IGNITE : A BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE Page 5

  “You smell so good,” he says and I sighed at his words, laying back onto the comfortable bed and gazing at the ceiling as he begins to draw my panties down my thighs. I want to give myself over the physical sensations. It’s been a while since I’d had any kind of satisfaction that wasn’t at my own hand. But I never find it easy to separate mind from body, even when I want to so badly.

  His thumbs pull me open, tongue pressing on my clit so hard I groan. “That’s it,” he whispers, sliding his fingers inside me. “Let me hear what’s good, baby.”

  “That’s good,” I tell him when he spreads his fingers and opens me up, licking over my clit with his rough, hot tongue. “Oh…keep doing that.”

  Robert hums in approval and the vibrating sensations take me by surprise. My eyes squeeze shut because I know that if I look down at him I might start to think again. The thick blood-red color on the inside of my eyes is like a velvet blindfold that I feel safe behind.

  Robert pulls his fingers out, and then twists in another, grazing me inside with the bones of his fingers, making me pant as he pumps roughly. I don’t know how he knows what will get me off. Maybe I’m so unique in my physiology. I need rough ringers and a relentless tongue to send me over the edge, preferably with enough dirty talk to set my mind alight. Robert is silent, though, working diligently as though he knows I’m getting close. “You like that, don’t you,” he says, grazing my clit with his teeth.

  “Oh fuck,” I groan, arching up off the bed. He’s right. I can’t get enough.

  “That’s it, Analie. Show me how much you want to come. Work for it.”

  I start to roll my hips, fucking myself onto his fingers and mouth. It feels so good. So fucking amazing to let go and just feel. All I can think about is the orgasm that’s so close can almost touch it.

  “Fuck, that looks so good.”

  I open my eyes to see what he’s talking about and know what he means straight away. In the dim light, my undulating body looks so fluid and graceful, his hand between my legs so big and powerful. I don’t stop moving, even when I catch his eyes. Especially when he’s looking at me because the fire I see in his gaze is what pushes me over the edge.

  “Oh fuck,” I say, my toes curling into a cramp and my hips aching from exertion.

  When Robert pulls his hand from inside me, I curl onto my side and relished the oblivion of the moments after the greatest pleasure a person can ever feel. Robert gets up and walks around the side of the bed. I hear the slide of a drawer and the rustle of foil, and then he’s laying behind me. I want to roll over to face him, but he puts a hand on my shoulder to prevent me from turning.

  “Stay like that,” he says gruffly. One of his thighs pushes against mine, pressing my top leg higher and opening me up. Robert uses the head of his cock to slide up and over my clit, nudging inside me just a little each time until I’m shifting to let him in.

  “You ready?” His breath is hot and warm against the skin of my neck.

  “Yes,” I whisper even though I’m not entirely sure. I know this is crazy. I’m so vulnerable but it feels like I need this to break through the hurt and the grief.

  Robert pushes his hips forward, gripping my flesh with his rough fingers and pulling me back against him. I can’t describe how good it feels when he first penetrates me. The strength of the need I felt for him is intensely sharp. He moves so slowly, breathing ragged against my shoulder and his body trembling slightly behind me. It’s the restraint, I think. I don’t know how he’s managing to hold himself back, but he is. When he’s all the way in it’s like he couldn’t hold on to the control anymore. I’m not sure what I expected Robert to be like when he fucked. He’s a good dancer and knows how to guide a partner too. He has a good heart. I know these things, so I made assumptions about how he’d move.

  None of those assumptions were right.

  He’s rough, grasping my hair tightly until my scalp burns, pushing my face into the comforter and rolling me over. He’s so heavy on top of me, so wild and out of control as he uses me for his pleasure. I don’t want it to be so raw between us. I want to hold him tight and feel his enjoyment. Instead, he grinds into me harshly, snaking his hand beneath me to press on my clit.

  “Fuck yeah,” he says. “You feel so good, Analie.”

  He’s right, it does feel good. His cock is big and so damn hard, and as he pushes his finger against me in the rhythm of his thrusts, I realize I’m going to come again. I don’t understand it. Rough sex isn’t something I’ve ever fantasized about, but with each tug of my hair, with each burning thrust of his cock, I get wetter.

  “Shit,” he groans, pulling his hips back until his cock is on the very edge of my pussy, and then thrusting back in. The noise of our skin slapping fills the room. “Fuck, Analie. I can feel you getting tighter.”

  I am. I can feel it too. I groan when his finger stops rubbing but then he pinches my clit hard and I see stars. It’s an orgasm like I’ve never experienced before. A wracking, wretched thing, extracted from somewhere deep in my soul that I didn’t know existed and I’m not sure I like.

  Robert thrusts through the clamping waves of my body, going still as he comes hard inside me. His grip on my hair is vicious, as though he’d forgotten what he was holding onto was part of me, but the pain only made the pleasure harsher.

  My body is shaking and so is his. I feel like I can’t breathe, not only because of the weight of him still resting against me but because the rawness of the sex is too much. I feel as though he’s reached deep inside me and rummaged around, leaving a tangled mess of thoughts and feelings behind. His breathing is ragged too. I don’t know what jolts him from the dark place he seems to have entered but he pulls his dick from between my legs and rolls off me until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Are you okay,” he whispers from behind me. I don’t turn to see if he’s watching me. I can’t face him and keep my voice even.

  “Yeah,” I whisper back.

  “Good.” He touches my shoulder and then the bed shifts as he stands. “I’m going to take a quick shower, then I’ll drive you home, okay?”

  “Sure,” I say. My mind is frazzled, my body weak and ravaged, but I know what I need to do next.

  Robert pads across the room, and a door closes. When the water starts I’m up and off the bed, pulling my clothes on quickly. I tiptoe into the kitchen to gather my coat and bag, then I’m out of his front door as fast as my feet will carry me. With a pounding heart, I push the button for the elevator, praying it will come quickly. I have to get out of here. I can’t face him.

  How does a person rationalize when they have the best sex of their life but it should have been the worst? I came so hard I’d seen stars but it was the coldest, most remote experience of my life.

  I feel so empty it actually hurts. As I watch the elevator rise up the floors, I check over my shoulder to make sure Robert isn’t there. My breath hitches as I realize he’d held me face down and maybe it had been because he didn’t want to look at my scars. It doesn’t matter how much he protests that it has nothing to do with anything, I know it does. I heard it in his voice. ‘Stay like that’, he said; face down and anonymous.

  Just a hole to take all his aggression out on.

  So why had I taken so much pleasure in it?

  The elevator door opens and I’m in and pressing the button for the ground floor in a flash. By the time I’m out of the doors at the front of his building I’m crying. I walk a block before I can hail a cab. The driver is dark haired and olive skinned and he looks at me pityingly, then passes me a box of man-sized tissues.

  By the time I’m home I’m wrung out. When I check my phone I have five missed calls from Robert, but I don’t call him back. Instead, I switch off my phone and fling it on my nightstand.

  I can’t even find the energy to shower before I get into bed and slip into a fitful sleep.

  8

  ROBERT

  I’m shaking and my heart is hammering against my ribs
as I stagger into the bathroom. I go to take a shower, not because I feel dirty but because I need to get my head together. I like the feeling of Analie’s sweat on my skin and her scent on me. As I wash, my hands itch to touch her again. But the sex was too intense. The most intense I’ve ever had and I have no idea how we managed to go from having a conversation over hot chocolate to that.

  I hold my face in my hands and breathed deep as the water cascades over my naked body. I feel woozy and so empty as though the intensity of our connection has ripped me open.

  When Analie came against my tongue I burned to get inside her but I knew, if I looked into her eyes while we were fucking I would have lost the desperate grip I had on my emotions. I’d have lost my control on the creeping, dark self-loathing I’d been pushing down inside for so long. Being with Analie felt so right but that’s what made it so wrong. How was it okay for me to ‘feel’ when Bethany was never going to be anything more than a memory.

  I don’t deserve satisfaction.

  I don’t deserve anything, not after what I did.

  After ten minutes of trying to regain my composure, I emerge into the bedroom wearing just a towel around my hips, expecting to find Analie dosing. We need to talk about what happened between us, but there’s no way I want to open up to her about the things she seemed intent on digging up.

  The only person I ever talk about Bethany to is my brother and that’s only because he was the one who picked me up and helped me back onto my feet. He saw me through the worst time of my life and I saw him through the worst of his. Brothers can be close, but I know that it’s only shared experiences that create true empathy between people. We might have our rows and silly little incidents where we found ways to prod at each other’s tender spots, but that’s what sibling relationships are like. In my heart, I know my brother has my back. It’s why he came to New York for the weekend.

  In the bedroom, the covers are wrinkled and the pillows strewn around, but I know immediately that Analie isn’t there. I stroll out to the kitchen, expecting to find her dressed and back at the counter. I get the feeling that she needs to be ‘put together’ to feel right in her own skin. What we just did unraveled us both.

  I glance around but she isn’t here.

  I call out her name, thinking that maybe she’s gone to use a bathroom in another part of the apartment, but only silence meets my shout. I walk from room to room, double checking to prove what I already know in my gut.

  She’s gone.

  Analie waited for me to lock the bathroom door and then she took off.

  I grab my phone and dial her number, now fearful that she might be risking her safety to flee from me without so much as a goodbye. I know the sex was intense; way too intense for two people who know each other so little.

  I know why I needed space after.

  But why has she left?

  The phone rings and rings, then clicks into voicemail. Her recorded message is brief but she sounds so happy as she tells me she’s unavailable and that I should leave my name and number. The first time I call, I contemplate asking her where she is and why she left, but I don’t. The second time she doesn’t pick up, I hang up and swear. Analie can’t have gotten far. Why isn’t she picking up?

  I ring three more times, each time catching just the first two words of her message before clicking off. By the final attempt, I’m sitting slumped on my couch, staring at the floor. My skin has goosebumps from where I’m still damp from the shower. My heart is heavy, weighted down by guilt and confusion.

  I know she enjoyed the sex. The way she came when I was inside her was so fierce and her moans were so frantic they’d driven me over into oblivion myself. Maybe it was too much under the circumstances. She was upset about Summer and I brought her back here to take care of her. Instead, I prodded at her emotions and then took her to the edge physically.

  It wasn’t my plan but that doesn’t make it okay.

  I should have known better. I should have acted more responsibly.

  I can’t put my finger on what it is, but there’s something about Analie that gets under my skin. Maybe it’s her intelligence and her quick-witted comments; I’ve always been drawn to women who have some sharp edges. She’s beautiful, of course, despite her physical scars. Or maybe it’s because of them. It’s hard to imagine her without them, they are so much a part of her. Maybe it’s the way she seems intent against accepting my attempts at keeping her at arms-length. As much as I hate the way she looks at me as though I’m a patient she wants to fix, there’s another part of me who’s grateful for her care.

  I don’t know what to do. I feel worn out and exhausted. I need sleep, but how can I rest without knowing Analie is safe? The trouble is, apart from her phone number, the only other thing I know about Analie is where she works. I have no way to of confirming that she made it home safely until the morning, and I know that worrying about her is going to keep me from sleeping.

  I know a lot about sleeplessness.

  I know a lot about the restless, horrible hours where an exhausted mind conjures greater horrors than really exist, even when the place you are in during waking hours seems like the depths of hell.

  After what happened to Bethany, I struggled to find anything productive that I could concentrate on for any period of time. I flitted between activities, never taking on anything very seriously. The counselling my parents had insisted on had been a waste of time except for two pieces of advice. The first was to work with a charity as a way of giving back and feeling useful. Working with the burns charity is the best thing I ever did. The second was to write things down.

  I’m not sure that what I ended up writing is what the therapist had in mind. If she thought, I was going to pour my heart into a diary, she was sorely mistaken. I needed distraction not another place to dwell in my torment. Fantasy novels are where I found my niche, or at least writing them has been cathartic enough to take the edge off my misery. When my mind is lost in the past, I use writing to bring be back to the present and with sleep an unlikely prospect, I go to my room to drag on some sweats. When I’m dressed, I make my way to the office that houses my computer and extensive collection of well-thumbed books.

  As soon as I start typing the time seems to pass quickly. At about 3am I finally feel exhausted enough to stop. There’s a small day bed in my office and I lay down there, clutching my phone, thinking about Analie until sleep steals me away.

  9

  Analie

  The room is dark. The covers are rumpled and twisted as though I’ve awoken from a fitful sleep. Something uneasy rests inside me; a sense of foreboding.

  I turn over and stare towards the window. There is enough of a draft that the drapes stir and a shiver run across my skin. I pull the covers higher, tucking them around my neck.

  My mouth is dry, my eyes still sticky with sleep and inside me, my heart aches.

  I want to cry but I don’t.

  I want to curl up into a ball and hide here. If I could let the world outside pass me by, I would.

  “You won’t always feel this way,” I hear my mom say from the back of my mind.

  At first, I was angry with her. “How would you know?” I fumed. “Your face is normal. You don’t have to walk around looking like a freak.”

  Her eyes would brim with tears and my insides would feel slick with darkness; bitter angry feelings that I couldn’t seem to escape from.

  I start to sweat.

  The covers are stifling so I push them away. My limbs are restless, calves aching with pent-up rage. I need to run. I need to get out of this place but it’s dark so I can’t.

  Only foolish girls who don’t value their own safety go out at night.

  The drapes rustle again.

  There’s a bang downstairs but it doesn’t concern me. Mom and dad are in the den, probably. Dad has probably knocked over one of his empties from the coffee table, I think.

  Or maybe mom dropped one when she was clearing up. She doesn’t want me to know that
dad has a problem. She wants to brush it all under the rug and pretend it’s all going to be okay. She wants to bury her head in the sand the way she always does.

  How is anything ever going to be okay?

  There’s another bang and I’m sweating even more. Dad must have fallen asleep and left the heating on.

  I roll over in bed, stretching my restless legs.

  For a second my mind drifts to school. I’m sure I have an assignment that’s due. Have I started it? My mind feels foggy, arms heavy as I stretch.

  It’s only then I notice the smell of smoke and the lick of orange light through the crack under the door.

  Fire…

  10

  Robert

  When my phone rings noisily, I’m jolted awake into a room filled with sunshine. I squint down at the caller display, thinking it might be Analie to let me know she’s okay, but it’s just Aaron.

  “Hey,” I say croakily. “What time is it?”

  “10 am, you lazy son of a bitch,” he laughs.

  “Fuck,” I say, rubbing my eyes with my free hand. I’m groggy and dry-mouthed and my heart is racing from the shock of being woken from such a deep sleep.

  “Were you up late last night?” Aaron asks.

  “Something like that.”

  “Anyone I know?” I can hear the smile on his lips.

  “Definitely not!”

  He laughs. “That’s probably a good thing. So, I’m on my way to yours. I dropped Nicole at the airport.”

  “Did you have a good night?”

  “She’s going overseas and I probably won’t see her for two weeks…what do you think?”

  “I think you probably feel like your dick is going to fall off.”

  “Pretty damn close.”

  “So, what do you want to do today?” I ask, even though all I want to do at this point is bury my head under the pillow and go back to sleep.