“Shane, I—”
“Just like that,” I say, brushing my lips over hers. “Say my name again, not ‘please.’ Okay?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Good,” I approve, my hands settling at the sides of her breasts, fingers stroking the delicate skin, and slowly I lower myself to my knee, blowing warm air on one nipple, then the next. I repeat my attentions to her nipples but this time with my tongue. She lowers her hands and her fingers slide into my hair, and when I suck her nipple into my mouth, her grip tightens, I smile and drag deeper. My reward is her sexy little moan. I take my time, licking and sucking; waiting for that moment she finally gives me.
“Shane.”
It’s a plea, and the one I wanted. I stroke her nipples one last time and move lower, my mouth caressing a path to her belly button. But still I make her wait, and not because I really do want to tease her incessantly. Because kissing her, exploring her body, might make my body hard, but it softens another part of me, it unravels that “something” I fought in the bathroom. I want her to know she’s mine and that means I cherish every part of her. My hand settles on one of her hips, my fingers slip between her legs, into the wet, slick heat that speaks of how aroused she is, but I want more.
I lap at her clit, and her fingers go to my hair. I do it again, and she grips me a little tighter. My mouth closes down over the swollen nub, and yet a little tighter. I sink my fingers inside her and she outright moans. “Shane.” It’s all the motivation I need to give her what she wants. To lick her all over, stroking her with my fingers and tongue with one goal: her pleasure, not my control. And when she comes, she is sweet honey on my tongue, addictive in every way. She trembles with her release, and I wrap her hips, holding her a moment before her knees give way.
Her body gives way, melting against me, and in that moment, I am struck by all she has been through, and how completely she gives herself to me. I didn’t need to look for her trust. It is mine to lose, not find, a gift I do not think this woman gives easily, but even after witnessing one of my darkest moments in that bathroom, she gives it freely to me. I press my lips to her belly, lingering there a moment before I look up at her, her cheeks flushed.
“Why, when I know control is an issue for you, did you so readily offer me your arms?”
“Because it’s you. You make me feel safe.”
“Safe.” It is a surreal word to hear, on a night when I feel as if a life has been lost that I could have saved.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “Safe.”
My lashes lower with her confirmation, and I try to revel in those words, to tell myself I deserve them, but that dark something I’ve fought since hearing the news report at Majors stirs inside me. Emily shocks me then, reaching down and cupping my face, our eyes meeting. “Shane,” she says softly. “Wherever you just went, don’t go there.”
“I’m right here, where I want to be.”
“No. You’re back where you were, right before you punched that mirror.”
I am baffled by how easily she has read me. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t know how I know or why we connect, but we do. I can be safe for you too. If you let me.”
“I did let you. You saw me in that bathroom in a way no one else ever has.”
“Because I was worried enough about you to walk in even though you shut me out. I witnessed what was already happening. What you chose to show no one.”
“What I didn’t want to exist.”
“But it does. It did. We all have those moments.” Her fingers stroke my hair, tenderness in her touch I do not think I have felt from any other human being. “Even Shane Brandon,” she adds.
I catch her hand and kiss it, standing as I do, and sit her on the edge of the bed, my lips brushing hers, our eyes lingering a moment, the air shifting and changing, something between us changing with it. Deepening in some way I cannot name. I step back from her and shove down my pants. Her gaze strokes boldly down my body, over my erection. It is sexy and bold, a reminder that she isn’t timid. She isn’t submissive by nature. Closing the space between us, I join her on the bed, laying us both down. Her hand flattens on my chest, and my fingers slide into her hair, our mouths coming together, my cock pressing into the slick sweet spot between her legs. There is that same tenderness to this kiss as I’d felt in her fingers in my hair.
I lift her leg over my hip, cupping her backside, and while our lips part, our breathing becomes one, our bodies with it as I press inside her, then pull her down my shaft. For several moments, we don’t move, and as easy as it would be for me to take what I want right now, to take her body, that is not what she needs right now. It’s not what I need, either. I roll to my back and pull her on top of me, her chest molded to mine. “Now you have control,” I declare.
She sits up, every curve, every sweet spot on her body, displayed for my viewing, and says, “We both know that’s not true, Shane Brandon.”
I sit up with her now, one hand settling between her shoulder blades, fingers splayed. “I don’t think you understand the power you have over me. And that’s big for me, sweetheart. To let you have that and to do so willingly.”
“Then why won’t you let me understand what really happened tonight?”
“I told you the part that matters. The part that won’t let go of me, and therefore it affects you.”