Cuts Like An Angel (26 page)

“You like this?” The question shook between her eager breaths.

He answered her with a harsh groan and several nods. She stared into his eyes, making sure they said the same. She found a silent beg to take him where he didn’t dare ask her in the blue depths. She answered it with a lusty hiss, gripping him even tighter.

“Yes,” he gushed, clenching his eyes.

She let his body tell her all the secrets he couldn’t say. The way he responded to her harsh grip, like it drew out that vulnerable person he was scared to become, made her drunk with the purpose to bring him out. Her own desire had her to the point of shameless moans edged with lusty hunger. She spoke to him with it, saying yes. Yes. I like you like this. I like making you this person, I like taking you to this place.

She pushed his legs back, wishing she could open him wider. He choked on a harsh grunt when she circled the head tightly again, spreading his pre-cum all over.

“God, yes,” she said in amazement, moving her other hand quickly along his shaft to the very base.

He let go of the tub and gripped her hand with his and cupped his balls with the other. She met his gaze to see what he wanted and whimpered at the harsh demands in his eyes. Her brazen courage faltered under the dominance in his stare and grip of his fingers on hers.  He’d gone from yes do it to
do it now and don’t fucking stop.

Rosie returned her focus to doing just that, her moans becoming frantic with his desire. His grip on her hand bit, and rough growls edged his every breath as he approached his orgasm. She watched him, his head back again, his mouth open as it slowly took his body over.

“Yes, yes,” she gasped, working her hands faster.

His head shot forward with strained panting, his gaze hard on what she did now before it shot up to hers. “Fuck,” he gasped, opening his mouth with drawn brows, not breaking eye contact.

“Do it,” she urged, moving her hands so fast and hard along him. She glanced down and suddenly lowered, taking the thick head of his cock into her mouth and sucking frantically.

He held her head and bucked his hips, coming instantly with rough snarls, his fingers pulling her hair in a painful grip that forced electricity into her clit.

Wave after wave gripped him and then finally he slowed, she slowed, watching his stomach and chest heaving, his moans sated and amazed.

It made her smile. “I did good?” she had to know, crawling her way to his mouth.

“Oh God,” he barely muttered, his head still back and his eyes closed. “Good,” he breathed, shaking his head a little. “That’s a stupid word for what that was.” Her smile grew and he finally brought his head forward. “That was traumatic.”

She did a giggling victory dance and he pulled her to him for a long soft kiss.

“Now I’m scared,” he whispered in her mouth, his fingers stroking incessantly along her face and neck.

“Why?” she asked, pulling back, worried.

“That you’ve woken a beast.”

She smiled and climbed on his waist. “I’m not scared.”

“You should be,” he murmured, angling his head while she gave him soft kisses. “He’s very naughty. He likes to toy with his food then gobble it all up. Then he spits it back out, nurses it to health only to do it all over again. A vicious cycle.”

She laughed and he smiled up at her. “What if I told you it’s my secret desire to get toyed with and gobbled up?”

His gaze slowly lowered to her breasts and he reached up and held them with a weighing touch. “We’re a mess aren’t we, Rosie?”

His eyes lifted back up to hers, edged with that serious glint. Rosie held onto his hands and nodded. “I think so. A perfect mess.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Josh

His body ached in all the right places. The sweet scent of her clung to his skin like fine silk that he couldn’t get enough of and had to breathe in just one last time. She positively glowed, sitting opposite him on the bed. She wore his shirt, buttoned up and stopping just at that spot that made him want to reach over and flick the top button so that he could see her again. She held the mug in her hands, leaning it on her bent knee. He was utterly mesmerised by her. She didn’t even realise it.

“What are you smiling at?” she asked, tilting her head to the side to look at him. She didn’t have a fucking clue did she? How special she was. No one … no one at all ever got this close to him.

“You,” he whispered. “Just you.”

She smiled and looked away from him, causing him to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a few moments and when she raised her head, her expression questioning him, he added, “about just storming in. I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m glad you did.”

He wanted to believe that, he really did, but women … William’s mother had taught him long ago that they were just the same as men. No version was different. All of them out for their own sick and twisted need and it didn’t matter who they stood on to get there. It was hard for him to believe it, though, with Rosie. She didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in her body. It made him wonder what her story was … the full story.

“What happened to your face,” she asked eventually. “And your arm?”

He touched his fingers to his forehead. He’d forgotten that. “I tripped, it’s nothing.” Tripped? How many times had he used that excuse as a child? So much so that they considered diagnosing him with dyspraxia for being so damn clumsy. “I was getting off my bike and my foot caught. That’s all. Stupid shit.”

“And your arm?”

“I told you earlier,” Josh said, crossing his arms over to hide them. Not that it was much use, they were covered in marks. Years of them. His skin had long ago become his canvas on which he wrote every ounce of pain he felt. It was better there, where he couldn’t feel the weight of it in his chest.

“No,” she leaned over, delicately pulling his arm down.”

He stared where she was looking, across his skin. Silver lines marred his arm where he had cut over and over across the years. Scars that had never properly healed. The angry marks from nights ago, the gash from last night.

“You can tell me, you know. Remember where I work?”

He raised his eyes to meet hers. Her beautiful, dark eyes, staring up at him, full of caring and love … love. Could she ever do that did she think? Love him? The impossible creature that deserved nothing from anyone. He opened his mouth to speak, suddenly feeling like he could tell her. He could tell her everything, but what would he say to her? I did it to myself? It was so pathetic, even saying the words in his mind, let alone saying them to someone else.

She smiled sweetly at him, the gentle curve in her mouth giving that slight dimple she had. She put her mug in the side table and crawled to him. She raised her hand to his face, laying her soft warm palm against his stubbled chin. He leaned into it, feeling the full warmth of it and taking selfish comfort from her touch. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

He covered her hand with his, angling his head so that he could kiss the inside of her palm and breathe the scent of her in. He brought his own hand up to her face, pushing back her hair so that he could look at just how beautiful she was. He opened his mouth, closed it again reminiscent of some stupid goldfish. He closed his eyes, sighing.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Whatever it is. Tell me now, tell me later, but promise to tell me?” She held his face with both of her hands, one on either side, tilting his head to her. The sound of his stubble against her soft skin.

“One day.”

She bit her lip, staring right into his eyes, looking at each of them in turn, studying him with such scrutiny that he was sure she could see right inside him. Maybe she would see the darkness there. She would see what ugly monster lived inside him—William. And then she would cast him away like everyone else did.

He lowered his head a little, her hands still on his face. He smiled, not being able to contain it, as he raised his eyes only to meet hers again.

“What?” she asked.

“I have such a perfect view of your breasts here,” he said, angling his head to peer down the entire length of her.

“Joshua,” she scolded playfully, smacking him against the chest throwing him off balance. She laughed when he landed on the floor with a thud. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” she said between fits of laughter as she stared at him from the edge

He lay on his back, staring up at her before leaning on his elbows. “Yes, I can clearly see that.”

“Well it’s your own fault,” she sniggered.

“Ha. No. You flash your boobs at me and expect me not to look. You owe me now,” he said with a smirk on his face. He reached up, grabbing hold of her wrist and pulled. She didn’t get time to react as she landed right on his groin, sending him groaning in pain. 

“Josh,” she squealed struggling until she sat on his waist.

“You’re so damn fit, do you know that?” he said, eyeing her body.

She tucked hair behind her ear and leaned so that her face was over him. “Well I try to eat healthily.”

He frowned at her a second and then chuckled. “You know fit here means I think you’re hot?”

Rosie’s face flushed instantly. “It does?”

Josh nodded. “Yep. Write that in your little notebook.”

“You think I’m fit?”

“I think you’re damn sexy.” Josh grabbed the sides of her shirt and yanked, snapping the buttons off, and exposing her to him.  “That’s better,” he said.

“You’re so bad.” She leaned down to him, kissing softly against his lips. She nibbled lightly along his jaw and he reached up, cupping both of her breasts in his hands.

Already, he felt himself growing hard under where she sat. He opened his mouth to her and she copied him, pushing her tongue in deep. He groaned into the kiss. “Shit, Rosie. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

She wiggled her hips against him, grinding down against his erection. “Maybe,” she teased.

He grabbed the fabric of the shirt just as loud banging startled them both, sending them both scrambling to their feet.  With his heart in his throat, it took a moment for him to realise that it was the door.  He reached to the table for his watch. Ten at night? “Who the hell would call at this time?” he cursed.

“You’re not expecting anyone?”

“No. No one visits me.” He kissed her, pushing her back until she hit the bed. He sat her there and said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll get rid of them. Probably someone with a blown out tyre or some shit like that. You can keep the bed warm for me.”

  Josh pulled on a pair of jeans before leaving the bedroom and racing downstairs into darkness. He could make out the silhouette of a woman. Lights shone behind her and he could tell from the diesel rumble that it was a bomber taxi. His chest tightened at it.

Maria?
Fuck
.

He opened the door, fully prepared to bundle her back into the cab and ship her off, no matter what. Her home could have burned down for all he cared. She was not taking this moment from him. She had taken enough. She’d barely left him as the man that he was now.

He yanked the door open, mouth set in a firm line. A woman stood there, young, light brown hair, her expression posed and perfect with a wooden pole stuck right up her ass.

“I’ve come to see Rosie,” she said in an accent similar to Rosie’s but a little stronger. She waved to the driver, who brought her bag and placed it down next to her.

“And you would be?”

“Cold and tired,” she shot. “Are you going to let me in or is it customary in this blightful country to leave guests standing on the doorstep?”

Josh stepped back, opening the door wider to let her in. Her sister, what the bloody hell? She eyed him once inside and he reluctantly retrieved her gigantic suitcase and rolled it in.

“Rosie,” he called up the stairs, pushing the front door shut.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Rosie

Rosie screeched at seeing her sister and dodged out of sight, leaning her head to see. “What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t mom tell you I was coming early?”

“No? She said you were coming earlier not this early. Is she here?” God she was
not
ready for her.

“She couldn’t make it. She had to attend a party and she sent me to acquire all her little details.”

A painful anger stabbed Rosie’s stomach with that news. A party. “I’ll be right down,” she stammered, angling her head to see what Josh was doing. Oh shit, he was shirtless and appearing very awkward. She stifled the urge to call his name. She didn’t want to sound like she was jealous but leaving him with her boyfriend stealing sister was out of the question. “Josh, can you help me with that … that drawer?”

“Sure,” he called sounding relieved. He mumbled something to which her sister replied with a thank you. Rosie’s stomach knotted in response. What did she thank him for? Why did she use her slutty tone? He better not have complimented her.

She paced in his room, waiting. Wow, a
party
. The door opened and she turned and found Josh entering with a perturbed expression. She peered behind him making sure her sister hadn’t followed him up. She was just the type to do that. “A party,” Rosie said. “She had to go to a
party
. What am I supposed to do with my sister here?” She gestured at the door. “How long does she intend to collect mom’s details?” She eyed Josh who stood with his hands on hips, shaking his head like he wished he had those answers. “Please put your clothes on, the last thing she needs is to see what’s for dessert.”

He gave her raised brows. “But I’m not on the menu.”

“Exactly, so she doesn’t need to be drooling over you. What was she thanking you for?”

“I told her to make herself at home.”

Rosie snorted. “That’s the same as an invitation to screw. We definitely don’t want her making herself at home.”

“It’s just manners, Rosie,” he said with the hint of a smile.

Rosie yanked her torn shirt closed tighter and went back to pacing. “Well … don’t use so many manners with her. Where she comes from, it’s a form of flirting, an invitation to hop in the bed and steal your boyfriend.”

“She did that to you?” he asked, sounding shocked to which she nodded vigorously with wide eyes.

“Oh yes. And you know what she had the nerve to tell me when I told her that’s what she did, when I pointed it out?”

“What?” he said, watching her pace.

Rosie stopped and faced him with hands on her hips. “I did it to
help
you,” she said, choking out the same, loud, bullshit laugh she had when her sister had the nerve to first say it.

“Bloody fucking hell,” Josh muttered, dumbfounded.

She nodded more at him. “Oh yes. She lovingly sacrificed her—vagina,” she blurted, going back to pacing, “Just to test the loyalty of my boyfriends.” Rosie plopped down on the bed. “You know, at first I told myself, well hell, that is a sorry testament to the men, right?”

“Absolutely,” he said, coming to sit next to her.

“And then you start to think, wait a minute. Wait a minute,” she held up her finger. “Maybe it’s actually a testament to how
sorry
of a catch
I
am! Because not a damn one of my boyfriends liked me enough not to survive her
yawning…
cawing …
cavernous …
pubic trap. And do you know she had the nerve to do it where I could
hear?
”

“Oh my
God,
” he muttered, sounding disgusted.

His disapproval made her blood bubble with warm satisfaction. “My thoughts exxxxactly. So don’t be offering her
anything,
” she warned. “Because I’m telling you right now, and no offense, but if you hurt me with
her
? I will ...” She pointed near his humoured expression. “I will do something that will … really
shock
you.”

He suddenly pushed her back onto the bed and kissed her with a breath stealing hunger. “Shock me?” he finally whispered on her mouth, his hands gripping her breast with a covetous force.

“Yes.” The wimpy word fluttered out.

“You’ll be the one shocked before this is all over my sweet Rosie. So … very … shocked.”

She gasped in his mouth when his hand cupped her privates and his finger slid inside her. His kiss and eager probing stole every thought until she was opening and pushing into his palm.

“Touch yourself for me,” he whispered, yanking her shirt open. With a groan he captured her nipple in his teeth. “Rub it fast Rosie.”