“Like that, do you?” he growled, ducking his head down until he could speak in her ear. “Let’s find out how much.”
CHAPTER FIVE
One hand worked down inside the waistband of her jeans. Alex sucked in her belly, giving him room. Sliding into her panties, he stroked his fingers between the slick, swollen lips of her pussy. “Mmmmmm,” he purred in her ear. “You do like that.” He chuckled, the sound dark and wicked as two fingers explored her cunt. “You like that a lot.” His voice dropped, taking on a note of velvet threat. “Maybe somebody needs to teach you not to be such a slut.”
Her belt buckle jangled as he unbuckled it, followed by the hiss of a descending zipper. He jerked down jeans and panties to mid-thigh. With a little moan, she managed to set her feet farther apart, leaning down a little lower, angling her hips up.
“That’s right, raise that ass good and high.” The first swat bounced her on her toes. She barely remembered to bite back a yelp every neighbor on the block would have heard. “You’ll keep that mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.”
God, he was a good actor. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he was every bit the prick he was pretending to be.
Rocking back on his heels, Frank smoothed a wide, warm palm over the bare skin of her ass. “Just look at that butt. So pretty and firm. Just begging for a good spanking.”
Another swat, landing with a juicy smack low on her rump, right in the sweet spot—so called because the ripples from a spanking there stimulated the pussy. Some women could even come from that kind of spanking. Frank seemed intent on discovering if Alex was one of them. He heated her rump with slow, stinging swats, pausing in between to tease clit and labia until it was all she could do not to beg.
When he finally stopped, he plunged two fingers into her cunt and pumped, his thumb flicking skillfully at her tight, swollen clit. “Well, you enjoyed that almost as much as I did. Almost. God, I loved turning this pale ass all rosy red.”
Jerking her jeans up, he zipped and fastened them, ignoring her moan of disappointment. He spun her around and pushed her down on her knees on the crackling carpet of leaves, doing it a lot more gently than the bastard he was pretending to be.
Clicking open his duty belt, Frank unbuckled the pants belt beneath that. His zipper sang, then he freed his long, thick erection. He dug a condom from his pocket and handed it to her. “Put it on me.”
“Yes, sir.” Alex took her time rolling it on, enjoying his length and thickness.
When she had the rubber on at last, Frank grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her head close. “Suck me,” he growled. “Suck me now.”
With a low moan of need, Alex opened her mouth for his measured thrust. She suckled, swirling her tongue around the rounded mushroom head, then licking the thick vein running along the bottom of the shaft through the thin latex.
“Deeper.” Frank rolled his hips, but carefully, not gagging her as Gary had so often done.
She rose on her knees and angled her head and throat to take more of him in. He was too long to comfortably deep throat, but she compensated by wrapping one hand around the base of his shaft while using the other to stroke his heavy balls.
“That’s right. Just like that.”
She sucked and licked and pumped her hand, ignoring the burn when her arm started getting tired, too lost in the delight of sucking her new Dominant.
Until he abruptly caught the back of her head and held her still as his cock bucked against her tongue. “Ah, God, Alex!” he groaned. She felt the heat through the latex as he flooded the condom.
Pulling her mouth off him, Alex gave him a couple of last pumps with her hand. Frank sighed, the tension bleeding out of his big body.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Gradually, Alex grew aware of the cool October breeze and was grateful it wasn’t a cold day.
“God, that was good,” Frank said, dropping the Bad Cop persona. “You were good. Are good.”
Delight at his approval warmed her. Gary had always said that if he didn’t beat her ass, it was proof enough she’d pleased him. Frank, it seemed, was a more generous Dom. “The pleasure was mine.”
He grinned down at her. “Not entirely.”
Tenderly, he smoothed her hair back as she zipped his pants for him. After buckling both belts, she straightened from her crouch.
Frank opened his arms and she stepped into them. The kiss was so wet and passionate, it had both of them breathing hard all over again. He broke it at last, smiling down at her. “Let’s go on to my place. I want to try something really kinky.”
Alex gave him a puckish grin and an eyebrow lift. “What do you have in mind?”
“Sex in a bed.”
“Wild man.”
* * *
Frank lived in an impressive one-story Craftsman-style house that was obviously new construction. Its slate gray cedar siding contrasted with the redwood frames of the windows and the fieldstone porch.
Alex pulled up in the paved driveway and got out, taking in the house and its dark green holly hedges. Fall-bright oaks and maples shaded a yard that would probably be verdant green in the spring. “Wow,” she breathed. How the hell could he afford a place like this? A newly-hired deputy damn near qualified for food stamps.
After parking his patrol car in the attached garage, Frank strolled out to join her.
“What a gorgeous place.” She turned a slow circle, admiring the orange, yellow, and red fall foliage that clustered around the house like flounces on the skirts of a Victorian debutante.
“Thanks. I own it free and clear.” Frank gave her a slight smile. “My grandfather left me some money.”
“Enough to buy all this outright?” She closed her mouth, belatedly realizing how incredibly rude that question was.
“Oh, yeah. Granddad was a textile baron in Spartanburg. He had five generations’ worth of money he couldn’t figure out how to take with him. I was the only other option he seriously considered.” He turned back toward the house. “I spent most of my life living in various Upstate shitholes. My mom had trouble paying the rent, a habit landlords tend to reward with eviction. Later the Navy sent me to lots of interesting places where interesting people needed killing.” Frank opened the front door. “I wanted a taste of boring suburbia, where I could cut the yard and plant things, with a kitchen where I could maybe learn to cook. Now I’ve got those things, and it’s seriously cool.”
Alex hesitated a moment before she decided to go for it. “I know this is rude as hell, but it sounds like you didn’t have a lot of money as a kid. Why didn’t your granddad help you and your mom, since he obviously could have?”
He stood back to let her enter ahead of him. “I gather your family is tight-knit?”
“So much so a girl could strangle.”
“Ah. Well, my mom . . . she had me at sixteen. My father was a guy who wasn’t exactly Granddad approved.”
“So they were sort of Romeo and Juliet?”
“More Sons of Anarchy. He got shanked in prison a couple of years ago.”
“Oh.” Alex blinked. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Dad liked to express his opinions through aggravated assault. I’m lucky he went to jail.”
Alex winced. “So your grandfather threw your mom out?”
“So hard she bounced. Which is probably a pretty apt comparison, given the size of her belly. I think she was seven months along.”
“Prick. And your grandmother let him get away with it?”
“Apparently he had her pretty thoroughly cowed. And then she died a couple of years later.” His gaze iced. “Bastard didn’t even tell Mom until it was too late for her to come to the funeral.”
“Prick doesn’t even do him justice.”
“Not really, no.” He rested a warm hand at the small of her back. “Come on, I’ll show you the house. I’ll warn you, I still haven’t finished buying furniture. Haven’t had a hell of a lot of time to decorate.
”
He led her through a short foyer into a stunning great room. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a stone back porch to the woods beyond. A massive fireplace built of stone in shades of cream, brown, and beige took up most of one wall, while a seventy-inch flat screen sprawled across another. Lushly upholstered furniture in dark brown—a love seat, a couch, and two recliners—kept the room from echoing under its cathedral ceiling. The floor was a gleaming expanse of dark wood broken up by colorful rugs in red, gold, and orange.
The walls were hung with paintings in the kind of expensive frames that suggested originals. One depicted Frank in his Navy whites, service ribbons in rainbow rows on his chest. “That portrait’s nice work. Must have cost you a pretty penny.”
“Not considering my mom painted it.” He shrugged at her surprise. “Christmas present.”
“Damn, you came from talent.”
“Which I unfortunately didn’t inherit.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Making me scream that loud took real ability.”
“Flatterer.” Laughing, he guided her onward. The open floor plan flowed into an L-shaped kitchen, where stainless steel appliances stood among walnut cabinetry. Brown and cream quartz counters provided generous prep space.
Alex knew a moment of serious kitchen envy. “You cook?”
“Well, I’m learning,” Frank said. “Mostly by watching a lot of Food Network and collecting recipes off the Internet. And sometimes by burning stuff.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You wouldn’t be if you tasted the stuff I burn.”
“Considering I just nuke something from Lean Cuisine, yeah.”
“Well, I like to eat.” Some grim memory stirred behind his eyes. “Hunger sucks.”
Why did she suddenly want to adopt the man? Bring him home to her folks. Let her mother stuff him full of Southern cooking that would make Paula Deen writhe in envy . . . Maybe even ask Mom to teach her to cook so she could take care of him herself.
And since when did she get an urge to become Susie Homemaker? After Gary, she’d sworn she’d only sub in the bedroom. Despite her ex’s attempts to brainwash her, homemaking was not her thing.
Her thing was kink and kicking ass.
A couple of spare bedrooms were next on the tour. One was unfurnished, while the other held a treadmill and a set of free weights beside a weight bench. The barbell was loaded with so many plates, Captain America couldn’t have lifted it.
Across the hall, a generous study held a walnut desk so old, massive, and intricately carved, it had probably belonged to one of Frank’s textile-baron ancestors. A MacBook Air laptop occupied its gold-scrolled surface, gleefully anachronistic. An oxblood leather desk chair sat behind the desk, big enough to accommodate Frank’s warrior frame.
On the back wall hung another of his mother’s huge canvases. The sun’s blinding gold disk rose over sand dunes like ocean waves—black in the foreground, shading to dark chocolate, milk chocolate, gold. Each rolling silhouette growing paler, dustier as they receded into the distance.
Built-in bookshelves lined the room’s other three walls, displaying hardbacks on military tactics and history, along with dog-eared paperback science fiction and fantasy novels. There was still plenty of room on the walnut shelves.
“I read a lot on my phone, but there’s just something about holding a book in your hand.” Frank gazed around at his collection with the same smile he’d given the landscaping. The boy who’d grown up with nothing finally had something. “I’ll fill these shelves up before long.”
“I love to read, too.” Alex wasn’t about to tell him what. Cops didn’t soak in bubble baths with romance novels. Not even kinky ones. She gave him a teasing smile. “But I admit, I figured you for more of a Call of Duty fan.”
“I play that, too. Along with a hell of a lot of World of Warcraft.”
Why did she find the idea of a SEAL nerd so appealing? “You and Cal should get along, then. He loves him some WOW.”
“Ted is not going to let me play anything with his sub, not even a video game.”
“Ahhh, Ted’s not that bad.”
“Of course not, he’s just protective.” Frank headed back down the hall. “And I agree with him. Those we love should be protected.”
“Yep, you’re a Dom, all right.”
“Speaking of which . . .” He opened a hallway door, revealing a set of stairs that led down into the dark.
Alex rose on tiptoe to peer over his broad shoulder. “You have a dungeon?”
“Not yet.” He started downward, Alex at his heels. “It’s still unfurnished, though I’ve got all kinds of wonderfully perverted plans.”
The room at the base of the steps would make a dandy place to carry them out. Though not as big as the dungeon beneath Cap’s house, it still gave him plenty of space to swing a whip. The floor was polished dark walnut, like the massive ceiling beams that supported the high ceiling, and the four thick square columns that marched across the center of the room. The walls were painted a deep, velvety red. Otherwise, the room was empty.
“Oh, this is nice.” Alex turned in a slow circle, her imagination conjuring all sorts of wicked kinkiness. “I really like those beams.” She studied them with interest. “Are they real?”
“Meaning could you use one for suspension scenes? Yeah.” He nodded at the one directly overhead. “That beam is tied into the house’s foundations. You could hang Jabba the Hutt from that thing.”
“Jabba as a sub.” Alex shuddered elaborately. “Now, there’s a mental image I could have done without.”
“No, Jabba was definitely a Dom. Or a wannabe anyway, until Leia choked him to death.”
“I see I’m not the only nerd in the room.”
“Definitely not. I loved those movies when I was a kid. They had them at the dollar theater up the road . . .” The smile faded from his face, as if the association had triggered some darker memory. Then he shook it off. “I’ve commissioned Cap to make me some furniture.”
“Yeah? Cap builds good stuff.” You could order BDSM gear online, of course, but there was no way to judge the quality until it arrived. Gary had bought a spanking bench that had collapsed under her once. But then, he’d always been a cheap bastard.
“Unfortunately, it’s going to be another week or so before he can deliver the first part of my order, so we’re going to have to make do. Come on.”
Alex’s mouth went dry from pure anticipation.
Once he led her back upstairs, she decided “making do” was a poor choice of words. The master bedroom’s California king had a sturdy brass canopy frame that reminded Alex of some of her kinkier fantasies. Sheer cream curtains draped from the frame’s supports, setting off a gold comforter piped in chocolate brown. Beside the bed lay an area rug, its wave pattern of chocolate and gold reminding her of the sunrise painting in his study.
His mother had been generous with her work here, too. SEALs patrolled dusty Afghan streets or parachuted out of helicopters or knelt beside robed tribesman. The twenty-first century colliding with the Middle Ages.
A framed photograph of a young dark-haired woman caught Alex’s eye. It looked as if it dated from the late seventies, judging from the girl’s Farrah Fawcett hairdo. She was lovely, with gunmetal gray eyes and a hint of Frank in the stubborn angle of her jaw and the shape of her mouth. She appeared to be in her late teens or very early twenties. “This is your mom?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty lady.”
“Yeah.”
Turning, Alex caught sight of his face and froze. There was such stark pain in his eyes, she immediately decided not to ask him anything more about his mother. She managed a smile, intent on hiding any sympathy. She knew he’d see it as pity. “So what now?”
Frank relaxed. “Now I need a shower. Want to join me?”
And run her hands all over his slick, soap-covered body? Oh, hell yeah. “Why not?”
Before she could say another word, he
bent and swooped her up into her arms.
“What are you doing?” Alex grabbed for his neck and held on for dear life. She hadn’t been carried since she was three. “You’ll hurt your back!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve carried heavier rucksacks.” He swept her through a doorway into the bathroom beyond with no apparent effort at all.
Alex’s inner Scarlett O’Hara swooned. She’d secretly watched the Gone with the Wind scene where Rhett carried Scarlett up the stairs about a million times. Which was probably the birth of her kinky streak, come to think of it.
Frank’s bathroom was damn near the size of her bedroom. Gray quartz veined with white surrounded a massive soaking tub before extending into a glassed-in shower. The vanity, its countertop the same quartz, held twin oval sinks. The cabinets below were white and trimmed in gray. The tile floor was patterned with geometric blocks of white, black, and gray. “Have I said ‘wow’ yet? I’d hate to repeat myself.”
He laughed. “You can see why I fell in love with this house. I can actually stand under the shower head.”
“You bought this house for the shower head?”
“Well, not just the shower head, but it was definitely a factor. Don’t underestimate the importance of not having to duck to wash your hair.”
Alex grinned. She’d had to duck a few times herself. “I see your point.”
“Speaking of seeing things, I’d like to see a little more of you.” Putting her down on her feet, Frank immediately went to work peeling off her clothes. She unbuttoned his shirt and dropped it on the floor before going to work stripping off his Kevlar vest.
Soon they were both naked, clothing and holstered weapons scattered on the tile. Normally Alex would have folded her things instead of just leaving them wherever they fell, but she just didn’t have the patience for that right now.
Before she could get to work on seducing him, though, Frank walked into the shower. He gestured her back when she would have joined him, then he turned on the tap, holding one hand under the spray to judge the temperature as he adjusted it. Finally he was satisfied. “Okay, come on in.”
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