Unmasked (Revealed #1) (29 page)

‘I can go to the doctor’s, get it checked, and um … sort it out.’ That would be a fun trip to Dr Massey tomorrow. She was one of my mother’s best friends. Oh, the joy of living in a small village. Best hope her patient confidentiality skills were firmly in place, because if my mum found out I was requesting the morning after pill, she’d go ballistic at me for being so careless. To be honest, I was quite surprised that Sean wasn’t going ballistic at me. He was just staring at me, his eyes impossible to read and his erection now fully hardened and twitching inside of me.

‘Will you be OK? Do we need to go to the doctors now?’

Shaking my head, I bit my lip. ‘I’ll be fine. The doctors are closed today, I’ll go tomorrow.’ Thank goodness it was half term, so I was free all day.

We lay there in silence again, still with Sean inside me pulsing away distractingly. ‘I love being inside you with no barriers,’ he murmured suddenly, and I nodded in reply with a small smile – it did feel incredible.

This was all getting very deep though, so before he could say something crazy like ‘let’s have kids,’ I decided to try to change the subject away from the possibility that right this very second, some of his little swimmers might be crusading their way up my unprotected tubes.

‘When I saw you looking so worried, I thought you were going to finish with me,’ I murmured quietly, lowering my eyes in embarrassment.

Gripping my chin, he pulled my gaze to his wild, blue eyes. ‘Why would I do that?’ he demanded harshly, causing me to shrug self-consciously. Pinning me with his intense gaze for a few more seconds, he then clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘Daft girl,’ he murmured with an impatient shake of his head. ‘You’re mine now. No one is dumping anyone.’

I was his now. Those words made my heart swell with love and relief. Although truthfully, I’d been his from the moment I’d allowed him to take me on his office desk. Even at that early stage I’d known that I felt a stronger connection with him than I had with any other man. Biting my lower lip in relief, and to conceal my amusement at just how serious he looked, I nodded solemnly before he placed a loving kiss on my brow and gingerly pulled out of me with a wince before standing up.

I lay there looking up at him, feeling both empty and full at the same time. I couldn’t quite get my head around all this. Holding out a hand, I couldn’t help but glance down at his erection. It was reddened from our round of sex and glistening with my juices, making it an incredibly erotic sight.

As crazy as it seemed after the battering I had just taken, I found that I was more than ready to go again too. Sean however, had other ideas, and after pulling me to a sitting position, swept me into his arms and carried me towards the bathroom. ‘Thought I was going to finish with her,’ he muttered under his breath, finally causing my smile to escape as I rested my head on his shoulder and let him carry me. I’d given up arguing about how I was perfectly capable of doing this, because it was clear from his dismissive grunts that Sean was not going to be diverted from his routine.

Placing me gently on my feet in front of the sink, he sorted through my bathroom cupboard, looking for something. My gaze drifted towards the mirror, and as I stared at my reflection, I gasped. Love bites. I had reddening patches of skin that looked like they were threatening to bruise on several places across my body: my neck, my shoulder and most shockingly, my breast. My entire right nipple was now surrounded by a ring of red flesh that looked distinctly like teeth marks, and I instantly remembered the moment that he had thrust into me and bitten down on my boob. God, it was like some bizarre tribal tattoo.

Choking on a breath that was half laugh, and half disbelief, I stumbled forwards to further examine it as Sean stood up behind me with a bottle of bath foam in his hand. Seeing the direction of my gaze I watched him in the mirror as his eyes dropped to my reflection and his cheeks reddened.

‘You’ve marked me!’ I sputtered, gently fingering my nipple and finding that as red as it was, it wasn’t actually too sore. Yet.

‘Sorry. The thought of leaving you freaked me out a bit.’ Sean reached up and rubbed nervously at the back of his neck in agitation, causing me to look across at him in surprise. ‘I might have got a bit carried away.’ I felt my own cheeks redden as I looked at him. Oh God, I’d marked him too. What the hell was wrong with us? My eyes widened as I took in the big scratch marks on the left side of his chest. Oops. Reaching out my hand I traced the marks and grimaced. ‘It looks like I did too, sorry.’

Turning to the mirror Sean looked at his chest, tipped his head thoughtfully as he examined my gouge marks, and then used his own hand to press mine flat against his pec right above his heart. ‘It’s OK. It’ll remind me of you. The producer might not be too thrilled though,’ he commented mildly, immediately reminding me that next week he’d be in front of a camera and occasionally having to film topless scenes. The idea of the female members of the crew drooling all over him made me feel sick to my stomach, but then I chuckled – at least with these claw marks they might realise he was unavailable.

Wow. I was marking my territory, how very possessive of me.

Swivelling towards the bath, Sean bent to turn on the taps and I winced when I saw another set of angry-looking scratch marks on his right shoulder. Sheesh. I really needed to cut my nails. Or perhaps he just needed to tone down the ferocity with which he banged me so I didn’t have to grip on so tightly. Ha, who was I kidding? I had loved the forceful way he’d taken me, and so with a roll of my eyes I made a mental note to trim my nails after we’d soaked in the tub.

Once the bath was full and bubbly Sean climbed in and wafted his hand to indicate that I should get in and sit between his legs. As I sank down into the relaxing water, Sean pulled me backwards so I was resting on his chest with my hands laid on his strong thighs, and his arms around my waist.

‘Is the water OK? Not too hot?’ he murmured by my ear, and I nodded. It was perfect, and I could immediately feel my earlier anxiety about his imminent departure seeping away. We’d be fine. Of course we would. It was only a few months that we’d be apart.

We soaked for half an hour in companionable silence before Sean encouraged me to sit forwards so he could begin washing my hair for me. I smiled to myself as he began his quiet task, humming to himself happily as he trailed his fingers through it repeatedly to lather it up, rinse it, and apply a conditioner. This was still a regular occurrence when Sean was here. He’d insist on washing and drying both my body and hair at every opportunity that he got. At this rate, after another month I’d have completely forgotten how to clean myself.

If Sean had his way I’d never be allowed to wash or brush my own hair, because he really was quite obsessed with it. Especially when it was super long, like it was at the moment. He loved to burrow his face into my neck and inhale, and I frequently woke up to find him stroking it reverently. On more than one occasion he had also twisted great swathes of it around his fists whilst we were making love, which I had to say was incredibly erotic.

Earlier this week, I had finally won one small battle, and I now got to return the bathing favour by loading up Sean’s sponge and scrubbing him down, a task I had thoroughly enjoyed. I did the same today. Once he had finished tending to me I turned and straddled his lap, taking his sponge and starting to wash across the flat planes of his chest. To be honest, when he lay there willingly for me like that, looking completely content and watching my every move with a small smile, I could totally see why he enjoyed doing it to me, because the satisfaction I gained from such a simple task was immense.

Once we were both squeaky clean and Sean had dried me off thoroughly, we wandered back into the bedroom and began to dress, both of us selecting clothes from the hangers in my wardrobe where Sean now had a section to one side.

Our relationship might still be ridiculously new, but Sean had practically moved himself into my house over the last few weeks. Initially, when we’d reunited and knew we would have at least five weeks together before he flew off, Sean had tried to persuade me to stay with him, which I would have loved to, of course, because his house was beautiful, but it was too far for me to travel to school every day. Once I’d told him that I’d only be able to visit him at weekends he had mumbled about it being ‘completely unacceptable’ and had sat looking miserable until I’d laughed and jokingly suggested that he stay with me instead. Without uttering a word, he had stared at me for a minute or so, a faint smile twitching on his lips, then disappeared off in his car only to arrive back a few hours later with several bags of clothes and belongings from his house. Just like that, he’d moved in. Well, I had offered, I just hadn’t actually expected him to take me up on it. Not that I was complaining; it had been lovely having him here.

Once we were dressed, Sean looked at me unhappily and pulled out one of his holdalls with a sad smile. ‘I guess I better pack some of this stuff to take with me. Can I leave a few things here?’

‘Of course.’ My voice was squeaky, my throat already closing up at the thought of him going. I was going to miss him so much. Watching as he folded his smarter clothes to pack, I saw him leave a pile of T-shirts and some jeans in the cupboard. Amongst the clothes being left behind was his favourite ‘round the house’ T-shirt – a slightly faded but much loved Pearl Jam shirt – and I immediately knew that I would be wearing it in bed tonight to help ease the loss of him.

‘I’m actually going to have to get going pretty soon, babe, because I need to pop across to my house to pack the rest of my things and get to the airport for four.’ He sounded casual and unperturbed by this statement, but I was already missing him, and he hadn’t even left yet. Was he not upset by the prospect of two months apart?

‘OK.’ Once again, my voice was tight with emotion, but this time Sean must have noticed because he turned to me, his own eyes looking a bit glassy, then dropped the holdall from his hand and dragged me into his arms. Ah, this was better. A proper emotional goodbye so I knew I wasn’t the only one with wildly out of control feelings. My arms looped tightly around his waist as his face descended into my hair, drawing in a long, deep inhale, before his lips claimed mine in a fiercely hungry kiss that instantly had me melting against him and groaning loudly.

His tongue swept around my mouth with its usual lazy skill, exploring, teasing, and dancing with mine as if he was making sure to get a thorough final touch to remember me by. After well and truly claiming my mouth, Sean leant back and rubbed the tips of our noses together, but I noticed that his eyes were squeezed shut. Perhaps the thought of his imminent departure
was
upsetting him just as much as me.

‘God, Allie, I’m going to miss you so fucking much.’ His eyes popped open, and seeing his beautiful blues combined with the raw emotion in his voice finally tipped me over the edge as my eyes brimmed over and several tears rolled down my cheeks. Lifting a hand, Sean gently wiped them away with his thumb, a sad smile gracing his lips. ‘Hey, no tears, my gorgeous girl. You’ll be busy with school, and I’ll be hectic with work, so time will fly by. We’ll be back together before you know it.’

I really hoped that was true, because he hadn’t even left yet and I was already falling apart inside.

NINETEEN

Sean

Forget any ideas of being the strong, confident male in our relationship; it was less than two minutes after leaving Allie’s house and me was a complete mess. Banging a hand on the steering wheel in frustration, I winced as my knuckles hit awkwardly and began to throb straight away. At least I had managed to hold it together in front of her, I suppose. She was the one who mattered. She’d been brave about my departure, but seeing those few tears escape from her eyes had nearly killed me.

It was almost impossible for me to comprehend the strength of the bond between Allie and I. I’d never felt anything like it before. Of course I’d experienced attraction, lust, and desire over the years, but this thing with Allie was … simply all-consuming. A connection so intoxicating that it made me feel and act in ways I never had before. I felt like I was discovering a whole new side to myself, and I was loving every minute of it.

The primal need to care for her and protect her, however, was driving me crazy and starting to make me totally irrational. How could I keep her safe when I was on a whole other continent? I felt my breathing quicken just at the thought, as panic began to seep into my system. Deep down I knew she didn’t need me to keep her safe; Allie was an independent, feisty, sensible girl, but there was some deeply ingrained part of me that felt the overwhelming need to do it. Maybe it was lingering thoughts of Elena’s accident causing these feelings in me. Or perhaps the age gap making me feel so protective over her?

The stressful thought of being apart from her for so long was almost enough to make me consider hiring someone to keep an eye on her for me … but Allie would no doubt go ballistic if I did that. It would certainly put my mind at ease, though, so I didn’t discount the idea entirely.

Clenching my jaw, I resisted the urge to turn the car around and go back to her, but the further I drove from her house, the more I could feel panic rising inside me, smothering my sensibilities and clouding my vision. Classic panic attack symptoms. Fuck. I hated how feeble I felt when I had these attacks, but I seemed to have no control over them since Allie had walked into my life. No amount of muscle or brawn could cover the fact that I had this incredible weakness where she was concerned.

Pulling the car over to the edge of the road, I flung my head back on the headrest and drew in several deep, long breaths as my fingers rhythmically clenched and unclenched on the steering wheel. I couldn’t believe I wouldn’t see her again for over two months. That was an absolute eternity. Fuck. I needed to get some control over the way I felt about her, and quick, otherwise I was going to have a complete meltdown at the side of the road and do something insane.