Your Fierce Love (The Bennett Family #7)(42)

"What are you doing?"

"Putting your bra on." Once that's done and her nipples aren't in my face anymore, I relax as she arranges her top over the bra.

"What now?"

"Now we're going to go upstairs, and I'm going to prepare a bath for you. Which you will take alone, so you can relax and sleep. I'm sticking to that plan."

"I'm leaving tomorrow for the week. We're moving filming to L.A. until the set is rebuilt." She bats her eyelashes, then kisses my cheeks, whispering, "Does that change your plans?"

"You're going to kill me, woman."





CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Clara

I have no memory of getting upstairs, but then I do tell Blake I want to take a quick shower-alone. When I emerge, Blake is standing in my bedroom, naked. My mouth dries as I take him in, and I keep my towel safely around me until I reach the bed. Crawling backwards on the bed, I peel away the towel.

I can't wait to trace every ridge on his stomach and those oblique muscles with my tongue. He's watching me with an expression of pure male want, stroking himself while his eyes scan me, and lust shoots through me. He's scorching hot for me.

"Just so you know, tonight I'm going to take my time with you. I won't leave any inch of you undiscovered."

I swallow. Old fears rush in and I bite the inside of my cheek, searching for the right words. "Can we turn the lights off?"

Blake jerks his head back in surprise. "If it makes you comfortable, of course."

I nod and he switches the light off, then joins me on the bed, lounging next to me, propping his head in his hand.

"Clara, I know I'm so hard that I can barely see straight, but if you want to wait, or you've just changed your mind, tell me. We'll still be friends and neighbors."

I appreciate this more than he can know. But I have to open up-it's preferable to Blake thinking I don't want him. Because I do. Desperately.

"I have some marks on my back."

"Marks?"

"Yeah, scars."

For all my bravado, the first time always makes me nervous. It seems to be worse with Blake, which is ridiculous because I trust him more than anyone I've been with. But maybe especially because of that, I want him to really like me, to hopefully accept all parts of me. 

"Want to tell me what happened?"

"One of the kids at the group home did a prank. He mixed acid in my shower gel."

Blake's body goes rigid next to me.

"I was super lucky that I accidentally hit the bottle and the contents spilled onto my back first."

"That was no prank."

Right, time to lay it all out. "No, it was an attempt to intimidate me. One of the older kids, Hank, bullied all the younger ones. He bit a five-year-old badly, then threatened everyone not to tell on him. I told on him. That was his revenge."

Hank was the resident bully at the group home. The shrink who sometimes came by the group home tried to explain that some kids took out the hurt of being abandoned by lashing out at others. But I couldn't be understanding, hard as I tried. No matter his background, he'd made the choice to hurt others. He kept making that choice. There was no excuse for that.

"Are you hurting?"

"No, it happened almost twenty years ago. It doesn't hurt, just looks a bit alien. But if I'm on my back, you can only see my good parts, and you can't accidentally touch anything alien."

Blake's gaze turns hard. Even with only the moonlight highlighting him, I can see the change. "Let me make one thing clear. I don't want you to hide any part of yourself from me, Clara. Ever."

He moves closer, almost half over me, and the skin-on-skin contact fires me up.

"I don't want you to feel you have to hide from me," he continues softly, trailing his mouth to my ear, then down my neck. When he nibbles at the hollow of my neck, I inhale sharply.

"I wasn't hiding, just...okay, I was hiding." Gathering my courage around me, I add, "But not anymore. Do you want to turn on the lights?"

"Don't do it for me. Only if you want to."

"Those are some fine muscles you have there, Bennett. I want to lick up every one of those excellent lines. It'd be a pity not to admire them at the same time."

Blake moves to the light switch and back so fast I have to bite back a smile. Once he's in bed, I climb over him, intending to make good on my promise. I start with his pecs, slowly working my way down licking, and touching and licking some more. Blake grips my hair, pressing his finger pads slightly against my scalp. When I lick his erection from the tip to the base, he jolts into a sitting position, pulling me right into his lap. I land with my opening right above his pelvic bone. I shudder, because my clit got a good shake in the process too. I'm dripping, which he can feel.