I'm not sure if I should give a trigger warning. If stalker fear or assault trauma is a concern for you, please be aware that this chapter has some imagery associated with these circumstances, but ultimately there is no graphic violence involved in this chapter...
Ashlynn
For the tenth time, I turn my attention from my phone and watch a lone car pass by, its glossy topcoat splashed with orange sheen from the street lamps above.
My driver has already made it through the snaking lines of headlights on the LA highways, and residential Calabasas is a ghost town at 3am. That's not the reason I feel slightly lonely, though. Since my text to Leed six hours ago, telling him I was boarding the jet to LA, and he sent me a big smile emoji and a thumbs up, I haven't heard from him, despite the fact that I sent him several follow ups. I stopped texting two hours ago, figuring he was asleep.
"Have you decided, Miss?" the driver calls back on the intercom.
I bite my lip. I'm not sure where I should goâto my apartment, or to his house. Instinct is driving me to Leed's bed, but then again...he didn't exactly invite me over.
Do I need an invitation?
At the cabin, I felt so...one, with him. I never once gave any thought about what would happen logistically when we returned to LA. It didn't seem important. Frankly, it didn't seem at all desirable to sleep apart from him, ever again.
But now, I'm back in LA and the truth is...Leed's home is not my home.
I give the driver my address and ten minutes later, I'm stripping off my jeans and sweater, dropping into my bed in panties and a camisole. My body thinks its 7am, after all, and I've been running at the low end of my need for sleep all week. I surround myself with pillowsâa thing I've been doing all week to try to compensate for Leed at my back, but it's a poor substitute to his warm form curling to mine.
I take comfort in the fact that I'll see him tomorrow and fall asleep planning the pattern of kisses I want to place on his tats...
I come awake suddenly, in the gray dawn, my heart pounding, my head aching slightly, my throat dry and craving water. My phone is dead, I don't know what time it is, but I can tell from the very dim light around the shades, it's early. My body is craving more sleep, yet I'm alarmingly alert.
The darkening vise beginning to squeeze my brain only increases the pounding in my chest.
No, no, no.
Not a headache.
I did so well all week, under stressful circumstances. Not now.
Please, I beg my body. Not on my time with Leed.
I hold my head, breathing, trying to slow my heart, trying to formulate a plan. I'm wide awake; I might as well hydrate, and do some yoga. Possibly, a relaxing practicing might let me nap a little in shavasana and stop my headache in its tracks. I roll my head slowly, stretching my neck, pressing my fingers low against the back of my head, trying to relieve the tension. I flex my ankles, psyching myself up to get out of bed. I'm chilled, but fortunately a bleary scramble on the bench at the and of my bed yields me a long fuzzy sweater duster.
The downstairs is dark as I make my way through the small living room to the kitchen. Somewhere past the couch, I pause, the feeling that I'm being watched causing me to pivot, and scan the room again.
I can see no movement, nothing out of place, and the room is silent, except for the whir of the a/c unit and the hum of the refrigerator. Still, anxiety flaresâthe memory of his flunkie following me, appearing from nowhere to thwart my will at every turn.
"Hello?" I call into the shadows. No response. The thought to flip on the overhead light arises, but I chide myself. There is no one here. I am alone. I am safe.
I turn, walking with pounding heart and measured steps to the kitchen.
I'm being ridiculous. This is a gated community. I locked my door upon my arrival. I haven't had any trouble from him in almost a year.
I am perfectly safe, I tell myself as I open the refrigerator, unscrew a bottle of water, bring it to my lips.
The water bottle hits the floor and splashes my bare legs as a strong hand jerks me roughly backwards by the waist, another hand clapping over my mouth, arresting my scream.
"You thought you could hide from me?" a voice, deadly and dangerous, vibrates in my ear.
Adrenaline bursts bright in my brain, dissolving the headache, and I break out in a sweat all at once. My heart is pounding, my legs are trembling.
I shake my head in the negative, and the hand over my mouth tilts my head, teeth nip the back curve of my neck. The other arm cranks like a clock hand from my waist and a hand squeezes my left boob.
My breath begins to come in harsh pants, creating a suction between my lips and the palm pressed firmly over them.
"Have you been a bad girl while we've been apart?" the voice asks and the hand on my mouth eases slightly, so I can move my head.
I shake it, fiercely.
Then the voice chuckles, almost evilly. "Want to be?" The hand on my mouth disappears, giving me space to answer.
"God, yes," I whimper.
Leed growls and flips me around roughly, slamming the refrigerator door shut and pushing my against it. I gasp from concurrent sensation of the cool steel on the bare skin of my upper shoulders and his hard fingers clawing my ass cheeks.
By the light of the ice dispenser, I can see him. I forget to breathe as I drink in his gorgeous jawâso tenseâlipsâset in a ravenous curlâperfect aquiline noseâflaring slightly like he's scenting meâeyesâdark for once, his pupils huge from both darkness and desire.
I am utterly enraptured, by his beauty, by his power, by the way he's completely focused on on me. He looks primal, intent on his most basic needâthe most critical component to his survival.
Me.
He cages me, his forearms beside my head. He leans his forehead against the stainless steel, by my ear. "You smell different," he says softly.
I swallow. "Must be all the essential oil based cleaners and hand sanitizer I was using," I explain. He nods tersely, but I know that in his brain, he's cataloging that as my "Cam" smell and he doesn't like it worth a damn. "I can shower, if you want..."
"Fuck no. I need you, Sunshine. Too fucking much to be sweet about it..." he warns me.
In that moment, my instinct flares, too. Leed is exactly what I need. More than water, more than sleep, more than yoga. He's the cure to my aching head. He's the cure to my self-doubt and frustration and loneliness and insecurity. I grab a handful of short hair just as he prepares to devour my throat. "Kiss me nicely, just once. Then fuck me senseless."
He doesn't smile. He takes my lower lip, with eyes open, watching me as he sucks and nibbles. I open my mouth to him, and he invades, pressing in, going deeper and deeper, taking my tongue, taking my breath, devouring. The kiss is far from sweet, but it's very nice, and the whole time, his stare is pinning me, like a butterfly on a board.
He breaks it and steps back. "Clothes off," he says mildly, and my Inner Fangirl makes a show of dropping the sweater, slowly pushing down the straps of my camisole, sliding it down my body along with my panties, stepping out of them with exaggerated legs lifts, while he watches, and doesn't touch.
What it is about Leed that makes me love behing a stripper?
He pulls his tight t-shirt off with that patented one handed move and then he's on me again, pressing skin to skin, lifting me around his waist. My bare sex brushes against the rough bulge of his jeans and I moan.
He takes five quick steps to the island that divides the main floor areas and serves as our table, kicking two barstools out of the way and dropping me onto the edge, bending my legs up, planting my feet on the granite, pushing my heels back until they touch my ass. Then he spreads my knees, pulls my arms to the inside, wrapping my hands over the tops of my ankles. "This will be a challenging position to hold while I make you come, but don't let go. Don't lie back. I want you to watch. Don't close your eyes. Do you understand?"
"Yes." I suck my own lips, biting off the urge to follow the word with Sir. This is so confusingâthe way Leed rules me without rules, but it's so fucking hot.
The headache is gone now, and there's nothing but wild excitement racing through me as Leed slowly drops to his knees and spreads my folds with both hands, exploring every bit of my sex with his lips and tongue, tasting, licking, driving me higher and high, while never breaking eye contact.
There's dirty hot possession in the way his tongue and lips move me, but there's tenderness in his eyes and the way he strokes my thighs.
Three minute quickie? He has my brain drenched in a climax high and my legs spasming in about ninety seconds, and he's rightâall I want to do is let go, lie back, close my eyes, as my orgasms rips through me. Instead, I keep my legs spread and my ankles grasped and my eyes wide as Leed keeps me coming.
Then he's on his feet, flicking open his belt and fly with one hand as he repositions my hands on his shoulders with the other.
"Eyes up here, Sunshine," he commands as I watch his member spring free. I'm still holding my feet as instructed. He grabs my wrists, hauling them around his neck as my legs wrap around him. The first thrust is slow, measured, bringing me slowly to heaven.
I try to throw my head back in pleasure but he pulls my gaze back to his.
"No," he growls.
No, to me closing my eyes, because he's not going to be gentle and he needs to watch my eyes...gauge my reaction to his force.
Instinctively, I understand there is so much more in his one syllable than just that. He means, no to me being here and not at his place. No to any more restraint, no to him exercising any more patience right now, no to the foreign smells of natural cleaners and antisepticsâthe smells of my care-giving, that mask my usual bath products. No to Cam's scent on me and no to Cam claiming any more space between us--not even the air. No to one more second of not owning me, heart, body and soul.
"Yes," I whisper back. "Fuck me. Hard. Now. Yes," and he needs no more encouragement.
He rocks back and slams into me, deep and forcefully. The edge of pain spreads over me. Like dark ink spilling over the white surface of my soul. Marking me. Making me feel like together, we are something abstract and original, but eternally captivating.
Whether it's with his rainbow of tender feelings or in his inky possession, I always want to be painted in Leed's love.
"Yes," I murmur, encouraging him. "Yes. Leed... yes, yes."
He wraps his arms under mine, hooking fingers over my shoulders, gaining leverage to do just what I askedâfuck me senseless.
Over and over he invades me, reaching deep inside of my body and raising me to spiraling heights. The edge of pain becomes a pleasure like I've never known.
Yes, to this man. Over and again, yes.
Yes. Yes. Yessssssssss!!!!
Well, the chapter didn't turn out quite as scary as it seemed at first, but Leed has gotten pretty intense pretty quickly. A lion in love is a powerful, territorial creature it seems. Thoughts on his behavoir? Cool or not cool?
We haven't had a Leed POV chapter in a while, but I definitely think his POV will weigh heavy in the LA arc of the next several chapters! He's up next, in fact!