by JB Salsbury
I step forward and gently pluck the woman’s wrist away. “No touching.”
“Excuse me?” Fire flickers in her gaze as she steps close to my face.
Unimpressed, I meet her glare. “If a man touched a woman on the chest without permission we’d all be calling campus security.”
Her lips part as she struggles for words. “H-how do you know he didn’t give me permission?”
“Because he only likes it when I touch him.” I feel Spider drift closer to my side.
“You?” She chuckles as she looks from my khaki, pleated slacks to the pearl buttons of my cardigan. “I hate to break it to you, honey, but you are not his type.”
I lean in to speak directly into her ear. “He likes to choke me during sex.” Her eyes widen. “And I beg for him to leave bruises on my skin.”
Theodore’s upper teeth toy with his lip ring as he fights what looks like a smile.
She slides her gaze to him with a flicker of horror in her eyes.
I look calmly at Theodore. “I’d like to leave now.”
He takes my hand. “See ya around, Kelly.”
We walk away from a speechless Kelly and weave through endless bodies that smell of expensive cologne, liquor, and smoke. Once outside he drops my hand and we walk together back to the truck in silence.
When we get inside, and shut the doors, he finally turns to me. “Choking? Bruises? You’ve been holding back.”
I carefully pull out of the parking spot and barely avoid hitting drunk co-eds. “Why were you touching her hair?” I want to know what he was thinking as he watched her lips move but didn’t seem to hear a word she said. I want to know what compelled him to reach for her hair and test it against his fingertips. What was he thinking, what was he feeling, and why did witnessing it make me feel something too?
“I wanted to know if her hair felt as soft as yours.”
My foot lets up on the gas, the only reaction to my surprise.
“It didn’t.” He rubs at his lower lip with his fingers as he stares out the window. “Not even close.” When I don’t respond he looks at me. “You know, you could’ve just peed on me.”
I lose the battle with my lips and smile at his using my own words against me. “I’m saving that for the fourth date.”
“Date? Is that what we’ve been doing?”
I shrug. Closest thing to a date I’ve ever had. All my past sexual experiences were very much of the non-committal variety. One and done. No need for dinner or special treatment. I’ve always been upfront about what I’m looking for in a sexual partner and feelings and commitment are never the priority. “Don’t mistake my defense of consent for possession.”
He settles back into the seat, his long, muscled legs spread wide, his elbow propped in the open window. “Whatever you say, Kitten.” He allows a few beats of silence to stretch between us before asking, “What was that shit you pulled with Meegan? You threatened to kill her whole family.”
“I was joking.” I sniff and keep my eyes on the road. “Obviously.”
“Didn’t sound like you were joking.”
I allow his observation to linger in the quiet cab for the few minutes until I pull into his driveway. Leaving the engine running, I hit the unlock button.
“Come inside.”
“I can’t. I have to—”
He cuts me off by leaning his big body across the center console. His nose brushes my neck. “Come inside, Kitten,” he practically purrs. “I won’t touch you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Am I worried that he’ll touch me? Not in the least.
I’m more worried he won’t.
Spider
Emery follows me through the dark entryway to the kitchen.
“Did you eat dinner?” I open the fridge and pull out a stack of deli meats and cheeses.
“No.”
I figured she hadn’t. Rowan always talks about Friday nights at the coffee shop being too busy to take a dinner break. “Sandwich?”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t. Do you have a preference?” I motion to the selection in front of me.
She props her elbows on the countertop. “That’s a lot of meat.”
I smirk. “You flatter me.”
She rolls her eyes, a flicker of a smile on her lips. “Whatever is fine, I’m easy.”
“I’ve had easier.” I smirk and she laughs so quietly I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been listening for it. I grab a bread roll and slice it open, add some mustard, layer in meat, top with cheese and pop it into the toaster oven.
“Drink?”
She shrugs. “Whatever you’re having.”
“I’m having a beer, but you don’t drink beer.”
She lifts one delicate brow as if she’s impressed I’d noticed. “Water is fine.”
I hand her a bottle of water. “Why don’t you drink?
She toys with the label turning the thing in circles. “Alcohol clouds my head and I loathe that loss of control.”
I pop the cap on my beer and take a swig. “I’ve noticed that about you.”
Her hand freezes on the water bottle and she peers up at me.
“You push me away, pull me back in, stalk me, avoid me. Throw me at your dad. You’re constantly exercising your control over people to remind yourself you still have it.”
Her expression is blank, proving the accuracy of my observation. Her mask is her biggest tell.
I put my forearms on the countertop and study her emotionless face. “You’re terrified of spinning out of control. Maybe because it happened to you once before? When you lost your mom.”
Her mask hardens.
“Your dad left you at some school. You lost the two anchors that kept you grounded. I don’t fault you for needing to keep a firm grip on the people you allow in your life now.”
She startles when the toaster oven pings.
I give her my back in order to plate her sandwich, but mostly to give her the chance to recompose her dead stare. When I turn around she seems a little more relaxed. I slide the sandwich in front of her.
She doesn’t even look at it. “I see you’ve been talking to my dad.”
“He did most of the talking while warning me to stay away from you.”
A flicker of real emotion lights her eyes but only for a fraction of a second. “And yet, here we are.”
“That’s right.”
“You rebel against anyone who tries to control you. My dad, me… Why?” She tilts her head with her focus on my lips as she waits for my response. “It’s only fair you give me something. I didn’t get the chance to willingly share my story.” Her cheeks are pink and her mouth hard. “My dad had no right to tell you—”
“Yes,” I say and her gaze snaps to mine. “Most of my life was controlled by a drunk prick who dolled out punishment with his fists. I don’t like people telling me what to do. Matter of fact, the only person I allow to talk to me like that anymore is your dad on the field.”
A tiny grin tilts her lips. “And me.”
“You think so?”
She shrugs. “You didn’t seem to mind my control our first night together when I hunted you down and seduced you in a bar.”
“I didn’t understand you were controlling me then.” If I had known she was using me to upset her dad, would I have slept with her? Absolutely not. “But after that first taste of you, I needed more.”
A genuine smile pulls her lips. “You didn’t even put up a fight, Theodore.”
“Or maybe you’re much better at manipulating people than you think. Now eat your sandwich, I’ve got plans for you.”
She smiles into her first bite and a fissure slices through my quickly narrowing resistance to Emery Brawley.
Chapter Thirteen
Spider
“Take off your clothes.” With my ass planted poolside in the backyard, I watch Emery look between me and the unlit pool.
She crosses her arms at her chest. “I
f your goal is to get me naked, Theodore, I’d prefer a more seductive approach.”
“If I wanted to get you naked, Kitten, I’d have you stripped bare by now.”
“So this is it? You want to go swimming.”
“Take off your clothes and find out. You can leave on your bra and underwear. And if you’re worried about Rowan and Carey seeing you, trust me, once they get behind their bedroom door they don’t come out until morning.”
“I’m not worried about them seeing me,” she says with a challenge to her voice.
“Why does that not surprise me?”
She removes her sweater, laying it neatly over the back of a nearby chair, and her matching cashmere shirt follows. Her bra is a pale pink, no lace or frills. She kicks off her tennis shoes, socks, then slides her khaki’s down her pale legs and folds them neatly on the chair. Her panties are the same color as her bra but the conservative attire stops once she turns toward the pool. The full, round globes of her ass are deliciously bare in her subtly sexy g-string.
She steps onto the first step hesitantly. “Are you not coming in?”
“I will, but first I want to enjoy the view.”
“That’s not very gentlemanly.”
“And?”
A soft chuckle escapes her lips as she slowly submerges to her neck.
I stand, pull my t-shirt off and toss it aside followed by my boots and jeans.
She studies my inked body with a quiet appreciation. “Did they hurt?” The way her eyes slide over me feels like ghostly fingertips on my skin.
“A couple did.” I point to the colorful school of fish on my inner thigh. “This one, and…” I hold up my arm to the underside where a tiger is tattooed with his tail curling up into my armpit. “This part here.”
“Do they all mean something?”
“Most of them mean nothing,” I say as I enter the pool.
“Then why get them?”
“You seem to know me so well.” I close in on her, stopping a few teasing inches away. There’s something erotic about being nearly naked in the dark and wet with a beautiful woman and I feel myself hardening beneath the water. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Her chin tilts back to meet my eyes. “You’re punishing yourself.”
“For what?” I’m genuinely curious what she thinks, which is rare as fuck. I don’t usually give two-shits about what people think of me.
She takes a few steps back as if she’s worried how I’ll respond to her honesty. “For letting him win.”
Her words are a direct blow to the chest. My smile falls and I clench my fists under the water.
“Because he’s always with you, even though you hate him, you’ll never forget him. And you’re hoping with every new tattoo that you’ll one day look in the mirror and not see that scared little boy looking back at you. Maybe if you cover up enough, that little boy will disappear.”
When I don’t respond, she turns away from me, giving me her back. The predator in me lunges to give chase, to pounce while she’s unsuspecting. One thought gives me pause—Emery isn’t unsuspecting. She’s calculating, intentional. She dropped her unfiltered opinion like a bomb and purposefully made herself a target with hope I’d take the bait.
I sink back to the steps, lounge against them to give her the opposite of what she wants, all while marveling at the mindfuck that she is.
Emery inflicts the sweetest torture. She keeps my mind guessing and my body intrigued. I could spend the rest of my life trying to know every facet of her soul and barely scratch the surface.
“So…am I right?”
I look up to find her staring at me. “Are you my therapist now?”
“Depends. Do you need one?”
“No. I’d like to think I’ve left that shit in the past. How about you?”
“I’m working on it.” She glides her hand over the surface of the water watching the wake it leaves behind. “Sometimes, I think…” She trails off staring at the dark water in front of her. “Maybe I’d like to disappear too.” She blinks, seems to snap out of her thoughts as if she just realized she’s given me more than she intended, and she flashes a sexy smile. “So you got me here, nearly naked…wet. What do you plan to do with me?”
“I’m going to show you how to disappear.”
She lifts her brows.
I step to her, my taller frame keeping my chest out of the water where she’s submerged to her shoulders. “Lie back.”
There’s a flicker of unease in her gaze.
“Do you trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
“Lie back.”
She studies my face and whatever she finds makes her eventually lift her feet. I put a hand on her lower back and another between her shoulder blades under the water, helping her stay afloat while she sinks her head into the water past her ears so that only her face remains above the water line.
“Take deep breaths in and breath out slowly, it’ll help you float.”
She does what I ask and once I’m convinced she’ll stay above water without my help I let her go.
“Close your eyes. Clear your mind. Listen to nothing but the sound of your own heartbeat.”
I watch as the tension in her expression slowly melts away then stand back and admire her pale, feminine form as she floats easily on the water. Moonlight dances across the water that slicks her flat belly and laps against her breasts. Her hair is a halo of golden tentacles making her look like a siren.
I was wrong.
A woman as potent as Emery is impossible to make disappear.
Emery
With my ears submerged into a watery silence, he removes the support of his hands and I remain floating weightlessly at the surface. In the quiet darkness with nothing but the sound of my pulse in my ears, I think this pool is a metaphor for my life. I’ve been treading water, thrashing in the proverbial tides without support. Then Theodore comes along and asks me to trust him, lifts my feet and lays me back. Suddenly those same waters seem calmer. Less threatening.
Is this what if feels like to let someone in?
I fall into a comfortable cocoon of stillness when I feel the gentle brush of fingertips against my collarbone. I suck in a breath and tense, feeling my legs begin to drop.
He lifts them again, supports them until I regain my float. “Focus. Don’t sink.”
With the loss of sight and sound my skin is a live wire as I wait for another brush of his fingers and anticipate where they’ll land next. My pulse quickens at the possibilities. In what I assume is purposeful torture, he waits for what feels like hours before I feel his barely-there touch brush the tops of my thighs.
“Focus on your breathing.” His voice sounds muffled and I take a deep breath just as he drags his fingertips to my knee and back up again. “You have the sweetest thighs.” His touch lingers on my inner thigh before moving higher to touch between my legs. “You’re so beautiful here.” He runs his finger back and forth over the cotton of my underwear and I struggle to keep a steady breath. He continues his feather-light torture up and around my bellybutton then between my breasts drawing tiny patterns on their swells. He moves to my lips, an airy touch I would’ve thought I imagined if I hadn’t felt the cool, hard press of his lip ring.
I tilt my chin, reaching for deeper contact, but he pulls back and leaves me breathless, wanting, and sinking.
My eyes open and I plant my feet and glare at the torturous bastard as he looks down at me with a knowing smirk. “You’re mean.”
He shrugs one colorful, muscled shoulder and backs away from me to the steps where he sits, trying hard to look unaffected. A shot of pure lust mixed with frustration lights up my blood and I cross to him, crawl over his body and straddle his hips. The press of his erection between my legs sends a gasp from my lips and a moan from his.
“This game is boring me,” I say as I slide my hands up his neck and into his hair.
“Funny.” He tilts his head, burning me alive with a heated gaze
. “You don’t look bored.”
“What do I look like?”
“You look like you want to fuck.”
“You’re observant.”
He snakes a hand between us and softly grips my throat, holding me off from pressing against him. “Can’t.”
“So all this seduction in the pool was for nothing? You’re a lot of things Theodore Web, but I never thought you were a tease.” I move to push off his lap, gather my things and get the fuck out of here but his hold on my throat tightens, stilling me and sending lust through my body in a dizzying wave.
“House rule. No fucking in the pool.”
“Oh.”
The corner of his mouth ticks up on the side. “I’ll take you to my bed on one condition.”
His warm, powerful body beneath me, long, callused fingers at my throat, I’d say yes to any of his demands just for the chance to douse the flames raging inside me.
“Stay the night.”
Wait, he means all night? “And do what?”
His hand slips from my throat to cup and mold my breast. “I thought that part was obvious.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I mean after that.”
“We sleep.”
My eyebrows rise over what are sure to be wide eyes. “Sleep?”
“Yeah, Kitten. Fuck, sleep, and fuck again. Why am I having to explain this shit to you?”
I move to slide off his lap, but he holds my hips with both hands, locking me in place. “I don’t sleep with men.”
“Good.” He grabs my ass. “But our first night together you slept with me.”
“You slept. I stayed awake.”
“Details. Wrap your legs around me,” he says a second before he stands and I’m forced to do what he asked to avoid falling.
“Wait, my clothes,” I say, watching the patio furniture disappear behind us as he carries me toward the house.
“I’ll get them for you in the morning.” He manages to open the door while holding me with one hand, closing it and locking it behind us. “This way, you can’t sneak out on me in the middle of the night.” There’s humor in his voice, but he’s spot on, I have every intention of sneaking out once he’s asleep.