Page 92 of Bared

And why did she sound so different now? Throatier. Tearier. A thousand times more terrified. Which made no sense. The only thing that had ever actually spooked Asha was the threat of a life without possibilities. Without freedom. But now, she sounded so desperate. So trapped.

“Brickham. Brickham. Do you hear me? I have nothing left, damn it. I have nothing left—but you have!”

What the hell was happening? She’d never said things like this before.

“Please, Brickham. I need you…”

And dear fuck, she’d definitely never touched him like this before.

“Good. Christ!” His own exclamation was his galvanization. And cognition. Could he be blamed? When a guy was being stroked in the crotch like this, the wise move was getting mentally online for it—if only to realign his shit and stop it. Because he didn’t feel this way about Asha, nor would be convinced to. He’d made that clear with her from the start. So…why was she…?

“Brickham.”

She was ready with another urgent caress along his shaft. Jesus fuck, it was impossible to ignore. But while his balls clamored for more, especially as she scooped down and massaged them too, his mind detonated in protest. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right.

“Oh, no. This is very right.”

Only her determined retort made him realize he’d blurted the objection out loud. All right, he’d just say it again.

But he could only babble like a hard-up booter on his first night off the base.

“I…can’t,” he finally managed. “We can’t.”

“But we very much can.” Another perfect caress turned into another moment of torture as she pinched his cockhead. How was she weaving such sorcery over him, even through his camos? “Please. Please just come back to me, Sir…and I shall show you how much.”

Before she was done, Brick was jolting again. Hard.

Sir.

Like an asteroid hitting a warp jump, his whole being rushed back to reality.

Sir.

Every circuit in his psyche rammed back online.

Sir.

Every drop of his blood sizzled with fresh fire.

Because never, out of the thousand times he’d been addressed that way, did it mean what it did now. Never did it sound like it did, full of as much authority as penury, as much command as entreaty.

Never had he so fully liked it that way.

“Pixie.” It spilled from him on a breath thick with relief—and rejoicing. “It’s really you?”

At first, she only responded by kissing him. She tasted like tears and wind, with a hint of the wine she’d sipped back at Très Particulier. How had that been just a few hours ago? It might as well have been years. He truly felt that close to her. That replete with delight at rediscovering her.

“Right here,” she said with a soft, sweet smile. But he knew differently. He had heard her, each and every time she anchored him through his darkness with it.

His darkness.

That was the best descriptor for it this time. He hadn’t weathered an attack that severe since the first week after they’d found him in Bamiyan.

But something told him he’d be recovering much faster this time. Unlike then, he had a damn good excuse to check back into reality.

The sooner the fucking better.

“Oh, Pixie…you certainly are here.” He didn’t bother sifting out the soft savagery from his snarl or the strict demand from his grip, cinching her waist with one intention. To position her core atop the hump in his jeans. “But I think here is better.” With a rough jerk, he dragged her up. With a rougher one, he shoved her down. “And here.”