Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (62 page)

“Because for once, I must do the decent thing. I must make everything right, for everyone. Once that is done, you will understand.”

“Big guy, you’re scaring me.”

“I am so sorry, sweet Ashley – I would tell you if I could, I would soothe your fears if there was a way to do so, but there is not. We are all locked into what must happen, but I can truly say that it will all turn right in the end, and before much longer. I can also say that it’s growing rather cold out here – would you care to come inside with me, and we can be warm together?”

He leaned over to me and his mouth melded to mine, his lips warm and his tongue probing. I wanted to be strong, I wanted to stand up to his tender assault and make him talk instead, make him tell me what this ‘decent thing’ was that he meant to do – but I wanted comfort even more, and I melted beneath him. I grabbed at his shoulders and pulled him close, I kissed him as fiercely as a scared girl possibly could, and I let him turn me aside from finding out what was going on.

And who knows? If I’d had two cents worth of courage, maybe I could have made him tell me right then why he’d let the Killanes victimize him for years. Maybe I could have gotten him to spill just what the deal was with this future he thought we were locked into, maybe I could have talked him into sharing his burden, and maybe then our path together would have turned in a different direction.

Maybe.

40. No Matter Where You Go

I wasn’t the only one who needed comfort that night, not by a long shot. I found that out moments after we went back inside the cabin, clawed at each other right inside the door, and ended up leaving a trail of shirts and blankets and shoes and coats and assorted naughty underthings leading from the door to the bed.

We stood naked in the darkness, our arms twined around each other. The only light was a warm orange glow that leaked out from the banked fire in the woodstove, a flickering light that painted our bodies and danced in the greater darkness of Devon’s eyes.

I looked into those eyes and I saw the hunger there.

Devon could be many kinds of lover – gentle or rough, slow and tender, or fast and frantic. He was usually quiet, but sometimes a thundering growl rumbled through his body as he drove into me, as if I was being taken by a man who was half tiger under the skin. Some nights he whispered filthy, perverted things into my ear, while other nights he used his mouth in ways that went far beyond words.

He could be inventive, a little bit kinky – tempting him into being a whole lot kinky was one of my ongoing projects – or often as not, he showed me just how crazy arousing vanilla sex could be when it was done Devon style.

He’d pleasured me in beds, on floors, in showers and bathtubs and on the seats in his private movie theater – you know, the usual spots. He’d also made mad love to me in more than a few exotic locations – and no, I’m not going to give you any examples, although I will say that we should have brought a blanket that one time, because it turns out bridge girders can do terrible things to a girl’s back.

That night, though, he was nothing but hungry – hungry and desperate.

We stood next to the bed, and he pulled me tight up against him, every inch of my soft curves pressing into the muscled plane of his body, and I felt the tension humming through him. His right arm reached around my back, pinning me in place for his pleasure, while his left hand slid down my body to take possession of my ass, his fingers digging deep into the tender flesh.

He held me so tight, it was as if he thought I might disappear.

The voice I knew so well, the voice that comforted and teased and delighted me in so many ways, whispered into my ear.

“Ashley, are you real? Truly real? I need you to be real, I need you to be my anchor. Can you be real for me?”

“Baby, I’m real – you can touch me and taste me and feel in a thousand different ways how real I am.” I slipped my right hand between us, reaching for him. “I’m as real as this.”

My hand eased down over the hard length of his cock. I curled my fingers around it, stroking and caressing, and felt the warm shaft leap in my hand, straining for release.

“Devon?”

He rumbled something in his throat, shifting his hips against me.

“Devon, I need you to be real too. I need you to be real and I need you to be with me, no matter what.”

I sank away from him then, and I sat down on the edge of the bed. I pushed aside the comforters, peeled back the sheet, and looked up at him standing over me.

“Devon, I need you to be real, and I need you to touch me. I need your hands on me, I need your mouth on me, and I need you inside me. Please, be real for me.”

He dropped to his knees without a word. He knelt on the bare floorboards at the side of the bed, leaned forward between my open legs, and wrapped his arms around me. Even kneeling before me like this, he was so unreasonably tall; when he held me, I could barely breathe within his powerful arms, and when he kissed me, his strength and need took what little breath I had left.

As his mouth pulled away from mine and I gasped, his arms loosened. He slid his hands down my sides until he held my hips firm in his grip, his fingers clamping down and holding me still, captive, ready to be tasted and taken in any way he chose.

His head dropped down, eased to one side, and then his mouth was on my neck. He kissed and nipped, his tongue danced over a single delicate spot where my pulse hammered ever faster beneath the skin, and then he bit down hard. He bit me, marking me, his mouth working hungrily, and I leaned into the sweet pain.

As I trembled beneath his mouth, my eyes closed, I felt his right hand leave my hip, slide up over my curves, and cup my left breast. He held its warm weight in his palm,

eased his fingers around the swelling curves on either side, and I leaned forward, pressing against his hand, needing more. Then he rubbed his thumb over my nipple, teasing it into instant, aching hardness as I whimpered beneath his firm touch.

I lost myself to him, to what his hand was doing to me, and I didn’t notice his head moving lower until his mouth tasted my right breast. I jumped, gasping, as his tongue lapped underneath and around my breast’s heavy, generous curves. He kissed and licked and teased over and around, everywhere except where I needed him the most – and then, at the same moment his thumb rubbed hard over my left nipple, he sucked my right nipple deep into his warm, wet mouth.

I moaned, helpless and needy, as his hungry mouth worked against my breast, suckling hard. With each eager pull of his lips and tongue, I felt wetness surge between my legs, and I couldn’t help but grab onto his shoulders and pull him in even closer, slicing my nails into his skin as I ached to have him inside me.

I sat there, mesmerized, and slowly realized that my hands had dropped back down to the bed. His mouth had left my breast. I looked up, dazed, to see Devon standing over me.

Hunger still burned in his eyes, now along with desperation, animal need, and … was that fear I saw? Why? Here, now, with me, what could he possibly be afraid of?

“Ashley, I need more, I need so much more. I need everything, I need … I need you to be real, to be real enough for both of us.”

He pushed me back onto the bed before I realized it had happened. One instant, I was sitting there, looking up at his tortured face for clues, trying to figure out just what he needed from me – in the next instant, I was lying on the bed, and Devon was on top of me.

His long, lean body pinned me beneath him, a prisoner to his strength. I breathed in his scent, I felt his weight pressing me down into the bed, and I ran my hands over his flanks and up onto his back, feeling those powerful muscles moving beneath the skin.

It was a little hard to breathe with so much man bearing down on me, but it got a bit easier when he rose up onto his elbows – until he took my face between his hands, leaning in so close I could feel his breath and see the despair in his eyes.

“Ashley, I need you. Without you, I’ll drift away on the wind and be lost.”

Then he just stared down at me, begging me with his eyes to understand.

Nothing on earth was going to stop me from giving him what he needed, whatever it was – and while I might not know exactly what he was trying to tell me or just what he needed from me so desperately, I did know a good place to start.

I reached up, grabbed two handfuls of hair, and pulled his mouth to mine.

I drew him in, tasting with my tongue between his lips, our mouths melding into one just as I needed to be one with him, to be there and save him whenever the fate he feared came around the corner. He moved his tongue against mine then, sucked gently, probed and tasted and kissed until my need to have all of him, every bit, overwhelmed me.

I opened my legs beneath him, took his hips between my thighs, and hissed into his ear. “Devon, what I need is you inside me, and right now.” I nipped at his ear a bit, too – I just couldn’t help it – and then I fell back onto the bed, my hair already damp with sweat against the pillow.

I knew his body needed mine too – I knew it from the feel of his warm, steel-hard cock straining against me, and from the speeding rhythm of his heart that I felt as my breasts flattened beneath his broad chest. His deep, heavy breathing told me, and the fine tremors running through his muscles as he groaned and ground his hips against mine – whatever was going on in his head, I knew the rest of him wanted to take me, fast and hard and now.

But his head was still in charge, and he spoke to me instead.

“Soon, so soon … but first, I want to trace and explore every line of you, every inch, every trembling curve of your sweet body. I want to remember all of you.”

Remember? Was one of us going somewhere?

He explored me then, memorizing my curves as wetness and need ached deep inside me.

He started at the top of my forehead, brushing back a few strands of hair and then settling his lips against my skin in a gentle kiss. He pressed feather light kisses to my tip of my nose. He nuzzled my chin, bit at the angle of my jaw, and then he pressed his face deep into the hollow of my neck, where my pulse sped just beneath the skin, and he rested there, still and silent, just breathing.

He moved lower, and it was sweet torture. I shivered at every touch, whimpering beneath his lips and tongue, and I so needed him to hurry, but he wouldn’t.

He kissed my shoulders, he licked salty sweat from the skin at the base of my neck, and he took each collarbone in turn between his teeth – not biting down, not marking me, but just holding onto me for a few endless seconds. He nibbled and kissed along the top of my chest, teasing just above the swell of my breasts, and then pressed a needy, working kiss to the center of my chest.

He pulled away after that, and rose up off his arms to kneel over me. He looked down at me, just looked at my curves and planes and warm skin, and then he reached out for my breasts.

His sure, knowing hands cupped my breasts, and I hissed in a sharp breath as he gave each one a gentle squeeze. When he took his hands away, I sighed in frustration – when he touched me again, I wanted to scream, because he trailed just his fingertips over my swelling curves, barely touching the skin. He ran his fingers under each breast, up and over, then reached underneath again to hold their weight, pushing his palms up into the ripe, heavy flesh, as those maddening fingers kneaded and worked and fondled until I almost did scream.

Again he pulled away, and again just his fingertips returned, now stroking around and over the rough skin of each areola, circling my stiff, aching nipples without ever quite touching them.

I couldn’t stand this sweet teasing much longer – if he didn’t take care of business soon, I’d be sorely tempted to kill him.

Then he leaned down to my right breast and brushed his lips against the nipple, dusting it with just the faintest kiss, and I arched my back, pushing myself up to him, needing – and he pulled away again.

“Devon, please …” I heard the needy whine in my voice, but I didn’t care, I just cared about feeling him touch me, really touch me. I wanted to be tasted and pleasured, I wanted to be used and ridden hard, I wanted so much from this impossible, adorable, overpowering man – and I wanted every bit of it right then.

I went from wanting to yowling like a cat when he shifted his attention to my left breast and bent down to suck my tender nipple.

He drew the hard nub deep into his mouth, working his rough tongue over and around the sensitive tip, as I twisted beneath him, moaning. He heard me, felt my need, and bore down, suckling hard as arousal lanced through my body, throbbing in my clit and flaring deep inside me.

Then he bit my nipple, just one quick, teasing nip, and I squealed. I squealed, I jumped, and my hands fisted in the sheets, clawing at them while I drowned in sensation. But when he lapped his tongue over the nipple, licking away the tiny, delicious sliver of pain, my hands left the sheets and slipped up his arms. I reached higher as his mouth closed onto my nipple again, working hungrily, and I raked my nails into his shoulders and down his back.