He handed her the body wash from the small shelf. It took her a couple of tries before she managed to open the top and squirt some into her hand. Putting the bottle back on the shelf, she rubbed the wash into his skin as her hands explored his flesh. Her mind turned away from the dark memories of her past to the living, breathing man standing in front of her, his hard body giving her the control she often felt she didn’t have.
She pushed him gently back, farther under the running water, letting it rinse the soap away. Her mouth then went to his chest, sliding across until her lips touched his nipple. She sucked it into her mouth, surprised when it hardened.
Ice took one of her hands she had placed on his chest, guiding it across his lean stomach into the nest of curly hair above his cock. Grace took the hint; sliding her hand free of his, she gingerly touched his cock.
During the last several weeks, when they’d had sex, Ice had done all the work. She hadn’t been brave enough to touch him, too afraid of hurting him with the piercing in the head. Therefore, her movements were cautious at first until Ice wrapped his fist in her hair, tilting her head back to take her mouth in a passionate kiss. Instantly, the desire to reciprocate the pleasure he always gave her was brought forth.
Her hand slid along his length, feeling the metal balls on each side of his still-hardening cock. Braver now, she began a pumping motion with her hand, making Ice groan and arch his hips toward her.
His mouth left hers, going to the side of her neck, which already had a tender spot. She tried to turn her neck so he wouldn’t have the same place, but Ice held her still with his hand in her hair.
“Ice, that mark is just beginning to go away. I have to wear high collars or put makeup on it,” she fussed.
Ice didn’t stop, taking the small area of skin in his mouth. “It shows you’re mine. When I see it or you’re wearing your prim clothes, I imagine my dick in you, begging me to give it to you harder.”
Grace whimpered at his words, letting him suck her flesh before she managed to lean forward and kiss his chest. She lowered herself to the floor as she followed the trail of the water down his slick body until she knelt before him, her hand continuing to glide effortlessly up and down his cock.
Ice braced a hand on the shower wall as she raised his cock to her lips. Softly, she licked his balls. Thinking about the bar inside the head had her wincing and being even gentler while she worked her way back up his length.
“Baby?”
“Yes?” she moaned, letting her tongue explore the flesh under the tip.
“Remember what I said about liking a little pain?
God, did she remember. Would a woman ever forget words like that?
She grasped his cock firmer in her hand as she took the entire tip into her mouth. Letting herself forget about the possibility of injuring him, she began to suck him strongly. The hand in her hair showed her how he wanted her to move, and his grunted responses told her how to use her tongue as she sucked him. She could barely manage half of his length before she began gagging, feeling like an amateur. However, she followed his instructions to breathe through her nose as he thrust inside her mouth.
“That’s it, baby. Open your mouth wider for me.”
Grace already felt as if her mouth was stretched to its limits, but she scooted closer to him, laying her hands on his thighs for leverage as she opened her mouth until he could slide another inch inside.
“Damn, baby, I’m going to come.”
Grace swelled with pride at pleasuring Ice the way he had her, wanting to give him everything, and ignored the hand in her hair, trying to pull her back as he came down her throat.
“Baby, damn. I warned you…” His groans and sighs filled the shower.
Grace gave his cock a final lick before she stood up. “Did I do well?”
Ice leaned against the wall, still trying to catch his breath. He’d had his dick sucked regularly since he was fourteen, some experienced, some fucking bad. What Grace lacked in skill, she more than made up for in eagerness.
“Baby, I can honestly say that was the best I ever had.”
Chapter 19
Grace slammed down Ice’s plate of cold sandwiches on the table in front of him then sat down with her own plate, which held a steak, small fingerling potatoes, and a homemade roll smothered in butter.
She bit into the roll, enjoying the warm buttery taste, ignoring Ice’s glare.
“I take it you’re still pissed about what I said; even though it was hours ago and I took you riding for an extra hour, even though my ass is sore from driving back and forth to see my baby.”
She choked down her bite of roll. “I’ve asked you repeatedly not to call me baby. I’m not your baby. One day, you’ll have a child. You can call it baby.”
“If I had a kid, I’d call it a kid. But I’m never going to have a kid. I call you my baby because I like taking care of you, making sure you have everything you need, and because”—Ice glanced own at his plate, pushing it away slightly—“you’ve never been anyone else’s, only mine. I never had that before.”
Grace felt dismayed and honored by his admission. She had struggled for so many years for her independence from her family. While they had learned to accept it to make her happy, it hurt Ice’s archaic masculine pride.
“Fine. You can call me baby.”
Ice nodded, and Grace began cutting her steak.
“You still pissed?”
Her steak knife banged to her plate. “I had just given you my first blowjob, and instead of saying something romantic or even something like, maybe, good job, you compared it to others you’d had by God knows how many women,” she hissed.
“I said it was the best.”
His male reasoning had her clutching the knife in her hand. “How would you like it if I compared something you do to someone else?”
“Like what?” he asked suspiciously.
She laid down her knife and took a bite of her steak, chewing thoughtfully. “I know. When I went out with Jones—”
“Who’s Jones?” Ice stiffened.
“He’s a professor from the college,” Grace explained. “Like I was saying, when I went out with Jones—”
“How many times did you go out with him?”
“If you will let me talk, I will tell you.”
Ice’s mouth snapped closed.
“When I went out with Jones before the prison riot, he took me to dinner. He complimented me on how much he admired my teaching skills, how my yard looked, on how well my dogs behaved…” At that, Ice snorted, but she ignored it and continued. “Even on how pretty I looked in the candlelight at our table.”
“He did a lot of complimenting,” Ice replied coldly.
“Yes, he did. And he did it gracefully.”
“Which department did you say he worked in?”
“He works in the English department,” she informed him then saw his narrow-eyed stare. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to go beat the shit out of him. I’ll let you know if he takes it gracefully.”
Grace’s chair scraped back from the table as she got up, going to her kitchen. Sliding the warm, covered plate from the oven, she then paused by the refrigerator to get him a beer. She went back to the table and set his new plate down in front of him, retaking her seat.
“Thank you,” Ice said, picking up his knife and fork.
“You’re welcome,” Grace muttered ungraciously.
Ice cut up his steak but before he took a bite, he gently laid his knife and fork down on the plate and turned toward her.
Cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand, his thumb brushed her full bottom lip. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s just what you did in the shower made me feel shit I’ve never felt before. I tried to tell you that, and it came out all wrong.”
Grace melted at his explanation. She had wanted it to feel special, and he had just given her that.
“I’m sorry about Jones, too. I shouldn’t have thrown him at you. You wouldn’t ha
ve actually hurt him, would you?”
“Of course not,” Ice assured her before taking a bite of his food. “Hell, being an English professor is lame enough; I don’t need to make his world more miserable.”
After dinner, they did the dishes together before watching a thriller on television. Grace never let herself watch suspenseful television, but she didn’t make Ice turn the channel. Thankfully, she fell asleep during the middle of it because her eyes had been tightly closed.
Sometime later, she drowsily had the impression of Ice carrying her to bed, listening to him talk quietly to her dogs as he shut them out of the bedroom. She burrowed under the covers when Ice laid her down. Her period was almost over, but she still felt achy and tired.
As Ice lay down next to her, his hand going to her stomach and gently massaging the stiff muscles, Grace sank back asleep, but the dark images from her past flashed through her mind. She unconsciously tossed and turned throughout the night. Many times, she would have woken up if not for Ice’s voice whispering to her in the dark.
She woke in the morning, feeling more tired than when Ice had carried her to bed. Grace tossed back the covers when she found herself pinned to the bed by Ice’s arm over her waist. She turned her head on the pillow to see his head leaning on his raised arm, staring down at her.
“Good morning,” she greeted him huskily.
“Morning. Did you sleep well?”
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“Didn’t seem too good to me. You tossed and turned all night.”
“I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t keep you awake. I know you’re tired from driving back and forth.”
“Cut it out, Grace. You haven’t had nightmares before. What set them off last night?”
“I don’t know.” She hedged, “Maybe the stress of Bear getting loose just hit me or our fight.”
“Or maybe the movie we watched?”
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“Why didn’t you tell me you can’t watch scary movies?”
“Because I wanted you to stay,” she said softly.
“Baby, I wouldn’t have left because of a fucking television show.”
Grace rolled toward him, placing her leg over his naked hip. “I didn’t want to take the chance. I finished my period.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” She leaned close to him, tenderly kissing her lips.
“I want to talk first.”
“Talk?” She frowned at him.
“I want you to tell me what happened with Winston. Have you told anyone you care about?”
“Ice, I don’t need to talk. Believe me; I’ve had several expensive therapists.”
“Then tell me,” he urged.
Grace started to roll away, but Ice stopped her. “I want to hold you while you tell me.”
After Grace sank back against him, it took several seconds for her to begin. “After the garage door closed, Winston pointed the gun at us and told us to get out of the cab. He made us go down into the basement where he chained us up. It didn’t have any windows, but he had placed a few scraps of furniture around the room and had laid a rug down on the floor so our feet wouldn’t get cold.
“We expected him to rape us or even torture us, but he didn’t. He told us… He told us he wanted a wife, that he needed time to find out which one of us would make him a better one.
“Simone and I were terrified, but we had hoped that one of us might manage to escape. It took us a couple of days before we realized that wasn’t going to happen. He never released us together. One day, he would unchain me and let me go upstairs to spend time with him, the next he would Simone.
“He would even play mind games with us. He would come downstairs and pretend he had killed the other one. When he had us screaming, he would threaten to shoot us. Sometimes, he would even change his voice and pretend he was the police, and when we would scream for help, he would come downstairs with his gun, pointing it at us as if he were going to kill us both.”
“That’s why your scream sounds so strange.”
Grace nodded. “It’s getting better. One of the therapists had me screaming at every opportunity.
“Those were the longest six weeks of my life. The night before we were rescued, Winston had convinced us both he had picked the other one, and he was going to kill the one he hadn’t picked the next day.” Grace could barely keep talking, tears clogging her voice.
“Simone wanted me to remember a message for her parents, and I memorized the whole thing to make her calm down because I planned on screaming my head off when he came down the steps.”
“You were going to sacrifice yourself for your friend?”
“Yes. I loved Simone like a sister. She was her mother’s only child. He had convinced me he was picking Simone anyway, but I didn’t trust him.”
“What happened?”
“I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I found Simone dead. The basement was old. She had managed to reach a can of paint thinner and had drunk half the bottle. She didn’t trust him, either. She killed herself so he would keep me alive.” Tears she couldn’t hold back fell from her eyes.
Ice pulled her closer.
“Winston didn’t care. He watched her die. He was outside digging her grave next to Avril’s when the police stormed the house.”
“God, baby. Did you tell Simone’s mother her message?”
“Yes, but she wouldn’t listen. She blames me because Simone was with me. I had promised to make sure she was safe when I asked if she could come to the States with us. She said I should have been the one to die, and she was right. It was my fault. I begged my parents to go out that day without them. My father wanted us to wait until my mother was feeling better, but I was so spoiled I wouldn’t listen.”
“Grace, you were young and on vacation; of course you didn’t want to stay in a hotel room with your parents. I’m sure Avril and Simone were both anxious to go, too.”
“They were, but I had promised their parents. I should have taken that responsibility more seriously,” she argued.
“You did. Just because Simone died before you could get yourself killed doesn’t take away from the fact that you were going to sacrifice your own life. Simone’s mother had no right to place that guilt trip on you. There was only one person responsible for those girls’ deaths, and that was Leon Winston. Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you talk with a French accent? I thought that, with your mother being French, you would have one, even if your father was an American.”
“Because the girl who was kidnapped wasn’t the one who came out of that house. Reporters hounded us for the story. The only way to stay sane was to change my name and make me unrecognizable to the public. I took speech lessons, colored my hair, and gained fifteen pounds. I haven’t even been back home to Paris because I don’t want the paparazzi to know I returned.”
“It’s over now. They’ve moved on to new stories to cover.”
“It’s old news to everyone but me. I sometimes think I still hear him walking across the floor upstairs or coming down the steps.” She shuddered against Ice.
“Baby, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“I know that, Ice. Even if he gets found sane in the future, he can be tried for murder. I know he’ll never get out.”
“He’ll never be found sane; he’s a vegetable,” Ice told her in satisfaction.
“How do you know?”
When Ice didn’t answer, she tried to pull away.
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for that crazy motherfucker. He wasn’t crazy; he was evil and wanted something he couldn’t have, so he stole it. He might not have raped and tortured you physically, but he did mentally torture you. I wasn’t going to let him spend the next forty years thinking he got away with it. I made sure he knew before his neck was broke exactly why. Now he has to breathe through a fucking machine and piss through a tube. At any time, someone could come in and turn that machine off like that
.” Ice snapped his fingers. “He’s going to live with that fear for the rest of his sorry life.”
Grace could only listen to Ice’s confession, expecting to experience horror at his actions. However, the only emotion she felt was overwhelming relief that she never had to feel afraid of Winton again. Right or wrong, Avril and Simone had both been given justice.
Ice waited guardedly for her reaction and was relieved when she leaned forward, kissing his lips, her tongue parting his mouth.
Grace didn’t want to think about the past anymore. She wanted to be thankful she was still alive, lying in this bed next to Ice. She rubbed her breasts against his broad chest, experiencing the sensation of her nipples tightening. Ice’s hand smoothed over her ass before sliding under her panties. He used his leg to widen the space between her thighs, letting him find her clit. She was already aroused, wanting him inside her. When he thrust a finger deep inside, stroking her walls, it only teased her when she wanted his cock.
“Ice, I want you inside me.”
“Baby, I’m always going to give you what you need.” Ice jerked her pajama bottoms and panties off, leaving her bottom half-bare. He then unbuttoned her top, sliding it off and exposing her breasts. The cool air tightened her nipples even further. Ice took one in his mouth, grasping the tip of another between his two fingers and slightly twisting it until she arched underneath him.
Ice took a second to put on a condom before pulling her leg over him until she was sitting on top of him. She had been in this position with him before yet had always felt self-conscious and awkward.
Ice lifted her up, holding her with his cock poised at her opening.
“Ice, quit teasing me.”
“Teasing is when I don’t give you what you want.” Ice slowly slid her down his cock inch by slow inch, the metal balls rubbing against her walls, causing her pussy to quiver at the stimulation.
When she was flush against him, he reached up and brought down her head with a hand on the nape of her neck for a tongue–thrusting kiss which heated her insides. The kiss had her unconsciously moving her hips, the awkwardness she usually felt smothered by the rising tide of lust taking over.