"Don't," he says as soon as we arrive. His voice is hard. Demanding.
"Don't what?"
"Don't doubt us."
"I'm not doubting," I lie. "They just pissed me off. They just made me--"
He grabs my wrists and tugs me toward him, so violently I lose my balance and end up at his feet on the hard tile floor. "Do you think I don't understand?" he rages. "That I don't see it on your face? Do you think I don't feel exactly the same way? That we're never going to get past this, and for the rest of our lives we're going to be objects of ridicule? Some goddamn joke on the Internet? A couple that teenagers make tasteless memes about? Do you think I want that?"
He grips my wrists tighter and pulls me up. "You don't, and I don't, but it's what we have and there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it."
I'm crying now, angry that I'm so upset. Frustrated that he feels as lost and violated as I do. And that's so goddamned unfair, because all that means is that I'm expecting him to take care of me. And, fuck it, I need to take care of myself.
Hell, I need to take care of Dallas.
I don't realize that I've made a decision until I fall back onto my knees and my fingers go to the button of his jeans, and then to the zipper.
"Jane..." His voice trails off, and I hear the warning. And the question.
I look up at him, trying to keep my expression innocent. "What? You don't want me to suck you off? To take you deep the way she did? You don't want to fuck my mouth, and then lay me out and fuck me hard?"
I reach into his briefs and close my hand around his shaft. He's hard and smooth against my palm, and I shift my hips as I kneel on my heels, realizing that I'm already wet. That I want this. I want wild. I want fucked up.
I want Dallas to fuck me hard, because I know that he wants it, too. More than that, I know that we both need it. Maybe that's pathetic. Maybe that's wrong. But I don't care. It's us. And he knows it as well as I do.
"Fucking you isn't going to make those bitches go away," he says. "It's not going to make it better."
"The hell it won't," I say. "You're angry because you feel like you can't protect me. Like this whole world is whipping around us like a cyclone, and you can't control it. You can't make it go away any more than you can keep it from hurting me. You saw me get pissed off. You saw me stumble. And you wanted to make it better. But you can't--not out in the world anyway. But in here, in this room, you can."
I draw a deep breath. "How many times have I told you I'd go into the dark with you? I meant it, Dallas. And maybe right now we need it."
"Oh, baby," he says, and there's something like resignation in his voice. "Do you have any idea how hard it makes me thinking about you tied up and helpless beneath me? About taking you hard, relentlessly? About fucking that pretty mouth while your hands are tied to your ankles, then bending you forward and grabbing your tits while I fuck you in the ass?"
I swallow, his words making me wet with anticipation. "Then do it," I demand.
"It's one hell of a fantasy, baby, but I don't need it anymore. I don't need the dark to get centered, not even after a run-in with the likes of those two bitches. It's you I need, not the kink."
His words crash through me, filling all my hollow places. But it's not enough. Not now. "If you need me, then take me," I demand. "Because maybe I do need it. But from you--only from you. I need it rough, Dallas. I need to push the envelope. I need--"
But I don't have to finish telling him because he pulls me to him with one hand, then grabs my breast with the other. The sundress I'm wearing is a halter style, and I'm wearing no bra, just the two triangular pieces of cotton that tie at my neck. He grabs the material and yanks, ripping the tie and making the top slide down, baring me from the waist up.
I gasp with surprise, then suck in air hard as he pinches my nipple between his fingers, spreading pain out like red hot threads that snap and spark and shift from tantalizing pain to the most potent of pleasure.
My mouth is another playground as he crushes his lips over mine, so hard they bruise me, so wild our teeth clash and I taste the coppery tinge of blood. It's a full-on assault of the senses, and I relish it. Hell, I need it.
But then as quickly as he claimed me, he pushes himself away, breathing hard. "Is that what you want?"
"Yes."
"Why?" The word is sharp. Serious.
I gape at him. "Did you not just see what happened? I fucking lost it. I mean, I snapped, Dallas, and what those girls said is hardly the worst of what we're going to hear. So I need you. Because this is going to get bad. I need to know there's a place where I can let go. Where you will catch me. Bring me back even if I'm pushed to the edge."
I draw in a breath and rush on. "So I want it as hot and hard as you can make it. I want it rough. I want to be vulnerable. Because under it all, with you I know that I'm safe. I need--oh, god, Dallas, I need to feel. I need you to make me feel."
For a moment, he only looks at me, and this is one of the few times that I truly can't read his expression. I feel a sudden sharp pang of fear that somehow we've gotten off the same page, and that he doesn't get it. Doesn't get me.
But then he looks around the room, his gaze skimming the living and dining area. When he turns back to face me, his face is hard. Determined. And there is a very definite gleam in his eye.
"I think you need to go to the table, Jane. And I think you need to bend over."
The heat in his voice warms me, melting away the last of my trepidation. I do as he says, moving beside the dining table that is approximately one meter squared.
I glance back at him, uncertain where and how he wants me, but he makes a circular gesture with his finger, and I know to turn around and face the tabletop.
He comes up behind me, and presses his hand to the small of my back.
I shiver from his touch--and then cry out when he grabs the waist of the sundress and yanks hard, literally ripping it from my body. He does the same with my underwear, only they don't rip as easily, and there's a hard, hot pressure against my pussy before the material gives way.
The violent power of such a claiming act spins through my body. And, honestly, it's a wonder I don't come right then.
"Close your eyes," he says, and I comply, then spread my legs when he orders me to do that, too. "Wider," he says. "Even with the table legs."
That leaves me wide open and exposed. And when he wraps something around my ankles--"twine," he tells me--and ties me to the table legs, I feel the pounding of my pulse in my throat--and between my legs.
Because my legs are spread so far, I can bend forward and lay atop the table, my ass pretty much level with the tabletop. I know this, because that's exactly what Dallas has me do, and then he tells me to stretch my arms out in a V so that my fingertips hang over the opposite corners.
Dallas moves around the table to stand in front of me, and I lift my head and chest to look at him, my shoulders back as if I were in a kinky yoga class, tied down and doing the cobra pose.
"Like what you see?" he asks, smirking as he wraps one end of a length of twine around my wrist, then ties the other end to a table leg.
He's still wearing his jeans and T-shirt, and so I lift a brow and say, "Not bad. I can think of at least one way to improve my view."
"Can you?" He repeats the process with my other wrist so that I am now spread-eagled. Not to mention completely vulnerable.
He moves slowly around the table, trailing his fingertip over my skin as he moves. "Oh, sweetheart," he says. "I do like this. You're laid out like a feast for me."
"In that case, I hope you enjoy eating me."
I hear a muffled sound that may be him holding back a chuckle. "Oh, I'm very sure I will. Right now, though, this is about your enjoyment. Hold on."
His fingers leave my skin, and I feel bereft while he's not touching me. I try to twist around enough to find him, but it's just not possible, and I'm left to rely on my ears to tell me what he's doing. Honestly, I don't know. He's stepped into
the bedroom and I hear him opening drawers, but I don't have a clue what he could be looking for.
Finally, he returns, and this time when his hands stroke my back, they are slick with oil. It heats up as he moves his palms over my shoulders and down my spine, and when I breathe in, I can actually taste the mint. "Massage oil," I say, and those simple words make me wonder what other sexual toys he might have here in the bungalow. Dallas invested in Cortez long before we got together, and I imagine he's brought a few of the women he fucked before me to the island.
"I have quite a few little treats stashed in the bungalow," he says, confirming my words and making my gut twist with jealousy. "But this is the first time I've used any of them with someone I love. With the only woman I've ever loved."
Immediately, my jealousy fades to warmth. I know with unerring certainty that what he says is true.
"I'd forgotten what was in this box, actually," he says. "Honestly, I have a pretty interesting collection."
"Oh, really?" I have no idea what interesting things he could be talking about--knowing Dallas, they could be anything. I don't ask, though. I'm quite certain that whatever it is, I'll find out soon enough.
Slowly, sensually, he strokes the oil over my back, my shoulders. Then he gets on the table and straddles me. The table is narrow, so it's a tight fit, and I close my eyes, relishing the way his thighs brush my waist and hips. The way the denim of his jeans rubs against my heated, sensitive skin.
I feel him shift, then shiver from the touch of his lips to my spine. It's so sweet and so sensual and so wonderfully erotic that I feel my core clench and I know that I'm wet.
He trails the kisses upward until he teases the back of my neck, and while his lips do a number on me there, his hands slide over my shoulders, slick and hot. He grasps my neck, and I bite my lower lip, wanting to feel more, to feel his grip tighten, to submit.
"You like that," he says.
"Yes."
He says nothing else, but he releases my throat, and I whimper in protest. Then he slides off me, and I want to cry with frustration, wondering if this is some sort of perverse punishment. But he is standing by the table, and this time I can see what he's doing--he's undressing. And I have to say, I very much like the view.
He turns to the side, and I hear the thud of something being laid on the table, but it's down near my legs, and I don't know what it is.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"You said you wanted to feel," he says, but offers no other explanation.
After another moment, he is back on the table, his hands once more slick with oil. He straddles me again, only this time it's skin on skin, and when he slides his hands over my shoulders to my breasts, there's something in them. I glance down, then suck in air. "Dallas..."
"Trust me," he says. "Arch your chest up and close your eyes."
I do, but I also bite my lower lip as he attaches a wooden clothespin to each of my nipples.
"Okay?" he asks, and I make some sort of raw noise in my throat, because I'm not sure okay is exactly accurate.
Except after a moment, I realize I'm not biting down as hard. And the pain I'd felt has transformed into an intense warmth that I don't just feel in my breasts but throughout my body.
"I want you to feel everything," Dallas says, and I realize he's slowly moving down my back. Only this time, he's not stroking me with his hands. Instead, he's using something soft on my skin. A feather maybe. Or fringe?
It's not until he reaches my ass that I realize what it is he's teasing my skin with--a flail. And when he flicks it against my rear, I feel the connection all the way into my breasts.
He's doing what I asked--and damned if it doesn't feel glorious.
After a moment, he tosses the flail aside, and I wonder if he's done with me. Then I hear a telltale buzzing, and if I wasn't so aroused I would have laughed. As it is, I'm craving whatever he has planned.
Except he doesn't intend anything out of the ordinary with the vibrator. It's a small one, and he lifts my body just enough that he can put it under me so that it's not directly on my clit, but so that I feel the rumblings--along with the slow build of a growing pleasure.
As the vibrator teases me, he kisses his way up my inner thighs, the butterfly-soft touches so arousing that I feel swollen and needy. His tongue dips inside me, then his fingers, and then he finger-fucks me as I beg him to go deeper. To stand beside me and fuck me hard.
"Naughty girl," he says, then smacks my ass. I cry out, then moan with pleasure as he thrusts his fingers in deep. He rubs my ass to soothe it, then immediately spanks me again. I expect the same delight when he finger-fucks me, only this time, his fingers ease into my ass, and I just about lose it between that and the vibrator and these damned clothespins.
Over and over he repeats this sequence until I am a mindless blob of lust with only one thing in my mind--to be fucked. Hard and thoroughly. And I want it so badly, I'm willing to beg. Which I do.
"You want to be fucked?" he asks.
"Yes. Yes, please."
"Then tell me you're mine, Jane. Tell me that I'm the one you go to whenever it gets to be too much."
"I am. You are. God, oh god, Dallas, I can't--" It was too much. I couldn't take all of it. The onslaught of sensations. The wildness of the feelings crashing over me.
"Can't what?"
"Can't take it."
"You can, baby. You said you wanted to feel us. This is us. Raw connection. Primal need. You wanted to feel vulnerable, but it's not you who's vulnerable, it's me. Because you can destroy me with a glance. You can cut me down with a look. You can walk away from me, baby, and shatter my whole goddamn world."
His words are at least as powerful as his touch, and I tremble as another wave of desire crashes over me. And then almost weep with relief when he thrusts his cock deep inside me and starts to slowly pump me, his fingers twined in my hair, forcing me to arch up.
"Do you think I have the power because you're naked and tied down? Because I can spank your ass and use your body for my pleasure? Because right now I could do anything to you--anything--and you're helpless to stop me? Is that what you think?"
"Yes," I say, because I know that's the line I'm supposed to say.
"Well, you're wrong. Because you're everything to me, baby. You're the woman who fills me up. Who makes me whole. You're my reason to face the day, to go forward. You've shaped the man I am, Jane, and you'll shape the man I've yet to become. Everything good I owe to you, and right now I want you to do more than feel it. I want you to believe it. I need you, baby. Hell, we need each other. Tell me you know that, too."
"I do," I say as his body slams into mine.
"Tell me you won't leave me again."
"Never," I promise as he fucks me so deep I feel impaled upon him.
"I want you to come now. I want to feel your body claim me. Tightening around my cock and...Now, baby. Come for me now."
He smacks my ass one final time, then bends forward over me while still deep inside. Before I realize what he's doing, he takes the pins off my nipples, and a rush of blood returns. A rush that I feel not only in my nipples, but in my clit.
And that's where the world ends. I spin out of control, lost in the overwhelming wildness of the sensations that crash over me in wave after wave after wave, as powerful as the sensation of his palm against my ass. As wild as the words with which he brought me to my knees.
And in that moment, all my fears and worries fade away. I feel whole again. I feel loved.
He's right, I think as a deep exhaustion starts to settle over me. He truly is mine, I think. And I am his. And together we can survive whatever comes.
Dallas was dreaming.
He knew it. He was asleep and he was dreaming and he was aware of that, but somehow, he couldn't wake up.
In fact, some instinct deep inside him was telling him not to wake up. That this was important. That this was a defining moment and if he woke, he'd lose everything.
And so he st
ayed in the dream. A dim room. An empty dining table. A single rose in a bud vase. And Jane in a sequined formal gown, her lips red and sultry, her eyes on him.
"Aren't you going to sit? I haven't finished telling you about what Brody said."
"Brody?"
"When we walked the beach."
You told me already, Dallas thought, some part of his mind remembering a conversation from before they'd fallen asleep. You told me when I was awake.
But he sat, and she sipped her wine. "The Woman isn't just someone who's been watching us for years. She's someone we see all the time, too. Can you pass the bread?"
He looked down, and where there had been only a white linen tablecloth, there was now a silver breadbasket.
He passed it, and she took a roll. "It's a subtle distinction, but it's important. She's in our lives." She shrugged. "Or maybe she isn't. How can we know?"
"Clues," Liam said from the third chair. "I'm looking for clues just like you asked me to. Only sometimes clues are easy to miss." He was wearing a blindfold, and took it off. "Much easier this way."
"What am I not seeing?" Dallas asked, but no one answered.
A waitress came and refilled his wineglass, then bent close and whispered, "It could be me."
"What?" He whipped around to look at her, but she was gone. When he looked back, so was Liam. But he saw something in the wine. A face? But it was gone before he could identify it.
Then the wine was gone along with the table, and suddenly he was at the Meadow Lane house he grew up in, standing by the pool with a woman on each arm.
"I've been to every party you've thrown," said the redhead.
"So have I," said the brunette.
"Could it be us?" they asked in unison, then pushed him into the pool.
He sank to the bottom, then floated there, looking up, the ripples on the surface seeming to take the shape of a woman.
He kicked toward the surface, toward the woman, toward the truth.
But it kept getting farther and farther away. His lungs burned. His muscles ached. He wasn't going to make it. He was going to go down. Drown. Gone.
And then a hand burst through the water and grabbed his wrist and hauled him up, up, up until he was gasping on the pool deck.
Adele.