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His cock was huge, inches upon inches of solid, thick muscle, and he speared me like he wanted to brand me, wanted me to be stretched exactly for him, and I was. Still, I wanted more.
“Look at how you take my cock, legs spread like you’ve done this a million times. You were made to be fucked by me. We should have told the world that from the very beginning. This pussy was always mine. Always will be.”
There was so much between us. Pain, pleasure. Hate, love. Hell, heaven. We chased that heaven as he fucked me, both of us close now to getting off.
“You don’t have to take care of it. I can do it myself,” I told him. “You could, but you’re my fiancée now.” He frowned like he wasn’t sure of our status all of a sudden but he still said the label with conviction. “You won’t take care of anything.”
The problem with what I’d just done was that I didn’t know if it was going to ruin me to have him be my first. I had now etched him into my memories, the man who not only stole my heart but now my virginity. I did know, though, that it would probably ruin me if he wasn’t my last.
“Sore?” he murmured in my ear. I chewed my cheek and nodded. “Good.” The word rumbled out of him as he dragged a finger along my bare arm with a look of damn pride across his features. “You should feel bad for me,” I pouted. “Why? Because every time you walk around there will be a reminder of me making you feel good?”
The proposal wasn’t what I wanted. Not that I wanted one at all. Even still, the callousness of it was like rubbing gravel into old wounds. “No sweet words?” He looked down at a ring box that wasn’t there yesterday and cleared his throat. “I have nothing sweet to say, Keelani. I’m doing you a favor, and in turn, I’m closing a chapter of my life.”
He was drawing a line in the sand. I’d stated that verbal sentiment a few times the night before too. Still, somehow, in the light of a morning next to a man I’d once loved, it felt like he was slicing that line through my heart rather than drawing it in the sand. I stared at the box, trying not to be hurt.
“What about your image?” I asked softly. “Why do you ask?” He didn’t look up. “I don’t know if you’ve considered what being engaged to me might do to you. My fans are used to Ethan and sometimes cruel—” He frowned at his phone then didn’t even blink as he said, “You ruined my image once, and I survived. You think I’m concerned about it again?” “Dex…” I started, but what could I say? He was right that my omissions and silence in the past had ruined him at home.
“I cannot live with you right now.” “Why not?” “Because we’re completely different people than we used to be, and we don’t seem to get along at all.” “I don’t need to get along with you, Keelani. I need you to stay out of my way during the day and come to my bed at night.” He looked me up and down, his words cruel but I was sure truthful.
“Fuck me, Kee.” His voice rumbled out low as he swore and rearranged his slacks suddenly. “Keep your eyes above the waist if you want to be able to walk out of here today.”
Clearly, Dex had a reputation around this resort. People were afraid to mess up the order he created, and I saw it more and more around his house. His fridge was stocked with drinks all lined up perfectly. His cabinets held mugs with the handles all turned the exact same way. I was going to mess up all his order, and a part of me knew it would make him mad enough to lose control. A part of me wanted that. The fact that I was looking forward to it clearly showed we were heading toward having a super healthy relationship.
“You have never put yourself first. And if I have to make sure to protect you from—” He was cut off from a voice behind us. “Protect my fiancée from who?” Dex said.
Dimitri took a deep breath and then his light-green eyes were on me. “You good?” I nodded and patted his chest. “It’ll be fine, promise. Now help me out of this top.” I tried to be lighthearted as I lifted my hair so he could untie the pleather crisscrossing of the bralette. His hands unthreaded the strings while he said, “Sure.” But Dex stepped up behind me. “I’ll take care of undressing my fiancée.”
“Who else has seen you naked?” “Do you even hear yourself?” “I do. I sound deranged.” At least I was admitting it out loud. “Exactly.” She turned and smiled at me. “You sound like a man who cares.” “And I shouldn’t.” I took in a deep breath, and she nodded. We were aiming for the same goal.
Keelani wasn’t only beautiful. She stood in my room half naked, and it made my damn knees weak with how fast and hard her appearance in the light of day struck me. She was fuller in the hips and breasts than I remembered, but her skin had stayed perfectly sun-kissed. Every curve of hers was mouthwatering, every facial expression distracting, and every movement mesmerizing. Whatever God was up there had blessed her and cursed and condemned me with the sight of her.
Jesus, I wanted to corrupt the fuck out of her. I wanted to be the one to stain the blank canvas that she was, make her my own and only mine.
“You couldn’t hide the gift of your voice under anything pretend, Kee. When you sang down in that garden to me, you came alive. I fell in love with…” “With what?” she whispered. The words clogged in my throat. The heartbreak and pain of losing her, seeing her here, remembering what we’d been and what we’d lost all stopped me from speaking the words. I cleared my throat. “It doesn’t matter. The past between us can’t matter. Just keep the damn room,” I said, stepping back and away from her, away from the honesty between us.
if you want me to teach you something, learn something about me first. I’m not here to help you any more than I already have. I don’t want to help you at all.” My voice held finality, and I walked away like I didn’t care. I wanted to not care. I needed to try. I’d try everything to rid myself of her.
“You think your face isn’t in my system?” I scoffed. “It’s been in my system since the damn moment I built it.” “Why?” she whispered. “Because, Kee, if you were going to walk into one of my resorts or my buildings, I was going to be informed, but they weren’t going to stop you. They would have left that job to me.”
“You probably want purple stones around the diamond. The wedding band would be solid gold because I know you hate flashy, gaudy things. You’d probably barely wear the other even if it was your favorite.” The smile that spread across her face was lazy and genuine, relaxed. We were back to us for a second as she said, “Ah, my Dex Hardy is still in there. The guy who knows every single thing about me.” “Unfortunately,” I grumbled. She blinked once and then twice before she nodded and glanced away. I was creating the barrier between us, and I knew that. I had to, or I’d be lost to her again. She’d
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“I’m as good as your plaything now. You getting over me is essentially fucking me out of your system, correct?” Her words grated me in the wrong way, made me out to be the monster and not the victim when she’d actually left me to rot first.
“I don’t want you here. I need you here. There’s a difference.” “What’s the difference, then? What do you need me for?” “So I can get you out of my system forever once and for all.”
“How is that helping you work out your need for me? Don’t you want to screw until you’ve had enough of me?” “I fucked the virginity out of you already, heartbreaker. Now, I want to hear you scream my name over and over. It turns me on. Take your dress off and lie on the bed.”
My hand was already gripping her thigh too hard, showcasing I was losing control. We were only a week in, and I wasn’t sure I could handle her, handle this.
“You’re my fiancée. You’re not asking another man to do a thing to you.” “I’m your fake fiancée. I won’t be seen with anyone else. But if we want to do stuff privately—” His firm grip became bruising as he gritted his teeth to say, “You do anything privately or publicly with another man, and I’ll make it my sole purpose in life to obliterate him.”
“I don’t normally lose control in the bedroom. But I’m happy to make you lose control real quick. It’s how I live my life now.” “Now?” I whimpered at how he slid another finger in and then moved them back and forth over an extremely sensitive spot. “What about before?” “Before, I was a kid. Before, I made mistakes.”
“We’re going to be the death of each other. I’m going to drag you to hell, Kee, and neither of us will be able to save the other from the fire.”
“I’m capable of handling whatever you throw at me, Dex. People have underestimated me time and time again.” The anger I felt at his words was amplified too. And when our eyes met, the war between us was almost palpable. Hate and pain and love and brutality clashed there in that room. “I never underestimated you, Kee. If anything, I overestimated what you could handle with me. I expected you to stay, remember?” “I came back,” I whispered out. “It was too late.”
“Don’t tempt me into watching your every move, Kee, because God knows I’d enjoy it.” He slammed the door behind him, and I stood there thinking I was twisted in the head because I knew… I’d enjoy it too.
Sex toys I didn’t even know the names of. I didn’t need to. I slammed the drawer shut and closed my eyes as I breathed in deep. How many were in here? How many had he enjoyed while I thought of him? It made me want to be reckless, want to cause him pain, want to retaliate. Didn’t he know we’d belonged to each other over the years, even if we hadn’t? Had he hated me that much?
He’d saved my life. He’d been in that car and told me he had me. It may have changed every part of our lives, but he’d also imprinted himself on my heart. In the deep recesses of my mind, Dex was still mine. And if I had to be his, he’d need to know what that meant.
Dex: Want to come do more research in the guest bedroom with me? Me: Nope. You can call some of the women who enjoy those sex toys instead. Dex: Why would I do that when the only woman I hate thinking about but always do is in my suite? Me: Our suite. Me: Which I should reimburse you for btw. I can pay rent. Dex: Pay me by coming to my bed.
Me: When I’m not at dinner, you’re mad…but you’re not at breakfast. Dex: I only stay for breakfast if it’s you I’m eating.
Dex: I’m not most guys. I’m your fiancé and I want your pussy in the morning. Noon. And night. No doubt about it. Doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to indulge in it.
“I don’t need an audience. I never wanted one. There’s a reason I prefer to write songs, rather than just sing them. If I could just…” How could someone be blessed with a gift but not want it? Was I so selfish to not want to sing anymore? To not want the fame that came with it?
“Say what you’re thinking, heartbreaker,” Dex prompted with the nickname he used on and off with me. I didn’t know why it struck such a cord with me sometimes. I wanted to hear it but hated to at the same time. “You use that nickname like a term of endearment when back in the lilac garden…” “You broke my heart?” He smiled softly like he was willing to offer information this morning. “It is a term of endearment now, I guess. You’re the only woman who’s been able to do it. If anything, it’s a compliment now, not a slight. I’m giving you credit for that.” “I’m not sure I want the credit, Dex.”
“You look pretty with my ring on your finger,” before he bent down to kiss me.
“We’re in it together this time. I only want this if I’m getting you too. So, we’re doing things the way you want. I’m not playing house with anyone but the real Kee, the one I loved and hated. You get me?”
He snapped a photo quickly and then his arm fell away from me. He turned the phone my way so I could see us together. My dark eyes were full of emotion, my cheeks warm with my natural blush, and I wasn’t sure if anyone else could see it, but the love in my eyes was still there. The trust in him. The want for him. But I told myself it was all just lust. The man had recently taken my virginity.
“We can handle any man. We’re women,” Pink cut her off with a glare. “Women handle men. Not the other way around.”
I sighed and finally searched us online to see. “Our Sweet Keelani in Love Again.” There were people commenting how happy they were for us, how he would make me better, how I would have such cute kids with him. All of it felt like a dagger to my heart because it was all something I’d once dreamed of that I’d lost. And what if I was falling in love with him but he wasn’t with me?
that feeling of disgust for not making a fuss catapulted back into me. I was furious that I didn’t know and that I hadn’t tried to find out. Furious that they’d written I was so in love again, as if they knew who I had been in love with before. It wasn’t Ethan. It was only Dex. I had been in love, but I’d never acted on it, never done what I wanted to do.
Dex: As much as I hate to admit it, that kiss was for me. You taste good in the morning, heartbreaker.
He wrapped his arm around my waist, and I saw his smile before his lips descended on mine. He kissed me. Softly. Poetically. Like he loved me. And I kissed him back the same way because when Dex Hardy kissed me, my soul melted. I wanted the man who took care of me, who remembered my breakfasts, who’d saved me from that car wreck, who’d save me from anything. He was doing it here too—saving me—even if he probably wouldn’t admit it later.
His hands worked so effortlessly that I had to squeeze my thighs together and try my best not to focus on what other tasks those hands would do well at. I knew. My body knew. The freaking Ben Wa ball in me probably knew.
“How could I control you? You were sparkling bigger than my life in that small town. And I would have done just about anything to keep you there,
You didn’t cause that car wreck at all. If anything, you saved us from it.” His eyes squeezed shut so hard I knew the fight inside him was barreling around in his mind, trying to find its way out. I wanted to hug him, to pull him close, to make him see that trauma shouldn’t have blame. Yet, he placed all that blame on himself. I saw it now, and I was starting to realize why he’d told me he would control this relationship.
“Everything in my life I can and do control, Kee. That’s why you’re normally not in it. For these next couple of months, you’ll have to learn that.” “I don’t want anyone controlling me anymore, Dex.” “I know, heartbreaker. We need you wild and reckless again. But not with me. I don’t think I can endure it again. It’s the one thing I can't do.”
His other hand went to my cheek, and he breathed in and out with me, like he could take my oxygen and I could take his. We’d gone so long without each other, yet I sat there with him between my legs on that stage like he’d never left. Like I never wanted him to leave again.
