Whatever the Cost (43 page)

Then, as the tears come in a flood of pure shame, she is blind as well as deaf. She doesn’t hear the choked sob she makes, astonishingly loud in the stillness.

From not even a foot away, at her back, Leah hears Jacen’s hushed baritone, “There was a gas leak, so we closed early for the day.”

Big, strong hands, capable of breaking bones and ripping flesh, turn Leah around, manhandling her easily so that she faces her judge and jury. Stomach muscles clenched, cringing, an even more wrenching sob of disgrace emits from Leah and still she waits for Jacen to strike out at her. It’s not even a question in her mind at this point; Leah knows it will be coming. There’s no use fighting anymore. All is plain and bare. It’s done. This realization brings a sense of peace and acceptance. At least there isn’t anything else to be afraid of. Nothing could ever be worse than this moment.

An eternity passes. Leah’s vision swims with her fat, salty tears. Colors dance and shift before her, and she blinks, staring at whatever is held in Jacen’s hand without comprehending.

A hand touches her face.

Tenderly.

“
Leah
....” A breath. Soft as the silk skimming her bare thighs.

A moan of desolation. Leah pushes at him, trying to run, to escape. But all of her strength is gone. Liam has no strength when he is Leah. It’s who she is. She’s helpless and delicate. She’s everything Liam doesn’t dare to be.

Jacen bars her way and Leah pushes harder. It’s futile and she knows it.

“Please don’t cry,” Jacen begs. And, nonsensically, adds, “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.”

It will never be okay.

Twisting her fists in Jacen’s shirt, Leah gasps, sucking in much-needed oxygen, but the subsequent exhale is a wail of pain so acute and exquisite that, within it, the truth, in all its splendor, is communicated to Jacen as if he is seeing directly into Avery’s soul. Quickly, Jacen wraps her in a tight embrace, holding Leah to him lest she fall, sensing the weakness in her stance.

“These are for you. They’re an apology, for how I acted earlier,” Jacen tries, stumbling over the words, tripping over the roadblocks of his swelling reaction to Leah’s state.

He presses the roses to the side of Leah’s hand. The petals tickle her skin and then she can smell them. The perfume gets through the fog of shock. It’s nothing but a vapor, the most intangible thing in the world, but Leah clings to it like it’s her lifeline. She stares blankly at Jacen’s shoulder, an inch from her nose.

He brought me flowers. Jacen brought me flowers.

Because he loves me.

He loves me.

“Lee... Leah. Look at me. Please, look at me.”

Jacen hooks a finger under Leah’s chin, tilting it up slightly.

“Let me go. Just let me get changed. I can’t... God, just let me die. I wanna die.
I’m so embarrassed
.”

And Jacen can hear in her voice that it’s true. The extent of Leah’s mortification is written plainly across her face, in her body, her trembling, frantic energy. It makes Jacen want to hold her even more tightly, to soothe the hurt with tenderness. He sets the roses down to free his right hand, using it to grasp Leah’s waist as his left cups the side of Leah’s jaw. The touch lets him feel the cool, liquid texture of the dress... and what’s underneath the dress.

Shuddering with the force of the sudden hard, blunt edge of his want, Jacen closes his eyes and tries to master himself, knowing how quickly and easily he could lose control and ruin everything.

Leah feels Jacen become still as a statue, his face deliberately masking whatever expression was about to paint across it. This only stokes the fire of Leah’s panic, because Jacen has her held tightly. There is no getting away. Not now.

“Lemme go,” Leah pleads in a small voice.

Jacen’s thumb drags through the hollow of Leah’s cheek. The hand at her waist pushes hungrily down and around, kneading the flesh of her backside, grabbing a handful of muscle and squeezing. Then they’re moving. Jacen backs her up to the door of the fridge, doing even more to prevent escape. Dipping his head, Jacen frowns heavily, his eyes closed. Darkness sweeps over him, engulfing his tenderness entirely.

His lips ghost over Leah’s.

“I’m disgusting.” It’s barely spoken but audible enough at that distance.

“Shut up,” Jacen growls. He licks at the flavored gloss on Leah’s plump lips and then greedily past them, into the heat of her, tasting her, parting her without any trouble at all. Leah unfolds for him like she’s the rose. Jacen’s huge hand wraps the curve of her ass, hugging just underneath of it, guiding the leg up. Leah immediately obeys, hooking it around Jacen. Moaning thunderously, Jacen ruts in a greedy thrust against Leah’s pelvis, drinking in the nectar that is the taste of her as his hand pushes needfully up under the skirt, dragging over the waxed-smooth skin of Leah’s thigh, questing up, up, farther until he gets to the panties. With a shuddering exhale, Jacen flushes with a fresh wave of heat. It radiates from him as he fondles Leah through the sheer silk, getting achingly hard, fast. Rolling his palm over the bulge in the front, feeling the damp spot that forms in the thin material as he rubs over the crown of Leah’s dick and it weeps pre-come, she obliges by lifting her leg even higher, granting further access.

Desperate, simply needing, Jacen rubs back, over the curve of Leah’s left buttock, seeking the top edge of the panties so that he can pull them down and out of the way. He stops, freezing, not even breathing, as he feels something unexpected.

He breaks their deep kiss and stares at Leah, whose eyes are half-lidded. More truths are laid brazenly bare. Jacen
sees
. The carefully applied make-up. The corset. The dress. The air of vulnerability.

Jacen moans thickly and nuzzles into the warmth of Leah’s neck.

A whisper like damnation at his ear, soft and supple, irresistible, Jacen hears, “I want you.”

“I have your permission?”

Leah hears how far gone Jacen is. The words are just a formality, playing at civility. She feels Jacen’s fingers trace, through the panties, around the base of the silicone plug nestled snugly in her ass, and she shivers, her panties getting even wetter. The hard line of Jacen’s cock drags in a slow rut against her hip.

Knowing her answer is clear, but voicing it anyway, Leah lets Jacen stare back into her eyes as he presses two fingers at the base, driving it sharply deeper. Leah gasps softly, her lips parting, quivering.

“Yes.”

“You are...
so beautiful
,” Jacen hisses, destroyed by his lover’s exquisiteness. “Anything. Anything for you.
Anything
for you.”

Leah moans.

Jacen’s hold on himself snaps, breaking cleanly. He crouches for a second, grabbing Leah’s other leg and drawing that one up as well so that both are wound around his waist. Then he carries her like that out of the kitchen to the bedroom, kicking the door open and barreling toward the bed. He turns, sitting heavily on it.

Leah, straddling Jacen’s lap, grabs at the hem of her dress, ready to twist it up and off and pull it over her head. Jacen stops her, rasping roughly, “No. Leave it on.”

Impatiently now, Jacen falls back onto the bed, prying at his fly and zipper, trying to free himself. Leah helps him get his pants open and props herself up on the bed to give Jacen some room to push the clothing down and out of the way. Once he’s freed, Jacen pulls Leah back up closer to where he wants her and returns to a sitting position.

“This okay?”

Leah nods even as Jacen quests after her mouth, claiming it with a groan. His busy hands slip under the skirt and pull the panties down in the back, tugging at them until he has access to the deeply inserted toy. Tongue-fucking Leah’s mouth, his balls so full that he’s in real pain, Jacen gets a good grip on the base of the plug and pulls. Leah gasps softly into Jacen’s mouth. The sound gets swallowed. Leah rears up as Jacen slowly withdraws the object from her body, taking his time, not because he wants to but purely to spare Leah any discomfort. Then it’s free and Jacen tosses it away onto the bed, greedily inserting three fingers in the plug’s place, pressing them through her opening, the hot, wet ring of muscle hugging so tightly around the digits that Jacen is wracked with another shudder of lust. Panting, he gets his fingers in to the hilt; they follow up after Leah, determined, when she writhes and starts to rock up and down on them. Jacen drinks down her small mewl and thrums with need to get his cock inside her.

“Love being inside you. God, I missed this,” Jacen says roughly.

Twisting his hand, spreading the fingers apart, he tests the elasticity of the cavity, judging how much prep Leah will need. Jacen is astonished at how tight Leah is, barely able to scissor his fingers apart at all without causing her to whimper when he does. But she’s wet enough, lubed up from when she inserted the sex toy. He waits only a minute as Leah rocks down onto Jacen’s fingers, working herself on them, and then he can’t wait anymore. He plucks the digits free of her and steadies his cock by the root, aligning it with Leah’s opening and when he’s got it there, tells her with a small nod that he’s ready.

Biting at her lower lip, nose scrunched, Leah inhales a shaky breath and presses her weight down on the jutting length of Jacen’s member.

Her small cry, broken off at the edges, only drives Jacen to thrust upward as Leah rocks down. The head breaches her and the whole of his shaft is engulfed in tight, wet heat, gripped by it mercilessly. Jacen moans sharply in Leah’s ear, panting and gasping, holding her by the waist, pulling her down and making her sit on his whole cock, just pushing, pushing, pushing to burrow deeper.

“Ja-Jacen,” Leah moans, wriggling, too full too fast and throbbing from it.

Jacen’s eyes roll loosely as Leah clenches in flutters around him, her body almost unable to take the thickly engorged cock, fighting against the burn of the stretch. Running one hand up Leah’s back, over the laces of the corset, Jacen scratches over the exposed skin at Leah’s shoulders and reclaims her mouth, sucking kisses to it. He eases them into a rhythm, twitching up into Leah who begins to roll her hips, slow and shallow at first.

“Lee... Leah... Fuck you....”

Jacen’s other hand finds Leah’s cock, fingering over it through the twisted up, strained fabric of the flimsy underpants. It’s hard and the questing touches only make her harder, quickening her pace as she works herself down onto Jacen. Gasping in rough gulps of air, Jacen breaks the kiss and moans into Leah’s neck instead, urging her ever faster, twitching up as hard as he can against the swell of her ass on every down-thrust. He rides the clenched, velvety heat of her, moves in a frenzy toward a quick orgasm. Leah rides him but it’s not enough. Jacen needs more. So Jacen growls and moves them. He flips them over so that Leah is on her back, staring up at Jacen who, bent over the side of the bed with Leah’s legs wide before him, hooks his arms under her knees and holds her there, pinned and spread wide.

“Oh,
God,
” Leah moans. Her breath chokes off with the force of Jacen’s thrust after he is realigned, driving his full length into her in one push, making her whimper. The corset prohibits deep breaths and Leah can’t seem to get enough air as Jacen fucks her hard and fast, pounding her hole, making her ache with every rutting dig. It’s primal and dirty and it’s all Leah can do to grab hold of Jacen’s shoulders and bear it. The panties are twisted up too tight around her, binding her genitals cruelly and preventing any relief. Jacen’s cock feels so thick and long, splitting her in half, taking her apart, but Leah simply lets Jacen pull her thighs more widely open and claim her as deeply as he wants.

With a snarl and a grunt, Jacen twitches, shudders and comes, filling Leah with his seed, unloading deeply into the vessel of her body and then moaning loud and long through the aftershocks.

“So... fucking...
good
.”

Jacen looks utterly spent and dazed as he scans the area around them wildly. After a moment, he sees what he’s looking for and grabs at it.

“What...?” Leah starts, then chokes off a breathy grunt as Jacen tugs carefully out of her. The friction is delicious and Leah thrusts into the air, needing something to rub off against. Once freed, quickly Jacen fills her up with the plug again, watching Leah’s flushed-pink, tender hole stretch around and hug the plastic, helpless but to part around it. “Oh,
fuck
me.”

The dark lust is back in Jacen’s eyes and Leah is overcome with self-consciousness and need as Jacen fights to get the panties down and off of her, only to settle himself down between Leah’s spread thighs and begin licking her cock and balls.

“Jesus
Christ
....”

Jacen hums, tasting her. Then he opens widely and takes Leah between his lips, suckling briefly on the cockhead, then guiding her shaft back, sucking on it with shallow pulls that go deeper each time. Wrapping the silk of the dress in his fists, he takes Leah back, farther and farther until he’s got all of her cradled on his tongue, filling his throat. He pulls off slowly, giving Leah intense suction. The ridge of the crown catches on Jacen’s lips so he dives back in. It goes on and on. Jacen sucks as slowly as Leah can stand it, holding her down in defiance of the needy thrusts she tries to make, wanting to fuck Jacen’s mouth. But Jacen makes her lie there and endure it—a lazy, unhurried blowjob.