Embracing Reckless
Page 7
Sandy was out. If she hadn’t been all the way across the country in Myrtle Beach, she would’ve been a good option. I smiled. Of course, I never would’ve heard the end of it for the one time she had to pull my ass out of the fire. The dry quips would’ve gone on and on… and on. But, a small price to pay. If she’d been on the West Coast…but she wasn’t.
I had two roommates, Cat and Evelyn. Cat was a total sweetheart and would jump in a car to help a friend in a hot second…but she was in Hawaii, enjoying her first “family vacation” with her boyfriend Jace and his son, Gavin. So, moving on.
Evelyn. I searched my brain…what was she doing this spring break? Damn. She was traveling, as well.
Our study group friend Michelle was on a cruise with her Grandma Trudy and boyfriend Sebastian.
Even my friend Elijah and his wife Annabelle had closed down the bar for the week and taken their girls out of town—a huge percentage of their revenue came from students at the two colleges in Arcata, Humboldt State University (the large public school), and Winship University, the small liberal arts college that I attended. So, when the spring break for both schools had fallen on the same week, a rare occurrence, they’d snatched the chance to take a real vacation.
Damn! That was the trouble with my situation: the only friends I had were connected with the college in one way or another, and they’d all done the same thing I had—left town. Even though I still lived in the same small-ish town I’d grown up in, most stable and responsible people had learned early on that steering clear of my family would be a wise move. The bucket in my brain labeled “old childhood friends who are close enough to call on in an emergency” was empty, and it had been that way for so long that dust was gathering.
I sighed. Again. It seemed to be the only thing that made me feel better. Damn. Damn. Damn!
This was the kind of situation I usually got other people out of, not the kind I found myself in. It felt really crappy being on the other side of that equation, especially since I didn’t have a “Brandy” of my own to call up.
Clay came around the corner, a wide smile on his face. My heart lifted at the sight of that smile. Of course, whether that was because I automatically made the leap that it probably meant he had good news or if it was because I just liked seeing his smile, I couldn’t have said. Probably a combination of both.
I clasped my hands together in front of my chest, filling with tremulous hope for the first time since my car had started steaming. “Good news?” I asked timidly, almost too afraid to even hope.
“Great news, considering the circumstances.”
“Oh, good! What?”
“I managed to get Jensen to agree to a deal. Your car would cost much more to fix than it’s even worth as a functioning car, but for a guy like Jensen who can break it down for parts, it’s worth a few hundred.”
Clay pulled a wad of cash out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket with a flourish.
My eyes widened. “Oh my God! How did you do that?”
He gave me a cocky half-smile. “I’ve learned a few tricks over the years. Ways to read people, to deal with them. Life on the road will do that. Meeting so many different types, you can’t help but get an education in human nature.” He shrugged, his expression humble, but I got the distinct impression that he liked me being impressed with him. “Anyway, I got him up to five hundred. That gives you plenty of money for a bus ticket back to Arcata from here, if that’s what you wanted to do. Or…”
He trailed off, giving me a sexy wink. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Or…?”
He shrugged. “Well, we’re both headed to Missoula. Do you still want to visit your friend?”
I nodded enthusiastically. I liked where this was going.
“Well, then, just hop on the back of my bike and I’ll give you a ride.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “There was nothing about that sentence that wasn’t a double entendre. Despite that, I accept your offer.”
He grinned wickedly, sexiness coming off of him in waves. “Despite that? Really? Are you sure it wasn’t because of it?”
Chapter 16
Brandy
“I don’t feel great about leaving you here. When are you seeing your friend?” Clay followed me into my hotel room in Missoula and put my bag down. In true gentlemanly fashion, he’d carried it from the bike to the lobby while I checked in, and now to my room.
The only thing I could do in the face of Clay’s adorable concern was smile indulgently. “You have fulfilled your duty. You rescued me when I needed it, and you will never know how much that meant to me, aside from just pulling my ass out of the fire, but don’t start thinking that means I always need rescuing. I’m a big girl. I can meet a friend on my own.”
He glanced down. “Yeah, I guess I am doing that, huh?”
I wrapped my arms around him. “A little, but I don’t hate it. I just don’t want you to think I can’t take care of myself.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, so you don’t hate it, then? You kind of like being pampered and cherished, having your every wish be my command.”
I considered. “I like it as an option, rather than a mandate.”
“Fair enough. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”
My eyebrows shot up. “The future?”
“Oh, yeah, babe. Believe me. This road trip was only the beginning. I plan to make a lot more of your wishes my command in the future. In fact, thinking back to last night, I can remember a couple of wishes that became my commands that you seemed to particularly enjoy?”
My cheeks burned as my mind filled with vivid mental images of exactly what he was talking about. I knew precisely what “wishes” this genie would fulfill when I rubbed his…um…bottle. Our night together had showed me what they’d be—hot and naughty and wild, and the fulfillment of them would leave me more than satisfied.
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, his lips so close that I could feel them brush my sensitive skin as his hot breath spilled down my neck. “Do you want that, Brandy? Do you want me to take care of you right now?”
Oh, God. I knew the answer to that question. Of course I did. The answer was a resounding, Hell. To. The. YES!
But when it came to unscrambling my faculties enough to express that simple thought, I had a lot less luck than I had when making the decision in the first place.
Words were impossible to find. Not even the all-important one—yes. I found that my body wasn’t failing me the same way my brain was, though. I ran my hands over Clay’s body and pressed my lips to his, and he got the general idea.
“You are so fucking sexy,” he rasped.
I repaid the compliment by kissing my way down his neck. I took special care to stop and press my lips against his pulse, reveling in the way it frantically throbbed.
I had done that to him. I had been the cause of that racing heart, and it was just the beginning of what I was about to do to him before the night was over.
Clay pulled me up to him and kissed me, his fingers moving over my clothes to undress me as he did, never breaking the rhythm of his mouth. He was steady and smooth, working every button expertly and every zipper with ease. The clothes came off my body as easily as slicing through butter with a warm knife, and like that butter, I melted.
When I was naked, he backed up a few steps and raked his eyes over me, moving them slowly up and down, giving me a thorough head to toe once-over.
I moved forward to undress Clay, but he caught my hands in his. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Right now is all about you.”
He swept me up in his strong arms, carried me to the bed, and laid me down. He climbed up next to me and kissed me, putting his strong hand on my waist and squeezing.
His kiss grew more fervent, and my body responded. I writhed and wriggled, and the only thing holding me down was his firm hand on my bare torso. That feeling of being anchored was achingly wonderful. It gave me the freedom to experience everything I was feelin
g, fully, without having to worry about keeping things together. Clay was there to keep it all together, and the pressure of his strong hand on my skin was a constant reminder of that fact.
He kissed his way down my body, and I found it unexpectedly hot to see a fully dressed guy giving that kind of attention to my naked body. I realized that it represented something about the power dynamic in that moment. Clay was surrendering everything to me, making the whole encounter about me. He worshiped my body, giving himself to me like a sacrifice on the altar of my pleasure.
That thought made my pussy come to life even more than it had before. Instead of the gentle ache I’d felt since Clay had started touching me, suddenly it was an almost unbearable tightness. And instead of the steady build of moisture I’d felt gathering there, a sudden gush of wetness sent juices dripping down my inner thighs.
I’d never been as turned on as I was right then, and it was because Clay was the master of seduction. When he’d said he wanted to take care of me, I hadn’t realized that was a full-service offer.
Suddenly, it was just too much for me to handle. All of the focused attention, all on me… I couldn’t just lay back and enjoy it. It wasn’t in my nature to be passive while someone took care of me. Or maybe I simply didn’t have the experience.
Either way, I just found it far too intense, and I knew I had to move this on to something else or I would freak out.
I sat up and reached down the front of Clay’s jeans, grasping his cock with my fingers. It was an awkward angle, but I still had a hold of it. “I need to feel you. I can’t wait; I need you inside me.” I increased the pressure with my fingers as I told him what I wanted, and it stiffened obediently.
I pulled my hand away, and he groaned at the absence. I stripped him of all his clothes as fast as I could, pulling his wallet out of his jeans pocket and fishing a condom out before tossing them aside. I slid the condom onto his hard dick and then looked up and met his eyes.
His face was covered in wonder. When our eyes met, he smiled. His voice was hoarse as he joked, “Remind me that I like getting undressed by beautiful, naked girls who are really turned on. It’s an A-plus experience.”
I laughed and noticed that my voice had a healthy bit of rasp in it, too.
Continuing in my new take-charge track, I pushed him back on the bed and straddled him. The fiery glint in his eyes as he watched me lower myself onto him was an incredible reward for the work I’d done flipping the script, but not nearly as good as the feeling of my inner walls being stretched out by his impressive girth.
I knew it was going to be incredible the instant he was buried inside me. When I felt our bodies connect completely and he slid his hands up my sides to cup my breasts and play with my nipples, my belly filled with butterflies. But they were more intense than nervousness butterflies.
These were like butterflies that had lifted weights for years and then, still not satisfied with their strength, had decided to up the ante by taking steroids. Not only that, but the usual crowd of a dozen or so were now joined by several hundred of their closest friends.
Damn. And that was just from the anticipation of knowing he was about to be inside me!
Chapter 17
Clay
Brandy lifted her hips deliberately and dropped herself down again. Her movements were slow, taking her time, her eyes closed in what I already had come to know as a trademark Brandy expression of concentration that told me she was hyper-focused on enjoying every instant of the sensation.
After she’d slid all the way down, she repeated the movement a few times, keeping up the slow and consistent pace.
The fire burning in my belly wouldn’t let that “slow and easy” pace stand, though. It compelled me to drive the action faster and faster.
I grabbed her by the hips and pistoned her body up and down on my member, setting the rhythm that felt right, that drove me upwards to greater heights. I paid close attention to Brandy’s body, looking for signals about what she needed, too. To my satisfaction, she grew wetter and wetter as she moved up and down, and her nipples got stiffer and bigger.
Even more telling than that, though, was the way her face contorted in increasingly wild facial expressions, and how her moans grew louder and more intense.
When she was guiding the action, setting the pace herself, there was a certain feminine gentleness to it—a certain slow and steady build-up—that was great, and really got me off. But, damn. There was definitely also something to be said for just digging my fingers into her flesh, thrusting my hips up and pushing myself into her over and over again as I crashed her hips down onto me.
I moved my hand between our bodies and rubbed her clit with my thumb. “Oh, fuck, you’re so wet,” I exclaimed.
“Don’t sound so surprised; you’re the one who made me that way,” she gasped between her up-and-down thrusts on my stiff erection.
I had barely gotten through a dozen small circles over her clit before she came apart entirely, the orgasm rocketing though her body in spasms, looking like it was tearing her limb from limb. Like it was shattering her bones with the full strength of her muscles as they tensed and clenched.
My hands dug deeper into her hips, grasping them with all my strength as I came with her, our bodies fusing with the intensity generated between us.
It was so powerful that it kind of surprised me, in a way, when it wound down to a close. Not that I would’ve thought that it was realistic for an orgasm, no matter how damn spectacular, to keep going forever. That was a physical impossibility.
But still, it seemed a little strange when it ended, as if my brain had just accepted that state of heightened pleasure as the new reality.
When our clenched muscles finally gave out, Brandy collapsed against my chest, her heaving breaths matching up with mine.
“Fuck, that was good,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, it was,” she agreed, tracing her fingers in little circles over my chest.
We were silent for a moment, and then she said, “Oh, Clay, you know what I’ve been meaning to tell you?”
“No, what?”
Her lips curled in a naughty little smile and she said, “Thanks for the ride.”
Chapter 18
Brandy
I looked up at the house and back down at the slip of paper in my hand, then back up at the house again. I checked the number for the hundredth time, then craned my head to see the street sign down at the corner.
Again.
There was no mistake. This was the right house.
The only thing I had to do now was summon up the courage to step up to the door and ring the bell.
I snorted. Yeah. When I thought of it in those terms, it was simple. Step 1 – Walk to door. Step 2 – Press doorbell. Easy!
Except it wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I’d tried to do.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, and gathered my strength. I didn’t get to be Badass Brandy, the person everyone depends on, by shying away from difficult situations. I got there by facing them head on, and that was what I was going to do now.
I walked up to the door by focusing on each step individually. Right foot forward, left foot forward, now right again. If I hadn’t told my brain exactly what to do with each foot at each moment, I think I might’ve stopped in my tracks, and then who knew if I ever could’ve gotten myself going again. Starting is the hardest part, I told myself. All you need to do now is to keep going.
I climbed the two short steps onto the covered porch and, without letting myself stop to think about it, reached out and pressed the doorbell. It chimed inside the house, a pleasant sound, not one a person would guess signaled life being completely turned upside down, but there it was. Fate was strange.
The door opened, and my eyes widened as they tried to process what they saw. I took a couple of stumbling steps backward. I was probably lucky I didn’t fall right down the porch stairs.
“What…what the…” I stumbled, unable to find words.
He must think I’m a stalker!
The thought flashed through my mind, and then I had to add humiliation to the complex mix of emotions stewing in my belly.
“How did you know where my mom lives?” Maybe the whole stalker thing hadn’t occurred to him yet, because he didn’t seem scared or concerned even. If anything, there was a fun-loving glint in his eyes, like he thought I was playing some elaborate joke on him and he just hadn’t guessed the punch line yet.
Boy, was he wrong.
“I didn’t. I mean…oh, shit.” I looked down at the worn scrap of paper again, as if the numbers or street name might’ve magically changed.
They hadn’t.
Clay’s gaze followed mine down to the slip of paper. He tilted his head to get a better angle and read the name printed on it. “Stuart Brockman. Wait…that’s my mom’s husband. Are you here to see Stuart?”
My face blanched. “Your mom’s husband? As in…your stepdad?”
Clay shrugged, his nonchalance an indication that he didn’t see all the implications yet. But then, how would he? He didn’t have all the information.
“Yeah. I don’t really call him that. But, sure. So, why are you here to see Stuart?”
My mind went blank. I knew the answer to the question, but when it came to pulling words out of the air and putting them together into sentences to express that answer, I was shit out of luck.
The silence stretched between us, becoming more awkward by the second, until it was mercifully broken by a balding, middle-aged man with round John Lennon specs walking up behind Clay.