The Decision (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Allyson Young

  Frank interrupted their kiss with the food. The rap on the door forced them apart, and they both went to let him in. Dace saw the other man wink at Stephanie, and she most definitely winked back. He thanked Frank and dismissed him, saying he’d call when he needed him, and to go get his own meal.

  “Yes, sir. Good-bye, Miss Stephanie.”

  “Good to see you again, Frank.”

  Dace watched her set the little table and went to pull the mismatched stools into place. “You’ve enchanted Frank.”

  “He’s a wonderful man. I hope he finds somebody.”

  “You’ll wish for a happily ever after for my driver, but not for me,” he grumbled.

  “Or for me,” she said under her breath. His heart ached.

  They tucked into their meal, a slice of the succulent pie with chunks of chicken, potatoes, and vegetables in creamy gravy steaming on their plates, the flaky crust crumbling under the touch of a fork. The salad was crisp and redolent with the homemade dressing the restaurant affected. The tea Stephanie made complimented the food. Dace noted she liked a touch of honey with hers. Dace looked forward to learning everything there was to know about her. He figured it would take the better part of a lifetime.

  “So. I think we should forge our connection and take things as they come.” He wasn’t certain about his verb choice.

  Stephanie’s lips trembled and turned up at the corners. “Forge? Does that mean what I hope it means? Because I’m not going to beg you again.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, you’ll beg, but only for more. I’m past feeling like a stud you wanted to try. And if you ever hint that you’re settling for your sister’s castoffs, I swear I’ll paddle you until you won’t sit for a week.” He didn’t miss her sharp intake of breath or how her eyes dilated. His wench liked her spanking in the end.

  “I’m sorry I poked your ego. I know it kept coming out wrong, like sex was all it would mean to me, but I’d have taken it, you know. That’s how badly I wanted you. Want you.”

  “And I, perversely for a man, I know, couldn’t believe you just wanted me for sex. I’ve never felt used before!”

  Jake moaned and stretched under the table as their combined laughter filled the room. Dace admired how disciplined the dog was, or perhaps how well trained, because he hadn’t begged at the table. Stephanie whispered a promise of leftovers later, and the dog had subsided.

  Dace continued, “Let’s just try this, sweetheart. We’ll cross the Sophie bridge if and when we come to it.”

  “But I thought you were determined to deal with her?”

  “I’ve let it go.”

  Stephanie looked deep into his eyes for a long moment, then nodded, apparently satisfied with what she read there. “Okay.”

  She stood to pick up their plates, and he helped her carry everything to the counter, and then assisted with the cleanup. It felt domestic and comfortable, to his surprise. He had staff to take care of most everything, but working alongside Stephanie was fine. She put a chunk of the pot pie in a dog bowl and added a few pieces of romaine.

  “Jake knows there was salad. He doesn’t much care for it, but he likes to try whatever I eat.” She set it down for the dog, who carefully sniffed the contents before swallowing them whole.

  “Come to bed.” Dace didn’t think he could last another minute but found out he had to do so.

  “Jake needs a walk.”

  “Shit. I should have asked Frank.”

  “Did you notice Jake didn’t move when Frank came in? He knows good people.”

  “You’d better not like Frank more than me,” he grumbled, lassoing her around the waist with his dish towel.

  Stephanie giggled. “I like him differently, sir, and Jake knows it. He didn’t move, but he didn’t approach either. Some lowlifes got him as a puppy to probably guard their drug stash, and I caught them hurting him to make him mean.”

  “You caught them?”

  “Well, I was visiting my dad and happened to pass by. I heard him yelping, such a little puppy, and, well, I couldn’t let it go on.”

  Dace’s insides iced up, despite the fact it was history and beyond his control. His woman didn’t always make good choices, or at least not ones that kept her out of the line of fire. Her next comment confirmed it.

  “I waited until they left and went in the yard and took him.”

  He heard the incredulity in his voice. “You took him.”

  “I did. And I called the SPCA, who investigated, and the neighbors talked and those guys were cited. They aren’t allowed to own another dog for seven years. No one knew what happened to the dog, though.”

  Dace shut his eyes. Stephanie had a will of iron, and she’d probably make him totally crazy over time, but he resolved to work around it. He decided to ignore her last comment. Saving Jake was nothing like what Sophie had done, but she clearly wanted him to know how she came to acquire him and let Dace draw any conclusions he needed to draw. She certainly had been giving their situation a great deal of thought.

  Stephanie put a leash on Jake while Dace found her a coat. He was taking her shopping as soon as he could convince her to accept gifts from him. How unlike Sophie she was. Jake picked up the pace, clearly looking forward to his walk. When they exited the building, they turned west, away from the sketchier area. Dace took the leash and held Stephanie’s hand in his other. After sniffing every surface for a block, Jake christened a light standard and turned for home.

  “I take him to the dog park every Saturday. He terrifies the other owners, but the dogs know he’s harmless if they don’t start anything first. Maybe you’ll come some day.”

  Dace looked at Jake’s slathering jowls in the light of the streetlamps and smiled to himself. Roses wouldn’t have slowed the beast down for an instant if he thought his mistress was at risk, yet he could tell the animal was good natured. “I’ll come with you tomorrow.”

  He marvelled at how happy his offer made her and realized how difficult it had been for her to suggest it, being so afraid of rejection.

  They locked up the apartment, and it was time. The anticipation had built to a fever pitch, the sexual tension so thick it was palpable. Dace pulled Stephanie along with him into the bedroom and gently but firmly shut the door in Jake’s startled face. She went into the bathroom, and he pulled his clothes off, stripping down to his boxers. He hung everything up in her closet, marvelling at the amount of empty space. Stephanie was definitely not a clothes horse, but maybe out of necessity and not choice. Dace hoped for the former because he was buying her a whole new wardrobe. He found the condoms in his pocket and put them beside the bed. He set his watch on the dresser and froze. Tucked beneath a cut crystal perfume bottle was a note. He knew his own writing when he saw it.

  Fuck. What an ass he’d been, sending her groceries and a note that was in fact, an utter lie. Forgetting a previous engagement. Trite and fucking transparent. Signing it Dace Reynolds. So formal. He raked a hand through his hair and wondered why she kept it. To remind herself what a jackass he was? As a keepsake? Both.

  “I couldn’t throw it out, although I wanted to burn it. Or stuff it in my soaked shoes.”

  Dace whirled to see her standing in the doorway to the bathroom, slender and delicate in a little white cotton nightgown scattered with tiny blue flowers.

  “I needed my head examined.”

  “True.”

  He chortled and moved past her into the bathroom, managing to keep his hands to himself. “My turn.”

  When he emerged, the lights were out except for a little lamp on the one bedside table. Stephanie was in bed, the covers pulled up high around her shoulders, and Dace took in the size of the mattress. A single bed. For all that he planned to do with her tonight, well, it would have to take place in close quarters. At least she’d be sleeping in his arms! Dace shed his boxers and slid in beside her, and was enveloped in her scent and velvet heat. She was naked, too, and the fact she wanted nothing between them overwhelmed him with her bold little act.<
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  He found her mouth and kissed her deeply. Her lips parted and he pushed his tongue past them to duel with hers and caress the confines of her mouth. She tasted of mint and sweetness. She moaned and wrapped both arms around his shoulders, her hands creeping up his neck to push through his hair. He pulled away, and they both gasped for air before he returned to ravage her mouth again and again.

  His cock swelled and beat between them, blindly seeking the wet heat at the apex of her thighs, but he disciplined himself. He eased his body over hers, a knee on either side of her hips, propping his weight on his elbows. He pressed kisses and bestowed tiny nips down over her throat, tracking to the source of her flush. His lips found a nipple, the bud already taut and pointed. He sucked it into his mouth and worked it hard with his tongue, revelling in her whimpers and pleas.

  “Please, Dace. Harder. Oh God, it feels so good.” Music to his ears.

  Dace switched to the other nub, covering the abandoned breast with a hand, gently twisting and pulling the nipple. He held her in place by tightening his knees against her hips as she squirmed beneath the sensual onslaught. The soft searching hands fluttering over his ribs and buttocks made him shudder, and he stopped his attention to her breast long enough to capture both of her hands in one of his and pin them to the bed above her head. He didn’t trust himself not to spill like some teenage kid if she touched him.

  When he’d teased her nipples to his satisfaction and her nearly incoherent pleas became fervent, Dace kissed and licked his way down her body, pausing to nuzzle her navel and nip over the jut of each hip bone. He laved her thighs, first one then the other. Her skin was like heated satin, and her scent made him crazy. Fresh cotton with an overlay of tang. All woman. Her hands, now released, drifted over his shoulders and feathered through his hair again. When he pushed her thighs apart and set his mouth on her, she shrieked and wound her fingers tighter. The sting in his scalp only served to spur him on.

  Openmouthed kisses made her shudder, and her legs moved restlessly. When his tongue traced the opening to her sheath, Stephanie rolled her pelvis and moaned deep in her throat. She tasted of salt and that tang, and he lapped at her, investigating all of her secret crevices with his tongue and his teeth. Her cries increased in volume when he found her clit, breathy, little shrieks that made his cock ache to soothe them. The little knot of nerves emerged from the hood under his tutelage, and he worried it with skill and patience. He slid a finger into her pussy, his way paved with hot, slick honey, searching for that rough spot, hooking the tip of his finger to press against it. Stephanie arched off the mattress and clenched her thighs around his head in response to the sensations then screamed when he sucked her clit hard, pressing her G-spot once again.

  The clenching and flutters of all those tiny muscles around his finger assured him of her release, and Dace looked forward to the day when he’d have her splayed and restrained so he could observe all the minutiae of her climax, the better to pleasure her. As her thighs trembled apart, he lifted his head to watch her as she rolled her head from side to side on her pillow, still overcome.

  It was a simple matter to slide up her body and reach for a condom, sheathing himself with anxious hands. He kissed her lightly and watched her assimilate her own flavor, her eyes going wide before she opened to the quest of his tongue. Dace reached down to fit the head of his cock against her pussy entrance, nudging her thighs further apart as he settled between them. The bed was just wide enough to hold them if he didn’t get carried away. The thought of him falling to the floor, his little man pulled from its heart’s desire, and the subsequent bitching made him smile, and Stephanie’s eyes popped open. He released her mouth and touched her nose with his own.

  She stared into his soul as he pushed slowly into her body, the incredible tightness of her channel stretching to accommodate him, inch by excruciating inch. Dace held his breath when he came up against her cervix and longed to wrap her up and remain in the position forever. She clenched around him, and he responded, unleashing a storm of thrusts and retreats, pushing them both hard. She rocked to meet him and held him fiercely, her small hands pulling him closer. The silk of her thighs clasped his hips, and her legs moved to wrap over his thighs. He felt his orgasm announce itself at the base of his spine, flowing to his balls as they drew up in preparation to flood his ejaculate, spend it into the condom. He ground his pelvis and swivelled his hips one last time, and Stephanie convulsed, and her pussy clamped down and milked him dry. Holy fuck. And he’d refused this, this ecstasy. What on earth had he been thinking? Oh, that he wanted more. And now he had it, and he’d been correct to wait.

  Dace somehow disentangled himself and climbed off the bed to go dispose of the condom. Stephanie would hopefully be amenable to other forms of birth control, because he was going to have her skin to skin, and soon. His knees were weak, but he rinsed a washcloth in warm water and returned to cleanse her between her legs. She made a weak sound of protest, then accepted his ministrations. She would soon learn she was his to take care of, to protect, to fuck, and to love. Probably some other things as well his brain was too befuddled to calculate. He staggered to the door and let Jake in. The dog gave him a look and sniffed the air before stalking to collapse on the mat beside the bed.

  After turning off the light, navigating by feel, Dace got in on the opposite side, easing his now-slumbering woman onto her side, fitting himself behind her. They’d likely both end up on the floor in the night if they changed their position an iota, but he’d endeavour to land under her. And while he normally wasn’t a cuddler, there was no other position he’d rather be in. Dace kissed the top of her head and allowed sleep to take him.

  Chapter Eight

  Stephanie’s eyes drifted open and stared into Jake’s intent ones. She peered up at the alarm clock. Twenty past eight. Crap. Jake liked to go outside by seven. She was lying, perched, on the very edge of the mattress, a strong, hard arm banding her middle, holding her firmly against a heated, muscled length of male. She quivered experimentally, seeking to find a little wiggle room in order to slip free and take her dog for his morning constitutional. The arm tightened, and a breath of warm air stirred the hair on the top of her head. Dace’s chin settled on the crown, and she could feel the vibration as he spoke.

  “Going somewhere?”

  Unaccountably shy, she squirmed, and he eased away just far enough for her to do a little barrel roll, coming face-to-face with him. It was hard to look him in the eye, but she tried. “Jake wants out.”

  “Jake has been out, and had his breakfast, although he inferred I wasn’t generous enough.”

  “Oh. I didn’t hear you.”

  “You slept the sleep of the well pleasured.”

  Well. Arrogant much? “And you didn’t?”

  Dace laughed, and his cock slid suggestively against her thigh, a hard gliding sensation, unlike the usual velvet touch. “I was barely able to last a block, sweetheart, so short changed him in that regard, too. But I couldn’t force myself to wake you. Besides, I’ve been waiting for you to wake up, well rested, for this.”

  This was a deep, heated kiss that pushed her right into the pulse of arousal. Dace’s hand coasted down her side, to insinuate itself between her thighs. He lifted one leg to hitch it over his hip and nestled his cock between her legs, resting it suggestively against her clit. She became aware he was already sheathed in a condom, and the idea that he was prepared to have her the instant she awoke, without any need for her to tantalize him, created a gush of cream to flow from her pussy. He moaned into her mouth and slid inside, his cock unerringly finding the way.

  The position was different for her, and the narrowness of her bed necessitated a caution in movement, but Dace cradled her close and drove his hips harder and harder, reaching high inside her sheath, tormenting a spot that rippled tiny waves of prickling sensation through her pelvis and to her clit. Stephanie sucked desperately on Dace’s tongue, trying to hold on and enjoy every second of the ride, never wanting i
t to end. Her breasts ached, and her nipples rubbed against the firm skin of his chest, his chest hair stimulating them further. All of her existence centred on the man holding her and the area at her apex where they were joined. Dace’s hand slipped between them, and he pinched her clit, driving even deeper inside of her. A scream made its way from her throat to be swallowed by her lover as her climax washed over her, her pussy clenching convulsively even as her back arched and her sex ground harder into him. Dace stilled, and she felt the gush of his seed heat her channel through the thin barrier of the condom. He wrenched his mouth from hers and groaned against her cheek, an endearment she dared to believe expressed more than simple affection. “Mine.”

  After a time, he stirred. “Either I buy you a bigger bed or we take this to my place.”

  Stephanie had to tease him. “I like the close quarters.”

  “I like them, too, but I need more room for what I have planned for you.”

  It was too soon to respond to the dark promise in his voice, wasn’t it? She’d just experienced a monumental orgasm, but her swollen labia tingled and her clit pulsed. “I’ll buy a bigger bed.”

  “I’ll buy your bed, Stephanie. You can donate this one to a worthy cause, although I should have it bronzed for posterity.”

  It felt wonderful to lay in bed with this man, held closely, his sated cock still inside of her, teasing and joking. Stephanie could almost convince herself there was nothing but smooth sailing ahead.

  “You’re thinking too much, sweetheart. Let it go, and trust me. It’ll work out.”

  She rested her head in the curve of his shoulder and sighed. “I’m going to try not to think about her, Dace. Because it will spoil this.”

  He dropped a kiss on her hair and gently lifted her away from him, taking care to leave her enough room on the bed as he disengaged and got to his feet. “Trust me, Stephanie. Now, let’s shower and go out for breakfast. You promised that animal a stint at the dog park, and I want to hit a furniture store, too.”