Break Me (8 page)

“Yes,” I managed to say around my raw throat. It was a fantastic feeling.

“What did I promise you before, Claire? I want to hear you say it.”

“You promised to fuck me.” It felt good to say it. It felt like coming alive again.

“Yes, I did.” He placed his hands on either side of my head, leaned down and kissed me, soft, gentle. “Now, tell me what you want.”

“I want you to fuck me.” No words were ever truer.

“Good girl.” One more tender kiss, his fingers sliding through my pussy, his cock pressed to my entrance, and one solid thrust later, he was inside. I gasped at the invasion, at the fullness, at the stretch. I gasped because the feel of him took my breath away. I gasped because it felt so damn good.

He didn’t move, just throbbed inside me, letting me adjust, letting his tongue explore my mouth at leisure. I squeezed my muscles around him and he ended the kiss. “You ready?”

“Please…” The word broke as it escaped my lips. “Please.” Sensation flooded me and threatened to pull me under, drown me.

He eased back, sliding his cock around the swollen tissue of my opening, then lowered himself in again. Every. Inch… He moved so slowly that I could feel every inch, every ridge, everything… “Jared, please…” With each movement, I became hungrier. I wanted him to push harder, thrust harder, fuck me as he promised.

All he said was, “I know.” All he did was lift one of my legs higher, shifting the angle, dropping downward, going deeper, making me gasp all over again.

He kissed his way along my jaw and down to a sensitive spot at the base of my throat that made me whimper.

He slid his hand along my thigh to my belly and down to tease my clit with his thumb. It made me tremble. “Please…” How many more times did I have to say it? How much longer would he drive me mad?

“You’re getting there,” he said softly.

Getting where? I didn’t ask the question out loud, but I screamed it inside my head. Then, he sat back, pulled nearly all the way out, and lifted my other leg. He pushed my knees toward my ears and little by little pressed back in.

I thought he’d been driving me mad before, but I’d been wrong. I was wide open to him and he was moving at a snail’s pace. I was exposed in ways I had never been exposed to a man before. I was naked, plump, wet. He could see all of me, feel all of me. And never once did I feel that I wasn’t pretty enough or good enough or too big or too fleshy. I felt beautiful, as beautiful as it seemed he saw me when he looked at me.

I felt like a woman again. A sexual being. And it was glorious.

I wanted him to make it hard for me to walk and to make me remember this night for days to come, to make me feel this night for days to come.

I hadn’t told him and I didn’t know if I ever would, but I loved the way he looked at me all the time, like I was something special and precious.

He bent me, shifted me, held me.

He pushed in, drove hard, pulled out.

“Jared, please… Please…” My voice became more desperate the longer he delayed his promise. I knew it was coming, I wanted it. He knew I wanted it.

“Say it again.”

“Say what? I’ll say anything. I’ll say whatever you want just please fuck me.” The whimper, the near cry, the broken voice and he snapped his hips forward and I slid on the bed from the force of it. He drug me back to him.

“That’s it. Again.”

“Please fuck me.”

“Good girl.” I was rewarded with another hard drive forward. He drug me back again. “More.”

“Please fuck me, Jared. Please…” I wasn’t sounding desperate now. I
was
desperate. Every fiber of my being. Every cell in my body. Desperate.

“That’s my girl.” And he fucked me. He gave me what I wanted. He pounded me into the mattress, ground his cock inside my pussy, stretched me, pushed me, held me wide with his hands. “Rub your clit. Make yourself… Come on me.” He was breathless and so was I.

I used two fingers on my clit and rubbed hard, lifting my hips up and down in time with him. Every feeling, every sensation was focused between my legs, from where he pistoned inside me to where I rubbed myself to a screaming orgasm. Everything was focused between my thighs and focused on him.

I came so hard my toes tingled. I came so hard, I was afraid the squeezing muscles of my pussy would squeeze him out, but they didn’t. He just kept fucking me through it, fucking me, fucking me, fucking me…

He went still. So still, but for the small jerks of his hips as he orgasmed into the condom. His grip on me tightened, then loosened as he lowered my legs the bed on either side of him.

He kissed me on the lips, so sweetly, so gently, then removed himself from the bed. He came back a few minutes later with a warm cloth which he pressed between my legs.

It was one of the best, most intimate moments and I moaned with pleasure as it eased my raw and tender flesh. “Thank you,” I said quietly.

“You’re welcome.” He joined me in the bed shortly after and pulled me into his body.

“What happens now?” I whispered.

He flipped the light off. “Sleep, Claire. Just sleep.”

Maybe for him. I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping for a long, long time.

I watched dawn break from Jared’s front porch. I hadn’t slept all night. I laid beside him and listened to the sound of his breathing. I stared at his shadow in the dark and wondered where to go from there, here, whatever and wherever we were. I thought about Tim and did so without tears for the first time since all this began.

So much had happened to me in the span of a very short period of time. Looking back, it seemed I lived life in black and white and in slow motion, but now all the tears I’d shed, all the sobs and conversations, it was like the black and white slipped away, little by little and everything now was in color; bright, vivid color and going much faster.

It should scare me, freak me out, but it didn’t. Blood was rushing through my body again and I felt alive. Not just existing from moment to moment, but flesh and bone alive.

Being in bed with a man not Tim should’ve been weird and I should’ve wanted to go back to the guest room, but it wasn’t and I didn’t. I wanted to stay with him, stay within his arms, soak up his heat and energy. At the same time, I needed to get out and take a deep breath of fresh air, to see the sky, and imagine Tim was watching from up above and smiling.

I never wanted you to hurt so much.

And I believed that voice of his in my head. He wouldn’t have wanted it. He wouldn’t have wanted me to live so one dimensionally. He’d have beat my ass if he could have. For all I knew, he somehow sent Jared my way to do just that.

I never wanted you to be alone.

No, he wouldn’t have wanted that either. He’d have wanted me to mourn and then to get on with my life. He’d have wanted the exact opposite of what I’d done. He’d have wanted me to find love again, to find peace on my knees again. He hadn’t been selfish. Possessive, yes. When he was alive. But in death… He’d have wanted me to let him go and to find happiness with someone. Remember him, yes. But not live alone. Not live just for the business he left me or the memories I hadn’t been able to face until now.

Sunlight broke over the horizon and mist hung in the air. I didn’t know what Jared had planned for his day, but I needed to go home, change, and go to work. I’d have rather gone back inside and crawled into bed with him again.

And when I thought of bed and him in the same moment, the sex we’d had… I hadn’t had sex like that before. Not even with Tim. Jared pulled things from me I didn’t know I needed, but that he somehow did know. I needed to be coaxed, even when I went to him willingly. I needed to be held tender, yet firm. He knew I needed to let go and be handled.

He knew me. He knew he was the right man to pull me out of my own head and make me see that the world still turned, make me see I still mattered. He knew he could be what I needed if I only had the courage to look at him, to really see him. And he knew that in order to see him, I had to take off the glasses that had blinded me for so damn long.

I heard the front door open behind me.

I looked up at the sky one last time and smiled.

It was time.

Chapter Eight

Jared

Work kicked my ass. There was no other way to put it. I was dog tired and wanted nothing more than to get a shower, crawl into bed, and sleep for twelve hours straight. Okay, well maybe not sleep the
entire
time. I wanted to grab Claire, drag her back to my place, into my bed, and screw for several of those twelve hours with long naps between sex sessions.

She needed the sex and I needed her.

After taking her back to the bookstore to get her car and leaving her with a kiss, I hadn’t spoken to her or heard from her. I didn’t expect to. I expected she would need some space, some time to let things settle in her head. I’d pushed her hard and she’d let go of a lot of shit inside her, a lot of the pain and sadness and heartache. She’d let go of some pent up sexual desires, too. I could handle it all. I wanted to handle it all.

I hadn’t been lying when I told her I’d seen in her something that I’d wanted for myself, but hadn’t been able to find. Not until I met her, face to face. The adoration in her gaze when she looked up at Tim in those photographs had been of complete peace with their stations, their relationship as it was.

And I saw, in bed, what telling her ‘good girl’ did for her, how it changed the look in her eyes. She was unguarded, open, and I wanted my hand around her throat and the word
Mine
on my lips. She wasn’t ready for that and I didn’t know when she would be. It would come though and I had the patience of Job.

Now, if could just get through the rest of the night at work, that’d be grand. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull it off. But it never failed, with less than three hours left in the shift, I was counting each second of every minute and it seemed to be going slower than usual.

I stared down at the paperwork in front of me. More and more red tape and regulations to get through. I loved physical labor, hard work, blue collar. Every so often, though, I dreamed of a corporate job with secretaries and people to do this kind of bullshit for me. It would never work. I didn’t know how to sit behind a desk. It was why I hated doing it at the present moment. I’d rather be on the floor welding, fitting, cutting, putting the damn cars together rather than filling out forms.

I was a Marine. Former active duty. Desk work for long periods of time would never work for me. Hell, for short periods of time it didn’t work for me, either.

“Hey, Boss.”

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” I glanced up. “I call you Hugo. I don’t call you assembly worker, do I?”

“Nah, man. Thanks for that. I’d never know if you were talking to me if you did. I never had a boss that would let me use his name. Old habit, you know?”

“I know, but I don’t like being the boss.”

“More money, right?”

“More shit, too. It’s rarely ever a fair trade. What do you need?”

“There’s a… There’s a woman here. The one from the diner.”

Jo? What the hell was she doing? “Tell her I’m busy.”

“Yeah, see… We tried that. She’s still here. Said she didn’t mind waiting.”

My guys always had my back no matter what. “All right. I’ll be out in a second.”

“We might would’ve tried harder if she hadn’t brought in some of those blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls we all like.”

“She’s pullin’ out all the stops, Hugo. You got to remain strong. You can’t let a woman with food make you weak.”

“I know, but Bo — Jared, I mean. We were hungry and tired.”

I laughed at the conviction in Hugo’s voice. “I totally get that, man. I’ll be out to see her in a second.”

After he was gone, I tossed the pen in my hand across the desk. I didn’t want to have the conversation because there really shouldn’t have been a need for one. Claire’s possessive move in the bookstore should’ve seen to that. I thought Jo had gotten the hint.

The memory made me smile. I hadn’t expected that from Claire, but apparently she hadn’t expected a woman to be blocking her way as she was trying to escape. That Jo had eyed me like a piece of meat, well… Apparently, Claire hadn’t liked that, either.

When I left the office, I thought I’d find Jo in the reception area, but no, she was in the break room with half my workers. I cleared my throat and all activity ceased. I hid a smile. The only man I didn’t see hanging around was Hugo. “Y’all have shit to finish before we can get out of here.”

With last ditch grabs for muffins and rolls, they scattered, leaving me with Jo. “That was a nice gesture.” I inclined my head toward the boxes she’d brought. “Thanks. I know the guys appreciate it.” I busied myself with tossing napkins and plates in the trash. I was taking the coward’s way out. I knew it and for the moment I was good with it.

“My pleasure,” she said sweetly. “I know third shift can be a bitch. The diner just opened for the morning commuters, so thought I’d bring some of the fresh baked pastries.”

“Again, appreciated.”

“I was also trying to see if there was any interest at all on your part.” She hadn’t moved from the table top she’d hiked a hip on. She was pretty, closer to my own age than Claire, stacked and svelte. She was likely a spitfire, maybe even a hint of submissive lurked behind her green eyes. She worked hard. I knew that from the times I’d been in the diner while she’d been working. If I hadn’t been as into Claire as I was, maybe…

“I’m sorry, but there isn’t.” I tried to say it as kindly as I could.

“The woman at the bookstore? Claire?”

“Yep.”

“It’s no secret she suffered a tragedy and deserves a really good guy. I guess that’s you.”

“I’m hoping like hell it is.”

Jo nodded. “Okay. I just wanted to try, you know? It’s no secret I’ve crushed on you since I first saw you.”

“I know and I’m flattered, but I’m spoken for whenever she’s ready.”