Reggie's Girl Ch. 06

And he hadn't preyed on her dependence on him once during her stay. She gave him a wide, jubilant smile. "Oh, Reggie! Thank you, thank you so much."

"For what?" He looked genuinely puzzled by her gratitude. Jasmine decided to play along.

"For letting me stay at your house, of course. And for not taking advantage of me while I was there. God! I was so terrified. I was starting to think Krow had these powerful people backing him up."

"Oh, he did," Reggie replied mildly, and poured himself a liberal helping of white wine. "No question."

Jasmine watched him in silence as he drained his glass. He seemed calm enough but she was now certain it was a façade.

"Something's wrong," she stated. In the purplish twilight, she thought she saw him smile faintly, sadly, but couldn't be sure.

"Come inside, now, sweetheart," Reggie invited. "Let's get you out of this wind."

He rose to his feet and offered her his hand. She took it and let him lead her inside.

"I hope the place meets with your approval," he commented as he flipped on a light switch.

The place was as tasteful and exotic as his New York townhouse, but the designs here were Arabesque as well as African.

"The furnishings were flown here from Mombasa, in Kenya," he told her, not quite succeeding to contain the note of pride in his voice.

"I've never been," Jasmine murmured, looking around in deep appreciation.

"I'd have liked to take you someday. Cut up mangoes for you on the beach and feed them to you with my fingers," Reggie mused, his fingers intertwining with hers. "Compare the color of the ocean to those angel eyes- but I'm already biased in your favor... Get you in a thong bikini, perhaps..."

She rolled her eyes. So he was back at that again, was he? "Enough sweetness, Reg, I can't see where I'm going with all these tears in my eyes."

"I'd build a fire right there. Burn those cut-off shorts you're wearing to hide your scars, because the last thing a woman like you should feel is ashamed."

Her sarcasm immediately forgotten, Jasmine lost interest in her surroundings and stared transfixed at him as they walked up a shallow flight of stairs.

"And what would you do next?" she prompted softly.

"I'd lay you down on the sand. Take my time stripping your pretty ass bare," he murmured almost to himself, a distant smile on his lips. "Tease your beautiful body till you beg me to make you mine, in every sense of the word. I would, but you'd have to admit something first."

"Admit what?" Was that her voice? When had it turned so husky?

Reggie held the door open and let her enter first into the large bedroom. A luxuriant snow-white carpet sprawled at their feet, inviting lovemaking upon it should the bed be too far for their convenience. Teased by its softness on her toes, Jasmine slipped out of her sandals and sank her feet into the fluffy mass.

She looked up when Reggie drew her into his embrace. "Admit that you've been mine from the moment we first met."

Jasmine wanted to say she belonged to no man, but he stopped her with a sweet kiss that left her lips tingling.

"And then I'd admit that I love you," he whispered into her eyes, as they widened in astonishment. "That you own me, body and soul, and there ain't a damn thing you or I can do about it."

"Lo...?" Frowning, she shook her head in confused denial.

But underneath it ran an unstoppable current of pure joy, a euphoric triumph unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life. It was as sudden, and as intoxicating as it was frightening.

"No!"

"I love you, Jasmine," Reggie repeated with somber insistence.

"Please-"

"I love you."

"Reggie-"

"I love you!"

It wasn't possible! Why was he saying such things to her? He knew very well he didn't mean it! Even if he did, he knew she couldn't say them back, not when she had Ted-

Her ravaged emotions could take no more. Jasmine held her head in her hands and she simply burst into tears. Tears of relief, tears of joy, tears of unutterable sorrow, tears of fear and perhaps also... of love? She had no way of knowing, she was much too overwhelmed.

As always, Reggie showed amazing acceptance for her overwrought emotions. He held her to him and let her cry.

"Let it out, baby," he encouraged. "Let yourself feel it all, then let it go."

But Jasmine didn't want to feel this.

"It's too much," she sobbed into his sodden shirt collar.

"Shh, love, it's not too much for the both of us. You cry as much as you need to, I'll take it from you," Reggie assured her fiercely.

And because she believed that he could, believed that he did love her, Jasmine cried on. Once, she'd been afraid to, fearing that if she started, she'd never be able to stop bawling. He had shown her that that wasn't true. But there was still so much grief when the tears stopped, that her breath came in painful heaves.

"It's not fair," she complained, pulling back. "You shouldn't tell me you... You can't burden me with this, Reggie! I can't give you anything, I just can't!"

"I know." His tone was so devoid of expectation when he had done so much for her, that she choked up again.

"But you can at least give me your honesty. If you're carrying my child, Jasmine, I have a right to know," he stated

.

"It's way too soon to tell," Jasmine snapped.

Undaunted, Reggie pressed her further still. "But you're late though? You're starting to wonder?"

She glared at him. "I've never been particularly regular! Now, could we please just leave it at that?!"

He could be such a caveman about these things! She pushed him away, needing space to soothe her ruffled sensibilities.

"You know, either way, the house is yours. I'd just prefer that you carry my child to term, then raise him - or her - here. Right. I know," he said when she lifted a trembling hand to her eyes. "It's a hell of a lot to ask. But you won't be doing it on a photographer's salary. I've set aside a substantial amount to support the both of you, drawn up a list of highly-recommended therapists in New York and Miami that you can see about your self-harm and..."

Reggie sighed and thrust his hands in his pockets. "I bought you another car," he concluded drily. "You kinda abandoned your old one." He shrugged.

"It's all set out in my will now. They're yours by legal right, or will be in due time."

Jasmine looked askance at him, disbelief etched on her features. "Your will? Did I hear that right?"

"Yes, you did."

"Why would you be writing a will, you're only 35..."

Then the blood drained from her face. It all made sense now. "Krow's f-friends," she stammered. "The powerful ones who had his back... What are they going to do now that he's dead?"

"Revenge is the general rule of the game," Reggie answered quietly, meeting her gaze without evasion.

"They're coming for you?"

She could not believe it. Reggie McComb was an arrogant, abrasive alpha to the teeth. Not some tragic figure who surrendered to the whims of the gods. To Jasmine's admittedly overawed eyes, he was as a god unto himself, doing what he pleased on his own terms and answering to no one.

He was many, many things, but not mortal like the rest of them. Surely not to this extent. And yet he did not gainsay her.

"Reggie!" Jasmine cried when he failed to answer her.

"Calm down, sweetheart," he cajoled at last, tucking her hair behind her ear. He smiled at her. "This isn't NYC; we're all the way in sunny Miami by the beach. What could possibly happen way out here?"

He was humoring her, she knew it. He always humored her whenever she got upset. He preferred to share no detail of his dark trade with her. But she just had to ask, even if he'd just tell her what she wanted to hear:

"You're going to be okay, aren't you?"

"No doubt," Reggie declared. He held her close once more and kissed her on the forehead. "It's all good news tonight," he murmured, running his hands over her soft body. "No sadness."

He looked her straight in the eye with that sexual confidence that always made her weak. "But if you really wanna cry, I suggest your fine ass get buck naked and hop on that bed. I guarantee you'll cry some more, hun, and a lot louder."

He meant it. He bombarded her with pleasure, lavished ecstasy upon ecstasy on her, igniting her hot spots with relentless skill until she went mad. She was wild in his arms, shrieking and scratching at his beautiful dark skin.

And when he finally moved inside her, he stroked her orgasms out of her, one after the other with steady friction, aided by the fact that he wore no condom. Neither of them had remembered protection, and when they stared into each other's eyes during their simultaneous climax, neither could regret it.

The emotional intensity of the moment along with her clit, swollen and pulsing between his clever fingers, granted that he would deliver on his word. Her eyes welled up as she felt his hot seed spilling into her, giving her all of himself once more.

Driven by a need to reciprocate the only way she could, Jasmine finally took over and pushed him down into the pillows. She kissed and licked and sucked every spot on his body that gave him delight. She then demanded to be shown any she was yet ignorant of, and Reggie did not deny her.

First with her fingers, then her lips, she explored the delicate, duskier skin beneath his bulbous sac. He kept gripping and releasing her hair at her gentle probing. She explored all the way to the wrinkled rim of his anus, eliciting a deep moan.

He allowed her pinkie to slide up his rear with a gasp, writhing ever so slightly at the tiny intrusion. Then he taught her to find, and just how to massage, his prostate. She fingered the pillowy spot until his eyes drifted shut in undiluted bliss.

He might have been happy to let her carry on like that, but Jasmine was not so complacent. She didn't even know if he still enjoyed her novel boldness, still approved of it. But he didn't try to hold her back. Maybe he saw her emotions running high and wanted to indulge her.

With her tongue slurping at his puckered asshole, Reggie himself sounded half-choked as he instructed her on how to go about pleasing him. But it was her turn to be merciless in making love to him, daring to penetrate him as no other woman had.

Her reward came soon and was nothing short of glorious.

His masterful self-control imploded with startling swiftness. In ragged tones, Reggie uttered his love for her with every pearly rope his dick shot, while Jasmine hurried back up to catch his copious load in her mouth.

Even when she'd swallowed all he had to give her, she didn't stop. She remained between his trembling thighs, licking and kissing his softening organ until he groaned for her to leave his oversensitive flesh alone.

She collapsed beside him, completely out of breath when he grabbed her hair. He dragged her right back to him, then was kissing her with heartbreaking desperation, and for so long, she grew lightheaded for want of oxygen. Finally, he released her lips.

"God, I love you," she heard Reggie rasp into her hair. "I love you, Jasmine, Jesus... I love..."

Jasmine fell asleep before he finished, and perhaps Reggie, too, for that matter.

She awoke much, much later. The moon had slid across the night sky to shine its weak light through the open curtains. Her exhausted lover lay beside her, still passed out from the exertions of the night. She lifted her head from his chest and studied him moodily.

Even in his sleep, he seemed so strong. It was the one constant in this mysterious, shape-shifting figure before her. Few preconceptions about who he was had survived his unpredictability. But his indomitable strength had always been a given, whether he was criminal scum or a man of his word or hope of the hopeless.

Or the man who loved her. Proof that he could indeed do the impossible, she thought with a bitter little smile.

No, his ability to beat the odds and come out on top had never been in question - until now.

Jasmine traced the firm curve of his bicep with her finger then, allowing herself a moment's make-believe, whispered in his ear.

"If you die..." Her voice died away with a shuddering breath.

She gulped hard, then she began again almost angrily, "If you leave me alone after you took such good care of me, I'll never forgive you, Reggie McComb. I'll hate you forever, you hear?"

He did not. Not an eyelid flickered as he slept on, his breathing deep and regular.

"But if you want my loyalty?" Jasmine whispered, stroking his hair. "If you want to make love to me on a tropical beach and hear me say I love you back? You'll be here when this baby is born."

And with that, she turned to contemplate the dark blue wall on her side. She listened to the ceaseless sigh of the surf outside as she waited for sleep. Beside her, Reggie stirred after a moment, searching for her lost warmth.

Jasmine felt him draw up behind her, then wrap his arm around her waist before he went back to sleep.

As the seconds ticked by, his steady heartbeat at her back conspired with the rush of the ocean to lull her. Her own eyelids grew heavy and slowly fluttered shut. They opened wide again at the single word she heard whispered in her ear. "Deal."