Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (16 page)

“You’re fucking
amazing,” he growled, mouth against my neck. “Just ridiculously
beautiful.”

It was one hell of a
hello. Everything I’d planned to say flew out of my head, but I
couldn’t have cared less. All the things I had to tell him could
wait. As long as necessary.

He slid his hands under
my dress and along my thighs. “Did you miss me?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?”

“Dead serious. Tell
me how much.”

“Terribly,” I said,
closing my eyes as he kissed the side of my neck. “So much you
can’t believe it.”

“I like it when
you’re dramatic.”

“Okay, then. I missed
you profoundly. Apocalyptically.”

He let out a soft
laugh. “Wow. I’ve never had that effect on anyone before.”

“You have that effect
on me.”

“We’d better remedy
that, then. Come on.”

He took my hand and led
me through the living area into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn
against the bright July morning, giving the opulently-decorated room
a warm, golden glow.

“On the bed,” he
commanded.

One eyebrow raised, I
turned to look at him. “I thought you asked me here for breakfast.”

“I said breakfast. I
didn’t say food.”

I sat on the edge of
the unmade king-size bed and lay back. “That’s good. Because I’m
not hungry for food.”

He lowered himself
beside me. “But you are hungry, aren’t you?” Sliding a hand
under my dress, he found the soaked gusset of my panties. “I was
right,” he said with a wolf-like smile.

“You always are,” I
whispered.

He pushed his hand into
my panties and ran his fingers lightly over my swollen pussy. “So
wet,” he said. “And I’ve hardly touched you.”

My breath hitched in my
throat. “You don’t need to touch me. All I have to do is think
about you.”

“Is that what you’ve
been doing since the last time we saw each other? Thinking about me?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“How much?”

“Constantly.”

“And thinking about
me makes you wet?”

He slipped a finger
inside me and twisted it slowly to his second knuckle. Every excited
nerve screamed with pleasure and begged for more. More of his hand,
his tongue, his cock. I couldn’t see it but I knew it was thick,
long, and very, very hard. Every time we’d been naked together, it
had never been anything less.

“It makes me wet
every time,” I admitted.

“And you only think
of me,” he said. It wasn’t a question, it was a demand.

“Yes.”

“Even when you’re
with your husband?”

I was surprised he
hadn’t noticed my missing wedding ring.
Yeah,
about that
, I almost said, but it wasn’t time for
talking yet. “Of course,” I said.

He thrust his finger
all the way inside as if to reward me. “I like that response.
You’re wet for me, and only me.”

I felt the dazzling
spark of his thumb against my clitoris and couldn’t repress a moan.
As loud as I was, they’d hear us in the lobby if I didn’t keep a
lid on it.

And so what if they did
hear us? I had no one waiting at home for me now, no reason to be
ashamed. If Drex wanted me – and that was still a big if – I’d
shout it from the rooftops.

With the patience of a
man who knows he has complete control, he pushed off my panties and
knelt on the floor in front of me. “Knees apart,” he said. “I
want you wide open.”

Though the curtains
were drawn, but I knew he could see every private, intimate part of
me. I loved feeling exposed and vulnerable to this man, the only man
I wanted.

His tongue created a
soft, wet trail up my thigh. “I love licking you,” he said. “I
love the way you taste. All of you.”

He teased my clit until
I was gushing wetness. “Your pussy is perfection,” he said. “I
could drink from it.”

The last two months
vanished into a distant blur as pleasure took over. Ten minutes ago,
what I had to tell him had seemed so urgent. But now that he was
licking me that way, nothing else mattered.

Sucking, kissing,
worshipping every sensitive spot – he knew exactly how to drive me
to a frenzy. I circled my hips and grabbed his hair in my hands,
letting him fuck me with his tongue until I was seeing blissful stars
and screaming his name. Let the people next door complain. I had
nothing to hide anymore.

Lips glistening with my
wetness, Drex pushed my legs back and positioned himself over me. The
planes of his chest rippled with muscle. His cock was thick and hard
as a spear.

“That was so
amazing,” I panted.

“I know,” he said.
“And it’s not over.”

“Good.” A tiny bead
of sweat trickled across my temple. If I knew Drex, it wouldn’t be
over until the bed was destroyed and we could hardly stand.

He took my chin in one
hand. “Look at me,” he said. “I want to see your beautiful eyes
when I fuck you. Give me everything.”

“I will.”

He smiled a lazy,
provocative smile. “Of course you will. You can’t help it when I
fuck you.”

I bit my lip to keep
from smiling back. Oh, the maddening arrogance of the man. I’d
never wanted somebody so much.

The moment he entered
me, I sucked in a breath and held it. Goosebumps lit up across my
skin and my toes curled. His eyes penetrated into mine as he drove
his first thrust home.

“Feel that?” he
growled.

“Yes,” I gasped.
He’d never been so big, or so deep inside me.

“Yes,” he repeated.
“That’s my cock claiming you.”

He slid a hand under my
head to grasp my hair. His gaze was a fire, his body the one thing I
couldn’t live without.

“You’re mine again,
Jane. And this time, you belong to me for good.”

I fucked my beautiful
Jane for hours, until we were both raw and exhausted. She lay
shaky-legged on the bed beside me, her hair disheveled, two bright
pink spots on her cheeks. Her lush mouth was turned into a
half-smile.

She looked more at
peace than I’d ever see her, so I wasn’t surprised when she
looked at me and said, “I’ve got some things to tell you.”

“I had a feeling you
did,” I said.

Her eyes brightened.
“Really?”

I slipped a palm under
my head. “I sensed a lot of guilt the last two times we saw each
other. Today is different.”

“Today is very
different,” she said. She was gloriously naked, her skin
golden-damp and her nipples as red as a 3-ball.

“How?” I asked.

“Well…” She
paused, and my entire life came to a halt. My happiness, my future –
everything depended on what she said next. And what she said after
that, and after that.

“I’m not living
with David anymore. I’ve filed for divorce.”

I hadn’t been aware
of the lead weight on my chest until I felt it drop away. For three
weeks I’d been one very unhappy bastard, and I felt positively high
with the news that she was free.

I deserved her. I’d
saved her. And I’d fought for her even when she begged me to let
her go.

The woman I wanted was
free to be mine.

“I can’t believe
it,” I said.

“Believe it,” she
said. “It’s true.”

I sat up and leaned
over her, taking in every gorgeous, sexy detail. Her hair was spread
across the pillow like a fan. Her cushiony lips were pink and swollen
from so many bruising kisses. Her eyes were honest and open, and –
filled with tears.

I put my hand to her
cheek. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head.

“Jane?” I said.

“I wish I didn’t
have to tell you,” she said.

My gut was a grinding
pit of adrenaline. I’d never been whipsawed back and forth so fast.
This was the moment when all my hopes might die an immediate,
excruciating death. “Why not?” I asked.

“It’s awful, Drex.
So much is about to happen.”

I took a breath and
made myself sound a hell of a lot calmer than I was. “Tell me,” I
said. “Tell me everything.”

The moment she said the
words “boat” and “the woman we went on vacation with,” I
pretty much had it figured out. It all made sense now – how Jane
had walked out of the desert and into my life, the sequence of events
that led to this amazing morning with the most beautiful woman I’d
ever seen.

It was the story we’d
wanted to know all along, and now we did. But that didn’t make it
any easier to understand.

The pathetic bastard.
I’d been right about him all along. If there was a God, David would
rot in prison first, and then in hell.

His girlfriend deserved
to never see the light of day again. That he’d wanted a baby with a
witch like that just showed how far gone he was. What I wouldn’t
give to kick the shit out of him with steel-toed boots and leave him
strung up in the hot sun.

“The doctors said the
shock alone could have caused amnesia,” Jane said. “Another shock
brought me out of it.”

“Another shock –
you mean, overhearing what happened to you?”

“I mean the head
injury,” she said, not missing a beat.

“Head injury?” I
said, my mind whirling. “Whoa, wait a minute. What are you saying?”

She shrugged. “I’m
sorry, I keep forgetting you don’t know. I was in a car accident
two weeks ago.” She said it so casually, like she was talking about
a trip to the grocery store.

“A car accident. And
I’m just hearing about this now?”

“You said we’d talk
later,” she said with a sexy smile. “It’s later.”

I couldn’t help
laughing. “I’d have done things a little differently today if I’d
known what you’ve been through. I would have been gentle.”

“And that’s why I
didn’t tell you, because I’m fine.”

She traced a finger
across a light pink spot on her forehead. “Well, almost fine. The
doctor said it won’t leave a scar, just a memory of two boring days
in the hospital. And I can handle that.”

I stroked a lock of
hair back from her face. “Keep talking,” I said. “I have a
feeling we’re just scratching the surface.”

And we were. In her
calm, melodic voice, she told me about everything – the rainy
night, the unforgiveable things she’d overheard, driving off in a
panic, waking up in a hospital room, her mind flooded with details of
her past. I listened, riveted, watching her beautiful face.

“I’ll be doing
physical therapy for a while,” she said. “I’m not the same as I
was. I probably never will be, but that’s all right. I’m okay
with who I am now. My eyes are open for the first time in my life.”

I squeezed her hard.
“I’m okay with who you are, too. I especially like you when
you’re not living with another man.”

I didn’t just want
her, I admired her like crazy. She was the strongest person I’d
ever met, and I’d known a lot of strong people.

But something wasn’t
quite right. I could feel it. She was too cheerful, and her eyes kept
darting away from mine.

“So the police are
investigating Lily, you and David are splitting up, and the doctors
are happy with your progress. You’ve had one hell of a week, Blue
Eyes.”

“One hell of a month.
Actually, make that two.”

“So…is there
anything else you want to tell me?”

She frowned. “What do
you mean, anything else?”

“I don’t know. I
just have a feeling there’s more going on.”

She rolled to her side
and crossed her arms. The mood had gone from sunny to sour in two
seconds. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hey,” I said,
reaching out to gently touch her back. “I didn’t mean to upset
you.”

“You haven’t.”
Her voice was laced with defensiveness. “But speaking of more going
on, are you still taking Brooke to openings and restaurants?”

A slow burn bloomed in
my chest. “Brooke has nothing to do with us. She never did.”

“That’s funny,
because she’s been around an awful lot since I left.”

I clenched my teeth.
Somehow, my ex-girlfriend was managing to spoil a perfect morning
from thousands of miles away. “I explained what happened the night
of the opening.”

“Explaining something
and making it go away are two different things.”

In the back of my mind,
I’d known that making a grand bargain with Brooke would come back
to bite me. I just hadn’t known it would happen over and over
again.

“Then let me explain
it one more time. She went to the opening because it was her job. And
at the time, you were still living with your husband. Remember?”

Remember. Using that
word so casually with Jane felt like an insult. She turned her head
and glared at me in silence.

“I apologize,” I
said.

“You keep saying
you’re sorry, but apparently you’ve done nothing wrong.” Her
gaze was like a volley of bullets. Why,
why
did she have to have the world’s most beautiful eyes?

“I’ve done
everything wrong. I let your criminal asshole of a husband take you
back to Boston. I should have thrown him out of Texas on his sorry
ass.”

“If you hadn’t been
so distracted by Brooke, maybe you could have.”

“You’re kidding,
right?”

Sitting up, she grabbed
the sheet and covered her chest. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

No, she didn’t. She
was awfully upset about something, but Brooke wasn’t it.

I’d made a lot of
money at pool and in business, and my instincts were the reason why.
Right now, those instincts were in overdrive, screaming that
something was up.

“You can tell me
anything,” I said quietly. “You know that.”

Her eyes scorched into
mine with a combination of fear and worry. “I told you my life
story this morning,” she said, tossing back the sheet and standing
up. “Isn’t that enough?”

I watched in stunned
silence as she threw on her dress and shoes. Just when I’d thought
things were getting simpler, they got crazier than ever. I could
hardly keep track of the twists and turns, but in the end they
amounted to one thing: Jane still wasn’t mine. If she couldn’t
find a real obstacle to throw in our path, she’d create one.