: Chapter 19

THE CLOCK IS TICKING.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

It’s loud. So loud that it’s sending deep tremors through my body.

Only, the guesthouse doesn’t have a clock.

I swallow the creeping sickness back down my throat as the tick-tock thuds in my ears and my chest, so hard the back of my ribs will definitely be bruised.

It’s my heart. It’s the sound of my heart trying to keep beating as Reed’s admission floors me. Three short words that has my heart feeling as though it could stop at any moment. Rendered useless from the knowledge that the man standing in front of me has been subjected to something so… so… despicable.

“I was raped.”

“It’s okay, Angel. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” Reed’s deep voice is calm, and it reaches into my chest and wraps itself around my heart, soothing it until it feels less like a grenade about to detonate.

He kisses me, his lips tenderly moving in my hair, on my forehead, over my cheeks.

I search his eyes for pain. But there’s only worry and concern, pouring out of him as fast as the tears he’s wiping from my cheeks.

“It’s okay, Harls.”

Wait. He’s soothing me?

He kisses my lips, then scrunches his eyes shut. “Please kiss me, Harley. Let me know this hasn’t changed anything.” His voice is soft, but there’s an undercurrent in it. Pain. It’s saturated in his words as he presses his lips to mine again. “Harley?”

I draw in a shaky breath and sink my hands into the hair at the back of his neck as I kiss him back. I kiss him with everything I have, opening so he can slide his tongue past my lips to meet mine. I kiss him and grip him to me as if my life depends on it.

“God, don’t look at me any differently, Harls. I couldn’t stand it. Not you…”

I kiss him again with more force, pushing my silk-clad breasts against his naked chest. His dick, hard as stone, presses into my hip through his pajama pants. Surely, he can’t think for one second this would change the way I see him, the way I feel about him?

I can’t let him doubt for one second the way I feel when I’m with him.

I press myself harder against him, relishing the way his arms tighten around me in response. “It changes nothing. I want you, Reed,” I pant against his lips.

He growls, low and deep, from his chest.

“Fuck, Harley. I want you too, Angel. I always want you.”

His eyes fix on mine, and we hold one another’s gaze.

He needs this.

He needs me.

I yank my panties down with one hand, kicking them off when they reach my ankles.

“Fuck me however you want me, Reed,” I pant into his mouth as I kiss him again. “Rough, fast, hard, dirty. Whatever you need. Whatever you want.” I push his pajama pants down and palm his cock as he hangs his head and hisses.

“Harley…”

“If you need to hurt me, hurt me. I trust you.”

He brings his head back up and looks at me darkly, the golden flecks in his eyes flashing. “You want me to hurt you?”

“I know you won’t really hurt me. Just like you didn’t last night. But if you need to be rough with me, it’s okay.”

“Angel.” He swipes his thumb over my swollen lip, the pad of it grazing my teeth as his eyes follow its path.

I stare up at him. Waiting. I would do anything for this man. Let him choke me, spank me… degrade me. Whatever he needs. I want him to know he can trust me. Just like I trust him.

He needs this. I can see it in his eyes. We have so much to talk about…

Later.

Right now, he needs to know he still has me. I need to show him I’m here with him.

That I will always want him, no matter what.

“Take it off.” He trails a finger up my thigh, causing goosebumps to dance all the way up my spine as he inches my nightie higher. The words are quiet but spoken with a confident authority that has arousal spilling down the inside of my legs.

I cross my arms, taking the lace hem between my fingers, and slide the silk up my body and over my head, letting it fall to the floor next to us.

Reed sucks in a breath as his eyes rake over every inch of my body. “You’re so beautiful. And you’re mine.”

I gasp as he grabs me roughly, his fingers digging into the flesh of my ass cheeks as he hoists me up so I can wrap my legs around his waist. Heat is racing around my body, and my heartbeat has started up a wild, punishing beat between my thighs. I grind myself against him, my wetness smearing over his hard abs.

I brace myself, expecting him to rest me against the sink and fuck me right here where we stand. But instead, he carries me across the hallway and into the bedroom, dropping me down onto the bed and crawling up over me.

My legs drop wide in anticipation as I crave what’s coming. Reed can always fuck me deeply when he’s on top of me. He either wraps my legs around his waist or throws them over his shoulders like he did on our first night together. That grants him deeper access inside me, and I know he loves it. Bea may think he only fucks from behind, and he does love that, too. But Reed’s favorite way to fuck me is with my knees up around my ears and his lips against mine as I moan his name into his mouth. He always comes extra hard when we do it like that. To the point that he’s joked about wearing two condoms to withstand the strength at which it hits him.

I gaze up at his blazing body hovering over mine, his warm brown waves falling forward. I brush one back from his eyes so I can see them in all their deep, magnetic brilliance as he drinks me in.

“I love it like this,” I whisper, bringing my knees up.

“I know, Angel. And I love it, too. But we’re not doing that tonight.”

Before I can protest, Reed rolls onto his back and grabs a condom from the table next to the bed, tearing it open and rolling it down onto him.

“Come here, Harley. Come here, Angel.”

Come here, Harley.

The same words as that first night together. The night that started it all.

I hesitate, unsure what he means. Then his strong hands grasp my hips, and he lifts me over him, so I’m straddling him while he lies on his back.

“Reed…?” I look down at him. His jaw is clenched, and his eyes are black and blazing like pools of molten tar.

“Don’t hold back. I want you to fuck me like you’ve wanted to all this time. Show me what I’ve been missing.”

“But you don’t want this, you don’t…” My words die in my throat as Reed slides his hands up to my breasts and pinches my nipples.

“I’ll tell you what I want, Harley. I want you. I want you to fuck me like this while your pretty tits bounce. And you’re going to come three times on my cock. Only then will I pump you so full of my cum that if I wasn’t wearing a condom, it would still be running out of you next week. Do you understand?”

I stare at his serious face, my eyes widening as I nod. Goosebumps break out along my spine at the thrill his words bring to my body.

“Now, come here,” he says softly, his lips curving into a smile.

He holds the base of his cock, and I rise over it, then stop.

“Take the condom off,” I whisper.

“No, Harley.”

“Yes,” I say more forcefully. “You said this snake always wore his second skin, right?”

Reed smirks at my referral to what he said at Paige’s party. “Yes, but you said you’d never—”

“I know what I said.” I keep my eyes on his as I roll the condom back up over the head of his cock and throw it to the side. “But I changed my mind. I want to still feel you next week. I want to feel you everywhere.”

Reed’s eyes glitter at me as I echo words from our first night back at him as well.

“Unless you’d rather I put it back on?”

“Don’t you dare! My first bare sex, and I get to watch you sit on my cock? It’s what fucking dreams are made of, Harls. Now get on with it.”

I smile at him, my eyes glued to his. But as I rise above him and sit down onto him slowly, inch by inch, rocking side to side to take him, a trace of alarm fires in his eyes. His breath hitches and his jaw ticks. A bead of sweat gathers on his brow, and his hands freeze on my breasts.

“Reed?” I whisper, stalling with him halfway inside me.

“Don’t stop.” His breathing is shallow as he starts to stroke my breasts again, his eyes on my nipples. “Fuck, your tits look incredible from this angle.”

I sink all the way down onto him, letting out a soft moan.

His eyes rise, holding mine for a beat as I sit with him buried inside me. Then his chest rises with a slow inhalation before he lets out a low, deep groan that has my clit throbbing.

“I love your cock,” I say as I move again, a little faster, spurred on by the increasingly deep groans Reed is making beneath me as his hands drop to my hips and his gaze returns to my breasts. “Is this okay?”

His eyes snap to mine, and he focuses on me with laser-sharp precision. “What did I say, Harls? Don’t go fucking easy on me.”

Desire floods my body, setting fresh arousal free inside my core. It soaks Reed’s cock, and he hisses out in delight as he watches the wet shine of me on his skin as I pull back and then sink down onto him again.

He feels incredible skin to skin with me. Every ripple and vein in his cock is pronounced, every pulse of blood throbbing through him is a caress deep inside me. It’s not long before I’m fucking him hard, grinding down onto him, loving the way his balls slap my ass every time he thrusts up to meet me.

To meet me.

Reed is here with me. He’s not lying back, going through the motions to please me. He’s meeting me thrust for thrust, groan for groan, shudder for shudder, as our bodies climb together, chasing their release.

“Three times,” he pants. “Start coming, Harls, or I’m going to have to stop for a minute.”

He rubs his thumb over my clit and I go off like a rocket, a mix of teetering on the edge from the feel of him stretching me out, and the knowledge that he’s struggling to hold back himself. He likes what we’re doing. Despite avoiding it for so long. Here with me, right now, he likes it. He likes it so much that his cock is swelling inside me and his balls are pulling up toward his body.

“Harls,” he growls in warning as he pinches one of my nipples with one hand, the other still rubbing my clit.

I come again, intense waves rippling through me and squeezing him tight.

“Fuck.” I tip my head back and shudder.

Reed sits up and takes my nipple into his mouth, and I bring my eyes back to his, threading my fingers through the hair at the back of his head as he grasps me around both hips and drags me up and down over his cock.

“That’s two, Angel. The next one we do together. You ready?”

I nod with a garbled cry as he lies back down and tips his chin up to me. “I’m holding it back, Angel. You’re so fucking sexy. I want to watch you come on my cock as I fill you up.”

“Yes,” I moan as I grind down, and he rubs my clit again. He’s caught me before I’ve fully come down, so a few expertly executed strokes is all it takes before the pressure starts building inside me again.

“Harley.”

I look down into his eyes as he moans my name. There’s no wariness in them, no unease. Just pure, unbridled passion and sexual energy.

“You’re killing me,” Reed growls, his fingers flexing against my hips, his cock slick and hard as the sound of my wetness coating him ricochets around the room like a wonderful, dirty symphony.

“Reed… I’m going to… I’m going to come,” I cry as the first wave slams through my body.

“Fuck, Harls. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I squeeze around him, clenching and releasing as each wave steals my breath and has me crying out his name. His eyes hold mine. His body tenses.

Then I feel it.

Hot liquid heat filling me. Filling me and filling me until it runs down my thighs as he thrusts up inside me.

I choke back a sob, overwhelmed as my body tingles all over and goosebumps cover my skin. My vision blurs and my ears ring.

Then strong arms pull me down into something solid and warm.

“Harley, you’re incredible.” Reed scrunches his face up against mine as his cock twitches inside me. He cradles me against his chest, easing his eyes open as the last pulse of his orgasm fades.

He looks into my eyes, our wet cheeks pressing together as he grabs my face and pulls me in close to kiss me. I taste the salt on my lips and know it’s from both of us. His eyes shine as the corners pinch from emotion. The sight of him here, baring his soul to me, knocks the air from my lungs.

Each hot droplet is another move forward.

Another step into the future.

We’re washing away the past.

Together.