Crushing It: A Love Between the Bases Novella

by Jennifer Bernard

  “It’s the darn Texas humidity. If I don’t blow-dry this stuff and spray it to kingdom come, this is what it does.”

  He liked it. No, he loved it. But he didn’t dare touch it again. She might bite his hand off. “I like it this way. And I like it when you swear at me.” Seeing Wendy’s inner spitfire come out was a huge turn-on. All that passion, combined with the late night, had a certain part of him wide awake.

  “Yeah, you like that? There’s plenty more where that came from. How dare you try to team up with my daughter against me?”

  “I didn’t. I told her it was between the two of you.”

  “She thinks you’re on her side and I’m a secret-keeping ogre.”

  Dare he point out that she was keeping secrets? Obviously she had her reasons. Good ones. Deciding that nothing he said would help matters, he kept his mouth shut.

  Wrong move.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

  “What? I didn’t say anything.”

  “Exactly. That…silence. And that look. That ‘don’t mess with the crazy lady and maybe she’ll go away’ look.”

  “See, now you’re talking crazy. I don’t want you to go away. I finally have you right where I want you.”

  Her eyes widened and she took a step back. He took a step forward, then another one, and her eyes widened even more as they flicked down his bare chest. “In my house, without a can of hair spray in sight,” he continued, grinning at her, hoping to lighten things up.

  It worked. She laughed, putting a hand to her wild curls. “I got my ass handed to me by Teri, then took a shower to cool down, but it didn’t help. I kept getting madder and madder. I stormed out of the shower and came straight here. I don’t usually lose my cool like that.”

  “Welcome to parenthood.”

  “Oh God, is that what’s going on? This is parenthood? I don’t think I’m cut out for it. She made me so mad. So did you, you son of a bitch!” She whacked him lightly on the arm. He grinned, taking the gesture for what it was—foreplay.

  “You know what happens when you swear around me,” he warned, taking another step closer. “I start thinking about all the other ways you could lose your cool.”

  “I didn’t come here to—” She gasped as he swept her off her feet and into his arms.

  “I know exactly why you came here. You don’t have to explain.” He grinned at her as he strode down the hallway to his bedroom. She felt so good in his arms, a perfect bundle of fire and softness.

  “This isn’t the reason…” They rounded the corner to his bedroom, where his California king-size bed was dwarfed only by the expansive floor-to-ceiling patio doors that opened to a private grotto. “Okay, not the only reason.”

  Ha! Confession.

  “Fine. Let’s take care of the other reasons so we can get down to business.” He tossed her onto the dark blue silky bedspread, still rumpled from when he’d dragged himself out of bed to answer the door. She looked damn good there, gazing up at him with those sparkling bluebonnet eyes.

  He put his hands on his hips and waited patiently.

  She raised herself into a sitting position, butt resting on her heels, hands on her thighs. With that pink hoodie and untamed hair, she looked like a college student after an all-nighter. “This thing with…Manuel. My former husband. I don’t like talking about him or thinking about him. I don’t want you encouraging her in that direction.”

  “She’s curious. You can’t blame her for that.”

  “And so are you.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “But that’s because I’m curious about you. How’d you get to be you—Mayor Wendy Trent—with a history like that?”

  “Want to know how?” She rose up on her knees and scooted toward him, one knee at a time. “Complete and total self-discipline. Control. Willpower. Focus. Eyes on the prize at all times. One step at a time. Everything with a single purpose. And now you’re here.” She put her hand on his chest and twisted one finger into the light scattering of curls there. As if she wanted to touch him and tweak him at the same time. “And every time I turn around, I’m losing it. I don’t like it, Crush. I want it to stop.”

  “So…you’re seducing me? To make it stop?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Am I seducing you? I haven’t taken off a stitch of clothing.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You turn me on when you’re in full mayor armor. This version…” he gestured to her body, up and down. “Oh yeah. You’re definitely seducing me. And don’t even try to pretend you’re not, babe.”

  Her eyes flashed and a corresponding jolt hit his cock. “I’m your mayor. You can’t call your mayor ‘babe.’ How many times do I have to tell you?” She scratched her fingernails down the middle of his chest. The skin on his abdomen rippled.

  “My error. I take it back. You’re a fox. A stone-cold fox. Do people still say that?” He groaned as her fingernails flirted with the waistband of his boxers. His cock felt hot and constrained behind the thin fabric. He wanted to shove his underwear down and let her have her way with him. But her mood was so volatile, he wanted her to set the pace.

  She flattened her palm against his lower belly, just above his waistband. “Do you have any idea how careful I’ve been in my personal life up to now? I only date respectable men.”

  His hackles rose at the thought of the men he’d seen her with over the past few years. “You mean boring men. Who was that idiot you were with last year?”

  “Alan. He’s a lawyer. Very respected. I don’t date gossip fodder. I can’t afford to.”

  “And I’m gossip fodder?” He winced even as he said it, because of course it was true. He did it deliberately, in a fucked-up attempt to create a smokescreen. “Never mind that. What I really want to know is, what about this?” He pushed his pelvis forward against her caressing hand. “What about dick? Can those boring guys give it to you like I can?”

  “You’re so crude.” But her voice thickened and her cheeks flushed. “I don’t need sex. I have a vibrator. I can take care of myself.”

  Oh sweet Yogi Berra. The thought of her pleasuring herself with a vibrator was going to push him over the edge for good. “I’m going to take that as a challenge. There’s no way a vibrator, all by itself, can make you feel as good as I can. I don’t mind an assist from a vibrator. That can be fun.”

  Her flush heightened and her gaze dropped to the hard flesh distending the front of his boxers. He saw hunger in her lingering stare, her parted lips.

  “Go ahead,” he told her softly. “It’s all for you. Every hard, thick, hot inch of it has Mayor Wendy Trent written all over it.”

  She gave a choked laugh. “That reminds me of a joke I overheard my assistant tell when she thought I wasn’t listening.” Her fingers wandered down to his erection and traced his shape through the thin cotton. “Two men are naked in a gym locker room. One notices that the other has exactly the same thing tattooed on his penis. It’s a W and a Y. So he says to the other, ‘Hey, I see we have the same tattoo. Mine’s in honor of my girlfriend Wendy. So every time I get a hard-on it has her name on it. What’s yours?’ The other man turns to him and says, ‘Oh, mine’s for my favorite vacation spot. It says, Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day.’”

  Crush snorted with laughter, even though he was now so damn hard that sudden movements hurt. “And now you’re telling dick jokes. Honestly, Wendy, what would the city council think?”

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, eyes welling with laughter. “I don’t want to ever find out.”

  He cradled her face between his hands. “You’re safe with me, Wendy. I promise. I’ll fuck you silly, but I’m not going to betray you. If you want it to stay a secret, it will. I know how to handle the media. You show them something shiny over there, and they run off to check it out, and in the meantime you do your own thing in peace.”

  Her blue eyes, the pupils so dilated they looked purple, clung to his. “It’s not just that. Manuel
was a screwup, a junkie. He nearly destroyed me. Ever since then I’ve stayed away from anyone who wasn’t…harmless. Can you promise me that you’re harmless?”

  He skimmed his thumbs across her cheekbones. “I’m not a pussycat, darlin’. Everything has a risk. But you know me. There’s a reason you’re here. I think it’s because you do trust me. You know I’m not ‘bad’ like that. You know I won’t hurt you deliberately. That I…care for you.”

  Whoa. That was a radical statement to make. He hadn’t even known it was true until he said it. But it was, he realized. He’d been intrigued by her before, but now that he knew more about her history and her character, his interest ran a lot deeper.

  His statement registered as a flinch of shock across her face. “Don’t care too much, because this isn’t going anywhere,” she said quickly.

  “Honey, right now, as long as it goes horizontal, I’m good.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “What about vertical?” With a sudden move, she pulled down his boxers so his cock sprang free.

  “Vertical works for me,” he managed.

  She closed her fist around him. Her luscious pink lips came toward him and her pointed tongue reached out for an exploratory taste. Oh good lord almighty, it felt good. A deep groan ripped from his chest. She swirled her slick, warm tongue around the head of his cock.

  “I have just one thing to say,” she murmured, her breath warming and teasing him.

  “What?”

  “Welcome to Jamaica.” She swiped her tongue the entire length of his erection. He jerked forward. “Have a nice day.”

  With that, she engulfed him with her sweet, hot, voracious mouth. For some unknown amount of time, he lost himself in the intense pleasure of her deep, rhythmic suckles. He’d gotten enough blow jobs in his life—probably thousands—to know when a woman was enjoying the process. Some did it only for their partners’ pleasure. Others loved it for the sensual oral experience. That was Wendy. It showed in the way she licked him, the way she took it slow, as if savoring the sensation of firm flesh against the tissues of her mouth. The low hums and moans she kept making, and the way her breasts swelled against the fleece of her hoodie.

  Speaking of which…

  He put his fist around the base of his penis and withdrew it from her mouth. “I need to see those incredible tits of yours. Come on, babe, whip it off.”

  She made a face at him, but unzipped her hoodie and tossed it onto his sleek cherrywood bureau.

  “Top too,” he told her thickly. His cock was raring to go, twitching and jumping in his hand, still slippery from her mouth. He shied away from that thought because it would make him come too frickin’ fast. In short order, she got rid of her top and her bra, then covered her breasts with both hands.

  “I’m not exactly Victoria’s Secret model material anymore. I don’t have time to work out the way I should and things sag here and there and—”

  He pried her hands off her breasts and spread her arms wide, interlacing his fingers with hers. “Stop it. You’re beautiful, and anyway, I have almost ten years on you.” He feasted his eyes on her sumptuous full breasts with their prominent, delicately pink nipples. The more he eyed her gorgeous chest, the more those tips hardened.

  “Yes, but I know how the world works. A successful fifty-ish man like you can be with anyone. You could have a twenty-year-old.”

  “I don’t give a fuck how the world works. This is Crush’s world. Crush and Wendy’s. In our world, you’re a goddess, and I want you so much I’d grovel at your feet just to lick your nipples.”

  She drew in a ragged breath. “I’m the one doing the licking around here.” Bowing her head to his cock, she dove back into her mission of driving him out of his mind. He released her hands so he could at least fondle her breasts while she worked her mouth up and down his shaft. Her flesh filled his palms so beautifully. And she was so responsive to every move he made with his thumbs or the pads of his fingers.

  God, she was magnificent. His brain went blank from sheer pleasure. He moved his hands from her breasts to her head. Burying his hands in her hair, with gentle pressure he encouraged her to quicken the pace. Oh, there it was…oh sweet mama, he was going to come…if he didn’t stop her right this second…

  He stilled her right where she was. Panting harshly, he squeezed a few words out. “Want to be inside you.”

  “Do you have something?”

  “’Course.” He reached into the top drawer of his dresser and pulled out a condom. “Get naked, woman.”

  “It’s Crush’s world, right? What you say goes?” With a teasing look, she slid off the bed and began stripping off her jeans with moves worthy of a pole-dancer. When she was down to her pink silk undies, she peeked at him demurely, as if she’d suddenly remembered she was supposed to be an ice queen. He’d never buy that bull again. She was a fireball.

  “I said it was Crush and Wendy’s world,” he corrected, watching greedily. He slid the condom onto his thickly engorged shaft, wondering if it had ever been quite this hard before. “And I’m ready to rock that world. Come here.”

  She glided over to him as he sat on the edge of his bed. He put her between his thighs, and inhaled the intoxicating scent of her arousal. “It’s been all about me so far, and I’m not okay with that,” he murmured as he brought her mound against his mouth. He had to hunch over to press his lips right where he wanted them, right on the warm beating center of her private triangle. He breathed into the silk, rubbing his lips back and forth across the swelling heat underneath. He felt her nails dig into his back, clasp his neck to bring him closer. The frenzy between them was so perfect. Passion, experience, desire, skill, all of it fusing into a magical, unbelievable connection.

  With his teeth, he dragged down her panties. He plunged his tongue into that warm, fragrant flesh and found the swollen nub of her clit right away. She jerked, but he clamped his hands around her hips to keep her still. He stroked and tasted her with his tongue, memorizing the flavor of her intimate being. He groaned against her mound with its light covering of flaxen hair. The way she trembled in his grip, the sexy little whimpers she kept making, it was all so captivating that he almost forgot his own intensely aroused organ.

  “We’re not going to waste that condom, are we?” she finally gasped. He drew away, licking his lips because she tasted so sweet and electric, he wanted to soak up every drop. He touched her sex wonderingly, finding it wet and hot and beyond ready for him.

  “I could do that all night,” he said. “One of these nights I will.”

  Her eyes flared and she pushed him onto his back on the bed. “Scooch up.”

  He gave a heavy sigh and did as she asked. “I should have known you’d want to be on top. Gotta do what the mayor says.”

  She laughed shakily and straddled his hips. With one thigh on either side of him, she took his shaft in her hands. “The mayor says to fuck her. Fuck her good.”

  Damn. When Wendy ditched the uptight act, she was something to see. And hear. And obey.

  “Yes ma’am.” He put his hands back on those sweet hips and guided her onto his cock. He was so hard and engorged that at first he wasn’t sure she’d fit around him. But she adjusted her angle and slowly, with exquisite precision, lowered herself down.

  “Oh yeah,” he groaned, throwing his head back. “Fuck yeah.”

  Inch by inch, she claimed him in the tight clasp of her body. When he was seated all the way in, his tip nudging against flesh, she let out a deep sigh of wonder. “I didn’t know it would be this good.”

  “I did.” He flexed his buttocks, unable to stop from moving inside her. Her sleek, satiny channel caressed him as he pushed farther, deeper, then withdrew. She helped by rising up on her knees and bracing her hands on either side of his head. This left her breasts in prime position for his mouth and he took full advantage, swooping in to savor those sweet globes. He sucked and nibbled, teasing the pebbled tips of her nipples until she moaned and bucked.

  He pumped hard,
feeling his orgasm coming at him like a freight train. Her hips flexed just as fast as his, her movements turned just as frantic. She jammed her hand over his to make him palm her nipples even harder.

  So she liked it hard, did she? He could do that.

  He let out the throttle and released his wild animal side. Fast, hard, deep, relentless. One stroke at a time, focus, focus, eyes on the prize, fuck her ’til her eyes roll back, fuck her ’til she screams from satisfaction, until she takes flight like a bird, like a fucking home run over the scoreboard, like a backyard bottle rocket, a nuclear flight to planet Mars.

  Fuck her until she trembles and cries out a name—“Crush, oh my God, Crush”—until she wants to collapse, boneless, but won’t until…oh yeah. Explode. Shout it out. Ride it out. Ride out every last hot mother-effing second of the orgasm to end all orgasms.

  * * *

  Wendy sprawled on top of Crush’s sex-damp body. What was that? That was no ordinary climax. She might have even blacked out for a second, because all she remembered was a hot explosion like fireworks in her center. Crush…Crush was nothing like the men she’d been dating since she became mayor. He was so raw and so accepting of his animal side. He just plain didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. And she found that intensely liberating. She could say any dirty thing to him—do anything—and he’d just smile that sardonic grin at her.

  She heaved a long, satisfied sigh and peeked up at him. His eyes were closed. Was he snoring? Really, he could sleep after that incredible experience? Men.

  She stirred, figuring he’d be more comfortable if she climbed off him, but he clamped his hand on her ass.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Letting you take a rest.”

  “Well that’s fine, but I can do that with you right where you are.”

  She had to admit it felt good to be plastered against him, her head resting in the nook of his shoulder, their hearts beating in such close proximity. Different rhythms, though. Her heart was still racing like a hummingbird’s, while his settled into a steady thump-thump, thump-thump. She sighed again.