Summer Storm (Broken Circles Book 1), page 22
I cut him off from saying anything else, closing the foot of space between us. I took what I wanted far more than the apology, throwing my arms around his neck and fusing my mouth to his. Pulling his hands from his pockets, he didn’t hesitate to pin me to his chest with his arms around my waist. His heart raced as fast as mine did and I revelled in the fact I affected him just as much as he did me. And I’d forgotten how intoxicating his mouth was. Damn, I didn’t want to stop the little celebration I was having with his warm lips and succinct tongue which knew all the right ways to set me on fire.
There were a myriad of things to talk over but right then I needed what he was giving, needed it so much more than his words. On panted breaths, I pulled back and ran my hand down his cheek, fingernails scratching the short beard he’d taken to growing out, until I cupped his chin.
“Take me to bed,” I whispered.
He didn’t ask if I was sure, nor did he hesitate to tug me through to the bedroom where at the door he scooped me up into his arms and ravished my mouth once again. The curtains were still drawn, the bed a mess, but it was perfect. Throwing me down on the bed, I laughed as I bounced on the mattress, the messy covers scattering to the floor. Flattening his body over mine, Yannick sifted his hands through my hair then held the back of my head.
“I kind of miss the pink.”
“You do? I wanted to go back to my natural colour. Growing up, I guess.”
“I don’t know which I like better.” He nuzzled into my neck, feeling warm and scratchy against my soft skin. “You want this, Bunny?”
I loved when he called me Bunny, such a shame he seldom used it. Others may have adopted the nickname, but it never sounded as special as it did when it came from his mouth, like he said it with a hint of wonder.
“Umm, yeah. Did I not make myself clear?” Wiggling my hips upwards, Yannick pushed down, leaving me no room to move.
“I don’t want just another quick bit of action, Jolie.”
That wasn’t what I had in mind either. The action very much yes, quick and only once - no. “Not just this, I want more. Would it be too greedy to ask for it all?”
His smile was small but satisfying. “I’ve waited a long time for someone like you, a long time. I can hardly believe my luck. I thought for a while I’d blown it, my ugly world making it impossible. But it’s not, not with you. I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I want you, I want us.”
It was a line any red-blooded man would say to a woman he was hoping to get naked, except he was being genuine, was telling me the truth. He’d been waiting patiently, never pushing the boundaries I’d put in place. Along the way, we’d both opened up and let the other unfurl brief parts of who we were without fully committing to anything.
“I just had to make sure you’re not a one-trick pony,” I giggled, using humour to lighten the heavy mood that had no place in this bedroom between us.
“One-trick pony?” He huffed, tickling my side. “Not a chance and I’ll prove it to you.”
“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Yannick.”
My t-shirt was hauled over my head roughly, pyjama bottoms pulled from my legs in a hurry until I lay naked underneath a fully clothed Yannick. The friction of his soft jumper and rough denim against my heated skin sparked an inferno of rivalling sensations. I’d never get enough of the way he made my body hum.
“So beautiful.” His hand grazed my collarbone, his eyes darkening as he thumbed across the half-moon indentations Irina’s nails had left behind.
“She doesn’t matter.”
I didn’t want her in the room with us, his past was not up for debate when he had me naked and almost begging and we were on the edge of a future together. There were other times to talk about the dark secrets of his past.
“Yeah,” he breathed as he leaned in and licked across the marks. “You taste like candyfloss. Mmmm…”
Laughing again, I took a fistful of his thick, dark hair and dragged his head back. “And you are entirely too dressed for what’s about to go down.”
“You have a point.”
He scrambled upwards, taking care of his clothes, hurried and frantic to get naked, leaving me no time to ogle his fine physique before his bare skin slid across mine, making me shiver.
“You cold?”
“Hardly. Just the effect a certain someone has on me.”
His solid erection nudged against the inside of my thigh and, God, I bit my lip so hard I almost cried out in pain.
“My perfect summer storm,” he said with awe, running his hand down the length of my ribs. “Mon petit lapin.”
“What is that?” I whispered, almost choking up at the endearment he’d spoken.
He sighed indulgently. “French. My little bunny.”
Peppering kisses down my chest, he bypassed my breasts, instead taking two handfuls of flesh and teasing his mouth around my belly button. I shuddered, sure that the belly fat I had jiggled when I did so. Didn’t look like Yannick cared as he moved further south, his nose in the neatly trimmed patch of hair I’d recently tidied up. I giggled, feeling on top of the world, my fingers combing through Yannick’s hair. I’d never grow tired of feeling Yannick all over me, putting my hands all over him.
The giggling stopped at the first rush of warm breath followed by the swift lick of a tongue at the centre of me. Oh. Boy. I was wet with anticipation already and beginning to squirm under his hands and mouth. When he screwed a finger inside, my hips arched off the bed on a shout of glee. Why had I waited so long to put out again? I was a certified idiot, I knew those magic fingers and how he could make me come. “Yan,” I breathed out on an exhale as he made a meal of the most intimate part of me. I felt like I was drunk, my head swimming as he coaxed me closer and closer to orgasm, that firm tongue of his flicking my clit in a rhythm that was mind blowing.
Then he stopped and raised his head, his lips glistening, the short hair on his jaw wet with dribbles of spit. I couldn’t help but laugh when he removed his finger and wiped at his face.
“Delicious.” Kissing his way back up my body, my legs fell slack as he slotted in place, his cock butting against my pussy. I was desperate for him to plunge inside and take me off to wonderland, but the considerate man moved no further.
“I need to get a condom.”
Oh, thank God. I didn’t have any, and while I was on the pill and not sexually active, I wasn’t reckless. Yannick hurried back, condom in hand, his thick fingers wrapped around his cock. He stood at the side of the bed, concentrating on tearing open the packet and rolling the latex down with unsteady hands, exactly like the last time.
“You’re nervous?”
“Excited.” He speared me with a look that said a million filthy things.
Well, yeah, the firmness of his cock was proof enough. Such a stupid question. Condom on, he was over me in a second and breaching me in the next. Kissing me sweetly, a kiss that was far too sweet for the carnal act of fucking, he gave a few quick thrusts, inching deeper each time.
“I love being inside you,” he whispered, nibbling at the tendon on my neck.
“Then hurry up, I’ve been waiting too long.”
He surged forward, buried to the hilt, rotating his hips in a tease that almost had me coming as the friction of his pubic bone rubbed against mine. Indecent groping, and biting, and kissing, and thrusting ensued. I held my breath for moments on end, not daring to breathe in case I lost the heady sensations he brought forth with the way he played me over and over like a well-loved song.
Hitching my legs around his waist, I joined the affray, giving as good as I got, not wanting to be a passenger. I needed fucked by this man, I needed him to own me because I realised he did, and I wanted to be his. In and out he dragged, rough at times, gentle at others but he never stopped his onslaught, coaxing an orgasm that would leave me wrung out for hours. I ground upwards, my clit pulsing, my muscles tensed. The pounding of my heart and the grunts from Yannick were music to my ears and had me fighting to make it last longer.
“Slower,” I gasped, because I knew I was almost there, ready to fly. And I did, on a thrust I could feel everywhere, coming with a ferocious explosion. I was loud, I was unapologetic, and poor Yannick would bear the welts on his back from where I’d gouged my nails in.
“Beautiful, Bunny. So goddamn beautiful.”
Yannick gave me some time to get my breath back, gentle strokes bringing me down, then he pulled out, holding onto the base of his cock.
“I’m going to come soon but I want you here.” He moved off the bed and pointed to the corner. With great effort, I crawled over, not protesting when he nudged me onto my front and positioned my legs on either side of the mattress. I stretched my arms above me, Yannick’s hand travelling the length of my back.
“This okay?”
“Oh, yeah. You’re a fucking sight for sore eyes right there.”
I squeaked, not expecting him to push inside me so quickly again. This time, he didn’t wait around. Taking hold of my hips in a firm grasp, he drilled his cock in and out of my slippery hole with short, fast thrusts. He groaned and growled while I clenched around him. “Do that again, shit, that’s fucking amazing.”
I did and he let out a shout, then another as he braced his hands under my shoulders. I held onto the sheets, the noises coming from me just as obscene as the expletives Yannick couldn’t hold back.
Pushing in hard a few more times, he stooped over me and sank his teeth into the back of my shoulder, his body taut while he came. I could feel the hot pulse inside, despite the layer of latex between us, and endless moments passed as he poised over me, panting heavily.
“Fuck, fuck. Bunny. Christ almighty.” His words were said through gritted teeth, but I heard them clear enough. He wrapped an arm under and around my waist holding me to his sweaty chest impossibly close and gave a last few thrusts inward as far as he could reach. Yannick had stuffed me full and made me deliriously happy. “I fucking hate condoms,” he finally said, pulling out gently then fumbling with his free hand between us and wrestling the spent condom from his soft cock. “Putting my cum inside of you everyday just about tops the list of things I’d like to do to you, Jolie.”
I burst out laughing, thumping my head forward. “How romantic. We’d be breeding like rabbits then.”
Wrestling me onto the bed and into a better position, Yannick grabbed up the covers from the floor and threw them over us both, our limbs still tangled together, skin damp with sweat. It was perfectly gross yet perfectly perfect too.
“I want kids, Jolie,” he said sinking backwards, his hand over his face as his chest slowly settled.
“We just met!” I protested but shut my mouth again quickly, the comment so left field. I could see a future with Yannick, it wasn’t difficult to imagine. He’d captivated my heart through sheer perseverance which said a hell of a lot about the man. But he’d just come out of a fifteen-year relationship, no matter the circumstances and it was hard to believe there wouldn’t be anyone else to catch his eye other than me. It wasn’t fair to tether him when the world was his oyster, when he could freely indulge in what he’d been missing out on for so long. By the same token, I had a feeling we’d crossed a line and Yannick was going to lay it all out for me. So, I let him, only interrupting when I had something to say.
“I want kids. And a wife, and a house with an enormous garden where we can have friend’s round. A normal life, a woman I love, one who loves me back. Loves me for me and not what I can do for her. It might be a silly dream to some, but it’s a dream I’ve been harbouring since I was twenty years old, a dream I thought would never be a possibility.” He faced me and smiled shyly. “It’s not a dream anymore, Jolie, I can have anything I want, and I want happiness more than ever.”
“That’s normal, I guess.” Because it was. I wasn’t a woman who lived with her head in the clouds but what he dreamed about were the same ordinary things I dreamed of too. I wanted love the same as he did, to have a family, to be happy.
“What if I said I wanted all those things with you?”
I thought about what he was saying, realising the best advice I could give him would be the worst advice for me. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hold on to him. I had to let him go off into the world and explore as a free man. Meet other women because there was more than just me in the world. “You haven’t had sex in so long, maybe you’re just wrapped up in the first person who’s come along,” I said carefully even though I didn’t rightfully believe my stupid reasoning.
“No. That’s not what you are, what this is. Something happens to my heart and my stomach when I’m with you, when I think of you. I’ve been with other women, lots of women, I just haven’t had sex. Not once did I ever meet anyone I ever wanted to break my contract with Irina for. But you…” He shook his head and smirked. “You I would have, over and over.”
Now there was a compliment I would take. “If you mean what you say, then we could do that. Yes, I think.”
“You’d need to be able to stomach the man I used to be, the things I’ve done. None of them I’m proud of.”
This was the moment that stretched out before us, the one that decided which direction or hearts went. “Then tell me about the man you were.” That shred of unease I sometimes felt around Yannick reared its ugly head. I had no doubt whatever was coming next would not be pretty, it was why I’d never cared for the details before. There was no sweeping it aside any longer, he needed to get it off his chest, and I had to hear his confession, no matter how it would affect us.
To move forward together meant being honest, to learn to trust. Without those two fundamental things we were as good as lame ducks in the water, floating around without direction. So, I sucked in a breath and waited for Yannick to shatter the illusion that he was perfect, even if I’d already known he wasn’t.
Yannick
I was teetering on the edge of throwing it all away. There had only ever been one other time in my life when I’d felt this terror clawing at my insides. The day I’d taken Yosef’s life, a memory I hung on to because he deserved to be remembered with pain. It wasn’t the same by any stretch of the imagination but the consequences of losing meant a broken heart of a different kind and the painful realisation I’d never get what I so desperately craved.
What kind of man was I? Jolie had finally asked, and I didn’t know where to begin. How to tell her I’d sold my soul to save my own skin. Or even where in my past I should start. So, I took her back to when I was a naive boy and life was uncomplicated, when no one was playing games and our family was intact, not a broken husk of itself. Back to the last time I’d ever had the love from another that was absolute, wholesome and true.
“My mother was French, a beautiful woman and a kind soul. She came to visit London with a friend and met my father who took her dancing and on picnics to Hyde Park, swept her off her feet I guess you could say. My father had to have her and for a reason she refused to share, she never went home. At the time, she had no idea who he was, not really, but she told me once, when I was too young to understand the significance of what she meant, that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It wasn’t until after she’d died, when I was fifteen, I truly grasped what she’d said.”
“Do you look like her?” Jolie ran a finger up and down my nose a few times then let her hand slip down to my collarbone where it rested softly.
“A little. Same eye colour. Both Yosef and I got our stronger features from our father.”
“He must have been a handsome man.”
“Wolf in sheep’s clothing, remember? But yes, he was. Had the worst personality in the world, not a good or fair man at all,” I admitted because it was very much the truth.
“And Yosef’s your brother?”
I closed my eyes hearing his name, trying to find the confidence to continue. “Five years older than me, and just like our father, except a little more personable and a lot more stupid.”
“This is tragic, isn’t it, all the things you’re going to tell me?”
“Yes.” Yes, all the things I was going to tell her were tragic, and painful, and not a day went by I didn’t regret the loss of my brother’s life and what mine had become after those catastrophic events.
“Half of me doesn’t want to know because I can see it upsets you, the other half…” she stopped.
I prompted her to go on. “The other half?”
Rolling onto her back, she stared at the ceiling. “It sounds like you need to purge. In order for you to have the things you dream of, you need to confess because this definitely sounds like a confession. It would always be this secret between us if you didn’t tell me. Your pros and cons don’t add up, do they?”
“No, Jolie. Not at all. I’m scared to death of losing you, which you probably think is ridiculous.”
“I think we’ve danced around one another enough. We’re not strangers anymore. At the least, we’re friends looking for more and wanting to take the next step but there’s this rock sitting on your chest and we can’t move until you unburden it. Tell me what you think you need to, all I can do is deal from there, there’s nothing more to it.”
Clearing my throat, I reached for her hand, brushing my thumb across hers. “After my mother died, my father changed and not for the better. He was hungry to take the top spot in the organisation from Lev, Irina’s grandfather, when it was rightfully meant for his best friend.”
“Irina’s father, I presume. That’s not a good friend at all.”
“I had just turned twenty when Yosef started messing around with Irina, I had an acceptance to University for a Poli-Science degree. When I was two years in, they were still together, thought they were in love.”
“Really? I understand the dynamics a little better if she dated your brother first. But I don’t get how you ended up married for fifteen years, under contract at that.”
“I sold my soul, and I hate myself every single day for what I did to save my skin. I killed him, Jolie. Irina was never going to fall in love and have a conventional marriage after what happened.” There, it was out, no taking it back. The one regret I had in my life, the biggest regret, and ripping off the bandage and blurting out the truth had been the right thing to do. Now she knew.
