by Laura Kaye
Just twenty-five more minutes and they’d be back to her place.
“Master Quinton, please.”
Fucking hell.
Without giving it another thought, he jerked the wheel to the right, pulling off on the exit ramp they’d just come upon. After a long straightaway, the exit emptied into a big, mostly empty parking lot in front of a small brick rest stop. He parked, cut the engine, and stalked around to the passenger’s door. Wrenching it open, he leaned into the breach. “This isn’t how I wanted to do this, Cass.”
“I know, but I need it.” Slowly, she lifted her gaze to his, and her expression was pure, blatant hunger. “And you do, too.”
“Get out of the car,” he said, his brain planning and debating. An older couple came out of the building and made for their car further down the lot. “Not here.” Taking her by the arm, he pulled her along a side walkway that quickly fell into darkness as they moved away from the street lights lining the lot. Behind the rest stop, the sounds of the traffic were distant—as was the whole rest of the world. Or so it seemed. He boxed her in against a tall security fence, the kind that looked almost like prison bars, nothing but the moon through the trees casting any light. “You want to be fucked, Cassia? Where anyone might hear us? Where anyone might see us? Out here in the darkness?”
“Yes, Sir,” she said, her voice thick with lust. And, Jesus, the fact that she was right there with him in this was making Quinton insane.
“Yes, Sir, what?” he bit out, roughly tugging open the buttons on her jeans and shoving the pants down over her hips to hang at her knees.
“Yes, I want to get fucked. Right here. In the open. In the dark.”
“Take out my cock,” he said. Her hands went to work immediately, and so did his. While she freed him from the denim, he retrieved a condom from his wallet. He almost couldn’t open it, his hands shook so bad from the torture of her tight strokes around his length. “Grab onto the bar above you,” he said as he sheathed himself.
She did, and the picture of her hanging from the gritty metal, half naked in the shadowy darkness, the occasional sounds of cars and voices just footsteps away, destroyed every remaining vestige of his better judgment.
Quinton tugged her hips out away from the fence, bent his knees, and guided his cock between her legs. Her readiness was immediately apparent as his pumping knuckles met her wetness. Gripping her ass hard, he found her center and buried himself to the hilt. Her moan was as loud as his pleasured grunt as they collided, all desperate lust.
“Use your safeword if you need me to back off, Cassia. Come as often as you can. And be as loud as you dare,” he rasped, giving her a moment to adjust. “Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” she said, her speech almost slurred with the thrill of what they were doing.
And then he let himself off the leash. With his fist gripping one of the metal bars for leverage, his hips flew against her, his pubic bone crashing into her clit on every thrust. The fence rattled from the force of the fuck, and the position caused her tight cunt to fist his cock on every in and out. He shoved his jeans down further and stepped closer, grinding himself deep, deeper, until he was riding her clit and making her scream out an orgasm into the cooling night air.
“Fuck, yes, Cassia.” He pulled out, but kept his hands on her hips to steady her. “Turn around.”
Breathing hard and moving like she was drunk, she clumsily gave him her back and gripped the fence. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, please.”
He forced her to bend at the waist and then he drove his cock right back in. “God, that’s good, baby. You take me so good. Just feel me, Cassia.” Gripping the back of her shirt, he tugged it upwards as far as it could go, and then he folded the hem of it over her head so that it covered the top half of her face—playing with her senses, and pushing her just a little.
She cried out and ground herself backward into him, and that was all the reassurance Quinton needed that she was on board with where he was taking them. And knowing that she was good with it filled his balls with the need to move. His hips slapped against hers, the fence rang out a rhythmic clink, and Cassia babbled a nonstop stream of curses and pleas.
He hunched himself around her. “What do you see, little one?” he rasped against her shoulder. “Tell me what you see.”
When her words came, they were halting and gritty, breathy and uneven. “Us…us fucking. In the dark. So dark.”
“Yeah. Tell me more.” He curled his arms around her shoulders, bringing them closer still, stroking faster and staying deeper inside her cunt.
“You’re holding me…so t-tight, and it’s making all those muscles…pop out along your back and side, under your ink,” she said. “Oh, God. The way your ass clenches.” Her head fell against her arm, outstretched in front of her where she held onto the fence.
“More,” he said, driving punctuated thrusts into her as the picture she painted came to life, making him see them as she saw them. A savage need crawled down his spine, telling him he didn’t have much time left before he lost control.
“Oh, God, I’m gonna come again, Master.”
“More,” he growled, her lust-fogged mistake bringing out the most pronounced possessiveness he’d ever felt in his life, for a submissive only used the title Master alone for the one who owned her.
“And my wetness is…running down my thighs…and oh fuck I’m…c-coming!”
That was the end of Quinton. He drove deep as his orgasm nailed him in the back, and just as his body started to pulse with it, he withdrew, ripped off the condom, and shot his release over her ass in wet stripes. “Jesus fuck, Cassia. Now mine is too.” The sight of his come marking her, temporary as it was, filled him with utter carnal satisfaction.
And the need to make the claiming more permanent, too.
When his body stilled, he fell heavily atop her spine and pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades. “You okay, baby?”
“So much better than okay,” she said, her voice wrecked.
Heaving a deep breath, Quinton got himself upright again, and then he gently slipped the soft cotton of her sweater off her head. “Let me clean you up.” He tugged off his Henley and used it to dry her as best he could.
After she did up her jeans, she fell back in a well-used heap against the fence.
Long seconds dragged out as they just stared at one another. In that moment, when she’d just given him something so profound and amazing, Quinton knew he needed to lay how he was feeling on the line.
But then she yawned so big it made her laugh. “Sorry. I think you fucked me into oblivion.”
He grinned, feeling ten kinds of triumphant at the satisfaction and contentment rolling off of her. Because of him. “Well, I ain’t never gonna apologize for that.”
She shook her head. “And I won’t ever want you to.”
See? Perfection.
But talking could wait, because first, he needed to take care of her. “Come on, Cass.” He took her hand in his. “Let’s get you home.”
~~~
The next thing Cassia knew, Quinton was opening the door to the Rover and lifting her out of her seat. She came awake enough to protest, but he just shook his head and carried her to the top of the steps that led to her apartment door.
“I gotta get the key,” she said, fumbling for her purse.
“I found it before I woke you up.” Gently, he placed her on her feet, but kept one arm around her waist to steady her as he unlocked the door.
She stepped inside, and he hesitated at the threshold. But Cassia wasn’t having that, not after everything they’d shared, and everything she hoped they still might. She fisted her hands in the T-shirt he’d changed into at the rest stop, and looked him right in the eyes. “Stay.”
Soul-deep happiness flooded through her when he nodded and came in. They grabbed some water and headed back to her room, and then they took turns in the bathroom before meeting again at her bed, where she was pulling on a tank top and a pair of
boxers.
“This okay?” she asked, looking down at herself.
“Whatever makes you comfortable, baby,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You mind me naked?”
She gave him a look. One that stopped just this side of turning into an eye roll. “Is that a trick question?”
Quinton chuckled. “Get your sexy ass in bed, woman.”
Grinning, Cassia climbed in on her side, and he got in on the other. They met in the middle, and she was just about to burrow into all that naked muscle along his side when she looked back to her nightstand, where the mini-lamp she always slept with remained on.
“Leave it on if you want. It won’t bother me,” he said.
She read the sincerity on his face, and that meant the freaking world to her. But then she thought about how brave Quinton thought she was, and she remembered the colors he’d painted in her imagination with just his words, and Cass felt the excitement and hope that still flowed through her from the fact that she hadn’t gotten very anxious at all about what they’d done in that darkness on the side of the highway, even when he’d covered her eyes.
And for the first time in two years, she turned off that light and laid down in her bed. In the dark.
“You sure, baby?” he whispered.
And, damn, how amazing was it to have someone there with her in the darkness, helping her battle what she’d so long struggled to conquer on her own. “Yeah,” she said, shifting to lay her head on his shoulder and pressing herself into the delicious nook along the side of his body. “I’m sure.”
He kissed her hair. “Put your leg up on me. I want to feel more of you.”
She did, bringing her core up close against the hard muscle of his thigh.
“Yeah,” he said, tone utterly content.
Exactly how she felt, too.
With one exception. Tomorrow, when they woke up, it was finally time to lay it all out there. She wanted more, with Quinton. She maybe wanted everything with him. And it was time to be the brave woman he believed her to be and tell him.
Chapter Ten
When morning came, Cassia wanted to pretend like she was still asleep. But of course, her infuriatingly too-observant no-strings-attached, just-friends Dom saw right through her.
“You ain’t fooling me, Sleeping Beauty,” he said, sounding way too freaking awake.
“Call me in an hour,” she said, shifting onto her other side.
Quinton’s big, warm body followed. “Nuh uh. I’ve been awake for thirty minutes. I require the attention of one incredibly beautiful, adventurous submissive. I’m needy like that.”
She chuckled at the self-deprecation in his tone, and nearly glowed from the compliment, too. “Is that right?”
“Yup. How ya like me now?” He kissed her ear.
And even though she very easily could’ve followed this banter where it was leading them, like into round two of the best sex any two human beings had ever had, Cassia decided to woman up before she let that too-perfect segue get away.
Turning in his arms, she met his gaze. “Actually…I like you a lot.”
His smile changed, as if he’d caught on to the shift in her own demeanor. “We need to talk, don’t we?” Quinton asked.
“I was hoping we might,” she said, a tendril of nervous anticipation stirring up butterflies in her belly. Had he wanted to talk, too?
“I know we said—” she began, just as he said, “I’ve been thinking—”
They chuckled, laying so close together that she had no way to hide from him. And she didn’t want to, either. Cassia was done hiding—from herself, from the dark, from the world. So she took a leap and let the words fly. “I know I said I didn’t want a relationship, and that we agreed to keep things no-strings attached, but I…” She shook her head. “I didn’t know everything our time together was going to make me feel.” She forced herself to look him in the eyes. “For you.”
He cupped her face in his big hand. “Fuck, baby. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Her chest filled with a funny pressure that threatened to consume her. “That I’m kinda feeling some strings? And I’m hoping you might be open to exploring where they lead? If that’s what you’re thinking, then yeah.” She nearly held her breath.
Or maybe it was just that he stole it. Because Quinton’s mouth came down on hers in a searing, soul-scorching, life-giving kiss. He moaned low in his throat as he rolled her under him, and then finally, slowly, he pulled his mouth away. “I want that, too. Christ, I’ve been feeling it for a little while now. Yesterday, I knew I wanted to talk to you about it, and then after last night… Shit, Cassia, I feel like we’re pretty fucking perfect together. So, yeah, I’m open. And I’m feeling those strings, too.”
“Oh, my God. Really?” she said, unable to hold back a smile. She had to blink away the happy tears that surprised her when they flooded her eyes. “I was scared I was going to ruin everything.”
“Never,” he said, brushing away the stray wetness with his thumbs. “But there’s one thing I need if we’re going to give this a go.”
“Of course,” she said, peering up into his dark eyes. God, he was gorgeous, the morning light falling over his sleep-mussed hair, a little growth of scruff on his face.
“I want us to be exclusive, Cassia.” Grasping her hand, he brought it to her mouth. “In case this helps make my intentions clear…” He licked her palm and straight up her middle finger.
Cass laughed, utterly tickled about how this conversation was going after everything she’d feared. “Did you just lick me to claim me?”
“Damn straight.”
“So do I get to lick you back?” she asked.
“Baby, I really wish you would.” He made a big show of rolling onto his back and pushing off the covers, baring himself to her gaze.
And damn, her bed had never looked better than it did at that very moment, with his ink, cut muscles, and hard cock laid out on display. Just for her.
She crawled toward him, then settled on her knees between his spread thighs. But before she got lost in his body, she had to know for sure. “What about the demonstration you have to do?”
Quinton folded his arm beneath his head and peered up at her. “That’s what upset you the other night, isn’t it? Why you left so fast?”
“I didn’t like the idea of you playing with someone else, but I know you have to do stuff like that for the club,” she said.
“I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, Cassia. The next demonstration I’ll do, if you’re open to it, will be with you.”
The sheer relief she felt would’ve taken her to her knees if she hadn’t already been there.
Releasing a shaky breath, Cass smiled. “Good. Then consider this my claiming.” Leaning down so that the dark hair on his thighs tickled her breasts, she tongued him from the base of his cock to the fat tip.
His body surged beneath her, his hips thrusting closer, his back arching. And it drove Cassia on to claim more of him. With a fist around his root, she sucked him deeply, taking his cock to the back of her throat again and again, just like she already knew he liked.
But as good as it was, it wasn’t enough. She wanted to claim more of him. All of him, if he’d let her. So Cass crawled up his body until her legs straddled his hips. Reaching into the nightstand, she retrieved a condom from a new box she’d bought when she started back at Blasphemy. Not that she’d ever imagined all this. Cassia held the little square package up.
He laced his hands behind his head, the picture of relaxation. Except for the hard cock jutting up between them, of course. “Whatever you want, Cassia, you are welcome to have,” he said in a low tight voice.
Holding his gaze, she rolled on the latex, and then, bracing a hand against his hard chest, she centered herself over his cock and lowered herself until she’d taken every thick inch. “This is claiming you, too.”
His hands flew to her hips, gripping and tugging as she rode him. The façade of relax
ation quickly melted away, unmasking Quinton’s commanding dominance. “Fuck, Cass. Ride me. Use me. Take everything I’ve got.”
She gave herself over to the pursuit of pleasure, grinding, fucking, faster, harder. Long, pleasure-drenched minutes passed where they spoke only with their bodies, the sounds of their movements filling the room. Her skin slapping against his, the mattress shifting beneath them, their labored breaths and his throaty groans. “Quinton, oh God.”
“Want you to come on me, Cass. I want you to come on me now.” His fingers dug into her hips, a silent, stinging command.
It was exactly what she needed. Just three more aggressive strokes and she was coming, crying out, collapsing against his chest as the sensations wrung her out and left her raw.
And then she was on her back, all that dominance pinning her down. He drew her wrists above her head and pressed them into the mattress, and then Quinton was riding her, slow and deep and relentless.
“Feel like I’ve been looking for you, Cassia. For so damn long. And now that I’ve finally found you, I don’t want to let you go.”
That might’ve been the moment she fell in love with Quinton Ross. “Good. Don’t. Not ever.”
He dropped his head against hers, and his breaths rasped across her lips. Eyes open. Watching. Looking. Even with everything they’d already done, it was one of the most intimate moments of her life.
“Come in me, please,” she whispered. “I want to feel it.”
Immediately, his hips hammered harder, and then his eyes clenched shut as the orgasm rocked through him. “Aw, God, Cass,” he growled, his cock jerking inside her. If nothing else ever worked to help her tolerate the darkness, the memory of how his gorgeous face looked in that moment, shattered by the pleasure he’d found in her, just might’ve done the trick. Because, damn.
When his body eased, he released her hands, and she immediately brought them around his big shoulders. “Don’t go yet. I like the way you feel on top of me.”
On an appreciative moan, he settled his face against the side of her neck and let her have his weight. “Keep saying things like that and we’ll never get out of this bed.”