Obsessed, p.8
Obsessed, page 8
“He can be a bit intimidating,” Malaki said quietly.
Briana jumped. She hadn’t heard him enter behind her. “He’s arrogant,” she ground out, angry because the man had pierced her calm, reminding she was naked.
“He owns this place. The whole island, actually.”
“He’s your boss then?”
“Something like that,” Malaki murmured, this time his voice a little closer behind her.
She shrugged her shoulders as though ridding herself of Merrick’s effect. “I didn’t like him. Didn’t like the way he stared at me. Was he there the entire time? Did he see…?”
“All of it. You impressed him.”
Again, she snorted, this time with more force. “My life’s goal was to impress a man by getting naked and letting a guy fuck me in front of a bunch of people I don’t know. Guess there’s nothing left to shoot for now.”
“You’re upset.”
Briana closed her eyes. “I’m…I don’t know what I am…” She grabbed the rail at the back of the elevator and lowered her head. “I thought I was good person…a good wife. I didn’t know I could be this way.” She aimed a thin-lipped smile behind her. “At least I know what kind of job I should be looking for when I get back home.”
His hands gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him.
She kept her head lowered, feeling tired and teary, and not wanting him to see. He’d already seen too much and found the wantonness that lived inside her, waiting to be freed.
His fingers cupped her chin and tilted her face. “When the lights came back on, you looked sad. What were you thinking about?”
Through welling tears, she speared him with an angry glare. “That’s not something I want to share. Not with you.”
“Were you thinking about your husband?”
Her lips trembled, and she bit them, but a hiccough escaped, and words spilled in a rush. “Since it happened…since he left…I’ve felt fractured. My thoughts scattered. I worried about little things…lots of little things…mostly my own fears. I couldn’t really think about him, what life will be like without him.”
His thumb soothed her bottom lip. His gaze—soft, and dark, and penetrating—didn’t waver from hers. “Do you still love him?”
She closed her eyes to escape his knowing stare. “I’m not sure,” she lied. “I feel numb.”
The doors opened, and he straightened, stepping back to allow her to exit.
He fell in step beside her as she followed the trail of glowing torches back to the beach and her bungalow. As the dark, cloying vegetation ended, she faltered at the end of the path, staring at the sky.
The moon hovered just above the water unnaturally large. Another illusion, she knew, but its huge pitted surface gleamed bright, glinting atop rippling waves and casting a silvery glow across the curved strip of sand.
“Will you look at that? It’s so beautiful, so vast.” A warm breeze licked at the ends of Briana’s drying hair. Her hair would be a mass of unmanageable curls in minutes. The least of her problems.
“Makes a person’s problems seem small?”
Again, his uncanny ability to guess her thoughts made her uncomfortable. Not only was her body naked, her mind, her dreams were all laid bare. “Not mine. My problems could fill the universe.”
“Is there no chance for reconciliation?”
Jonathan again. “He hasn’t called. Not once. He’s already moving on. And I can’t.” She turned to give him a tight-lipped smile. “Besides, he’d never understand this. What I just did.”
“You said you found him with another woman.”
“He was making a point.”
“A point? Seems a rather harsh means of delivering a message.”
“It was cruel. But…I understood, at last, what he wanted.”
“What did your marriage lack, Briana?”
With the breeze rustling her hair and skimming her skin, she experienced a moment of clarity she could never have reached back home with her mind so busy, so consumed with a thousand insignificant worries. “Passion,” she blurted. “I refused him passion.”
Malaki stepped in front of her and raised a finger to push her hair behind her ears. His expression so warm, so caring, it hurt. “The woman I saw tonight,” he whispered, “was completely wild and passionate.”
“That wasn’t me.” Her face screwed up as tears, at last, dashed down her cheeks. “God, James didn’t wear a condom. I can’t believe I didn’t give a shit.”
Malaki cupped her face, his fingers sliding behind her ears. “You don’t have to worry about James. He’s one of us.”
“Another guide?” At his nod, she exclaimed, “But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have something. People come to this island to have sex. He’s been with other women, right?”
“We test. And Merrick has resources that preclude disease.”
“And what about pregnancy?” she said, her voice rising.
“You’re on the Pill,” he murmured. “To control your hormones because your moods swing too wildly without them.”
Her hands pulled down on his arms, trying to escape him, but he didn’t release her face. He held her, their gazes locked, while his lips firmed.
“How the fuck do you know that?” she whispered hoarsely.
“If I didn’t before, your answer just reassured me. So, you needn’t worry.”
“Malaki…I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said in a quavering voice.
His head bent over hers, his lips so close his sweet breath brushed hers like a caress. “You’re letting go. You’re waiting for me to make love with you. Here. Now.”
Her hands still gripped his arms, only now she clung to him for balance as her knees weakened and a pleasurable, melting fire softened her sex. “Guess it doesn’t matter that we’re in the open and anyone can see what we do.”
“We’re alone. Completely so.” Malaki led her to the water’s edge where waves ran up the sand and disappeared. “Give me your towel.”
Briana sucked in a deep breath and untucked the end of the towel to unwind it from her body. Her decision had been made when she left the stage anyway.
Malaki accepted it, giving her only a cursory glance, then waved it, snapping the end and laying it down on the sand. He held her hand while she took a seat, turning her legs to the side to make room for him.
“When you asked me to swim with you,” she said, as he settled beside her, “I wanted to cry I was so tempted to say yes.”
“So, I shouldn’t ask you, now?” he said, his hands stretching behind him as he sat back and gazed out at the sea.
His profile was every bit as compelling as the frontal view of his strong, exotic features. His full lips, in particular, drew her gaze. “I’d have to say no.”
“Because that’s what you should say?”
“Exactly.”
“You aren’t an easy one to seduce.”
“I should hope not.”
His lips twitched, and he turned toward her, his gaze soft and burning.
She bent toward him and pressed her lips to his, enjoying their heat. “How do you know what’s inside me?” she whispered. “We don’t know each other. I don’t know a damn thing about you.”
“You know I care and want you to grow strong. Let me show you how strong you can be.”
“That’s something I wish that I’d learned long ago. I might not be here, on an island in the middle of nowhere, with a man who’s a stranger to me. I might have been able to save my marriage.”
“No more talking. The moon’s bright. The air’s warm. We can both explore, learn each other’s pleasure.”
Feeling lighter, as though sharing her pain had shifted some of the weight of her problems to his shoulders, she gathered up her courage and offered him a small smile. “Why is it we’re never naked at the same time? I can’t believe I can carry an entire conversation with you when I’m bare-assed.”
A smile quirking one side of his mouth, Malaki sat up, unbuttoned his shirt, and shrugged it off his shoulders. Then he stood, kicked off his sandals and unbuttoned his pants, sliding them efficiently down his legs and kicking them away.
The glimpse of him standing beside her, his cock rising high against his flat, ridged belly, made her mouth water. She’d never taken a man inside her mouth, had only dared to use her hands, but she wanted his cock filling her mouth, his knees weakening as she pulled and suctioned until he spilled his cum.
She came up on her knees and gently gripped his cock to pull it down and kiss the warm, silky tip of him. She wrapped her hand more firmly around him and discovered her fingers didn’t meet.
Oh my, another similarity, she noted. One that quickened her pulse.
Fingers threaded through her hair, kneading her scalp, the weight of his hand pulling her closer.
Her lips opened, and her tongue flickered out and tasted the salt on the smooth, round cap. That first tentative sampling wasn’t enough. She tilted her head and laved the entire spongy surface in a broad stroke. She circled her head, swirling her lips in the moisture, enjoying the texture of his flesh, soft and rubbery, and the scent of his sea-fresh musk.
The sensations worked like an aphrodisiac on her heightened senses. Her skin heated, her cunt pulsed and dampened further, and deep inside she felt the curling tension build.
She opened wide and rocked forward, swallowing the head and sinking down his shaft, loving how he filled her mouth and stretched her jaws.
His fingers glided down her cheeks, pressing them inward so that she felt the soft, inner flesh caress his length. Did he imagine the inner walls of her vagina surrounding him, enclosing him in wet, hot heat as he shafted her? Her inner muscles clenched tight, a ripple working its way down her channel as she imagined it. Coming back, she tightened her lips around him and sucked.
“Briana…” he groaned, his fingers biting into her scalp.
She worked both hands around his thick shaft, sliding in the moisture she’d deposited, pushing toward his groin as her lips cupped his crown, then shoved toward her mouth as she sank again. Over and over, she stroked her hands and lips together and apart as she grew aware of the blood pounding in his cock, of the trembling that shook his legs.
His fingers loosened their grip on her hair and cheek, and he cupped her jaw, pushing her away.
Reluctantly she drew off, leaving him with a wet suctioning kiss before lifting her gaze to meet his.
He gripped her shoulders and shoved her gently to her back, then stepped over her, his feet on either side of her, giving her a mind-blowing view of his massive dick as he dropped to his knees, then sat on her hips. Cushioned by the sand beneath her, she took his weight without discomfort, but was effectively pinned so that she couldn’t move her legs.
Trapped beneath him as he stared, she reached one hand toward his cock and ringed him with her fingers, hoping he’d make a move, settle between her legs, and sweep deep inside her.
The waves lapping so near her feet echoed the rise and fall of her chest as her breaths deepened.
At last, his hands reached for the sides of her waist, wrapping them in warmth, and slowly smoothed upward. When they reached the sides of her breasts, she pursed her lips around her gusting breaths. His thumbs stroked over them, brushing her nipples, then slipping away.
“Malaki,” she sighed. “I ache.”
His palms cupped her breasts and massaged them.
Her eyes drifted closed as she drowned in sensation, her nipples spiking against his palms. He drew on them with his fingertips, pulling them up, then letting them go, over and over until her thighs and buttocks tensed beneath him. She wanted to buck upward and rub her thighs together to ease the ache building slowly inside her.
He bent over her, scooting his knees down to bracket her legs. His lips scooped at her chin, then slid over her mouth, his tongue diving inside. She suctioned at his mouth and tongue, moaning as moisture seeped from inside her pussy.
His tongue withdrew, and his lips nibbled at her neck, her shoulder. He slid lower and licked a path to her breasts, laving her nipples with slow, swirling glides, then suckling hard until her toes curled.
He mouthed them, and then lifted his head, staring at them. “You have very pretty nipples. Soft, not a single dimple.”
“Malaki, they ache. I ache. Please hurry.”
“Do you know that pleasure delayed grows?”
She didn’t think she could stand to be any more aroused. “I need you inside me.”
“I watched James fuck you and wanted to kill him.”
“You gave me to him,” she groaned, “to all three of them. I wanted you.”
“I needed to distance myself. If I’d touched you then, I wouldn’t have learned a thing. I would have thought only of my pleasure.”
“And why would that have been a bad thing?”
“Your pleasure comes first. I might have forgotten myself. Fucked you raw without inspiring a similar unquenchable lust.”
“Forget about the goddamn job. Fuck me.”
“Did you love James’s cock? Did Evelyn stretch you enough to take him without discomfort?”
“Jesus, Malaki. I can’t talk. I’m so goddamn hot. Please.”
“Because you’re remembering how full and stretched you were? How deep he penetrated you?”
“God, yes,” she bit out urgently. Thick heat was thrumming through her veins, spiking hard each time he tugged her nipples. “He didn’t ask me a thousand fucking questions, he just hammered me. Deep. Hard.”
“Do you think that’s what you need to come with a partner? Is that what you learned?”
“My husband was gentle. Always. But it wasn’t enough to break me out.”
“Did you tell him that?
“Never.”
Malaki pinched her nipples, and fire streaked from her breasts, spearing straight toward her womb, causing a deep, shuddering convulsion inside her cunt.
“Christ!”
“Did you not tell him because you didn’t know?”
“I didn’t tell him because I wanted it over,” she shouted. “I pretended to come.”
His caresses lightened, and his mouth nibbled at the undersides of her breasts, then trailed lower to bite her soft abdomen. “And you didn’t think you cheated him of pleasure?”
“Polite” and Briana parted. Her inner thighs tensed and relaxed as she tried to pump her ripening folds. “I gave him what he wanted from me,” she said, her voice choked and raw. “A wet pussy to slide inside.”
“You think that’s all a man wants?”
“Most, yes. If they manage to please a woman, it’s just good for their egos.”
“You have a low opinion of us.”
“My opinion of you in particular is sinking by the second,” she said before tightening her aching thighs one last time and then giving up the struggle to get herself off. It was no use.
Malaki’s eyes narrowed, and he slid lower. Now his head was level with her pussy, but her legs were still closed tight, and the weight of his chest and positioning of his elbows kept her trapped.
“Let me go,” she said softly, wondering if begging would move him.
“Why so uncomfortable, Briana?” he asked, his gaze boring into hers.
“Because you don’t really want this…going down on me,” she said, breathless and beginning to panic. “And I don’t want to be a job. You’ve already proven I can orgasm with a man. Fuck me, and let’s both have fun.”
“You think a man can’t have pleasure giving a woman head?”
“My husband said men don’t really like it. They like getting it, but they don’t especially enjoy reciprocating.”
One dark brow arched. “Did you ever give him a reason to love it?”
CHAPTER 8
Briana clamped her lips together.
“Did he ever pleasure you with his mouth?” he said, the hard edge of his voice carving a wound around her heart like a slender stiletto.
She licked her lips and swallowed. “He wanted to when we first married,” she said faintly.
“What happened?”
Briana closed her eyes, hating him at that moment for being so persistent. “I closed my legs, froze completely. I thought it was repugnant…embarrassing.”
“To you…or for him?”
Her lips trembled, and she turned her face to the side, wanting to escape the gaze she knew was still honed on her expression. “He would smell me,” she whispered, ashamed to admit this last fear.
“Did you feel that way when you took him into your mouth?”
“I never did…take him in my mouth, that is.”
“But you took him in your hands, got close enough to smell him.”
“He was always clean…”
“Always?”
“No…not always…” she admitted, remembering his masculine musk intensified with his arousal and sweat. She hadn’t minded, not really. His scent was pungent, but spicy…and exciting.
“But you feel like you aren’t clean?”
Her heart thudded dully against her chest, and she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, her tone flat.
“You bathe more than most women. Do you think you smell?”
“I can smell myself when I get aroused.”
“And you don’t like it?”
Briana didn’t want to answer him. Didn’t want him to see inside her—see all her insecurities.
“I can tell it embarrasses you,” he said, his tone softer, relenting. “Do you know a woman’s musk attracts a man?”
She shook her head again, not believing him. “I wanted to be perfect for him,” she croaked past a painful lump lodged at the back of her throat.
“Let me guess,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss just above the pale ruff of hair clothing her mons. “You never let him see you, smell you, unless you were groomed—perfumed and every hair in place.”
She nodded weakly, feeling as though she was unraveling.
Another kiss landed in the center of the nest of curls. “Did you think you had to be perfect to be loved by him?”
Of course. If she’d been perfect, he would never have wanted to leave. She wished Malaki would move away from her pussy. She could feel his breath above it. If he inhaled…“He said I was beautiful. The perfect woman.”
