Page 2 of Beneath the Beauty (Beauty 2)
“Don’t worry.” He lowered his mouth to her sex. “I think we can wear you out all over again.”
She would have smiled then, but his tongue curled wickedly and his fingers delved deeper. Her thighs drew up tight, and she came again, smaller this time, in tense, rolling waves. He didn’t give her a reprieve, just set the flat of his tongue against her clit, which was at once too sensitive and exactly what she needed. She grew louder, her body writhing without her control, but each new orgasm sent her farther into the sex-drugged space.
When her body shuddered in one final orgasm, he knelt between her legs. She noticed distantly that his hands were shaking as he put on the condom, as he angled his cock at her slippery cunt and pushed inside. It was all wonderful but never more than that moment, when she felt so full and watched an expression of bliss soothe his tortured face.
On the one side, his skin was smooth, aside from the ruggedness and bristle of an active, healthy man. The flesh on the other side had once been burned, ravaged by fire and war, now covered with scar tissue. It hurt to see, but only because she ached for him, for the pain he must have felt in that moment, for the pain that kept him locked up in his immaculate house instead of out in the world.
To her he was beautiful. In the moonlight, the jagged landscape of his scars was more pronounced. But it was his slack jaw that she admired, his glazed eyes. The signs of his ecstasy brought on by her body. As if he were a god, she offered herself up to him, but it wasn’t a sacrifice to feel the heavy weight of his muscles, the thick pulse of his cock, the tender press of his lips against her when he bent to drop a kiss. He thrust inside her, faster and harder, pushing them onward in a sea of molten pleasure.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I can’t—I can’t—”
“Don’t hold back.” Then she repeated his earlier words. “Take what you need.”
They seemed to release him. He picked up speed, slamming inside her so hard it took her breath away. He pressed his lips to hers, moving his tongue to the same rhythm as his hips. He invaded her at both places, her mouth and her sex, and held her down in all the rest, but she wouldn’t have moved for the world. She longed for him to take her, to use her. Anything she could do to bring him pleasure. Anything to bring him peace.
His hips lost their steady motion, jerking up against her like waves on a cliff, crashing until he let out a hoarse shout and held still for his climax.
Gingerly, he pulled out. She whimpered slightly at the loss.
He stroked her thigh. “I’ll be right back. Have to take care of this.”
He disappeared into the bathroom to dispose of the condom. The water ran in a quiet rush. She stared at the glowing yellow edges of the door, resolved to wait until he got back into bed. But his clever tongue and determination had done their job, and she was too exhausted to last. With a sigh of defeat, she drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Blake returned to stand beside the bed, admiring the smooth cheek and dark eyelashes of his lover. Her dark blonde hair looked like spun gold in the night, her skin pale as the moon. His gaze roamed lower, to the sweep of her neck and below. The sheet bared one breast—gorgeous and round, topped with a dusky nipple. He hadn’t paid enough attention to her breasts this time, but then he always felt like that. He wanted to lick and suck every part of her body and then do it again.
He didn’t fool himself about the ever-present tinge of desperation, as if he needed to hurry, as if she’d slip through his fingers like sand in the wind. He had realistic expectations. He was ugly as sin. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. It was only a matter of time before she never came back.
Though it wasn’t just his looks. They were a
symptom of the root problem. Regular people could lock away their wounds and their weaknesses. Blake’s hung like a sign on a storefront. A label on a map. Here Be Dragons. Wisely, no one had ventured near him—until Erin.
He was fundamentally changed after his tour. Not just the explosion, although that had messed him up but good. For those long months overseas, he’d turned into something subhuman. Something with instincts, with power—something animal.
And the things he’d seen still haunted him. He didn’t much feel like being around people at all, and when they jerked away from him in fear it didn’t help matters.
Maybe they should be afraid of him. Maybe the explosion had truly changed him, honed and sharpened him into something only useful for fighting—not living.
He’d existed in a world of darkness and palpable hellfire since the explosion and his return. So much for a life in the public spotlight. The well-planned career on a political stage was ruined. His parents were disappointed. His fiancée had been disappointed too, until she’d left.
Hell, he was getting depressing. He tried not to do that, especially when Erin was around. She had changed all that. He wasn’t fixed—not even close. Hope was a small blade of green poking up from the hard, cracked earth.
As she’d said, he was well and truly awake. If he stayed in bed with her, he’d only end up waking her again with his restlessness. Despite his pensive mood, his dick was ready for round two—or was it three or four? A steady state around her. He couldn’t keep badgering her like this. He may live like a hermit these days, working at odd hours and all through the night, but she had to leave early in the morning.
Treading quietly, he slipped out of the bedroom to his study across the hall. The answering machine blinked red like it had all afternoon, but he ignored it. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. Instead he flipped the screen up on his laptop, suffusing the room with a dim blue light that comforted him. Here he was in his element. Here he was treated as an equal.
There were six new emails today, each several pages long, dense blocks of text he’d sift through, dissect, and debate. Four from professors and politicos in the U.S., one abroad, and the last from a Jain monk in India. Well, the man’s assistant, technically, since he didn’t use a computer or even prepare his own food. The topics varied from domestic politics, global events, human rights, anything they could discuss passionately and endlessly, spinning his intellectual wheels in the rut of rhetoric. A network he’d built up over his years as a young, ambitious soldier with his eye on public office, never realizing he would one day need them as his sole link to humanity.
He lost himself in the words. Only here, he didn’t have to be himself. The subjects tested him intellectually, but he didn’t have to think about his own life and the lack of it. Not about Erin and when she might realize what a loser she’d hooked up with. Not how he’d feel when she walked away.
Hours slipped away with only the clean, crisp notes of logical arguments, falling one after the other in a melody he could play in his sleep.
“You’re awake.”
He looked up to see Erin standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed, her slender body leaning back just inside the doorframe. He wondered how long she had been there.
“Oh man, I’m sorry.” He stood up quickly, and pain shot down his neck. Partly it was the position he’d been in, but his neck had been stiff ever since the explosion. Months of physical therapy and rehabilitation visits had only helped so much. The explosion had damaged more than his skin. “I didn’t realize how long it’d been.”
