A. Jackson - When We Met

Darryn’s expression darkened with lust, and his hazel eyes flamed the most intense green.

As hard as I listened, no bells were going off in my head, no warning to get away and get away fast. All I could hear was the rapid beat of my heart that escalated with each breath I took, all of the affection I felt for this man bursting free.

I released Darryn’s thumb, and he stared up at me, panting as I undid the knot that held the towel under my arms. It dropped to the floor at my feet.

Darryn exhaled, heavy and hard, and though it seemed impossible, his eyes darkened more, desire evident in every cell of his body as he let his gaze drop and wander.

And I didn’t feel self-conscious or shy.

I felt beautiful.

Like this was right.

I braced myself on Darryn’s shoulders and leaned in close enough to brush my lips across his. For a second it was just soft brushes and lingering caresses, before we completely caught fire.

Darryn wound his arms around my waist, and in one movement, he lifted me from my feet and had my back pinned to his bed. And that glorious body was hovering over mine, caging me in and still making me feel the safest that I’d ever been.

“Are you sure you want this, Misha? I told you I’d wait as long as you needed me to, so you need to let me know what you’re thinking right now because I’m not sure my body is thinking the same thing you are.”

I wet my lips, searching his eyes and finding all the love I wanted to see staring back at me. “I asked you to be patient with me . . . respect me . . . to be honest with me.” I fluttered my fingertips down his face and across his mouth, and Darryn gently kissed each of them as they passed. “You’ve been all those things. Even in your lie there was honesty, and I know you’ll never take advantage of me. I trust you.”

“You don’t know how badly I wanted to hear those words.”

Darryn descended on me, his kiss everywhere, on my mouth and my jaw and my neck. I gasped when he went for my breast, drawing my nipple into the well of his wet mouth.

Flames tore through my insides. “Oh my God,” I whimpered, burying my hands in his hair, gripping and clutching while Darryn ignited something inside me I’d never felt before. It was all-around consuming, this untamed feeling that built and spread in the pit of my stomach, growing, begging for more.

I rocked against him, asking for it.

“I know, baby, I’ve got you.”

I whimpered when he pushed his weight back to his knees, and his head dropped below his shoulders as he slowly worked down my abdomen, kissing under my belly button, raking his lips over to my hip and down the outside of my leg.

My head spun when I realized Darryn was suddenly fully kneeling between my legs, heat searing me from the inside out. Without a doubt, my milky skin was glowing red, a flush of desire and a surge of warmth.

He looked up at me, his expression fueled by lust, but a lust that went so much deeper than just the physical. Like he wanted to consume me, heart and body and soul.

“P-p-please.” The word scraped up my throat and left my mouth on a barely constrained plea.

Because Darryn owned every single one of those parts of me.

He dove in, his tongue making a deep pass through my folds.

“Darryn,” I cried out, his name sung like praise.

I had no idea anything could feel so good.

Until he turned all his attentions to that little spot that throbbed and begged, just as needy as the incoherent words that were tumbling from my mouth. “Darryn,” I whimpered. “I don’t . . . I—I—I—”

“Shh.” His voice vibrated against my slick flesh, and that was it.

I came undone. And I thought I understood the meaning of an orgasm, what all the hype was about, but I had no clue. Pleasure tore through me at the surety of Darryn’s touch. Wave after wave, I was rocked in a jumbled state of pure bliss.

Before I could catch my breath, Darryn was on his knees, pushing his underwear down his thighs and kicking them aside.

What little air I could find was knocked free. Gaping, I couldn’t look away. I was struck dumb . . . silenced when all that was Darryn was revealed to me.

This boy-man-god was so beautiful that he left me in an almost terrified state of awe, because every part of Darryn had been masterfully created. My mouth ran dry as I tentatively reached out, my fingers trembling along the underside of his massive erection.

I watched in fascination as Darryn jerked, and his face twisted up in an almost tortured pleasure-pain.

“Careful,” he warned.

Redness lit on my face, and I bit at my lip, maybe feeling a little too proud that I caused this kind of reaction in him.

Darryn leaned over and dug through the little drawer beside his bed. His expression was all earnest and fierce. He kept his eyes trained on mine as he rolled on a condom. I shook as he settled his perfect body over mine.

I was pinned beneath him, though much of his weight rested on his elbows, our chests touching as the beat of our hearts worked to catch up with one another, each pulse racing faster than the last.

Darryn ran his fingers through my hair. He smiled the softest smile. “You’re shaking,” he murmured in quiet understanding, a question almost hitched at the end.

Are you okay?

I shifted so our bodies were aligned.

“I’m nervous,” I admitted quietly, licking my lips to rid myself of some of the nerves that were stampeding out of control. “My first time wasn’t exactly the best experience of my life . . . and I want . . . I—I—I want this to be different.”

Darryn shifted to take my hand, threading his fingers through my mine and tucking our hands up between us. He kissed across my knuckles, his breath like a soft breeze of reassurance that was pumped directly into my spirit.

“This is different.” He kissed my wrist, running his nose along the underside as if to draw me in, to bring me closer than we already were. “It’s different because when I look at you, I don’t see some girl who is a weak victim. What I see is a girl who is so strong that she overcomes every cruel and unfair obstacle placed in her way. It’s different because I see someone to be cherished rather than someone to be used.”

Affection played through his eyes. “It’s different because I’m in love with you . . . desperately.” He trailed his fingers down my face, and hooked his finger under my chin, tilting my mouth up to his. “And I see it when you look at me, that you feel the same. That you’re loving me as much as I’m loving you. That means everything is different.”

Slowly he pressed himself into me. All the air left me in one sharp gasp as my body accepted all of him, stretching me, filling me so full it would almost have hurt if it didn’t feel so unbelievably good.

“This is me giving you all of me. Forever.” He pulled away, before he rocked back into me with one firm thrust.

This time when Darryn pulled back, I lifted my hips to meet the force of his as he drove himself deep into me.

“I want to mean everything,” he said.

I wrapped my legs around his hips and gave him my all, whimpered and moaned as he wound that feeling back into the deepest, most secret place inside me.

“Everything,” I promised through my ragged pants as Darryn worked his body over mine. All those darts of energy sparked, a live charge shot straight into my heart. It spiraled down to my core, and I felt it building with every surge of his body.

“I love you,” I whispered just before he tilted his hips and took me hard. Another wave of ecstasy swallowed me whole, stealing my breath and mind.

Darryn pushed and strained, groaning loud as his body tensed, his own pleasure rolling in tremors through all his brimming strength, his muscles bunched and coiled in his release.

For a few moments, Darryn remained still, gathering his breath, before he pushed up with his hands on either side of my head, his nose an inch from mine. His eyes were almost wild as he stared down at me with a look of pure possession.

I’d become his.

My avenging angel.

The one who’d been sent not to destroy but to expose something vital that had been so difficult for me to see.

To show me it was okay to be me.

Indy

Swiping at my wet cheeks, I drove past the house I shared with three girls not far from campus during the school year, and kept going until I pulled up outside Dean’s frat house. I wasn’t supposed to be coming back to Ann Arbor for a couple more days. But Dean was already here, and, well, there was apparently nothing left for me in Chicago anymore.

My parents had made that all too clear when I’d come home from the gym this morning to find my suitcases on the driveway. A note pinned to one of them had said We can’t keep pretending everything’s okay, and the locks on the door had been changed.

Gone for an hour at the gym—and they changed the locks and packed all my stuff. They’d obviously been busy carrying out plans they’d had for who knew how long.

Through my tears and depressed-to-angry mood swings, I’d made the drive to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in only three hours, and remembered maybe five minutes of that. But none of that mattered now. As I let myself in the stale, funky-smelling frat house, I was already breathing easier knowing I was seconds away from being in Dean’s arms. He would make everything better—he always had over the last two years.