With His Protection (For His Pleasure, Book 15) (11 page)

He smiled at her with a mischievous glint in his eye. “What if I say no?”

She ran a hand through her wet hair, suddenly more aware of the closeness of her body to his, and her near nakedness. Her nipples began to stiffen beneath her damp bra, and heat formed between her legs as Bryson continued to stare at her, his eyes turning flinty and hungry as he took her in.

“Bryson,” she began, but he cut her off, his mouth enveloping hers now, his lips hot and firm and his tongue insistent on finding its way in.

Soon, she was kissing him back, just as passionately. She dropped her clothes as he scooped her off the floor and carried her to his bedroom.

Thunder echoed outside the apartment building as Bryson gently laid her down on his bed. She looked up at him, as he took his shirt off, revealing his muscular body, his perfect skin. She couldn’t wait to feel his skin against hers, and his mouth…she shuddered in anticipation of what was going to happen next.

The room was like a cocoon, Scarlett thought. Outside, the world was in chaos.

The streets were filling with water, the sky was dark and stormy, and in here they were alone and completely isolated.

All of the usual stresses were absent. There was no film being shot, no starlets, no crazy ex-boyfriend’s son, no estranged father—there was just the two of them right now. Right here.

As Bryson climbed into bed with her, Scarlett imagined herself on a boat in the middle of the ocean. The sea could carry them away together, away from all of the craziness of their lives.

I just want to be with him
.
I want to be like this forever
.

She wanted to say it aloud, but that frightened her. Don’t spoil a perfect moment, Scarlett reprimanded herself.

Bryson smiled and caressed her hair, moving a few strands out of her eyes.

“What are you thinking, beautiful?”

She sighed. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Scarlett. I’m too smart for that, and besides, I can read your mind.”

She grinned. “If you could read my mind, you wouldn’t be asking me what I’m thinking in the first place.”

Bryson raised his eyebrows, but didn’t respond. He traced a finger between her breasts and her stomach clenched with excitement. “Scarlett,” he whispered. His eyes locked on hers. “You know that my feelings for you are real, don’t you?”

She nodded. “But what if we go back to our lives and everything changes? What if things get in the way again?”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Promise?”

He continued to look deeply into her eyes. “I promise.” And then he leaned in and began to kiss her once more. Soon, Bryson was leaning his body against hers, and his chest was pressed against her, his stomach on her stomach.

His weight was a comforting pressure, and the heat coming off his skin was like a furnace.

She felt Bryson’s hand caressing her cheek and closed her eyes. His lips and fingers were like heaven, pure and unadulterated sensual pleasure. As he kissed her lips, softly, seeming to savor the taste of her mouth with his own, Bryson continued to touch her face.

Scarlett couldn’t help but smile.

“Something funny?” he asked.

She opened her eyes and found him staring at her. “I’m just…happy,” she admitted.

“Happy is good.”

“It is. It is good.” She nodded, as if reminding herself. It had been a long time since she’d felt happy in this way. Actually, come to think of it, she’d never really felt happy in exactly this way before.

Bryson stroked her cheek—the cheek that wasn’t cut—and his eyes softened even further as he watched her. “Until I met you, I really wasn’t sure if I could love someone.

I honestly didn’t care about anything but finding a way to get my scripts made.”

“And now?”

“And now, everything’s changed.” He leaned in and softly kissed her neck.

A beautiful chill ran up and down her spine. “I hope it’s true.”

“It is true,” he whispered, kissing a little further down. “Why won’t you believe me, Scarlett?”

“I’ve just been let down so many times in my life.”

Suddenly his hands moved to her breasts. He began softly touching them, almost as if he was curious. But each time his skin grazed her skin, she shivered and moaned.

“Everything about you makes me crazy,” he said softly, as his hands grasped her breasts more fully. “Your skin, your smell, your eyes. I want to make you as crazy as you make me.”

“God, Bryson—you do.”

“I want to make you fucking come.”

“I want you to make me come,” she moaned.

He played with her nipples, exposed them, and then his tongue and lips were on them, sucking forcefully. She could feel all of his passion, his wanting, his excitement.

Even though she was nervous, afraid of being let down again, she was powerless to resist him. Bryson’s mouth was on her nipples and his hands were sliding down to her panties, slowly pulling them down. Scarlett lifted her buttocks so he could slide them off more easily, and soon she was bare and waiting for him.

He started to kiss down her stomach, and each kiss was another tattoo of shivery pleasure, and her stomach tensed and flexed as he licked and kissed her skin.

She wanted him between her legs so badly that she could hardly stand it. The waiting was too much, and Scarlett was impatient for him.

Finally, Bryson’s tongue was flicking the top of her mound. She cried out, her fists clenching. He stayed at the very top of her entrance, breathing, softly kissing, his tongue coming in and out, teasing her cruelly.

“Please, Bryson,” she said. “I need you.”

Suddenly, he spread her legs wide, exposing everything. He licked from the bottom to the very top of her wet slit. Her thighs convulsed, but Bryson’s hands were firm and he was holding each leg tightly. “Look at you. Look at how fucking gorgeous you are, how wet. You taste unbelievable,” he said, his voice heavy with lust.

She threw her head back, breathing heavily. It was almost too much. She was going to scream or cry if she didn’t have an orgasm.

Bryson grabbed her hips, scooped her up, and easily flipped her onto her stomach.

He spread her legs again, still keeping her stomach flattened to the bed. Soon, Scarlett could feel his lips pressing against her pussy from behind. His tongue was fucking her, entering her deepest place, spreading her from the inside out.

Her hands reached out and grabbed the pillow. She cried out, with a body spasm to go along with it. “I’m going to come soon,” Scarlett warned him.

“No you’re not,” he responded. And then Bryson was climbing on top of her, and he was naked. He must have removed his boxers. She could feel him hard, unrestrained, pressing against her buttocks. “You’re not going to come until I say so. Is that understood?”

“I’m not sure I can stop myself,” she whined.

“You have to. You have to do as I say.”

His voice had shifted, changed. Scarlett understood that Bryson was simply giving her what she wanted, needed. She loved to be loved, but she also wanted that other thing. She wanted to be fucked, to be controlled—taken without reservation.

But to know that underneath it all, she could truly trust him, that he actually cared for her—it made everything so much more. More real. More everything.

She was wetter than she’d ever been. Her juices were soaking the bed. Bryson grabbed her wrists and pulled them behind her back, as if he was handcuffing her.

“Tell me you’re going to be good,” he demanded.

“I’m going to be good.”

He slapped her ass with one hand, while his other hand held her wrists together.

“Are you going to take all of it?”

“Yes.”

“Damn right you are.” He began pushing his huge cock against her pussy from behind. The pressure was amazing, and she was so wet that he slid in easier than she would have expected.

She moaned, squeezing her eyes tightly, concentrating on avoiding the inevitable climax.

Bryson slid himself slowly in and out, his hand gripping her wrists while he gave Scarlett stinging slaps on her buttocks. “You’re so fucking tight and wet right now,” he growled. “I want you to take every last inch of me, all the way. As deep as I can go.”

“I’ll take everything you give me,” she whispered, as she felt him simultaneously pushing into her, tunneling the deepest anyone had ever gone. He was touching something inside of her that went far beyond the physical realm. Scarlett could hear him, the way his breathing was coming in fast gasps, the way his body heat was so intense that sweat was pouring off him, and she could feel his struggle to maintain his own composure.

To know that she had a certain hold on him, that he was as excited by her body and her touch as she was by his, made the power dynamic between them that much more intriguing. Bryson was completely in charge, and she liked it that way. But it wasn’t really that simple, because she knew that he was watching her, feeding off her enjoyment, and that much of what he was doing now was because he knew how much she liked it.

And she did like it. She could barely restrain herself from having a screaming orgasm. Bryson was in and out, in and out, his thrusts ferocious and yet loving and sensual all at the same time.

“I’m going to come soon,” he told her. “But I want you to come first. Come right now for me.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned. Immediately, she felt a surge of pleasure throughout her entire body. Her tunnel contracted, expanded, contracted again, sending shivers of excitement through every nerve ending. It was building. It was happening. A wave of emotion so intense that she nearly cried, and perhaps would have, except that she wasn’t quite ready to be that vulnerable in front of him. And then she was climaxing and Bryson was climaxing too.

It wasn’t completely intentional on his part. “Fuck,” he groaned, and then he was thrusting and she knew he was releasing everything inside her. “You feel too good,” he said, as he came with her.

They continued to move together as the last reverberations of their sex ricocheted back and forth between their bodies.

Finally, Bryson moved off her and lied on his back, gathering her into his arms and kissing her forehead. She found herself held tightly, her cheek on his chest, listening to his fast but rhythmic heartbeat.

“I feel so close to you,” she murmured. “Is that okay?”

“It’s better than okay.”

She smiled to herself. “I just want it to be like this forever.”

“Me too.”

At just that moment, the power came on. The overhead light suddenly turned on, and the digital clock. Bryson sat up. “Hey, look at that!” he said, laughing.

Scarlett sat up more slowly, feeling strangely crestfallen. “Do you think it’s going to stay on?”

“I don’t know. But I’m glad it’s back.”

“Oh, of course,” she lied. Inside, a sense of foreboding was overcoming her. But she didn’t know why. What was wrong with the power coming back?

Nothing. That’s what was wrong with it. She decided she must be hormonal and overly emotional from the intense sexual encounter with Bryson.

Bryson looked at her and grinned. “Kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?” she asked, suddenly afraid of what he would say next. Couldn’t he see how vulnerable she was, and that she wanted to be held? She wasn’t ready for glib conversations about irony.

“Well, we went out and risked our lives to get food and water and the power came back on within and hour of us getting home.”

She smiled, more at the way he’d called it home, almost as if they shared the apartment with one another. “It’s pretty silly.”

“Well, the good news is we have plenty of beef jerky.” He slid off the bed, grabbing a pair of sweat pants from nearby and getting into them.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Oh. Right.” She smiled lamely. Her stomach felt as though it had fallen into a crater.

“Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “Keep me company.”

She brightened a little. “All right.”

And then they went, together.

***

Bryson got on his laptop almost immediately, sitting on the sofa with Scarlett next to him. She had picked up a novel from the small bookcase nearby and began reading, for lack of anything better to do.

It was strange, now that the power was back on. The storm seemed less menacing and intense than it had just an hour or two before. It also felt as though whatever spell had come over them had been broken, and now it was back to the world and back to life as usual.

Scarlett was disappointed that the magic was gone, but she also was surprised to find that something new had taken its place.

She found that she rather liked the prospect of being in Bryon’s “real life” as much or even more than she had relished their escape from real life during the storm.

With Bryson working steadily on his laptop, the soothing sounds of his fingers tap-tapping on the keyboard, Scarlett read her book lazily, her mind calm and body relaxed.

She looked up at him once and awhile and smiled, appreciating the seriousness with which he worked.

Oh my God, she suddenly realized during one such moment. I think I’m in love with him.

It was at just that second, when all the blood must have drained from her face, that Bryson looked up and caught her expression. “Hey, what’s the matter?” he said, leaning forward.

She blinked, licked her lips and attempted a smile. “Nothing,” she croaked. Then she cleared her throat. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Really? Maybe I’m just tired or something.” She feigned innocence, even as everything spun. She was awash in strange emotions. Fear, elation, dread, bliss—all of them overwhelmed her.

“You probably just need to eat something sensible,” Bryson told her. “No more beef jerky for you.”

She made a pouting expression, relieved that he wasn’t pursuing the real reason for her strange behavior. “I don’t want to eat sensibly.”

“Maybe in a few minutes I’ll make something for us.”

“No,” she replied. “I’ll make something for us.”