Light Me Up, Page 2

The toys were fun, but damn, he didn’t need anything to get her going except his mouth, his fingers…and the thought of a certain piercing he had that he knew how to use with shattering precision. Hell, just the sight of him, the way his eyes darkened when she could tell his thoughts were taking a wicked turn, could have her going zero to sixty in .02 of a second. How could she not love this man with all her heart?

  His hands slid around behind her and squeezed her ass through her dress, drawing her close enough to feel the ridge of his erection through his slacks. With a little moan, she rubbed against it, internal muscles squeezing with her need to feel that thick cock sink deep, hot and tight inside her.

  “I’ve been walking around with that most of the night,” he said with a husky chuckle.

  “Mmm.” She reached down and gathered her dress up her thigh, giving him easier access. “Feel what I’ve been walking around with.”

  He didn’t waste any time in pulling one hand back and stroking a finger over the damp silk of her panties. The move was meant to entice him, but dear God, she almost collapsed at his touch. “Shit, Candace,” he groaned.

  She raised her thigh along the outside of his, opening herself, and let her head fall back as his fingers pulled aside her thong and explored her wetness with the barest of touches. “I love you,” she gasped when one finger slipped almost leisurely into her clenching pussy.

  He made the little come-hither motion that curled her toes and ignited the familiar but always welcome liquid ache deep inside her belly. “I love you,” he whispered back, looking into her eyes as he said it, as each stroke inside only fueled her longing. “So much.”

  “Please,” she said weakly. Please fuck me. Please marry me. Please spend the rest of your life with me.

  “You sure about this?”

  She knew what he meant. It was her parents’ house. It was her old childhood bathroom. But it was everything that had repressed her all her life, until he came along. Hell yes, she was sure about it. “I am.” She undulated against his hand, ready to climb him if he didn’t do something soon, if he didn’t give her more, if he didn’t get the hell inside her.

  It was the only assurance he needed. His eyes darkened in the way that stole her breath. “You’re so goddamn perfect,” he rasped, his hand curling hard behind her neck and jerking her mouth to his. “So fucking perfect.”

  Little whimpers formed and died in her throat. His tongue danced into her mouth and she met it with her own, starving for the taste of him. And all at once, she had to see him. She began to work the buttons of his black shirt, fighting the urge to just rip them off to get to the wildness beneath his clothes. The tattoos—the vibrant ink he covered for formal occasions such as these, the real Brian, her man. Shoving his shirt from his shoulders, she trailed her mouth down his neck and kissed his bared chest, running her tongue along the lines and then sucking his nipple rings, first one then the other. His fingers tangled in her hair as he tensed and groaned, demolishing her updo. She barely cared.

  Then it was his turn, strong hands shoving away fabric and strapless bra until her breasts were bared to his hands, his mouth…he returned the favor, sucking the little rings she’d finally relented and let him give her a few months back. She gasped and writhed at the tugging sensation, remembering how it had felt to let him do that—the sharp pierce of pain at odds with the warm and gentle way he’d handled her. The consolatory kiss above the still-stinging site of the piercing, to make it all better. Do you do that to all the girls? she’d asked him with a giggle. Only the ones I want to spend the rest of my life with, he’d replied.

  He’d gotten so laid that night.

  Her ass met the edge of the vanity. With hardly any effort, he lifted her onto it, stepping between her knees and working his belt without taking his eyes from hers. Their panting breath mingled in the tiny space between their lips.

  “Do you know what it does to me to see you look the way you do tonight?” he asked.

  This, obviously. But she wanted to hear him say it. “What?”

  “When you look like this, dressed up, all fuckin’ perfection like a priceless doll, it’s like you’re theirs again. And I just can’t wait to take you back. Make you mine.” With jerky, desperate movements, he freed his cock, positioned her and rubbed against her drenched panties with only the tip. She squirmed closer, just as impatient, just as frantic. He built that anticipation with every brush against her pulsing clit. It was delicious. He was delicious.

  “I’m yours,” she whispered, clutching both sides of his head. “I’m always yours. Please, baby, please…” His fingers found the side of her panties and wrenched. She gasped with the sting of the snapping fabric. Then, with one long, firm push she swore she felt all the way to her throat, he claimed her, the bead of his apadravya piercing dragging over the most sensitive part of her inner walls. She bit her lip on a wail they probably would’ve heard downstairs.

  It didn’t matter how long they’d been together. How many times they’d done this. He’d been her first—she hoped to God he’d be her last—and every time felt just like that first time. The overwhelming sensation of his body coming into hers, the emotions spiraling out of control. The love so strong it scared the hell out of her.

  She let her heels clatter to the floor behind him and wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles. His hands smoothed up her thighs, bunching up her dress, and the sigh that left him sounded almost relieved. “Finally where I’ve wanted to be all night,” he said, the corner of his mouth tilting up sardonically.

  Candace’s breath gusted in and out. She was beyond replying, beyond thinking; she could only feel. And she needed to feel him move. He seemed content where he was, holding still deep inside her while her greedy body pulsed and wept and begged for him. He dropped his head to her naked breast, tonguing the ring in her nipple and flicking it until she arched and held his head to her in a grip she doubted he could break. When he sucked it gently, more, then harder, so hard it hurt, then gently again…oh God, the answering contractions in her pussy were going to make her come on him even though he wasn’t moving an inch.

  Jesus! How was he holding back? Why didn’t she have his control? She squeezed her internal muscles tight as she could around him.

  “Christ, Candace.” The breath from the words cooled her heated flesh.

  She knew how to break him.

  “Please, Brian, please fuck me. Didn’t you want to show me that I’m yours? Make me come. Show me.”

  One of his hands shot up to grasp her chin. Her heart leaped and began to pound. He stared directly into her eyes, his own an unfathomable blue that became her universe if she stared long enough. He made her do that very thing—stare into the beautiful complexity of his eyes as he began to withdraw, as he inched his piercing ever closer to that spot…that spot…oh, yes, that spot right there.

  “Brian!” she cried, all four limbs locking tight around him.

  “Yeah?” he breathed.

  “Right there, right there—” She momentarily lost the capacity for speech as, still holding her chin, he slid his cock back and forth, slowly, slowly, too damn slowly. “Faster!”

  “Shh.”

  “Damn you!”

  “Bless you.”

  Even in the midst of ecstasy, she couldn’t help but laugh. A common occurrence with them. But he picked up his pace and soon there was nothing but sensation. The feel of him and the familiar smells and sounds of their sex. His eyes closed; his head dropped to her shoulder. Her fingers sank into his thick black hair, stroking through the silky strands then gripping them when the pleasure tightened and built to blinding proportions. Her panting turned into a chant: “Yes, baby, yes.”

  Always her answer to everything where he was concerned.

  He lifted his mouth to her ear. “Come for me, Candace.”

  Especially that. Sweet release engulfed her, submerged her, somehow grounding her and flinging her into the heavens at once. She dug her fingernails into his back�
�until she realized she wasn’t going to be able to suppress her cries and had to let him go to cover her mouth. So good, oh so good…

  He was there with her, cursing and clutching at her while his cock pulsed against her contractions. As the maelstrom began to ebb, his lips found hers, and she slowly drifted down with his kiss to soothe her. One final, long exhale as their mouths broke apart, and the violent need became peace again.

  “Damn,” he said, stroking her cheek. She nodded her agreement, then let her forehead fall to his shoulder as he drew her closer. Still she trembled all over, and though he seemed calm in her arms, his heart thudded hard next to hers.

  “I have plans for you tonight,” he said, and she found it funny he could sound so normal after…that.

  “Oh, really? What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Pouting, she leaned back to look at him. “Don’t do that to me. Why did you even say anything?”

  “Because I love doing that to you.” He reached up and lifted a strand of her tumbled hair, looking thoughtful as he curled it around his finger. “When we get home, I want you to fix this back like it was. It looked gorgeous.” Grinning, he let the curl spring back. “Not that it doesn’t look gorgeous right now.”

  “But what—?”

  The soft squeak of the door opening in the adjoining bedroom made her heart leap, then the voice that followed made it nearly come out of her throat. “Candace? Are you in here?”

  Her mother.

  Brian froze, but instead of the alarm she expected to see flash across his face, his mouth broke into a giant freaking grin. He hadn’t locked the bedroom door? She should’ve asked, sure, but she’d kind of assumed he’d known what would happen with the two of them alone in private. Jesus!

  “Hello?” Footsteps came closer, and then she heard Sylvia muttering about the maid leaving the bathroom light on.

  “Mom! Uh…don’t come in, I’m not feeling well,” she called.

  Thank God, the approaching steps halted, but the irritation in her mother’s voice made her grit her teeth. “Oh, Candace. Jennifer just told me she saw you looking as if you were about to pass out earlier. Have you drank too much?”

  Brian’s face became a mask of silent laughter. She gave him a little punch in the shoulder. “Um…could be, I guess. Sorry.”

  Sylvia sighed. “Are you okay?”

  “I…yes. I’m okay.”

  “I’ll get Brian and he can take you home. I didn’t see him downstairs, though. Do you know where he is?”

  He took that moment to give her a little thrust, reminding her exactly where he was. She stuck a warning finger in his face. He promptly bit it. Oh, this was kind of sick. “I’m sure he’s…down there somewhere.” At that, she was afraid he was going to lose it completely. But somehow he maintained his composure.

  “Well, all right. I’ll go look. When you leave, don’t let everyone see you looking unwell. Go out the back.”

  “Okay.”

  “And about the talk we had earlier…I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that I know what he means to you, and whether you believe it or not, I want to see you happy. Whatever that means to you. So you just…do what you feel is best.”

  Candace suppressed a cringe as Brian’s jovial expression smoothed out then pinched into a frown. She watched the transformation with a sinking heart. “Thanks,” she said to her mother. A moment later, Sylvia shut the bedroom door, and absolute silence descended.

  Brian slipped from her body and stepped away, not speaking at first. Candace licked her lips and eased herself down from the vanity, letting her skirt fall around her shaking legs. Her heart beat a painful rhythm in her chest.

  “What exactly is it you’re supposed to do?” he asked, trying to sound casual as he zipped himself up. She knew him, though. He couldn’t hide the little edge in his voice from her.

  Her brain replayed her mother’s words and she wondered how he’d taken them. “We just…she was asking me, like, what our…future plans are.”

  “What did you say?”

  She shrugged, turning to check out her reflection and take stock of the damage for the first time. Holy hell. No, she really couldn’t let anyone see her looking like this, hair all bedraggled and lipstick smeared liberally around her mouth. “I mean, you and I haven’t …discussed anything lately, so I just told her to back off. We don’t need her trying to intervene in our lives.”

  “She doesn’t like you being shacked up with me.”

  As usual, he cut to the heart of the matter. Candace began jerking bobby pins from her hair. Better to just let it tumble down. “I don’t care what she likes.”

  “You do a little, or you wouldn’t be yanking half your hair out with those pins.”

  Sighing, she tossed the pins down and set about fixing her face, sharing glances in the mirror with him every few seconds. He buttoned his shirt and made a few quick adjustments to his own appearance, running his fingers through his thick black hair. Then he moved toward the door. “Guess I’d better go make myself available for her to find, or she might come back.”

  She hated the uncertainty in his eyes. It shouldn’t be there, not about her. She reached for his hand before he could go, rubbing it gently between her own. “Hey. I love you.”

  “I love you too, babe.” He pulled away and was gone.

  Dammit. She cleaned up the remnants of their pleasure from between her legs, then continued trying to tame her hair into something presentable in case they didn’t manage to slip out unnoticed. And what the hell to do with her ruined panties and the tiny vibrator? She couldn’t hide them in the empty wastebasket for the housekeepers to find, and she had no pockets.

  Maybe she’d just slip them in Brian’s when he came back to collect his sloppy-drunk girlfriend.

  Chapter Two

  The drive home was too quiet. The lighted houses Candace usually enjoyed looking at slipped past the windows of Brian’s truck virtually unseen. She focused on him, his every breath, every movement, even when she wasn’t looking right at him. He didn’t seem upset that he was still a subject of dissension between her and her parents—hell, he was used to it by now. But it shouldn’t have to be that way. He didn’t deserve it. He was amazing and wonderful and if they would just pull the reindeer antlers out of their asses, they would see that.

  Maybe they were making progress, though. At least the word “wedding” had actually dropped from her mother’s lips. It was a far better word than some of the others she’d uttered about him in the past.

  She reached over and laced her fingers through his. He gave her a smile, but it didn’t have its usual spark. For some reason, that more than anything else shredded her heart.

  “Brian, she asked when we were getting married. She wanted me to ask you that. That’s all she meant when she told me to do what I thought was best.”

  If he’d been still before, now he was frozen. Oh, shit.

  “Really?”

  Swallowing against the dryness in her throat, she stroked his fingers with her thumb. “Really. I don’t know if it was one of her ploys or not, though. At first I thought it was, but now…I’m not sure.”

  “Ploy for what?”

  “Maybe to get me to bring it up to you and scare you off? You know how she is. I don’t know. We don’t have to talk about this.”

  “Baby, that ain’t happening. So put it out of your head.”

  Relief blazed a trail through her chest. She’d known, she had, really, but…to hear him say it was more beautiful than all the Christmas carols in the world. “You’re a saint to put up with all this. I swear, Brian, they’re my family, but if you say the word—”

  “Stop that.” He drew her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “As long as they stay the fuck away from my business, I can handle them.”

  She fell silent. He referred to the incident that happened shortly after they got together—her older brother Jameson being so outraged his little sister was sleeping with
Brian Ross that he trashed Brian’s tattoo parlor. Her family’s hatred and animosity toward the man she loved had nearly sent her running, because she didn’t see any way out from them—at least not for the foreseeable future—and she didn’t want to put Brian through their wrath.

  In many ways, she was different now. She’d graduated college. She’d abandoned the career path she’d planned for in deciding to help Brian with his parlor—a decision made solely for herself and for him, not her parents. She didn’t live under a roof they paid for. She was free of them financially. If her relationship with them was going to consistently drive wedges between her and Brian, she would just have to free herself from them altogether. The thought was one that had loomed for a long time, and it saddened her, but what else could she do?

  “And,” he said as he turned into the parking lot of their apartment complex, “as long as you love me and aren’t planning to cut and run, then there’s nothing at all to worry about.”

  “I would have to be insane to leave you. God, Brian. Don’t you know that?”

  There was the spark she’d been missing. The smile from him that lit up her entire world. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “I know it, but I still like to hear you say it.”

  Of course, she knew just what he meant.

  Their apartment—his apartment that she’d moved into not long after they got together—was a sight for sore eyes. Decorated mostly with his art and a few of her girly touches, it was small but she considered it the first real home she’d ever had. Her parents’ house was like a museum: gigantic, cold, and while you could look, you could never, ever touch. Her first apartment had been paid for with their money and while she’d decorated it herself, it had been under her mother’s critical eye. But Sylvia had never stepped foot here, and probably never would. That was fine with Candace.

  She moved around turning on some lamps and then plugging in the lights on their Christmas tree. Brian started some music.

  “So ready to get out of this dress,” she said, heading for the bathroom to do just that.