His eyes were consuming me.
With dumb luck, since I was so far from thinking it wasn’t funny, it hit me that to use that condom, he needed to be freed of his jeans.
And I needed him free of his jeans.
Immediately.
It was so hot, so unbelievably amazing to stare into his eyes as I unbuttoned his jeans, yanked them down to his hips and felt him spring free, hard and ready for me, I’d never forget it, that moment after he’d given so much to me, knowing I was about to get all of him.
“Thanks, baby,” he muttered.
“Hurry,” I pleaded.
Joker hurried. His eyes keeping mine captive, it took him no time at all to deal with things. Then I felt him guide himself to me and nudge through my wetness.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Ready?” he whispered back.
This was Joker.
And me.
Joker.
Carson Steele.
Oh yes. I was ready.
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
He slid inside.
My head again went back as I moaned, “Oh yes, yes, sweetheart.”
He started moving, suspended over me, slow and steady but with his leverage, deep.
Oh yes.
“More,” I begged.
“Wrap your legs around my thighs,” he ordered.
I did as told.
“Now just take me.”
I opened my eyes as he pulsed between my legs, far away but still close, connected. I lifted my hands and grasped onto his waist.
“Lift, tilt, move with me, Carrie,” he instructed, his voice now rasping.
I lifted, catching his rhythm and moving with him.
Oh gosh. Much better.
“Yes,” I panted.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Hold on, baby.”
I grasped him tighter with my fingers at his waist and my legs around his thighs.
When I did he went deeper. Faster.
“Yes,” I moaned, my fingers digging in hard.
His free hand roamed my belly, down and in, as in in.
And that was it.
“Yes!” I cried, my fingers clawing at his waist, my legs tightening so much that I lifted my hips off the bed and he pounded inside me as it scored through me, blazing heat like I’d never experienced, long and hot and wild and beautiful in a way I thought it would last forever and I wanted it to as Joker kept taking me.
“God. Fuck. Fuck,” he grunted, his finger no longer manipulating my clit but moving so he could clamp his hand around my hip, keep me stationary and drive deep. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck,” he groaned and reared inside me.
I opened my eyes, holding on, and saw his neck bent, his head down, as he thrust one last time and stayed planted inside, and I knew, even if it was silent, that he had what he’d given me.
I lay under him, breathing heavily, clasped to him like I never wanted to let him go (and thinking I actually didn’t), glorying in the feel of him filling me, watching with what could be nothing but utter glee as the shudders of his orgasm shifted through his powerful body as the fragments of the glory of mine whispered through mine.
And I kept watching, committing him to memory, as his fragments left him.
Not a second later, he lifted his head and said, “Be back,” pulled out of my hold, rolled away, got to his feet and that was when I watched him walk to the bathroom, adjusting his jeans.
I stared at the open bathroom door where he’d disappeared and I did this for only a single second before it struck me.
I’d conked him on the jaw. I’d scratched him too hard.
And he’d had to instruct me.
I’d been married and my husband had a healthy sex drive. The mood came over Aaron a lot. Sometimes, the mood even came over me, and until the end, Aaron was happy to accommodate me (as I was him).
I’d just had great sex, the kind I’d never had before, so in reality I’d just discovered what great sex was.
But I’d thought what Aaron and I had was great.
Now I knew it wasn’t bad, sometimes. Most of the time it was what it was.
But it had never been great.
And I knew right then that was because of me.
I wasn’t great.
I wasn’t even good!
I wasn’t anything.
With Aaron I didn’t care. I had a feeling I understood better now why he replaced me, but I still didn’t care.
With Joker…
I shut my eyes.
Oh no.
A new burn of humiliation blazed through me as I moved in a frenzy on the bed, searching for my panties.
I saw them dangling off the side. I snatched them up, bent and shoved my feet through. Collapsing with my back to the bed, I lifted my hips and pulled them up, my mind whirling around and around.
Joker had started out kissing and caressing, but in the end he’d barely touched me.
He’d just done the deed, taking me with him, giving me glory, giving it to himself (without my help at all and maybe it wasn’t glory—he hadn’t even grunted—maybe it was just a perfunctory bodily release).
He’d been going through the motions to get it done.
Yes, oh yes.
Humiliating.
I thought being the Chaos Charity Case was bad.
This was worse.
I rolled off the bed, frantically grabbing my jeans. On my feet beside the bed, I bent over. One foot in, then the other one, I tugged them up.
And collided with a hard body behind me.
Fingers curled around my hips.
“What you doin’, baby?” Joker growled in my ear.
“I have to leave,” I whispered, pulling out of his hold only to find myself yanked back and again crashing into his body.
But this time his fingers didn’t curl around my hips. Two strong arms locked around my belly.
“You have to leave?”
It was another growl but this wasn’t a semi-curious, post-sex growl.
This one sounded borderline angry.
“Yes.” I struggled against his hold.
“Why?” he asked, quelling my struggle with frightening ease.
Then again, I now had very intimate knowledge through vision and feel of the kind of power in his body.
“Let me go,” I whispered, stopping my movements because I knew they were to no avail and praying he’d listen to me.
He didn’t listen to me.
“Why?” he repeated, his voice now openly annoyed and leaning toward harsh.
“I… that was… I didn’t…” I swallowed. “Today, I’m moving.”
“Carissa, just fucked you for the first time after a scene where we both spouted a lotta shit we gotta go over. I think the move can wait right now.”
“Please, let me go so we can—”
I stopped talking when he gave me a gentle shake. “Tell me why you’re acting jacked.”
Darn it!
“I was… that was…” I closed my eyes and admitted softly, “Embarrassing.”
His hold loosened as he muttered, “What the fuck?”
I took advantage, pulling out of his arms and taking a quick step away, turning to him but not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry. That was…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry. I shouldn’t have started that.”
“You shouldn’t have started that?”
“No.”
His head tipped to the side and his tone turned nasty. “So golden girl Carissa Teodoro thought she wanted rough trade, got it, and now she’s woken up and realized in gettin’ it, she didn’t want it and more, she’s tainted.”
I blinked and immediately found his eyes. “What?”
He didn’t tell me what.
He bit out, “Fuck this.” To demonstrate this, he threw his hand up between us, his face cold and hard and scary before he went on crudely and seriously offensively, “And fuck you. You wanna leave, fuckin’ leave.”
I stared a
t him as his words processed through me. All of his words.
When they processed fully, I did not like it one bit.
“Are you… do you think…?” I couldn’t finish because I was struggling to get a lock on what I was feeling.
No, I was struggling to get a lock on the fact I was feeling angrier than I’d ever felt in my life.
“You wanna leave?” He turned to the side and swung an arm toward the door. “Fuckin’ leave.”
“I conked you on the jaw!” I shouted.
This time, Joker blinked.
I dropped my eyes to his side and saw the red welts my nails made. I fought back the wince and looked back to his face.
“I hurt you,” I snapped.
“Caris—”
I leaned into him. “You had to instruct me,” I hissed. “That was embarrassing,” I kept hissing. I leaned back. “I mean, I’ve got a son. I’m hardly a virgin, but I couldn’t cope with all I was feeling and I messed it all up!” I yelled.
He made to move to me but I lifted my hand and he stopped.
“That was supposed to be beautiful. It was supposed to be perfect. You were perfect. You’re flawless. Look at you!” I cried. “You’re like… top-to-toe beauty. Every inch. And I’m…” I slashed a hand down my front, “not.”
“Butterfly—”
“No. Butterfly doesn’t work here, Joker. That was awful. I made it that way. Not for me. For me it was amazing. But for you… in the end, you didn’t kiss me, barely touched me, just did what you had to do to get it over with.”
Suddenly, with those words out of my mouth, making them real, I wanted to cry, and just as suddenly, I wanted more than I ever had in my whole life to have the strength not to do it.
But I knew I was going to do it so I had to get out of there.
And to do that, I needed my T-shirt, my shoes.
I looked to my feet.
I also needed my footies.
I didn’t even notice him taking off my footies.
When did he take off my footies?
He did and I couldn’t dwell.
I had to go.
In order to do that, I bent and snatched my top from the floor and then started tearing through the bedclothes to find my footies.
“Baby,” he called gently.
I found one and balled it in my fist, looking for the other one.
His hand lighted on the skin of my spine just above my jeans.
“Carrie,” he said softly.
“This is… this was… I can’t believe I messed this up,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “It was supposed to be special and I… I… c-conked you on the jaw.”
I got that out (barely) and then I was on my back in the bed with Joker on top of me.
I looked to the side and begged shakily, “Please let me go.”
“Tell you something,” he replied and I pressed my lips together as I dropped my stuff and lifted my hands to the unyielding warmth of his shoulders and pushed (again to no avail, he didn’t budge an inch). “The first time I had you mostly naked, wet and hot in my bed in a way that I was gonna get to bury my cock inside you, the only way that was gonna go down was with me watching the whole fucking thing.”
I froze.
Then my head righted and I stared.
“It gets hot like that, Carrie, shit happens. I don’t give a fuck you nearly bust my jaw with your head, especially when you do it after ripping my tee off and going for me with your mouth.”
My lips parted.
“And, trust me, you can’t scratch too hard. It took me by surprise but I liked it a fuckuva lot. The problem was, after you did it, you got skittish and didn’t roll with it.”
“Really?” I whispered.
“Fuck yeah,” he replied firmly. “That’s why I told you to relax. The rest, baby, you were closin’ down on me, I knew why and I needed to get you past that. Not to fuck with your head, but I had my share of hard bodies. I liked ’em. I like women in a lot of different varieties. But if I have a choice, my preference would be yours. Soft, sweet, seriously wet, and definitely hot.”
“I…” I breathed then finished, “Really?”
“Why would I lie when what I say has the goal of gettin’ me more of you? If I didn’t fuckin’ love what I got, I wouldn’t fuckin’ lie. I’d let you leave.”
That made sense.
“And Carrie, I know what I want in bed and I’m not a man who has a problem with communicatin’ that. It isn’t about instruction. It’s about gettin’ off the way I wanna get off and guidin’ you there with me. You were in the moment, totally into what I was doin’, and that was fuckin’ great. But I intended to make it better. And, baby, you gotta know, that shit isn’t gonna stop. I know what I want, you’re gonna give it to me while I give it to you, and you’ll learn to roll with that too.”
That also made sense.
And was more than a little arousing.
“Fuck,” he snarled and I tensed under him at the intensity. “It sucks you didn’t get what I got outta that, Carrie. You hot and wet and squirming and panting and I got to watch the whole fuckin’ thing. It was magnificent. Unbelievable. Better than I could imagine, and Butterfly, I did a lot of imagining from about the time you were fourteen.”
Oh.
Wow.
“And it fucking sucks you didn’t come away with the same fucking thing,” he finished.
“I did, at first,” I told him hesitantly. “You were… are amazing, but you were, during and right after…” I faltered then forged ahead. “Then you just said, ‘be back’ and didn’t kiss me or anything.”
“If I kissed you again I’d want it to last a while and lead direct into some post-fuck cuddling which I’d hope would lead to more fucking and I couldn’t do any a’ that with a used condom on my dick.”
“Oh,” I whispered, again feeling embarrassed and again it was different.
“Yeah. Oh,” he replied, not looking embarrassed, and no longer looking frustrated. Instead, looking like he was fighting against laughing, which had the fortunate result of making me feel less embarrassed.
“I think I may have messed up again,” I told him and he dipped his face closer to me.
“No, you feel it, you share it. Don’t hold back with me, Butterfly.”
That was good advice. Good advice for a relationship two people were building.
Which I hoped with all that had just happened we were still doing.
On this thought, I blurted, “Are you mad at me?”
His brows went up. “About what?”
If he had to ask then he wasn’t mad so I didn’t think I should remind him of all the reasons he could be.
But he’d just told me not to hold back so I figured I should go with that.
“Well, there’s me not recognizing you,” I reminded him carefully. “There’s also me pitching a drama after you made love to me for the first time. Then there’s me accusing you of treating me like a charity—”
He interrupted me by suggesting, “Maybe you should stop.”
I shut my mouth.
He stared me in the eyes then suddenly asked, “Did you really crush on me back then?”
I nodded and answered quietly, “Yeah.”
He closed his eyes, shook his head, and ended the shake looking away from me.
I lifted my hand and pressed it to his smooth cheek, forcing him back.
When he opened his eyes, I told him, “Your hair looks nice but I miss the beard.”
I barely finished speaking before he made a noise that I felt rip through me. It was full of pain, which I didn’t like, and something else I couldn’t read.
He didn’t hesitate to give me that something else. “Fucked up.”
“How?” I asked.
“Shoulda taken you for a Blizzard.”
He remembered. He remembered me asking him to go to Dairy Queen the day he disappeared.
My eyes started stinging.
“Take me tonight,” I whispered.
r /> He closed his eyes again but this time dropped his forehead so it rested on mine.
I slid my hand from his face to wrap my arm around his shoulders and did the same with my other arm around his back.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you.” He opened his eyes and lifted his head but he didn’t go very far. I took that as him not pulling away so I kept speaking. “I even knew it when you showed me your drawings. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” I forced a smile, my eyes still stinging. “I got your sketch of me. I still have it. I even had it framed and I used to keep it in my bedroom. But when we got married, Aaron wouldn’t let me put it—”
“Stop talking.”
I again shut up.
Joker didn’t.
“It was always you. Only you. I was into you back then, Carissa, in a big fuckin’ way.”
I felt a tear slide out the side of my eye.
Joker watched it before he looked back to me.
“And that hasn’t changed.”
Oh God.
I could take no more.
I burst into tears.
Joker gave me his weight for a moment so he could roll us to our sides and gather me close in his arms.
I held him back and did it tight as I shoved my face in his perfect chest and bawled my eyes out.
“I… I… c-can’t believe I didn’t recognize you!” I cried into his skin.
He held me with one arm and stroked my hair with his other hand, ordering, “You didn’t. The minute I looked like me you did. Get over it. I am.”
I tipped my head back and declared loudly, “I hurt you!”
“Just fucked you, Butterfly, gonna do it again as soon as I can, so I think I’m over it.”
I blinked through my tears.
Then I slapped his arm. “We don’t fuck,” I hissed, making it plain I did not like to be forced to use the f-word. “We make love.”
My breath stopped when his face all of a sudden was close and his voice dipped low to say, “Yeah. That’s what I just did to you. I’m glad you finally get that. And that’s what I’ll keep doin’ to you. But prepare, Carrie, ’cause I’m also gonna fuck you and from what I just got outta you, I know you’re gonna like it.”
I started breathing, but erratically, and said nothing.
I apparently started breathing erratically and doing it visibly because he asked, “You want me to do that now?”
I totally did.