Maya Banks - Sweet Addiction

“Would you like me to use my mouth?” Mike asked.

Her gaze flew to Cole. He looked pleased by her reaction but nodded his permission, effectively leaving it up to her.

“Oh God, yes,” she breathed. “Please.”

“Spread your legs and place your feet on either side of the lounger,” Mike directed.

She did as he bade and planted the soles of her feet on the sun-warmed deck. Her pussy was spread and bared and she was completely vulnerable, a sensation that sent a heady thrill through her body.

Mike straddled the lounger and scooted up until his hands covered the tops of her thighs and slid warmly up to her pelvis. He lowered his mouth at the same time he spread the folds of her pussy with his thumbs. Holding her open, he dipped his tongue down and licked her from her entrance to her clit.

She nearly came off the lounger and would have but she suddenly realized where C.J. had gone. He was holding her shoulders down so she couldn’t move. Her gaze went helplessly to Cole who surveyed her with lazy arrogance.

Mike nuzzled her flesh, the scruff on his jaw abrading her sensitive areas, driving her crazy. He licked and sucked, gently, so very gently. The man was a God when it came to oral sex. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t throw herself at a man who had a mouth like this.

And man was he patient. He didn’t tire. Didn’t grow impatient when she didn’t come right away. He was content to work her up slow and easy. He licked her deep, sliding his tongue as far inside her as he could reach. Then he’d work his way up to her clit where he’d tongue her and suck lightly at the quivering bundle of nerves. She was ready to scream because she was so on edge but she just couldn’t get there yet.

“She needs more,” Cole said softly. “She needs that edge. A little rough. Push her a little more and she’ll come.”

Oh how he understood her. Even watching another man go down on her, he could read her like a book. Knew she was close and what she needed to achieve release.

Mike nipped lightly at her clit and then rubbed the bristle of his beard growth through her folds. He slid two fingers inside her while he nibbled at the taut bud above her entrance and then began finger fucking her.

“That’s it,” Cole said. “Don’t be afraid of hurting her. She likes it rough. Don’t you, Ren darling?”

“Yesss.”

The word came out as a long hiss because just as Cole had given Mike further directions, Mike added a third finger and thrust hard.

“Come in my mouth,” Mike said hoarsely. “I want you to come all over my tongue. I want to taste you. I’ve never tasted anything sweeter.”

Those words, so sweetly said, did more than the bite of pain and the hard edge of his fingers. She catapulted over the edge, her entire body drawing up and then exploding with the force of a bomb.

She quivered from head to toe and she was only aware of Mike licking her. Of him sucking every bit of her release into his mouth. She moaned and melted into the lounger, so boneless that she couldn’t move. Her legs sagged limply to the side. As Mike raised his head from her pussy, she couldn’t even muster the strength to close her legs so they remained gaped open like a complete wanton.

“Bring her to me.”

Cole’s quiet command drifted over her ears and soon she found herself lifted from the lounger and delivered into Cole’s waiting arms. He cuddled her to him and held a glass of cold water to her lips. She drank thirstily and then sagged against his chest as he stroked his hand up and down her back.

“Lay here with me, Ren. I’m going to feed you delicious food and we’re going to watch the sun go down.”

She sighed a blissful, happy sigh and burrowed a little tighter into his embrace. Oh, but he did love to spoil her so.

“Where did you wander off to today?”

Ren lay in the lounger, wrapped in Cole’s arms as the sunset put on a fiery display worthy of the gods. The sky was painted in vibrant golden hues with brushes of pink and lavender. And just over the horizon, the sun was a giant orange orb, sinking lower and lower, hanging on with a weakening grip.

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. She knew exactly what he was asking. It was the source of her punishment and the catalyst for everything that had happened since. Put in that light, she couldn’t very well regret what had happened but she could at least make him understand.

“I was thinking.”

“About?”

She flushed, embarrassed at the first thing that had drifted her off course while Cole was fucking her.

“Ren?” he prompted.

“I was imagining what a child of ours would look like,” she mumbled.

He went utterly silent. So still against her. Disconcerted, she chanced a peek at him to gauge his reaction and was stunned by the raw hunger in his eyes. He looked …wistful.

“I think she would be beautiful like her mama,” Cole said quietly. “Dark skin, dark hair. Who knows what kind of eyes with your mixture of brown and green and my blue eyes. But I’d lay odds she’ll be stunning.”

“And a boy?” she asked with a smile.

“I picture him like you too. A miniature Ren with your mischievous smile.”

“Would our children inherit nothing from you?”

“Just my love of you.”

She was flattened by the statement. Had no response. She felt like she was swaying while the world went still around her.

She lay her head back on his shoulder afraid to dream further.

“When you began the punishment, I remembered when we were young how we used to act out those scenes where I said no and you forced me.”

Cole stopped his lazy exploration of her skin. “Did I frighten you?”

She shook her head. “That’s not why I brought it up. It made me remember. It …excited me. It excited me then.”

“And now?”

“You’re still the only person I would ever trust in a situation like that. I’ve never taken things that far with anyone else.”

He touched her hair, ran his fingers absently through the strands. “Not even Lucas?”

She shook her head. “Lucas is intense. One, I don’t see him really appreciating such a situation. He’s much too serious. And impatient with games. Two, it’s entirely possible that he’d push too far. I don’t think he’d get carried away. I mean, I trust him. I guess I’ve just never wanted to see that side of him. He can be intimidating.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing. Earlier, I mean. You …” He looked pained for a moment as if he didn’t really want to say what was on his mind. “You get to me, Ren. Like no one else has ever been able to. I look at you and my instinct is to dominate and not just because it’s a sexual aspect that turns me on. It goes much deeper than that with you. I want to protect and cherish you. I want to get so deep inside your mind and skin that you can never shake me. That probably scares the hell out of you but I can’t be any more honest than that.”

Fright was the very last thing on her mind. Warmth curled around her insides, fluttered through her chest and seeped into her soul, comforting her from the inside out.

“What if I told you that was precisely what I needed? What I want? More than anything.”

“But would you be happy with those things no matter who provided them?” he asked grimly.

She sucked in her breath, stung by the almost accusation even as she understood why he asked it. It was a valid question. In his shoes, she’d be wondering the same thing. But instead of answering or perhaps by way of answering, she turned it back on him.

“Would any woman do for you? Would you be happy protecting and cherishing any woman or is it just me?”

He looked pissed and she instantly regretted the little demon that prompted her to ask it.

“I’m not even going to acknowledge, much less respond, to that question. I believe I’ve more than answered it. You, on the other hand, have yet to answer mine. That’s not like you, Ren. You’ve been honest and straightforward on every other occasion. Even to your detriment.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. It made me angry and frustrated me a little.”

“Care to share why?”

He’d relaxed a little the moment she’d admitted the emotion behind her question, and he began stroking his hand over her arm again, offering comfort. The man really was too good to be true, and here she was about to be the biggest most ungrateful bitch alive.

“Because I couldn’t respond and say what I wanted to say. Not while being truthful. I’d love to be able to tell you that like you, I could only be this way with you. That I’d only want these things from you. But I’d be lying and I won’t lie to you, Cole. I can’t.”

“Lucas.”

That one word said it all. The grim resignation in Cole’s voice told her without any other explanation that he knew well that Lucas was the one exception. The one thing standing in the way of her total and complete acceptance of what she and Cole had together. Because she’d shared much of the same with him. Because she trusted Lucas and she cared for him. No, that wasn’t even being honest with herself. She loved him just like she loved Cole. Even knowing that he might be finished with her. Even knowing that he’d hurt her horribly just days earlier.

A part of her couldn’t accept what she feared was true until she was presented irrefutable evidence, and in this case it would mean facing Lucas and having him tell her.

It made her stupid. It made her …It made her someone she didn’t want to be. She hated it. But God, how do you just stop loving someone? How? It wasn’t like flipping a switch. She’d been with Lucas an entire year. She’d only been back with Cole a few days.

She couldn’t cheapen her love for Cole by being as fickle as to say she no longer loved Lucas. What would that say about what she felt for Cole?

The words burned in her throat and she knew she had to tell him. She had to explain. And oh God, if he didn’t understand, if he grew angry, she didn’t know what she’d do because there was nothing left for her but the truth.

She opened her mouth but the words stuck. How she hated this horrible paralysis that gripped her.

Then Cole’s gentle hand slid over her cheek and turned her more fully to face him.

“Talk to me, Ren. There’s such torment in your eyes. I can’t stand to see you this way.”

Her throat swelled and then tightened into a vicious knot that she could barely breathe around.

“I love him,” she whispered.

Something died in Cole’s eyes. His hand drifted slowly down until it lay on his leg. It was then that she realized that she’d never been honest with her feelings about him. Everything had happened so fast and she’d battled so many conflicting emotions. There was never a doubt in her mind that she loved Cole deeply. Always had. But she hadn’t told him and now she’d just blurted out that she loved Lucas and in Cole’s mind that meant she was choosing him over Cole.

She put both hands to his face, forcing him to look at her as she pleaded with him with her gaze. But instead of saying anything she pressed her lips to his in a hungry kiss and poured every ounce of her feelings for him into that kiss.

“Please forgive me,” she whispered. “I’m so terrible at something that is so important. Please just listen while I explain.”

“What else is there to say?” he asked hoarsely.

“I love you, Cole. I love you so damned much.”

His brows furrowed and he looked utterly perplexed. “But you just said …”

She nodded. “I did. I just thought all this out in my head but instead of thinking it, I should have been saying it to you. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Even when I was so hurt and devastated by you leaving me. My loving Lucas doesn’t change that. It may sound ridiculous. Maybe you don’t even believe me. But it’s true.

“I’ve been with Lucas for a year. It took me a long time to sort out my feelings for him. I already told you that in the beginning I was using him. Not maliciously. But I clung to him because he was an anchor in a tumultuous time in my life. I needed him. He provided so much of what I needed to get back on track. I respected him. I liked him. He was a friend and a lover. I’m not even sure when all of that changed and became something deeper and more meaningful. Maybe I didn’t even realize it myself until he took me to you. Because it hurt. It hurt more than I could have imagined that he walked away from me so easily. It was like swallowing a torch and being burned from the inside out.