up in forceful thrusts that jarred her teeth inside her skull. Without the brawny arm supporting her midsection, keeping her center in place for the taking, she would have fallen flat.

Inside her mind, a vision of James interchanged with a shadowy stranger. One he’d kept locked inside. A side that came out and turned him into a different man. But that blurry juxtaposition of trust and uncertainty only made it real. Made her the only thing standing between this man and relief from his pain. There was power in that knowledge, even with her body held immobile.

James slowed his movements and leaned forward to align their bodies, chest to back, as he teased her with slow, thorough drives. “Put you on the pill to protect you, didn’t I? From who?” He uncovered her mouth and hammered into her with a series of rough thrusts. “From
who
?”

“
You
,” she shouted.

“That’s right.” He rose again, gripping her hips as their bodies joined, again and again. “All that acting out and getting into trouble. Maybe you just needed to flash that pussy at me and run away, somewhere I could make you sorry and no one could hear you scream.”

Irritation flickered in Lita’s chest, traveling down through her arms. She didn’t like hearing that her efforts had been wasted. That he’d managed to maintain control around her for so long while she’d been suffering. Memories of those nights tossing and turning in her bed, wishing for James, hardened the muscles in her legs with frustration and she pushed, shoving backward. Simply to show she still could. That he hadn’t won yet. “
Asshole.”

James’s hardness slipped from her body with a grunt, but he remained upright on his knees, his grip a touch looser on her hips. Enough for her to turn around and slap him across the face.

Lita’s back hit the ground a second later, adding to her shock that she’d struck him. James loomed above her to block out the filtered sunlight, pinning both wrists above her head and wedging his sweating body between her thighs. Concern swirled in the gray of his eyes, but not enough to block out the animal need there. No, his desire was visible and rampant, much like the flesh hanging between his thighs. “You
know
how to make me stop. And that’s not it.”

She ached to scream the words, just so he’d
have
to stop. Just so he’d
have
some
idea of the pain she’d been in living without him. Knowing she might be required to do it again. But if he stopped, she would ache from now until her dying breath, would regret it with every cell in her body. She
needed
him. So she clamped her lips shut and fought to free her wrists, knowing full well he’d never let go.

But then, he
did.

He freed her wrists.

It was so unexpected, her hands fell backward to frame her head. “What—”

James dropped down to interlock their lips, scrutinizing her as they breathed into one another’s mouths “You don’t really want me to stop.” Their lips slipped together in a sensual mating dance. “Do you? Lita?”

The touch of dread in his deep voice undid her. Before she could think of a response, Lita’s heart answered for her. “No.” She shook her head back and forth in the dirt. “Never.”

Before the word fully escaped her mouth, James entered her once more on an agonized groan, his mouth finding the side of her neck, sucking and biting as he started to move. His first few drives were even, controlled, but the drag of his stiffness over her clit drove Lita a little crazy.
More. More
. She clawed at his ass, arching her back, until she felt the now-familiar snap in his surrounding energy. Both of her knees were hooked beneath his arms immediately—and then he fucked her into the ground. Just as he’d said he would.

Teeth sunk into available flesh, fingers dug into muscle, hips collided, clothes were torn. Lita didn’t recognize the sounds coming from either of their mouths. They were desperate and foreign and often angry.

Their coupling turned rough. Violent. The lust for danger had built too long and now it took over, urging Lita to issue whispered challenges to James. Sometimes daring him to go harder, sometimes begging without shame. Those dares made him bare his teeth, picking up her body just to pin it back down with breath-stealing force, his bottom half never ceasing, pumping relentlessly.

“You little brat. I should have started fucking you a long time ago. Maybe you’d have some goddamn manners by now.” He shoved a forearm beneath her ass, lifting her lower body up to his lap to receive him. “Or maybe I just bought myself four years of relative sanity. I’m going to lose a little more of my mind every time you slip down onto my cock, aren’t I? Every time you
breathe.
”

Lita was teetering on the edge of something catastrophic. Air wheezed in and out of her lungs. Her leg muscles started to freeze up. The angle of James’s thrusts prodded a spot inside her that rendered her unable to form words, lest she disturb the brutal accuracy. Shit,
shit
…she couldn’t orgasm like this or she’d break apart into nothing. Too much—too—

Stars blinded Lita as the crisis powered through her lower body, clenching her every muscle in a way that made her instantaneously sore. Her scream sounded distant, like someone had turned down the volume on a movie. James covered her mouth with his own, meshing their bodies together as he rode out his climax above her, his masculine roar of relief muted against her lips. It wouldn’t end, ripples and shocks of pleasure spreading, a boulder dropped into a still pond. Her heels dug into the small of his back, her body writhing in the disturbed earth.

“James, James…I’m…I
can’t
.”

Her world tilted when James scooped her off the ground, cradling her on his lap and squeezing the limited amount of oxygen from her chest. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.” His lips skated over her features, lingering on her forehead. “Please, tell me you’re okay, Lita.”

There was no veiling the truth after what they’d done. Only trust. At some point since venturing into the woods, her anger and doubt had evaporated. She’d needed
this.
Craved
this
exchange of trust. It’s what she’d needed from James all along. What they’d needed from each other. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.” She laughed when her words were a little slurred. “What about you?”

When James didn’t answer right away, she tilted her head back and saw she hadn’t managed to convince him. His attention raced over her skin, lighting on her ripped T-shirt, the bite mark on her shoulder, the smeared dirt…everywhere. His jaw looked tight enough to shatter. “Hey.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes
.

No. Fuck this
.

She’d never felt closer to another human being in her life than she did right now. He wasn’t going to drift away on her. Lita scrambled to face him fully, throwing her legs around his hips and framing his face with her hands. “Kiss me and you’ll know that everything is going to be fine.”

There was only the barest hesitation before James broke, devouring her mouth with a gruff sound. In between kisses, he rasped words of apology, praise, amazement, worry.

“Didn’t hurt my gorgeous girl. She’s still here with me. I’m sorry I was a prick. God, I’ve never felt or seen or touched anything like you. Mine.
My
Lita
.
”

She absorbed it like a greedy sponge, letting him cut off her oxygen with his banded arms and smother her in whisker-burn kisses. It was the single greatest moment of her life. Having James call her his girl in the woods, her body depleted and their skin pressed together. She wanted to build a cabin in that very spot and live there forever.

“We need to get back,” James muttered into her hair. “I can’t let anyone see you like this.”

“Fine. Okay.” She swayed as he pulled her up, onto her feet. “Look how agreeable I’m being.”

“Don’t make a habit out of it.” His gaze heated as it roamed over her legs. “I like when you fight me.”

Whoa. Lita’s knees wobbled. “I like the way you get even,” she breathed.

For one lightheaded moment, Lita was positive he would tackle her once again to the forest floor, his expression was so ravenous. Instead, he growled a curse and took her hand, leading her back the way they’d come. She didn’t even bother containing her smile as she stumbled along behind him, not sparing a single care about her disheveled state.

Until they walked into the clearing and came face to face with half a dozen police officers, red and blue lights flashing behind them.

Chapter Eight

James shoved Lita behind his back, positive he’d been transplanted into the middle of his own personal nightmare. Or maybe the universe was balancing out the heaven he’d just visited by casting him into hell. It couldn’t be reality. But it was. He could feel Lita’s hands sliding up and down his back, could hear her whispering into the material of his T-shirt, words that wouldn’t penetrate the denial revolving like a hurricane in his brain, throwing debris in every direction, intent on destruction.

“We received reports of screams coming from the woods.”

A silence followed the officer’s statement, the brief but heavy kind that ensues after a hospital patient flatlines. He’d heard that kind of silence before. Coming from his mother when the police showed up at their house, shuffling their shiny shoes on the porch. Police that may as well be identical to these men, attempting to stare straight through him to Lita. To ascertain the damage they’d already glimpsed. And what had they seen? A woman who’d been mistreated. A woman with marks on her body, inflicted by a man. Him.

We received reports of a disturbance coming from the house.

How many times had he heard those words growing up? Except now, he wasn’t comforting his mother in the living room while his father “got rid of” the cops. No, he
was
…his father. He was the monster hiding the damage. Guarding his own victim. God, he was nothing but a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lita’s hand started to shake inside his, and he automatically tightened his grip. Protecting her came before anything else. Or it
had
at one time. They were facing a veritable firing squad and her only armor was a ripped tank top and mud-stained shorts. As far as he was concerned, he’d just forfeited his right to protect her ever again. As a lover, friend, or manager. He’d failed her three different ways.

And Jesus, if he’d just walked away four years ago, he’d have only failed her in one way. As a human being.
Selfish
. He’d been too fucking selfish. One last time, he would allow himself to play protector. Just one.