by Lane Hart
Cooper’s wordless grunts turn into a growl right before he slams deep one last time and I feel his body shudder against my back with his release.
“Goddamn,” he says between pants when his mouth latches on to my neck and his teeth bite down gently on my flesh. He finally lets me go and takes a step back so that his well-used dick slips out of me.
I slowly lower my trembling legs back down to the floor where my heels now make them even more unsteady. Still, with one hand gripping the desk, I keep my balance long enough to pull my skirt down over my ass and begin rebuttoning up my blouse. The girls didn’t get as much attention today as I expected, but I can’t complain. My skin is still tingly from his touch and the pleasure coursing through my veins.
I peek over at Cooper as my fingers work the buttons, watching as he removes the condom and tosses it and the wrapper into the trash can under my desk before he zips up his jeans.
“I really enjoy these visits,” he says with a lazy, satisfied grin when he catches me watching him. Bending down, he hooks his finger in the string on my panties on the floor and holds them out for me to take. “We should do this more often.”
“Well,” I start when I wiggle back into them. Once they’re in place, I pick up the pink ticket we just fucked on. “You could stop by to see me without getting a speeding ticket. You would probably save lots of cash too since you wouldn’t have to pay off sheriff deputies to issue them to you.”
Cooper’s steel blue eyes go from the ticket in my hand to my face before he grins even wider and asks, “How did you know?”
“Jade told me the other day,” I answer with my own smile.
“Should’ve known our sheriff can’t keep a damn secret,” he chuckles.
“That’s a lot of trouble to go through just to get laid, especially for a man who runs a strip club,” I remark.
“Totally worth it though,” he says with a proud smile. “So, does that mean we can make this a regular occurrence?”
He wants to have sex with me regularly, huh? What does regularly mean to him? Weekly? Monthly? Daily? I wouldn’t mind sharing more orgasms with him, but no more than once a week. His visits put me in the best moods for hours afterward, which is why I didn’t want a call from a certain inmate to spoil it and make me feel guilty. At the same time, if we spend more time together, that will only complicate things.
“Fine, but no more regular than once a week,” I say.
“Once a week works for me.”
“Good. And you’ll need to call Barb and schedule a time at least a day in advance to make sure I’m not in court or with clients.”
There. If he wants sex, I want enough notice so that I can make sure I’m prepared by shaving my legs the morning of and wearing cute matching undies.
“You want me to schedule appointments in advance whenever I want to fuck you?” Cooper asks with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes, and I want you to agree that this is only sex between us, nothing else. Ever.”
“Deal,” he quickly replies, almost too easily. “I’m not sure if I should be insulted or pleased that you’re going to pencil my cock into your busy schedule on a regular basis.”
“You should be happy I’m not charging you by the hour like my other clients,” I joke.
“What is your hourly rate?” he asks. “I mean, since you’ve always worked for me for orgasms.”
“Two-fifty,” I reply.
“Damn, that’s a steal after how much I’ve been paying deputies.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” I tell him with a shake of my head. “What if they hadn’t held up their end of the deal and all these tickets ended up on your driving record?”
“That was a chance I was willing to take,” he says as he straightens his jacket and strolls out of my office without another word, earning the words on the back of his leather cut. Cooper’s the Savage King of Orgasms and I’m helpless to do anything but let him conquer and rule my body.
Chapter One
Cooper Cummings
Two years later…
One day before the Avalon bombing…
“Just stay with me a few more minutes,” I say with my lips pressed to Liz’s neck as I breathe in her sweet honeysuckle flavor, still holding her curvy body to mine after she rode me in one of the guest chairs in her office.
For the first few weeks, I imagined her running through the woods at night nude or making naked angels in some meadow to infuse every inch of her skin and hair with honeysuckles, making her smell so damn scrumptious.
Then, one day I was highly disappointed when I spotted the lotion bottle on her desk and realized there’s a whole line of Bath & Body Works products that are honeysuckle scented. And I’m only a little ashamed to say that I now use the body wash to jerk off in the shower on the six days of the week I don’t have appointments to fuck her since she still refuses to see me more than once a week.
It’s hard to believe Liz and I have been sleeping together for two years. It seems like just the other day I walked into her office with a speeding ticket and somehow ended up on the floor with my tongue between her legs.
Still, after all this time, I don’t know anything about the intelligent, classy, sexy, always smooth and polished attorney, other than how she tastes and sounds when she’s coming for me. I’ve never seen where she lives or found out her favorite color. Whenever I try to ask her a simple question to try and get to know her, I’m evaded, usually with the phrase “I have work to do” or “I have to get to court.”
Liz is always busy helping criminals. I get that, I do. I’m usually swamped myself with my involvement in the Savage Kings MC and managing Avalon, our popular strip club where nearly a dozen women dance naked for dollar bills. The drama in my life never ends.
I think that must be why I’m so obsessed with Liz, and there’s no hope for me in sight. She offers me an escape from that world. She gives me a few minutes of peace, some solace from the chaos. So I make time for her, even when there are a million other things I should be doing.
For Liz, well, I’m just a good time. She’s made it clear that’s all we’ll ever be, so no one else needs to know about our time together. We schedule days to screw in her office like she’s a call girl or some shit. Or maybe I’m the call boy. Who the fuck knows? Either way, it’s always a quick fuck in her office, and then she runs me off with a sated cock and her honeysuckle taste on my lips.
Does she date other men the other six days of the week? Does she fuck rich, conservative attorneys in her office or theirs? Why doesn’t she want to be with me? These are the questions that keep me up at night when I’m sleeping all alone in my bed.
Yet, I keep coming back to her, no questions asked. I can’t get enough. And sometimes, I think that deep down Liz longs for more even though she won’t admit it. Why do I believe such a thing? It’s just the intimate way she touches me every once in a while, in the moments right after we fuck. Like right now, with her fingers combing idly through the back of my hair like she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. In a few seconds, though, she’ll freeze up when she does notice. Then she’ll immediately scurry off of me like I’ve burnt her.
Any second now…
Any. Second.
Her fingers suddenly pause midway through my long locks and her entire body tenses against mine.
“I’ve got to get going,” Liz says with a heavy exhale as she places her hands on my shoulders and starts to lower her heels to the floor.
I grab the back of her knees to keep her in place, thighs straddling my lap with her shirt unbuttoned and skirt hiked up to her waist. God forbid the two of us ever get completely naked to fuck.
“Let me take you to dinner tonight,” I look up at her face and say, even though I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s going to shoot me down.
“Don’t you have to work?” she asks.
Shit. Yes.
“I could find someone to cover me for a few hours,” I tell her as I watch her expression, know
ing she’s thinking up another excuse right this very second.
“Sorry, but I have plans,” she looks right at me with her whiskey-colored eyes and lies.
“Doing what?” I ask because I’m tired of this runaround shit. I want answers from her for once, even if she doesn’t want to give them to me.
“Dinner, with my parents,” she replies so quickly that I almost believe her.
“I could go with you.”
At that offer, she actually turns her head away from me and laughs, like the idea of me meeting her parents is too hilarious to even imagine. Once again, she tries to climb down off my lap, but my grip remains tight. My ego is bruised and that’s not something that happens very often. That’s my only excuse for what my mouth says next.
“Cooper, let me go. I have clients waiting,” Liz says with a pat on my forearm as she squirms on top of me.
“And they can keep waiting,” I mutter. “Now, tell me when I can take you to dinner or we’re done, Liz.”
“Done?” she repeats when she stops trying to lower her legs. Her eyes come back to mine with more fire in them than I’ve ever seen. “You’re seriously giving me an ultimatum?”
“I’m giving you an ultimatum,” I reply. “This has gone on long enough.”
“This is just sex, as we both agreed from the very beginning,” she responds.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Well, I haven’t,” she says softly, and I immediately know I’ve fucked up. I threw down the gauntlet, and now I’m screwed because she’s not going to budge.
“Are you seeing someone else?” I hate myself for asking the question as soon as it leaves my lips.
“That’s none of your business,” Liz grits out between her teeth.
“Either you are or you’re not. Why can’t you just tell me a simple yes or no?”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you today, Cooper, but it needs to stop,” she says. I finally let go of her because I can’t keep her on my lap forever, despite how much I want her to stay there. Nor can I force her to make plans with me outside of her office walls.
Everyone I know is getting married and settling down, even fucking Miles. The former sniper has the warmth and personality of a great white shark, and yet he found marital bliss with a nice girl and is starting a family.
I always thought that it would be easy for me to settle down whenever the hell I wanted. There has never been a shortage of single, interested women around me. And marriage and kids are what every woman eventually wants, right? All I have to do is pick one and pop the question. Sounds easy enough.
Not so much.
As I watch Liz jerk her black skirt back down over her bare ass and button her shirt with hasty, angry movements, I realize that apparently, I’m the lucky bastard who fell for one of the women in the minority.
All my girl wants from me is an orgasm, a quick one at that because she’s so busy. Not that she’s mine, and not that I don’t enjoy myself with her. Liz will get on her knees and suck my brains out on the days I come in feeling like shit because of the Kings’ latest disaster. Somehow, she always knows when I need her to take care of me without asking for anything in return, just like I know when she’s having a bad day and only wants my tongue to make her feel better before I leave her to her stacks of client files.
But enough is enough. I want more, and the least I deserve is an explanation from Liz as to why that can’t happen.
Zipping up my jeans, I get to my feet and tell her, “You have my number if you change your mind about us.”
“I won’t,” she says without looking at me. As if she needed to drive the knife of rejection a little deeper into my gut.
“Then it’s been fun,” I reply, needing to get the last word in on the way to the door, even though it’s the understatement of my life. “Take care of yourself, Liz,” I add before I leave, without waiting for her to say the same. It would only hurt worse when she didn’t.
Chapter Two
Elizabeth
My first official day after Cooper issued an ultimatum that I refused and then walked out of my office started out like any other. I woke up, took a shower, got ready for work, stopped by the office to grab the court calendar and files for the day and then went to court.
At first, I attributed the persistent ache in my chest to anxiety or indigestion. Now it’s been almost twenty-four hours, and there’s no sign of it lessening. In fact, if anything, the sensation grows with every breath I take, as if there’s no longer enough space for my lungs to expand.
More times than I can count I worry that I made a mistake. I should’ve just said yes to going to dinner with the man, and then he wouldn’t have threatened to stop seeing me.
But then I remember why I couldn’t give in to him.
Cooper is a criminal, just like the ones I represent each day, only I’m certain he’s guilty of more than the simple speeding tickets he’s brought to me.
Outlaws like Cooper either end up in jail or dead, and I refuse to love anyone else serving a life sentence.
I made the right decision by refusing to give in to more than a fling with no feelings. Rationally, I know I did.
So why can’t I breathe without it hurting or go more than thirty seconds without thinking about him?
It’s probably just a temporary condition. I’ve never felt anything like it, but I’m sure that it will pass eventually.
Cooper was the closest thing to a relationship I’ve ever had. We let it go on for far longer than was healthy, so now I’m paying the price.
Tomorrow it will probably be easier to breathe, and the next day even better. One day at a time until I no longer remember how amazing his strong hands felt on me or how good he made me feel about myself.
“Did you hear about the Savage Kings getting hit?” Gary, one of the district attorneys, whispers to his coworker behind me as we ride up the courthouse elevator to the third floor.
I’m certain I must be projecting and imagining his mention of the Savage Kings because of my recent break up with Cooper. Not that we could break up since we were never really together.
“A shame about the strip club too,” James responds. “Now where the hell are we going to have Derek’s bachelor party?”
Okay, they can’t possibly be talking about the club Cooper manages. What are the odds, right? Still, I can’t help but blurt in.
“Did you say strip club? You’re not talking about Avalon, are you?” I turn around to ask the two men standing behind me, not caring one bit about eavesdropping since they were talking inches away from me.
“That would be the one,” Gary responds. “How do you know about Avalon?” he asks while waggling his thick eyebrows.
“I just do,” I say. “Now tell me what happened at the strip club!” I snap at him impatiently.
Gary simply shrugs his shoulders under his suit jacket and says, “Somebody blew it up,” as if it’s no big deal and that sort of thing happens all the time around here in our little coastal town.
The aching in my chest grows substantially more painful.
“What the fuck do you mean somebody blew it up?” I screech. He visibly winces at my angry, defense attorney tone. I may look small and unassuming, but there’s a crazy bitch inside me that will come out whenever necessary.
“Bombs…a bomb went off this morning,” Gary stammers.
Holy shit. What are the odds? Of all the buildings in the city, why did the one where Cooper works have to get bombed?
“You’re certain it was Avalon?” I ask.
“Yeah, Avalon,” he replies. “And the tattoo studio too, Savage Ink. That’s why the police suspect foul play.”
“Was-was anyone hurt?” I ask as I tell myself that it’s early. I doubt Cooper would be working this morning when the club doesn’t even open until the afternoon. Or does he go in early? It’s not like I know anything about his schedule other than the time once a week he’s in my office bending me over my desk.
&nb
sp; “Haven’t heard,” Gary replies just as the elevator doors whoosh open on the third level and I hurry out. Pulling my phone from my briefcase, I do something I’ve never done before. I call Cooper. He gave the number to Barb months ago in case I had to cancel one of our “appointments”, but I haven’t ever had to use it. I would rather reschedule my life than miss those appointments.
Cooper doesn’t answer, and I’m not even sure if it really is his phone since it goes to a generic automated voicemail message.
I sit my briefcase down and press my palm to my chest as I try to suck in more air. I keep trying to call him over and over again with the same exact result.
This day is really starting to feel like some cruel, ironic joke.
Yesterday, I had my first argument with Cooper and then today, his club gets blown up by a bomb. Now he won’t answer his stupid phone so that I can take back what I said!
Is that why he won’t answer? Is he screening my call because he really meant we’re done? I thought the sexy jerk told me to call if I changed my mind. Did he change his?
Dammit, I’ll have dinner with him! I’ll even take him to meet my parents if he’ll just answer his fucking phone and let me know he’s okay!
After the eighth or ninth try on the phone, I throw it into my briefcase and grab it to head for the stairs. I’m too impatient to wait for the elevator right now.
If Cooper won’t answer my call, I guess I’ll just have to go to the strip club to look for him like some psycho stalker. I won’t even have to talk to him. All I want is to see him and know that he’s okay, and then I’ll leave and go back to aching for him so badly it feels like I’m dying.
In my tense drive over to Avalon, I do thankfully have the rational thought that I need to call Barb.
“Davis & Morgan Law Office. How can I help you?” she answers.
“Barb! It’s me. I need you to see if Byron can continue the rest of my court cases for the morning!”