Unmasked (New Adult Romance) (The Unmasked Series) (19 page)

"Are... are you sure? I don't want to upset you.
This is too perfect. I don't want my ugliness to..."

"Stop. Scars aren't ugly. They're the past.
They're how you got where you are. Don't be afraid of them and don't feel bad
for them. They're part of you, but they aren't
you.
"

"If anyone else said that, I wouldn't believe
them." He lowered his head. "But you..."

She hooked her finger back underneath it and
pulled the silk away from his face. From his lip, where she could see the
bottom of the scar, a long, jagged mark stretched to above Preston's other eye.
Alyssa ran the back of her finger from the top to the bottom.

Preston noticed that she never looked away from
his eyes. She didn't gawk. She didn't have one of those pity looks, or anything
but the same look she'd always given him.

"You have the most beautiful eyes I think I've
ever seen."

They glittered when she looked at them, at him.
The scar was there, but like she said, it wasn't him. It was part of his story,
not his soul.

Without a word, he kissed down her body, between
her breasts and back down between her legs. Warm, prickling energy crawled up
her belly as he kissed along one side of her sex and up the other. His fingers
went back to her, played between and then inside her folds, and drew a long,
contented groan from Alyssa's barely-opened mouth.

"Don't make me wait anymore," she said. "Please?"

Preston sat up on his knees and pulled her panties
slowly down, then off, tossing them off the side of the bed.

"Are you sure?" He said.

"Never more than I am right now. Come here."

Down on top of her body, his weight felt secure
and safe. As his tip pushed against her, she wrapped her legs gently around
Preston's hips and invited him inside. Slow, and deep and gentle, he pushed
himself, sending warm waves all through Alyssa's body that forced her head back
against the pillow.

She rolled her head left and then right, and
reached up to grip the blanket as his thickness filled her, and the world
melted away. Her body stretched around him, each tiny bit he moved chilling and
warming her core until she could barely stand how exquisitely he pleased.

Alyssa gripped his shoulders, and then halfway
down Preston's back, kneading the muscles and pulling him against her, further
in, deeper and sweeter, with each passing second. He pulled back for the first
time and as he left, she felt a void open within her that yearned for him to
return, to push back in and give her another filling, warm, aching stretch.

"Yes, yes," she moaned, "I can't...yes..."

His strokes, long, full, gentle and slow, were
enough to prickle the whole front of Alyssa's body, and the way he squeezed her
hips with this powerful hands was enough to warm the back. A ref flush crept up
her chest as her nipples pebbled and stiffened, thrills crawling across each
time the short hair on Preston's chest brushed against them, or he lowered his
head to kiss one or the other.

"Don't... don't stop," she said. "Just like that,
keep going. I can't believe..."

"Give me your hand," he whispered, sitting up
again after kissing her behind the ear. "I want to watch your face. God, you
feel so good." He pushed another long, thick stroke inside her and took one
hand, then the other.

Interweaving his fingers with hers, he pumped a
little faster, a little deeper, and she pulled him down so that his face and
those beautiful eyes weren't more than a few inches from hers.

She tried not to closer her eyes, to keep them
open and watching, but the longer he went, the closer she got to a cliff she
never thought to cross, it became harder and harder to keep them open, until
finally it proved impossible.

"Don't...stop..." she whispered, her breath
hitching in her chest.

Preston sucked another kiss on her neck and
squeezed her hands, never once stopping his increasingly urgent, powerful
movements. He felt her grip him, her body beginning to convulse around his
shaft, pulling him deeper inside her.

"I can't...mmm...I can't stop myself, Preston,"
she said. "Keep...going..."

Suddenly, he stopped and pulled himself gently out
of her.

"Not yet," he said. "I want you on top. You feel
so good," he grinned. "Come on."

He lay back and stretched himself out, never
letting go of Alyssa's hands.

She put one leg on either side of him and relaxed
backwards, until she felt his tip against her entrance. Shaking her hand free
of his for a moment, she reached back and guided him in. Immediately, her eyes
closed, she found his hand again, and rocked backward, then forward, pushing
him in and out, all the way in then out so far that she felt the line around
his tip almost leaving.

One time, she opened her eyes and looked down at
Preston to find him staring at her, lips open, breathing hard.

"I can't last much longer," he said between
breaths, "you feel too good. Just too good."

"Me...too," she let out in a soft little moan.
"Mmm..."

Preston squeezed her hands, and then moved them
around to the small of her back, making her lean backwards just a little.

"God you're beautiful," he whispered, "I could
watch you do this forever. Feel you right here, forever."

Again she shook her hands free of his and leaned
back, propping herself up with her hands right above his knees. Deep, hard
strokes filled her. Each one left her empty and yearning to have him back
before another one filled her up. Faster, faster she pushed down on his girth,
the naughty, thrilling sounds filling her ears as his cock stretched the
deepest parts of her body around him.

"I can't... Oh my God," she moaned out, "I can't
stop myself."

"Don't," he said, "do it with me."

She felt him jump inside her, his member swelling
and relaxing in time with her clenching muscles. All the way up her body, she
gripped hard on him, her teeth clenching, her fists balling up on his legs.

Harder and harder, faster and faster, she drove
herself against Preston as he groaned her name, then yes, then her name again.
She felt his pulse, his heart. She felt his breath. And then she fell forward,
collapsing against his chest and crying out "Preston! Yes!" as her entire being
squeezed him.

Every single muscle in Alyssa's body pulsed. Tight
and loose, tension and release. Over and over, relentlessly, tirelessly, her
body gripped and released, until finally, all the tightness erupted into wave
after wave of pure, total, completely release.

His arms wrapped around her waist, his body
pulsing with hers, she felt Preston relax just as she did. When he slid his
hand down to pull himself free, she rolled off of him and closed her eyes,
warmth caressing her, holding her, and refusing to let go.

––––––––

When next she opened her eyes, it was to a
steaming towel that smelled of roses.

"What's that?" She said, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

"A towel," Preston whispered. "I thought you might
like a little steam on those sore spots."

"Where did you come from?" She said, letting her
whole body relax as the towel slid up her legs and around her sex, then down
the other.

"Texas," he said and chuckled softly. Alyssa
grinned.

"How did I find you?"

"I keep asking myself the same thing. It seems
like it's always been supposed to happen, I guess." He said. "I don't know. I
think it's better to just accept some things instead of questioning them."

"I think you might be right." She smiled up at
him, still keeping her eyes closed, holding the image of him with his head
tilted back in ecstasy tight behind her lids.

He stood, and shuffled around near her feet.

"Is everything okay?" She said.

"Yeah. Better than okay. Everything is perfect.
There's only one thing bothering me."

"What's that?" Worry tinged her voice. "Is it
something I did?"

Alyssa sat up and pulled the blanket around her
shoulders.

"No, no, of course not. It's just... Well, to be
honest, I'm a little nervous about taking you back to your father and
explaining everything." Preston sat back down, then reclined against the head
of his bed and pulled Alyssa onto his chest where he stroked her face with the
back of his hand and played with a long curl of her hair. "He's not gonna shoot
me, is he?"

"No!" Alyssa barely stifled a giggle. "But he
might just ask you about your intentions. They
are
pure, aren't they?"

She snuggled her head down against his chest and
ran her finger along a scar. As she did, Preston's body rose and fell, slower
and slower, in time with his slowing heartbeat. When next she looked up at him,
both of his eyes were closed, and he was breathing softly in, softly out, with
a little whistle on the end.

"Whatever they are, we'll find out. But later."

She curled her head up in the crook of his arm,
pulled the blanket over both of them, and let sleep come over her.

––––––––

"Let me get this straight," Ryan Barton said. Then
instead of continuing, he sat down and poured out his old coffee, then got
another one and took a surprisingly large drink for how hot it was. "Alyssa –
her, right there – she was held captive in your house for almost a week?"

"It was, well, in a word, yes." Preston rubbed the
end of his scar that was right below his nose. "I'm trying to think of a
different way to put it that makes the whole thing sound better, but I suppose
that's about the short of it."

"Could you, then, in form me as to why I shouldn't
call the police? Because it sounds to me like you're kidnapper."

"Daddy," she broke in, "it wasn't him. Not really.
It was a series of admittedly strange coincidences and miscommunications that
got me there in the first place, but it was Gadsen that kept me held there.
Really, he was keeping both of us captive."

Alyssa looked at Preston and moved closer to him,
their hands intertwined.

"I know it sounds insane, Mr. Barton. I really do.
And I can't tell you how sorry I am that this all happened. I know it put you
in a horrible position, to say nothing of how much I worried you. I just don't
know what to say."

Alyssa's dad dragged his teething along his upper
lip, and gnawed the hair on his moustache between his teeth.

"Panic? Panic? I spent four days trying to get the
police to look for my daughter, with them telling me she was safe the whole
time but that they couldn't tell me where. And now, I'm just supposed to take
your apology and say 'oh, ho ho, that's fine, don't worry about it'?"

"No, I don't expect that at all." Preston sat up
and leaned on the table with his elbows. "Not at all."

"Well I don't know how to take this. I mean, I
just-"

"Let me make it up to you. Anything you want. I mean
it. With Gadsen off in the lockup, the board has voted me head of the company
even without the trust's strange terms being fulfilled. There's some question
as to the authenticity of the document anyway. One of them said that a
complicated trust with all these stipulations just wasn't like dad. Another one
of them said what everyone was thinking, and figured that Gadsen wrote the
thing up in some insane attempt to keep control of both the company, and of
me."

"You mean money?"

"Yes, or anything else. Place on the board, oil
rights. I'm just horrified at all the trouble I've caused. Look, I meant to
give this to you anyway." Preston fumbled in a pocket, pulled out a folded
piece of paper and handed it to Ryan Barton.

"I'm curious," Ryan said. "I really don't see how
you can think that giving me a check or an oil well is supposed to make me feel
better about my daughter being kidnapped. Really just don't get it. What is
this, anyway?"

"No, that's not what I meant, of course. I just
don't know what I can do. That paper I just gave you is the contract between
Webb Oilworks and the town council that, if signed, would force every property
owner on this side of town to let a pipeline go under their property and
probably ruin it forever. But there'd be an oil pipe, and a lot of pockets
would be very full."

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"Because," Preston said, "you're a good man. A
better one than anyone else I know. I trust you to keep it safe. If it gets
around to either the board of the company, or the town council, they'll be
after my head. Hang onto it, along with all those ledgers."

Ryan scratched his three-day growth of beard and
stuck the paper in his back pocket.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Webb. You truck yourself
back to that house, and pretend like you've never seen me or met my daughter.
You do that, and just leave us alone, and we'll call it even."

Preston looked back and forth from Alyssa to her
dad. "If that's what you want," he said to both of them. "If that's what will
make this right, I'll do anything you want."

"Now will both of you wait a second? I'm the one
who was in the middle of all this."

They both turned to her.

"Uh..." Alyssa shifted her eyes back and forth.
"Well, I hadn't actually expected it to feel that formal." After a nervous
laugh, she said, "for everything that happened, and all the stuff we went
through, I've never felt closer to anyone than I do him." She reached for
Preston's hand again, like it was an anchor holding her safe. "I think I'm in
love with him."

"What?" Ryan said.

"What was that?" said Preston with wide open eyes.

"I don't know. I really don't. But I think my
strong feelings turned from 'I'm really into this guy' to 'I love him...I
think' when you took that thing off your face and I saw you – the real you –
without any hiding or covers or masks. I knew you were real, right then."

"Are you sure what you're saying, Lyssie?"

"As crazy as it sounds, I think I am. Yeah." She
looked down for a second, and nodded. "Yeah, I mean, it's insane and I can't
believe what I'm saying, but the whole time we were in the house dealing with
all the stuff we were dealing with, all I could think is that I wanted you to
come and find me and take me away. At first, I was pretty sure it was just
shell-shock or whatever you call it these days, but even after everything
calmed down, I..."