Shattered (Reflections Book 2) Read online

  I felt my weight careen forward, but Sean caught me by the waist, keeping me upright despite my limbs threatening to go limp. I was enervated, the pleasure that had pervaded my senses fading away. He rose from his haunches, steadying me against him with his palms against my hips. Despite the satiation that coasted inside of me, I wanted more.

  I needed more.

  Reaching for his chinos, I unfastened the button and tugged the zipper down. With a swift tug, I mirrored his action from moments earlier and pushed his pants to his feet. Dropping to my knees, I leaned toward the hardened length that stood proud against the happy trail that led toward his belly button.

  Wrapping a hand around his cock, my mouth made its descent for contact. I wanted nothing more than to give him everything he had given me.

  “No,” he grunted, waylaying me. I stilled, glancing up at him, bemusement invading my features. Sean grabbed me by the shoulders, urging me to my feet, his hands sliding to my biceps before settling against the base of my straightened spine. Shock I couldn’t mask flooded me as I watched the muscle in his jaw flex.

  “What just happened?” I had already blown him once, so maybe he just wanted to jump straight into the main event and what he had done to me was just a primer. In typical Sean Tavares fashion though, what he said instead spun my head one-eighty degrees and slackened my jaw from its hinges.

  “I never want to see you on your knees on the floor.”

  “But,” I said, hesitating as confusion suffused me, “you just did the same.”

  “That was different,” he declared with a shake of his head. “You wanna suck me off, do it from above me.”

  He steered me backward until my knees hit the edge of his bed and I buckled. Sean smoothed my hair from my face, those palms I loved so much flanking either side of my face as he kept his gaze riveted to mine until a shiver of vulnerability rolled through me.

  “You have a lot of rules, Mr. Tavares.”

  His smile was devilish, yet soft around the corners of his mouth. “When it comes to you, I do.”

  “Why?” I questioned. His thumb grazed against my lip, and I took my opportunity to draw the digit between my lips. He all but hissed at the contact but didn’t draw his hand away. Instead, he watched between almost completely lidded eyes as my mouth worked expertly against his thumb. My tongue flitted against the tip, grazing against the indentation of the callus there.

  I watched as he appeared to struggle to gain control of his thoughts, his throat working as the sentence bubbled. “Because,” he all but ground out, collecting his scruples, “I want you to understand that being with me means you’re my equal. You’re not my possession, or something for me to own or preside over.” His thumb popped free from my mouth, and my jaw relaxed.

  I tried to think back to a time where Cash hadn’t treated me like a conquest to dominate. Even in times where he was trying to put in a solid effort at winning me over, he had always managed to make me feel cheapened in some way or another. The nature of our relationship had changed—like the jig was up once I put out—and then was destroyed when I found out he had been with someone else.

  Gazing back up at Sean, who had nothing but deference, lust, and respect burning in his eyes, I cleared my throat and slid my body back across the mattress. “Then lay down already. I want you in my mouth.”

  He smirked at me. The mattress dipped under the addition of his weight next to me. Sean settled himself against the pillows of what I decided was his preferred side due to the state of the nightstand that housed a half-empty glass of water and a pair of reading glasses.

  “C’mere,” he urged, holding out a hand in my direction. I accepted it, his fingers curling around mine and drawing me on top of him. I rested between his parted thickened muscular thighs, his cock solid and hard against my belly button, his arms like weights around my spine.

  I shifted against him, but he held me there, his eyes drawn shut. “As big as your dick is, I can’t suck it from up here,” I pointed out.

  His laugh rumbled in his chest, the vibration coasting through me.

  “Change of plans, Hemingway,”

  I frowned. Mr. Sentimental wasn’t about to tell me he wanted to cuddle all night, was he?

  His eyes opened, suggestion darkening his pupils. “I’ve decided I’d much rather be inside that tight pussy of yours. You can suck me off another time.”

  My breath caught in my chest. Nope, no cuddling here. Dirty talking of any kind had always seemed like a laughable thing done between people who needed to compensate for being shitty lovers. Or at least, for people with the confidence to spew that kind of thing.

  It certainly wasn’t something I had ever thought myself capable of engaging in, but he made it sound easy and natural, so fluid. Our exchange was organic. Every time he said something salacious, it was like someone pumped more blood into the pulse that I didn’t know existed in my pussy. Sean was confident and easy natured, and I wanted more of that. A person could get a contact high from his kind of confidence.

  Leave it to him to change the narrative.

  “What if I want to suck you off now?” I pressed, sliding a hand between us, my fingers curling around his thickened base.

  “Ah, fuck.” His curse came out like an animalistic hiss, his gaze snapping to mine as I stroked him. Something menacing flickered in his eyes, and before I could settle into a rhythm of strokes, his hands gripped my waist and he rolled me over onto my back, my hold on him slipping.

  “Another time, Hemingway,” he repeated. He shuffled himself lower, his length brushing against my arousal and getting coated with it. I watched with ragged curiosity as he pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a condom. He held my stare as his teeth came to the edge of the foil wrapper and he tugged it open. Through half parted eyes, I observed him as he rolled it over his cock and then settled himself between my legs again.

  “Last chance,” he warned, teasing my entrance with the broad tip. Worry edged his words, as if he feared I might back out after all of this. Still, he continued in that same vein. “It’s not too late to get away from me. Everything changes after this, Raquel.” He brushed his lips against mine, before whispering the words right into my heart. “And I mean everything.”

  Everything already had changed, and I didn’t want to go back to living in a world that existed without him in it anymore.

  Instead of speaking, I simply lifted my ass, chasing after his swollen tip. The smile that bloomed on his devastatingly handsome face at my implied answer to his statement caused an arrhythmia in my heart: beats skipping and a fluttering sensation.

  Change had always seemed like an inevitable thing before…something I had resisted and fought against because I couldn’t control it. I did things that were consistent, played my cards right to ensure a safe bet, just like Penelope had said. Sean wasn’t a safe bet. Everything about him was a high-stakes wager.

  And I was all in.

  Sean lined his cock with my entrance, its tip crowning me with a delicious burn that coated my insides as he slipped inside. His groan filled my ears as the muscles of my inner walls stretched slowly with acceptance, my head lifting off his pillow as he filled me to the hilt. He stayed there for a moment, still, his cheek brushing mine, the scruff of his beard tickling my jawline.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered, worry lacing the question as he retracted slightly.

  Was I okay? I let my eyes open just enough to see him through my lashes. Nerves rimmed his dark irises as silence hung between us, his chest pressed against mine, the rise and fall of our breaths in sync with one another.

  “I’m perfect,” I murmured. “This is perfect.”

  He lifted his head and searched my face, I suspect for something to dispel what I had said, and after a beat of a second longer, he apparently decided I was telling him the truth, and that was all he needed for reassurance. He rested his weight on one elbow, his free hand going to my waist. His thumb pressed into my hip bone, while his o
ther four digits sank into the dip between my back and my ass. He drew himself back only to plunge himself forward, and then he was off in a steady movement of thrusts. Each steady hammer of his hips rattled the wooden headboard against the wall, his brows dipping into a V with concentration in the middle.

  Circling his waist with my arms, my fingers found the stretch of his spine, my nails raking against it as my body enveloped everything he had. Sean eased his grip on my hip, dropping his weight forward. He snatched my parted bottom lip between his teeth, grazing the plump flesh and eliciting a mewl from me that goaded him on.

  He continued to drive himself as far as my body would allow him to. Sean curled one of his big palms along my chin, his mouth urging mine to open for him. The tang of my own taste lingered on his tongue, mixed in with the familiar spiciness of his. His kiss had me curling my spine, my fingers tousling his hair. I was drunk on the unspoken deference that danced on his tongue, the heady and hoppy notes something I wanted to indulge myself on for the rest of my life.

  The rest of my life?

  Realization dawned on me as he drew his mouth back, placing one last kiss on my lips before he drew back and concentrated on submerging his cock as far as it would go. His hips shifted in a languorous and slow grind that had my toes curling. My lids fluttered at the sensation, my heart rate increasing at the connection.

  This was not the frenetic energy that we had exchanged back at his Ma’s. This was something different. Something sweet. Something dangerously close to what I think was meant by the expression “making love.”

  That was a term found in Harlequin paperbacks, not in a house in Fall River. Not between two people who seemed like an unlikely pair. Not for this Southie girl who had spent the better half of a decade evading her demons and running from her past. I wasn’t running anymore. Not from ghosts, and not from Sean.

  I was falling, with nothing to catch me, with no chance of anything to soften the blow when it inevitably came.

  And I didn’t care.

  Rather than run for it, I raced toward it like a moth to a flame who was willing to take the risk of being burned just to be sure.

  Sean must have detected the shift in my energy, for that pinched concentration in his face dissipated, something illegible flaring in its place as his pupils dilated. He curled his forearms under my thighs and slid me forward, the movement deepening his thrusts. He kissed the inside of either ankle as he settled my legs onto his broad shoulders. He found my eyes in the darkness, holding my gaze as his thumb settled against my clit and his hips drove against me. The heels of my feet kept my trembling legs propped up as my body yearned for more of him.

  My pussy throbbed under the deft care of his nimble-fingered attention. My pleasure receptors corkscrewed inside me and my mind buzzed on the waves of dopamine that left me feeling buoyant. An orgasm shot out of me, my toes curled, and my hands clawed at the bedsheet until the corner popped free from the edge. My cry of release filled the room as it ripped through me.

  He dropped my legs to either side of him, his body leaning forward so he could close the distance between our mouths. His motions grew frantic, as if he couldn’t get close enough, or that the connection could never be as deep as he wanted. His fingers curled into my ass, the urgency burning right into the tips of his fingers. He broke the fusion of our lips, his hips jerked forward once more, and a groan broke out of him that sounded so melodic and sensual it made my head spin. He drew me close, warmth spearing me as his orgasm coated the inside of the condom.

  Sean remained suspended above me, his hands dipping the mattress as he kept his head bent forward, the aftershocks of his release making his semi-hard cock jerk inside me. After a beat of a second more, he pressed a kiss against my jawline and slid out of me.

  “I’ll be right back.” The mattress rose as he clambered to his feet, and it was impossible to miss the wobble of his limbs. A satisfied smile curled my mouth. I was glad I wasn’t the only one so viscerally effected by that.

  As he left the room, I took the opportunity to slide between the sheets of his bed. I heard the rush of water from the bathroom faucet and let my lids drop as I snuggled into the crisp sheets that retained his scent mixed with that of laundry detergent. The scent alone enveloped me in a kind of safety that felt like equal parts of familiar and new.

  I listened to the soft shuffle of his footsteps against the hardwood that stretched into the bedroom until they died.

  With one squinted eye open, I saw him standing in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed over his chest. His eyelids flittered the longer he looked at me, his bottom lip disappearing between his teeth the way it always did when he was thinking.

  I cleared my throat, drawing his attention. “Am I on the wrong side?”

  He shook his head but remained silent, his stare heavy with an unexpressed emotion.

  Hesitation swept through me as I formulated my next question, the words bobbing in my throat. “Do you want me to go?”

  Sean’s shoulders rounded to his ears at the suggestion, his arms dropping to his sides.

  “I was taking a mental photograph of you. I used to think about you in my bed, exactly the way you are right now.”

  As if to solidify his point, he closed the bedroom door behind him, came to the foot of the bed and collapsed alongside me.

  Sean fingered a lock of my hair before his fingers slid through the tresses, the tips of his fingers massaging my scalp. Jesus, that felt good.

  He pressed his lips against my temple as his fingers continued working back and forth across my head. “I want you to stay here for the weekend.”

  I groaned. “I was planning on going in to work tomorrow.” I wanted to get ahead on a few things while the office was empty. Speaking of which…my eyes dragged to the alarm clock he had set up on a dresser across the bed, probably to force him to get up in order to shut it off. It was almost two a.m. I was going to be majorly fucked in about four hours’ time.

  “Do you have to? Even my guys are off.” His fingers slid from my hair and he perched himself up on his elbow, looking as ruggedly handsome and dangerously convincing as humanly possible.

  Not really, but…

  “I should,” I replied.

  Sean exhaled on a sigh, drawing my attention back to him. Once he was confident he had my full undivided attention, he conjured up a point from thin air to support his suggestion. “Or you could just not go…you don’t have a change of clothes here.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “Catnap, and then we’ll hit up a store on the way to the office.”

  He leaned forward and nipped my shoulder with his teeth, a smirk lifting his mouth at my surprised squeal. “That’s not what I meant. I was hoping you were going to concede.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said with a laugh.

  At that, his brow rose. “Is that a challenge?”

  “What?” I questioned, a nervous laugh leaving me.

  “Are you challenging me to convince you to stay here? ’Cause I can be quite convincing.” He leaned forward and left a trail of kisses against my neck, the scruff on his chin tickling the skin of my shoulder.

  My neck curled, my head digging into the pillows to allow him further access. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t come back after work.”

  “Mmm.” His purr came out like a rumble of vibrations gyrating against my neck. “That answer is almost acceptable.”

  “Almost?” I laughed as his lips planted themselves in the space under my ear.

  “Yeah,” he murmured against my skin. “Let me hold you a minute, and I’ll consider your counteroffer.”

  “It’s not a counteroffer,” I said, sliding closer to him, my body pulling to him like the south pole of a magnet drawn to his north. “It’s the only offer.”

  His arms closed around my stomach, yanking me closer to him until we were skin-to-skin once more. I felt what was left of my dwindling stubbornness fade away as my body accepted the warmth of his. He didn’t argue or debate me further, just hel
d me against him, one of his palms settling against the soft thrumming of my heart.

  “You are unexpectedly cuddly,” I murmured into the darkness. I never predicted he would be such an affectionate man. Nothing could have prepared me for that. My lids dropped shut, and I expelled the air from my lungs in a meditative exhale.

  “I’ve spent weeks trying to convince you to let me hold you,” he whispered into my hair. “And now that I can, I’m not ever letting you go.”

  “Good.” His words had shot arrows to my heart, and it was then that a thought registered in my brain. With my eyes still drawn shut, I curled into his embrace, resting my head against his bicep as he drew me closer. “’Cause I don’t want you to.”

  I didn’t need to learn to fall in love with Sean Tavares.

  I think I already was.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There was an unwritten rule somewhere that said you weren’t supposed to fall in love with someone after fucking them.

  I was fairly confident that I had learned that one in P.E. class during my junior year of high school, when a couple of kids were openly mocking a classmate for professing his love for his girlfriend of three weeks. She’d given him a handy under the bleachers during lunch and he had unceremoniously lost his load all over her high waisted straight jeans. We all knew about it because she had had to walk around the school with the crusty bits of his Pollock explosion all over the denim of her jeans.

  But despite the fiery pits of hell it had felt like I had crossed just to get her here, Raquel had made falling for her too easy. Every brush of her lips against mine, every smart-ass remark, every argument. I would chase her now, and for however long she let me. The sex had been electric, and solidified not only our compatibility, but in an unexplainable way—the trajectory of our future.

  Her and I together.

  I was a goner, and whether she wanted it or not, my heart was hers.

  And for the sake of this argument, it had been longer than three weeks, thank you very much. It felt like it had been forever.