Dark Demise Read online

  Finally, we got to my door. I opened it, and we went inside. Ari breathed hard. “Tell me here.”

  I didn’t pretend to not know what he meant. “I...” Forcing myself to finish was tough. “I want to feel you. If that’s okay. Can I? It’s kind of exciting to me that you’re turned on.”

  The muscles in his neck clenched. “That’s what you want? To feel me?”

  I nodded.

  “Come here.”

  It only took two steps to get to him. “You can touch me anywhere you want, whenever you want. You’re mine. I’m yours. Okay? Just yours. Touch me.”

  His pants were still on. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but the bulge in his pants had my total attention. I cupped him on the outside of his pants, and he closed his eyes.

  Did I hurt him? I was a nurse. I knew how these things worked in theory. But I didn’t want to cause him pain. “That okay?”

  “Hmm. Yes.” He nodded.

  I pressed my hand further down the material, and he sucked in his breath. “You are going to make me come with my fucking clothes on like I’m fourteen years old.”

  I unzipped his pants, undid the button, and with a tug they fell down his legs. His briefs tented out at me. Had he been this hard or gotten more turned on in the seconds it had taken me to get his pants off? I touched him again, this time through the cotton.

  “Fuck.” Ari’s voice was low.

  I waited a beat. “Should I stop?”

  “No. Unless you want to. Always about what you want, Waverly. I need you to want it.” He opened his eyes to regard me.

  I smiled at him. “I’m going to take off your underwear, then.” Part of me couldn’t believe the surrealness of this conversation. Ari Bennett was in my bedroom, and I was going to stroke his cock. He wanted me to because I wanted to, and we were discussing it.

  He kissed me. It was the perfect thing for him to do. I could kiss him and do this, too. Somehow having more than one thing to do felt like there was less pressure.

  I tugged off his underwear, and he sprung free. I dropped my gaze to stare at him. All men looked big when they were erect. As a nurse, I’d seen them before. Things happened during medical care, but this was different. Ari was really big.

  “Tell me how you like it.” There had to be differences in how men wanted to be stroked. “Hard? Soft? How would you do it yourself?”

  His smile was slow, and then his hand touched mine. He drew me to the head of his cock and squeezed, showing me the pressure he liked. Then he dragged it down, all the way to his balls and back again. I got the rhythm, and I imitated it.

  “The whole time I’d be doing this, I’d be thinking of you. Night after night. Now here you are, and you want to know how I like it.” His voice was low. “Am I awake?”

  He hardened even further in my hand. “You feel pretty awake to me.”

  Ari moaned, and the sound moved through me. I tried to keep my strokes steady.

  “Waverly, you have to let me touch you.” His nostrils flared. “I need to make you come.”

  I gulped. Okay.

  12

  The Storm

  “Talk to me.” Ari’s voice was barely a whisper. “Tell me how you make yourself come.”

  I stroked him again in the rhythm he’d shown me, and he moaned in the back of his throat. His eyes hooded. “Here’s the thing, Ari. I have to confess to you that I have never successfully made myself come.”

  Heat had invaded my core. I was sure if I touched myself, I would be wet. That happened when I just spent enough time thinking about one of them. But actual completion? I’d not gotten there, ever.

  He didn’t run away screaming. That was a good sign. “I’m going to make you come. If not today, and I think it’ll be today, it’ll be soon. Let go for just a second.” I did as he asked, and he tugged me with him while he walked backward to the bed. We lay down together, and he turned me until I faced him. “Put your hand back on me.”

  I liked following his instructions. My brain had become addled from my confession. I resumed my stroking of him. “Doesn’t this hurt you? Don’t you want to come?”

  He tilted his head slightly. “Oh, I could go off anytime. Trust me. But I’m in no rush for completion. It hurts, but it feels wonderful at the same time. We’ll never get this time back together. I want it to last. What I’d really like to do is strip you naked. I think that wouldn’t make you relaxed though. I’m right. Look, you paled when I even suggested it. So, not yet. We’ll get there. I want to feast on your breasts and kiss every inch of your body.”

  The tension that started when he said strip fled with his description. I wanted those things. I just wasn’t sure I wanted them right this very second. He bunched up the bottom of my dress and pulled it up so that he could run his hand up my leg. My clothes were still on, he just had his hand under my dress.

  It tickled when he got to my thigh, but I managed to control my reaction enough that I neither jerked on his dick nor kicked him off the bed. He fingered my panties, drawing them down my legs before letting his hand caress my legs again on their way back.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered against my mouth.

  I did. And then again, until I was lost to his kisses. He touched me, his finger where only my own had been so far. Sometimes, I would wake up aching for something I couldn’t get no matter how much I tried.

  His cock jerked in my hands, and I squeezed him tightly. Ari pulled back just a little from my mouth. “Easy. I want to come when you do. Too much more of that, and I’m done.”

  “Oh, I…” He didn’t let me say anything else. His mouth took mine again, his tongue darting out to dance with my own. My breasts ached, and I squirmed against him.

  His finger must have found what he sought because he stopped searching. My clit had never gotten me where I needed to go. I hated to tell him. This was going to be fruitless. I didn’t want him to get frustrated and…

  Ari swirled my clit, increasing pressure each time he passed by until he found a rhythm I hadn’t discovered myself. My insides jerked, the muscles inside of me begging for more. I moaned, a low sound I hadn’t heard myself make before.

  Ari’s body bucked against mine. He must have liked that noise, and oh then, yes, I couldn’t think. There was just feeling. He knew how to touch me and yes, this was Ari Bennett playing my body like an instrument. My knees pulled up. I couldn’t control them. Ari held them still.

  He stopped kissing me to whisper in my ear again. “Can’t. Believe. How Good. You. Feel. Next time inside of you. By the universe, I want you, oh God. I’m going… not yet.”

  I shattered. The deep sound of his voice, the press of his fingers, the feel of his cock in my hands—I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t know how this would be. I never could have imagined.

  Ari’s cock throbbed before he came in my hand. He sighed against my mouth. I trembled. I might never be okay again. That was…

  He gathered me into his arms, holding me tight while I shook. I couldn’t seem to stop, and he didn’t seem to mind.

  The aftershocks of my first orgasm took a long time to ease. I couldn’t think. At some point, Ari gathered me against him in the bed and wrapped us both in covers. I stared up at his handsome face. He looked back at me with a glint in his eyes that I would guess to be some kind of male satisfaction. Yes, he’d made me come when I told him I couldn’t.

  Apparently, all I needed was Ari Bennett. I lifted my head, to lean on my elbow. “Thank you.”

  He nuzzled against my shoulder. “I should be thanking you.”

  “No, I think you understand that never happened for me before and…”

  Ari rolled me on top of him. “You were just waiting for me.”

  I smiled. “I guess so.”

  I’d never felt so relaxed. Hail still pelted the top of the building. “What would you be doing right now if you weren’t doing this?”

  “Wishing I was doing this with you.”

  He was so funny. I snorted, which made him
crack up. We lay there in the bed, laughing for a good moment, and I wasn’t even sure why. Finally, a sobering thought interfered with the mood. “What happened last night? With Rohan?”

  His own smile faded. “We were on your father’s spaceship. That was lunacy. We’ve been in command places before, but to actually be on his ship was new.” He yawned. “Hard to describe it. After it’s over, it starts to feel like it didn’t happen. That’s why we miss details. It’s not like we can’t remember it at all, but things fade. Rohan wanted to see how the prisoners he had were doing, so he got himself caught. Half the point on these missions of me going is to keep them all alive, and I couldn’t get anywhere near him. I had no idea how he’d be if he came back.”

  I focused on one particular word. “If?”

  “If we die over there, there is every chance the scanner won’t bring us back. It reacts, Canyon says, to our heartbeat and our brain chemistry. What we think, based on Wes’ calculations, is if either stops, the scanner comes back. We don’t.”

  Goosebumps assaulted my skin. I shivered. “I don’t let myself think about that when you’re over there.”

  He pinched my chin. “Hey, no sad thoughts. I do that enough. I come back from being away, and I tell you that my father beat me.” Ari shook his head. “You’re the only person alive other than me who knows that.”

  I raised my eyebrows slowly. “Knows what?”

  “So easy to love you, Waverly.”

  My mouth fell open. I didn’t know what to say. Rohan said he loved me, too. I was still trying to come to terms with the idea that they liked me, that love was possible. Did I love Ari? I was pretty sure I did. I’d been basically obsessed with the four guys in my life for almost a year.

  “I love you. I’m not at all used to the idea. But I do.”

  He nodded once. “Good.”

  “My father beat me like yours did.” I’d told him, but he wouldn’t remember. “Seemed like I could do nothing right. Not just what I looked like, which was a problem, but everything I thought or felt. It was wrong. I was born apologizing for my existence.”

  Ari squeezed my hip. “I like everything you think and feel. Even when you’re yelling at me. I felt like you were letting me in. And as for what you look like…”

  I held up my hand. “Not ready for that yet. May never be.”

  “Yes, you will.” He scrunched down, bringing me into his arms. “When we’re married. Or when you have our baby. Or when it’s just a Tuesday. I’ll tell you how beautiful I think you are, and you will believe I feel that way. You won’t stop me or roll your eyes.”

  It was hard for me to imagine that I was ever going to be married, let alone anything else he’d described. “Do you like movies?”

  “Well, that was a shift.” Ari played with a strand of my hair. “Depends on the movie. Are they still making movies in the midst of this mess? I can’t remember the last time I watched one.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a movie. Remember, I was pretty much locked in the house.”

  He tugged lightly on the strand of hair. “Well, one of us will get you to see one. They should be on your tablet. Right?”

  “I don’t know which one to watch.” I flopped over on my stomach. “I stare at the list, and then I read a book.”

  He bit down on the back of my shoulder, lightly, and I yelped. “I read a lot, too. Shit.” Ari threw his body off mine, and I tried to lift my head to see what was going on. He breathed hard.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His body vibrated. “Can’t you see them? The men in black coats.”

  I looked around. Assuming Ari was having a hallucination all the time could be dangerous. What if there really were men in black coats? He was really lost in this one. How frequently did this happen to him? This wasn’t Waverly are there snakes on the ceiling? This was really feeling the hallucination as real.

  I managed to squirm under him and touch his face. “Look at me, sweetheart. No men in black coats.”

  “What?” He clenched his teeth. “They’re here. They have guns and…” He stopped talking. “Fuck.” Ari paused. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  He pulled himself off me, but I didn’t let him go. I hugged him against me as hard as I could. “Thank you for protecting me from them. If there really had been men with black coats, I’d be fine and you’d be dead.”

  His gaze was hard. “You are going to run for your life. I just got way too fucked up to be with. I mean, I am still seeing them. They are shouting at me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, and we will just stay like this until they go away.” I kissed him lightly. “This doesn’t bother me at all except for how much it scared you.”

  His smirk wasn’t the adorable one, but it wasn’t the Ari-is-angry look either. It was more… self-effacing. “Why can’t my hallucinations be bunnies? You know the ones on the Sandler home world with the pink ears and the purple noses?”

  “I actually saw those. They came on the estate.” This I could talk about. “They were cute. Although, I think the purple noses, pink ear thing was a genetic mutation caused by the fact people brought bunnies from one planet to another and there were adaptation problems.”

  Ari snorted. “You’re right. They’re still cute.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “They’re gone.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You never, ever have to be alone with that, okay?”

  “What I just did was so not sexy.”

  I shook my head. “Everything about you is sexy. Trust me on that.”

  “And you say that I have an eyesight problem? I think you look at me through rose-colored glasses.”

  After that, Ari seemed to lose all his energy. He spoke the words, and then he practically collapsed in my arms. The hallucinations had to take a lot out of him. Most people who had the ordeal with the illegal drugs he did actually died from it.

  He lay down on my pillow. “They’re not all like that. Most of them are sort of annoyances. I haven’t had one that bad in… ten months.”

  I spooned him from behind. “Rest for a bit. We’ve got nothing to do here today except listen to the sound of the hail. You already took me dancing. Gave me my first experience with pleasure. Laughed with me. I think you are due a nap.

  “Hmm.” That noise he made when he didn’t know what to say made me smile. That was an Ari noise. I didn’t know anyone else who did that. He said something else I couldn’t understand, and then he breathed deeply. I lay next to him, listening to the sounds of his breath and the hail on the roof of this building.

  He moved around a lot. Canyon and Rohan had been both completely still sleepers, but Ari flopped around a bit, his legs searching for space. Eventually, he settled lying on his back, his arm thrown over his eyes like he could block out the world. Ari muttered something. Yep, he wasn’t sleeping well.

  “Sshh.” I petted his hair. “Just rest. All is fine. You’re safe.”

  I didn’t know if that helped or not, but he stopped jostling and seemed to settle after that. I was halfway through my book when my tablet pinged. I’d turned off the noise to not bother Ari, but since I was on it, I saw the message.

  Jackson wanted to know if I could meet him in security for a few minutes. I replied back that I could then debated what to do. Should I wake Ari? Leave him here sleeping? What if he woke up and I was just gone? How would he feel?

  I touched his side, rolling toward him so I could whisper in his ear. “I have to go for a bit. I’ll come back.”

  His eyes flew open. “Where do you have to go?”

  I smiled. Doctors woke up fast. They had to sleep anywhere and everywhere, plus be ready to go at the drop of a hat. “Jackson wants me to come to security.”

  “Kindly remind Jackson it’s my date day.”

  I sighed. “I don’t think he was suggesting a date in security. I think there is something else going on. You can come if you want.”

  He nodded. “I want.”

  Ari threw
his legs over the bed. His hour and a half of a nap seemed to have reenergized him. His color was better.

  We both dressed, quietly. I stared at my hair in the mirror. Yeah, it was going back in the ponytail. I quickly ran a brush through it and put it back in the usual style.

  He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, putting his head on my shoulder. “Thanks for being you.”

  My eyes found his figure in the mirror behind me. I stayed still until he lifted his gaze to meet mine in the reflection. I smiled at him, and when he gave me one back, I knew that all was well.

  My good mood stayed where it was until we arrived at the security office. I’d never been in it before. When Jackson cleared me to be on The Farm months earlier, he’d done so privately with me in my rooms. I realized now the kind of extra care I’d gotten because I was Paloma’s sister-in-law. There were lines of people waiting to be cleared. They sat in chairs. Nolan and C.J. both came out of a back room and brought two more people back with them.

  Ari touched my shoulder. “Jackson’s office is back there.”

  I walked toward where he pointed, my doctor staying close behind me. We went through a low doorway into a large office. Computers and screens were everywhere. Canyon and Rohan were both there, their backs to us, but they turned when we came in. Jackson leaned back in a chair. Then as we approached, he rose.

  I giggled, the whole thing suddenly hitting me as funny. “The entire gang is here.”

  “Hey, beautiful.” Canyon opened his arms, and I walked into them.

  “He can call you beautiful?” I could hear the eye roll Ari was giving me. “What’s going on, Jackson?”

  Canyon let me go. “I can call her beautiful.”

  “It’s because he can’t see her. She takes it because she assumes he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Rohan supplied and then brought me in for a kiss.

  My body was on high alert. Between Ari’s introductions to things I hadn’t known would feel so good and the physical attention they all gave me, my body buzzed.