Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2) (28 page)

She lost no time. Shirt was first. It was a
button-down deal that would need a little repair after Krista got
through with it. Under shirt, gone. She kissed and licked his chest
on a detour, and then went to his lips for some tongue action while
she harshly opened his pants.

He moaned and massaged a breast. She wasn’t
sure if she should take off his boxers, so she did. He said he
would stay in control, so it was up to him now. She stripped them
down and followed to her knees. She took his hard length in her
mouth and went crazy, not holding back—not even a little. Soon he
was moaning and gasping above her.

“Stop,” he muttered.

Krista knew he was getting close and she
couldn’t think of a reason not to let him finish, so she increased
the speed and prepared for the mess.

“Baby, stop,” he breathed again.

“Finish,” she said up to him quickly before
she went back to it, sliding her mouth and hands in harmony.

She felt him tense, say
“Oh
Krista
!” Then
a long, sighed “
Yes
” as he came into her mouth.

She gagged, not as ready as she should have
been, and because that stuff does not taste awesome, made a mess of
the swallowing part.

Whatever, he got what he needed.

She got up and took a step away before he
caught her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as she tried to
retreat, keeping her face hidden behind messy hands.

She was not a porn star, and as such, was
not smiling when she had that sticky nastiness on her face. Plus,
she was mostly drunk. Lord only knew what she looked like anyway,
let alone with goop on her cheek.

“Have to clean up, Sean, lemme go.”

Krista scurried to the bathroom to wash her
face quickly and rinse out her mouth. After she was done she went
back in the room to find him worriedly sitting on the bed.

“You can’t expect a girl to get dirty in the
trenches without the desire for a little cleanup after,” she said
with a clean smile.

Sean sighed in relief. She could tell he
hated his insecurity. He was embarrassed by it. But luckily for
him, Krista had been trained by Jasmine. She was open and honest,
sometimes to a fault. Insecurity was the least of their problems.
By far.

“I told you to stop,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she retorted, nearly
jumping on him.

He laid them both down and climbed on top of
her, spreading her legs wide. She thought he was going to enter
her, which she had mixed feelings about, but still would have gone
with, when he whispered, “No sex. But someone told me you left only
partially sated last night....”

He followed that statement up by spreading
her nether lips to reveal her pink center, then licked up the
crease, ending at her clit, which he then sucked into his
mouth.

She very nearly blacked out.

Thus it began. He spent hours making her
scream. He never entered her with his penis, but his tongue and
fingers were another ball game all together. When she could tell he
had recovered from his release, she pleasured him again. This time
he pulled away before the final act so she didn’t have to “get her
hands dirty” as he said, and then it was all about her once
more.

She must have told him she loved him a
million times. She also told him things having to do with divinity
and God’s image and all sorts of strange stuff. After a while Sean
didn’t want to stop merely for the incredible ego boost. When he
mentioned it, she informed him that she was happy to help, but told
him to please bring his big friend closer so she could stroke
it.

Apparently Sean thought drunk Krista was a
riot!

Toward the end she surprised him with not
being bashful to talk dirty—drunk added a bit more zeal as well.
Another segment of the night was spent with Krista’s dirty mouth
and Sean’s fascination and constant arousal to hear it. He got a
third BJ.

When they were finally exhausted, and Krista
was mostly sober and so relaxed and tired she could barely keep her
eyes open, Sean cradled her body in his. “Better?”

“I think I will just keep saying I am only
partially satisfied so you keep doing all that.”

“That’s fair,” he chuckled and nuzzled her
neck.

Krista had intended some pillow talk, but
she fell asleep instead. Sean did likewise, holding her like a
teddy bear.

The next day they took a severely hung over
Cassie to the airport. She’d given Krista her number so she could
keep in touch, and also in case she needed any McAdams advice.
Krista had the sneaking suspicion part of the reason she hoped she
and Sean succeeded was selfish—Krista hadn’t missed the comment
about wanting a sister, nor had she missed her desire for reckless
behavior. If Krista married Sean, she would fit nicely into both of
those categories, which meant she was exactly who Cassie wanted
Sean to marry. And granted, Krista wasn’t even thinking along those
lines—sex first—but it was nice to know someone was on her side.
Especially someone who could whisper soothing words in Sean’s ear
if things went awry.

After Sean and Krista said goodbye, they
spent much of the rest of the day on the couch under a blanket in
the buff. Sean still had his no sex rule in effect, which was
irritating, but it was amazing what could be done without
penetration. And some of his oral activities were, indeed,
amazing.

Towards the evening, when the light was
failing and the shadows were crawling their way across the floor,
Krista was happily dozing when Sean startled her awake asking, “Do
you want to order in?”

Being that he had a sticky hard-on, and she
just gushed out a fresh coat of lube, she figured eating could
wait. Instead, she bared her neck to him, liking when he bent to
her and slowly nibbled down to her shoulder. His hand came around
her body, finding a breast and sticking like crazy glue.

Krista backed her butt up, allowing his
penis to slide into the small space between the top of her thighs,
right up against her wet slit. A small maneuver would have him
inside her, but she was a pro at pushing the boundaries by now, and
instead, rotated her hips in a circle, catching his cock and
bringing it along.

She expected Sean to stop her here. He
always had in the past. And he should have—it wasn’t safe. He was
worried about pregnancy, she was worried about diseases. If it was
another guy, she wouldn’t even push this boundary, but he was
always in such great control that she didn’t have to worry about
it.

A look back revealed a blissful face and an
“Out To Lunch” sign. Sean was no longer Sean. He was the other guy.
The lurking guy. The guy that shut off all thought and tried to
force intimacy. The little boy that ruined his parents’ life.

For the first time in her life, Krista
wished she’d been a psychiatrist instead of a math geek. She did
not know how to help.

“I feel so close to you,” Sean said as he
thrust blindly, barely missing her opening. Nearly ruining their
first time together.

Tingles of anxiety crept up her spine. He
was unprotected, which was a catastrophic “no-no” with him. What’s
more, his usually smooth and slow movements were hurried and jerky.
He was reaching between her legs roughly, trying to part her wider
even though she was resisting. He leaned over her chest, putting
his weight against her to hold her down.

Krista’s heart started thumping. Anxiety
turned to fear as he used his hands to force her legs open so he
could climb on top.

She mutely pushed at his chest, using what
had developed into their sign to slow or stop. In their weekend of
getting to know each other’s bodies, whenever something felt weird
or off, or whenever Krista wanted to switch positions, or even when
the remote was trying to sodomize her because of her positioning on
the couch, she gave soft resistance with her hand to his chest, and
Sean desisted immediately.

It didn’t even register.

He climbed on her body, pulling her legs
wide and up, making his way clear. Rough fingers searched her
quickly drying sex, pushing in and out, trying to rub moisture in
so he could enter her. His tip was prodding her inner thigh,
rubbing to give himself feeling while he worked at her.

“No, Sean,” Krista said, panic rising.
Feeling Jim’s fingers. Jim’s body. Feeling phantom stinging from
being hit or slapped. Phantom hands around her throat or holding
her arms.

Her chest constricted. Tears leaked out of
her eyes. Her breathing got shallow. Memories blotted out her
awareness. Pain and rage. Rough insertions and abusing sex. Lust
filled eyes looking down on her pain. Laughter as she cried.

“No,” she whispered, eyes squeezed shut,
panic stricken and unable to move.

“You are so beautiful,” she heard through
the haze. “Such a blessing.”

In fast pants, Krista latched onto that
voice. Smooth gravel. Deep and reassuring. A man in the height of
fighting his own demons, but without inflicting the pain he
felt.

A man that was not restraining her in any
way.

Fast pants of breath still, but fighting her
panic desperately. Taking stock of the situation to calm her
mind.

She wasn’t hurt. Not even by his fingers.
She wasn’t trapped; she still had full use of her arms. She wasn’t
being called a filthy bitch or a worthless whore.

She wasn’t in the past.

Logic trickled through the cracks of her
terror. Awareness filtered in like sunshine through fog.

Sean was lightly kissing her neck and
rubbing himself along her sex. She was dry, and he must have
registered that, because he was working at getting her lubed again.
Two fingers were playing with her. It didn’t hurt.

She brought her hands away from her body. No
one caught them and forced them back down. This was not the rape
she’d been envisioning.

She opened her eyes.

Sean’s movements were still off, but he was
still smoother than Paul had been even though Paul had never let
his passion rise too high. Sean’s sexual prowess at the moment was
rough and hasty, but no more than any man in the throes of passion.
If she hadn’t known Sean the way she did, and hadn’t had a bag of
her own extremely serious issues, she would’ve taken his lead and
had some fantastic crazy sex.

She needed to talk him down.

That realization took a back seat as his
penis was lined up with her opening and his body bent low over
hers.

A new panic hit her. If they went through
with sex, with both of them completely off the edge, they would
never recover. It would ruin it forever for both of them.

Thinking fast, Krista shoved him as hard as
he could. But when his blunt tip dipped in, barely cresting her
outer folds, she threw caution to the wind, wound up, and slapped
him full across the face, stopping his progress immediately.

They both froze.

As milliseconds ticked by, as Krista barely
stayed above the waters of panic. She prayed to all that was holy
that she hadn’t been wrong about Sean. That he wouldn’t hit her
back.

As those vivid green eyes opened slowly, it
took one full second to read her face. One more for dawning to
strike.

He got off of her immediately.

Chapter Nineteen

Krista sighed as she was freed and noticed
Sean’s face was one of pure shock. He looked down at her in
confusion, his eyes probing hers. “Krista...” He pulled her to a
seated position. “I’m so sorry I—Are you okay? I don’t know what
came over me.”

He went introspective.

Krista nodded, because she was okay mostly,
and pulled herself together. It took her another second to snap out
of it, and then one more to push back the memories. When she was
back in reality, finally letting her logical brain to take over,
she sat still, feeling helpless as Sean huddled behind her on the
couch.

By the look on his face--the
self-deprecation, the regret, the horror--he knew exactly what had
come over him, and it was obviously the thing that always broke
when he got emotionally involved with a woman. It was the thing
that made him push women away. It was clear it was not tied to sex.
It was tied to love and intimacy.

And now it was applied to Krista.

Sean lay back down slowly. Krista, feeling
slightly self-conscious—she just slapped the shit out of the
guy—hesitantly laid down next to him, facing him, their heads only
a few inches apart, breathing the same air. They needed to talk
this out. He needed to know he hadn’t hurt her, and it was just as
much her freak out as his.

But how to begin…

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” Sean’s eyes were glassy and he
was blinking quickly to keep them clear. The guy looked like he’d
just killed a puppy.

“You didn’t hurt me or anything,” Krista
continued, “I just got a bit… worried, is all. Kind of had a
flashback…”

Sean winced.

Probably not wise to compare him to her
abusive ex-boyfriend. Bad start.

Krista tried to explain, “I just freak out
quicker than other girls, you know? Bad past. I should have
recognized what was going on with you—I mean, you know…uh, when you
get kind of emotionally bogged down…” She paused. This was not
going well.

“
I just panicked. Um, I
just need you to know it wasn’t only you, and you weren’t hurting
me.”

Sean wouldn’t meet her eyes. He slightly
nodded, but that was to stop her from speaking further. She
apparently wasn’t doing him any favors.

In the back of her mind, as she stared
dumbly at the man crumbling before her eyes, Krista realized that,
because of this meltdown, she reaffirmed the absolute faith that
Sean wouldn’t physically hurt her. He was in a dark place a moment
ago, but he still wasn’t violent. He also wasn’t falling over
himself apologizing and giving blood-vows that he would never do it
again.