Chapter Thirteen
Myla
Vulnerable. Exposed. These are things Michael Alvarez tried to make me, over and over and over again, but all he achieved was embarrassment, anger, and when I’d found a way to no longer feel fear, hate. Kyle promises these things now, but from him they are different. From him they taste like passion and promise. They taste like seduction. He kisses me like he’s savoring me, with slow, sexy strokes of his tongue, a taut need in him that says I’m his next breath he cannot live without. I feel like he is mine. I feel like I need him, like he is what I’ve needed for a very long time.
My fingers flex where they have splayed over his chest, and I lean into the long lines of his hard body, losing myself in the moment, in this man who has taken me by storm, and seems to be everything I need and want. He moans, a low, sexy sound I feel in my sex, in my nipples, just as I feel his hands cup my backside, melding our bodies together, our hips, his thick erection now pressing against my belly. Heat radiates through my body, a deep ache forming in my sex.
He tears his mouth from mine, staring down at me. “God, woman. What are you doing to me?” I can’t think to even answer. He’s already on one knee in front of me, inching down the band to my leggings, exposing my belly where he plants a kiss. And that simple press of lips to skin, so nearly innocent, is somehow intensely erotic, and yes, tender. He is so very tender with me, and that stark contrast to what I know, and even who he is with those around him, is so incredibly sexy.
“Kyle,” I whisper, not even sure why.
He glances up at me, orange fire in his green eyes. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, Myla. You need to know that.”
“Why?” I ask, and it’s a simple question, a one word question, but it has so many layers, so many complicated layers.
“Why? Because I’m addicted to you, Myla. Crazy, insane, addicted to you, I want you to be just as addicted to me.”
He wants me to be addicted to him, which is all about my desire, my need, my choices and not his, though he’s made it clear that he wants me in a way that manages to be both alpha and sensitive, at the same time. He can’t know how much that combination works for me, matters to me, but I won’t tell him. I really can’t. Not when he’s inched my pants a tiny bit further down, just above the V of my body, and his lips and tongue are traveling that line – left, right, center – and all I can think of is, where will that delicious mouth of his go next? A shiver rolls through me, my sex achy, and oh so very wet.
“I want to be your addiction, Myla,” he repeats, inching to my side, his teeth scraping my hip. “I want you to think about what I’ll do to you next at times when I’m not doing it.” His tongue flickers against the tiny spot of his gentle bite, his hand flattening over my belly, to slide under my pants and push them further down, his palm resting over my sex without touching it. And the other hand now on my bare backside, almost as if he’s about to spank me. A thought that should terrify me, considering some of the torture I’ve been put through, but I’m aroused. So incredibly aroused.
But he doesn’t spank me. He caresses, he squeezes, he caresses again and then he says, “You have a gorgeous ass, Myla,” in this sandpaper rough voice, I feel everywhere, inside and out.
I laugh, or whatever that sound is that slips from my lips. I don’t know what it is, or why it comes from my lips. Then I actually try to speak. “Kyle I-”
He cups my sex, fingers teasing the now sensitive, slick heat of my arousal. “I fucking love how wet you are for me.” He moves then, in front of me again, his hands caressing my pants all the way to the floor before he lifts me and gets rid of them.
“Turn and face the wall for me again, sweetheart,” he orders softly, and only then do I realize that I’m holding his shoulders, leaning into him, not away from him, a detail that would seem normal to most. But to me, it’s a stunning sign of instinctual trust, especially when I thought I would never trust a man with my body again.
And that scares me. It makes me fear in that moment that I am wrong about him, and right to be guarded. Thus I do not turn. I ask, “Is this the vulnerable part? Your control, not mine?”
I expect some intense, manly demand, but his lips curve in a sexy, almost playful, smile. “Sweetheart,” he says. “This is the “I want to see your amazing fucking ass” thing. And kiss it. And touch it. And there might be teeth. Now, if that’s a problem-”
I surprise myself and laugh for real this time, which is really quite stunning to me on all levels. “I have no idea how you just made me laugh.”
“It’s a gift,” he says. “Right along with picking the perfect pizza, though I have yet to prove that as true.”
“It is a gift, actually,” I say, “because I don’t…I haven’t laughed ever during a moment like this.”
“There are many first times ahead of us, Myla,” he promises. “Turn around, sweetheart.”
There is this silky tenderness to his voice that tightens my nipples and my sex, but also my chest. Emotions well up inside me, I don’t quite know or understand, and suddenly, giving him my back works for me. I inhale and do as he says, but instead of him just leaving me naked and uncomfortably facing the other way, he is suddenly on his feet, his big body once again enveloping mine, hard and powerful, his hands finding mine and pressing them to the wall. His alluringly spicy scent consuming me, seducing me. “I want you to keep your hands on the wall for me,” he instructs. “Don’t touch me. Let me touch you.”
“I want to touch you,” I confess. “Very badly.”
“And I want you to,” he says, “but right now, this is about you, not me.” His fingers flex at my hips, then caress down and over my backside, his mouth finding my shoulder at the same moment he cups my cheeks. Those teeth he’d promised to use, nipping the very edge of my back, and then trailing down my right arm. He shifts then, moving to stand at my hip, one hand possessively at my belly, the other on one of my butt cheeks. “I love how you smell,” he says, his breath a warm trickle on my cheek. “Like honey and sugar.”
“Amber,” I whisper, of the one thing from my past life I’d managed to keep. “It reminds me of the past.”
“It makes me want to lick you everywhere,” he murmurs, his voice taking on that gravelly quality again. “Can I lick you everywhere?”
“Only if I can lick you everywhere,” I say, loving that I feel free enough to say that to him, and more so, that I mean it. I want to lick every last inch of this man.
He leans in, bringing his mouth a breath from mine. “I can’t wait,” he says, sealing that promise with a deep, sultry slide of his tongue that has us both groaning when he pulls back, his forehead at the side of my head. “Did I mention you’re addictive?” he asks, his fingers just barely teasing one of my nipples, his other hand squeezing my backside again. “So fucking addictive.” He plucks the nipple, sending darts of pleasure straight to my sex.
I arch slightly forward, panting as he continues the assault on my senses, tightening his grip on that stiff peak and tugging before gently caressing it again. This soft, hard, gentle, rough thing he does is driving me wild and my hands move further up the wall, allowing me to brace myself. He, in turn, moves further down my body, one of his hands finding my belly and then lower. And lower. His fingers slide back into the V of my sex, just barely flicking my clit before finding the wet seam between my legs, and stroking. My lashes lower, his touch grounding me in the moment, in pleasure. His fingers slide inside me, and at some point he has gone to his knees, his mouth, his teeth, at my hip. Still, those fingers dip deeper, the waves of tingling sensations managing to reach from my sex to my nipples and back down again.
And then he is gone, no longer touching me, leaving me gasping and weak in the knees. I want to turn, to call him back, but I never get the chance. He’s already in front of me, his back against the wall I’ve been holding, and I have no idea how or when, but he’s naked, the thick ridge of his erection at my hips, my hands now on his broad shoulders.
r /> “No more barriers between us,” he declares softly, cupping my face and tilting my mouth to his. “And now, I need to taste you.” He kisses me, a deep, hungry kiss, before picking me up, my legs wrapping his hips as he adds, “All of you,” and carries me across the room, not to the bed, but to the living area in the corner, in front of the wall of windows.
He sits me on the couch, going down on one knee in front of me. My knees come together, and he leaves them that way, kissing them, licking them, and when he looks at me, when I see how much he wants me, I can barely breathe. Because he isn’t just taking me. He isn’t just making demands. He slowly inches my legs apart. Slowly caresses a path up my thighs, his body edging between them, his hands pressing my hands behind me, onto the cushion, and his mouth finds my nipple, caressing it. Licking it. Suckling it. And then he does it again with the other one. He is seducing me, and I have never been seduced. I lose everything. Time. Anger. Fear. There is just his mouth on my mouth. His mouth on my nipples, and finally, his mouth lingering just above my sex in a warm promise of pleasure.
He laps at my clit, and on some level I am aware that I am angled backwards, my hands all that are holding me up, that he has control, but somehow that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t cause fear. He suckles my nub, and my sex clenches hard. I am just so ready, so close to release, that when he starts licking me and his fingers slide inside me, I am panting, my face lifting to the ceiling, eyes tightly closed. There is no holding back. I stiffen, my muscles spasm, my body outright quaking with the intensity of my release. And when it’s over, my arms give way, but somehow, Kyle’s hands between my shoulder blades catch me, holding me up so I do not fall. And for a moment, or ten, he just holds me like that, breathing with me, seemingly unconcerned for his own pleasure.
“Kyle,” I whisper, a question in his name though I do not even know what it is.
“I’m here,” he repeats. “And I’m going to keep saying that, and showing you that, until you believe it.” He moves, sitting beside me and before I know his intent, he’s pulled me across his lap, the thick ridge of his erection at my belly and between us.
“I have never wanted to be inside anyone as badly as I do you right now,” he says, his hands bracketing my hips.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Yes please.”
“Hang onto me,” he orders, placing my hands on his shoulders, while he lifts me, shifting us, his shaft is pressing inside me, stretching me, filling me, until I have all of him, and somehow never enough of him, our foreheads coming together.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I laugh. “I’m pretty okay right now.”
“Are you sure? Because I’m really fucking hard.”
The things he says, the way he is himself, no matter what, no matter when, has me giving another soft, choked laugh. “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” I ask for the second time tonight.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
He doesn’t want to hurt me. “You aren’t hurting me, Kyle. You feel…”
He molds me to him, cupping the back of my head, breathing with me, when sometimes lately, I haven’t felt I could breathe at all. “How do I feel, Myla?” The way he says my name, like I matter, like he cares, stirs all kinds of crazy, emotional, feelings I don’t try to understand. I just let myself feel them and him. “How do I feel, Myla,” he repeats.
“Better than I thought anything ever would again.”
He kisses me then, or I kiss him. I really don’t know. We just kiss, if there is such a thing as “just kissing” a man like Kyle, who is so very overwhelmingly, perfectly male. And somewhere in the midst of that kiss, we shift our hips, moving just a little, testing out how we feel together. And we feel amazing. Really, really amazing. He presses me down against him and then thrusts. I gasp into his mouth. He swallows it with another kiss and the deep, drugging swipe of his tongue, cupping my breast as he does. And then we are doing this slow, sultry sway, body against body. Holding onto each other as we do, like we don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go. I want more. And he wants more. It’s in the way we move, grind, drive, and thrust. This is the fast and hard. This is the urgency that has been building from what seems like the moment we met. And I don’t think about anything but him. I sit up. I ride him and I revel in the way his gaze strokes hotly over my breasts, my body.
“Fuck, Myla,” he murmurs, a groan in the depths of my name, his hand sliding between my shoulder blades, molding me closer, our heads together, a wet, sultry slide to the way we move that takes me right back to the edge.
“Kyle, I-” I spasm around him, and he makes this deep, guttural sound, followed by a hard thrust, and he is shaking with me, the warmth of his release filling me.
Seconds pass, and our bodies still, his easing against the cushion, mine against him. “Holy fuck, woman. You undo me.”
Again, he makes me want to laugh and smile, but that stupid bubble of emotion has returned, taking control. Tears actually form in my eyes, and I stay huddled against him, afraid I might really totally lose it. He must know, because his fingers flex at my back. “Myla,” he says, softly. “Sweetheart. Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I reply. “It was…it was….” I press my cheek to his, not even sure what to say, or how to say it. “It was really good, Kyle.” It’s not enough, but I can’t get to more right now.
“Can you look at me?”
“Not yet.”
He cups my head. “Okay. Then just lay there.”
That tenderness is what is my undoing. Tears slip down my cheeks and I must let out a sob, because he gives a low curse, and then settles me on my back, and there is no way to escape those green eyes of his, so knowing, and staring down at me. Nor is there any way to escape the trust I’ve put in him. And I think that is part of my reaction, and these damn tears. Have I trusted the wrong person? Will my confession get my sister killed? Have I let myself be vulnerable and exposed in the ways that count, the ways that have nothing to do with my body, and chosen wrong? I suddenly need space and to breathe.
“I need a towel,” I announce, and when he doesn’t react, I add urgency. “I need a towel, Kyle. I’m going to mess up the couch.”
“You’re crying,” he says, his thumbs wiping away my tears. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
“I’m okay. I’m better. I stopped.” I hope and I push for that space I need. “But the couch. I’m worried about the couch. What if we stain it and it’s noticed? I need a towel.”
Something flickers in his eyes, and he draws a breath before he is standing, walking away from me. I sit up, the stickiness of the intimacy I have shared with this man symbolic of the trust I have given him, while the way he stands a few feet away, his shoulders bunched, hand on his head, tells me he is tormented by something. Maybe it’s my tears. Maybe it’s a truth he doesn’t want to speak. My mind starts to race. Could he be FBI and they have a plan that will endanger Kara? Even get her killed? Could he really work for Alvarez, and now, both myself and Kara will be thrown into the sex trade?
He grabs his sweats and pulls them on, snagging his t-shirt, but instead of putting it on, he heads to the bathroom and returns with a towel. In a blink, he’s tossed his shirt at the end of the couch, pressed the towel between my legs, and he’s pulled us both back down on the coach, shifting us so we’re side by side, facing each other.
“I can’t believe you just put that towel between my legs,” I say, nor can I believe how easily having him touch me again eases my worries, when it shouldn’t. Answers. Facts. Those things should be what I need, but it seems he is what I need.
Ignoring me, he grabs a pillow that he stuffs under our heads, his hand settling at my hip. “Tell me what I did wrong so I won’t do it again.”
What did he do wrong? I’m worried about a lie he might be telling me, and his torment is about hurting me? My heart squeezes with this knowledge, my fingers curling on his jaw. “Nothing,” I promise. “You did nothing wrong. You did everything right. I
don’t know what is wrong with me. I’ve faced hell, found this zone I survive inside, and for a solid nine months I’ve been without the weakness of tears. And yet, I cried last night and I cried now.”
He strokes hair from my eyes. “You cried last night?”
“Melted down like there was no tomorrow,” I admit, “and blamed you, but I know now that it was about my sister. This whole fashion thing is bringing back the past that I’d suppressed to survive. But I have no idea what right now was all about.”
“I do,” he says, covering my hand with his and pulling it between us. “I let you be you and you dared to be you. There’s a reason you weren’t that person with Alvarez. In character, we’re shielded, protected. When we’re ourselves-”
“We’re exposed and vulnerable,” I supply, understanding now.
“Yes,” he confirms. “That is when we are exposed and vulnerable. I made the mistake of forgetting that one time and I ended up in the hospital.”
“Who was she?” I ask.
“Ah yes. She was a woman all right. I was young, and on my second undercover job. She was working for the bastard I was trying to take down, and wanted out. I thought I was in love, but I don’t know what the hell I was, actually, and it doesn’t matter. In the end, he threatened her family, and she chose them instead of letting me save us all. I ended up with a bullet in my back.”
“Where is she now?”
“He killed her.”
I am unsurprised, digesting this as data, not emotion, as I have learned to do with everything in the Alvarez world. “Did you kill him?”
“I arrested him.”
My hand flattens over his chest, understanding in my touch. “But you wanted to.”