by Stacy Gail
“Go at your own pace.” Since it was a pace he agreed with, he was more than happy to give her that green light. “We’ve got all night.”
“Yay.” Her smile made the spotlights beyond the cabana’s curtains seem dim by comparison. “We are going to have to be quiet, though. The closed canvas flaps of this cabana aren’t exactly soundproof.”
“I don’t give a damn who hears us. Now.” He reached down to help her finish the job of undoing his pants before he rolled slightly to fish his wallet out of his back pocket. At the very least they were going to put a serious dent in his supply of condoms tonight. “Are you going to do as you’re told and ride your man, or do you need a spanking to help you get motivated?”
The arousal that flamed in her eyes threatened to burn him alive. “Can’t I have both?”
“Greedy.” Thank God. “I’ll think about it while you take off your panties and get into position.”
With one last hesitant glance at the cabana’s closed curtains, she arched her hips and tugged her panties from under her ass, then down her thighs beneath the veil of her peach dress, and snagged them off with a flourish.
“I’ll take those.” He held out his hand, then tucked the wisp of silk into the front pocket of his loosened jeans. They were his to see, and no one else’s. “Now, take my dick out, and do whatever the hell you want with it, as long as it makes me harder than I’ve ever been in my life.”
Her breath caught. “Whatever I want?”
“You heard me.” He watched the excitement flash through her expression, and thanked whatever higher power there was for bringing this woman across his path. “Just one condition—you also make that amazing pussy of yours nice and wet so that you’ll be more than ready for me. Ride that edge, but don’t you dare fall off. Understand?”
“Yes.” Her breathing was now audible, and so damn exciting it made his cock throb almost painfully.
She chose that moment to do as he’d instructed, and he grunted with pained pleasure as she reached beneath the layers of material he wore to bring his cock out, pushing his clothes down just past his hips. His dick was already stiff and getting stiffer, the flesh darkening with blood and twitching with every beat of his heart. It was a great relief that his size didn’t intimidate her; far from it, if her smile of anticipation was any indication.
What a woman.
“Take my cock in one hand, and put your other hand under your skirt between your legs. You know what to do from there.” The last word ended on a groan as she followed his instructions to the letter.
Bless her.
“You like that?” As she spoke, she rubbed the crown of his cock, then slid her fingers along the bumps and ridges of his staff. Simultaneously her other hand moved beneath the veil of her dress, and he groaned soundlessly when her teeth sank into her lip. “Tell me, Tag. Tell me how good I make you feel.”
“So good I never want you to stop.”
“I won’t stop, because I know what you like.”
Hell yes, she did. “Prove it.”
“You like it deep and slow at first.” As if to demonstrate, her fingers curled covetously around his thick staff at its base. Then her hold tightened, an almost painful squeeze as she slid up his length to his crown, her thumb rubbing at the hypersensitive ridge and silken underside, before sliding back down to start the process all over again.
And again.
And a-fucking-gain.
Yeah. She sure as hell knew what he liked.
“Work yourself like you’re working me, baby.” His breath came faster as the thrum of excitement began to churn in earnest, and his head fell back against the chaise’s cushions as sensation began to overwhelm him. “Fuck, Ivy.”
“I love listening to you.” The hungry delight in her tone nearly broke him, and he began pumping his hips as the pleasure ballooned inside him. “When we’re like this, I love listening to the sound of your pleasure.”
“I love looking at you.” With that he caught the hem of her shimmery peach dress and tugged it up and over her head. The hand between her legs wasn’t working as hard as it could have been, so he placed his hand over hers and coaxed her fingers to a more urgent speed. “Keep at it, baby. Get yourself so excited you’re right on the edge of coming, yeah? But don’t let it happen. You come only when I’m inside you.”
“I’m so close already,” she whispered, her breathing uneven, but that just made him shake his head.
“I’ve seen you blissed out and shuddering and begging to come, so I know what you can take. You’ve got a long way to go.” He, however, was a different story. This wasn’t going to go exactly the way he wanted if she didn’t catch up to him double-quick. “Get there, Ivy. Faster.” With that, he increased the rhythm of her fingers, pushing against them to intensify the pressure against her pussy.
Her gasp was jagged. “Tag.”
“There we go. Just like that. Keep it up.” He snagged up the champagne bottle and held it to her mouth. “Drink.”
She did, her eyes at half-mast as he gave her as much champagne as she could take. A few drops spilled onto her breasts still held by a wisp of silk that matched the panties in his pocket, and she arched toward him in clear invitation.
“Want to take care of that for me, honey? My hands are full.”
Damn, his woman was sexy.
“Your touch is fucking magic.” Setting the nearly empty bottle on the concrete floor, he leaned toward her to delve his tongue into that soft valley. Fireworks went off in his blood as the commingling flavors of champagne and Ivy filled his senses, and he took his time feasting on all that feminine lushness. “Your taste is my drug. And your mouth…” Desire surged like wildfire as he wrapped his free hand around hers and arched into the hand stroking his cock now as fast as she stroked her clit. “Put your mouth on me, Ivy. Suck me off so hard I see stars.”
A moaning shudder rocked through her, her hand still working between her thighs as she did as he instructed. His abdominal muscles spasmed when the fall of her hair brushed over him moments before warm wetness encircled the head of his pulsating cock. The suction that brought him deeper into her mouth made the blood rush to the surface of his dick, and he groaned at the sweet pain of it.
Yes.
He closed his eyes and blindly thrust into that sweet, wet chamber. Her hand still worked the throbbing base of his cock, and the friction was so hot it was the most delicious torture to bear. Her moans increased, their underlying urgency dragging his eyes open to find her body had finally started to writhe. Her obvious pleasure made his own sharpen, curling deep into his gut as he watched her, and when he felt his nuts start to tighten he pulled her away from his cock, got a hold of her wrists, and jerked her into a hungry kiss.
A broken wail from her was swallowed by his mouth, but he didn’t let her go until the encroaching madness clamoring inside him had eased into a tremulous, aching echo. He sensed the tension draining from her as well, and that was all he needed to release her hands so he could unhook her bra, then roll the condom in place.
“Straddle me.” He could barely speak coherently, the excitement he held in check was so fierce. “I need inside you. Now.”
In the next heartbeat she was there, climbing over his lap and guiding him to her threshold. The moment his hypersensitive crown was inside her heat, he gripped her hips and slammed her down so that his cock was gloved all at once by the slick tightness of her pussy.
Her head flung back with the force of her cry, and the hot depths that sheathed his cock convulsed so tightly the pleasure was almost painful. Then she was going wild, pumping her hips so furiously his orgasm came roaring up to consume him with its explosive madness. Again and again he slammed her down on top of him, impaling her with his length as he mindlessly chased after more pleasure, deeper completion. He wanted to be inside her forever, lost in a haze of perfect bliss.
It took forever for the ecstasy to fade into rippling eddies, and when she finally collapsed on his chest, st
ill holding his body within hers, he wrapped his arms around her, thoroughly satisfied. “Round one, complete,” he panted into her hair, and he had to grin at how exhausted he sounded. “Round two’s going to start up in about ten minutes, but we need another bottle or two of champagne before we do anything else. Any objections?”
“None at all,” she assured him breathlessly.
Oh, yeah.
What.
A.
Woman.
Chapter Fifteen
“Straight off Tag’s reveal of his latest solo project last night, we’ve got yet another tattoo design reveal here this morning at House Of Payne.” As usual, Payne was doing his showman shtick at the linen-draped banquet table in House Of Payne’s lower level, smiling at the gathered reporters. The usual suspects, Ivy thought sleepily, huddled in her seat and hiding behind tinted glasses.
So she was the picture of a hangover. Who the hell cared? After the night Tag had given her—and every last second of it had been magical—she figured she should be envied for looking as debauched as she no doubt did.
Magical. That word kept echoing back to her like a tune she couldn’t get out of her head. She’d never known real life could be magical. In fairytales, magic was everywhere—castles and damsels in distress, evil dragons and knights in shining armor to slay them where they stood. But in real life no one came to slay her dragons. She’d had to slay them herself, and when she couldn’t, she’d learned to live with them.
Then Tag had lured her up to an honest-to-goodness rooftop garden, and in revealing his project to her, he slew one of her dragons. That was the moment when she learned that knights in shining armor could exist in real life, too.
It that wasn’t magical, she didn’t know what was.
If she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget the moment those tarps had fallen away to reveal a twenty-foot tall replication of the letter she’d received from Cloud Life Digital. Knowing that Tag had chosen to place his project directly across the street from that business was glorious enough, and she smiled every time she thought of how uncomfortable life must be now within the walls of that woman-hating company.
But as good as that had been, the most heart-stopping moment had been when she saw his depiction of her, struggling to get out from under the crushing weight of that email.
He’d made her beautiful.
No.
Better than that.
He’d made her goddess-like, the embodiment of indomitable feminine strength.
She wasn’t that, of course. But it was incredibly moving, if a little intimidating, to know that was how Tag saw her. She could only hope to be a fraction of what he believed her to be—a warrior princess, and a sensual being.
It was the latter part that he brought out in her. Toward the end of the evening, things had gotten kind of fuzzy, but that wasn’t surprising since they’d downed three bottles of champagne—or was it four?—with the lion’s share going into her. “Drunk Ivy” was apparently just as much of a delight for Tag to have sex with as sober Ivy, and he’d made sure that he’d rewarded her with orgasm after orgasm as the world turned wondrously hazy.
She had no clear memory of how he’d gotten her down into the hotel room he’d reserved for them. The only thing she did know for certain was that she’d been more than a little bow-legged when she tried to walk first thing this morning.
But she wasn’t complaining.
“Not surprisingly, last week’s reveal of Tag’s and Ivy’s mythology tattoo concepts were some of the most popular designs the House has ever seen online, and we had several hundred people already come in to have these tats done. Also not surprisingly, Ivy’s zodiac wheel won in a landslide, winning basically four to one over Tag’s dragon. So that means our urban artists are now dead-even at one win apiece, though I’ll be honest,” Payne added with a grin. “If we were to measure this contest by using money as the metric, sales of Ivy’s zodiac wheel—or just the individual zodiac signs within it—would bury everything produced so far this year by all new designs for the House, including my own.”
“Hell, yeah,” Tag said, applauding the news.
Oh, God.
Her face flooded as flashes went off and news cameras focused in on her. She tilted her head Tag’s way to look at this supportive man who didn’t give a damn his dragon design had come in second. Instead, he was proud of her accomplishment and he didn’t care who knew it. He was such a remarkable man, she marveled, with a soul that was pure, despite the hell of his past. She loved him for that purity. She loved him for the generosity he so easily showed her, a generosity that had been displayed in the thought he’d put into his Cloud Life Digital project. He’d thought only of her and how best to depict the struggle she’d been forced to deal with in that moment.
But most of all, she loved him.
Minnie had been right. Somewhere along the way, everything that was her had fallen in love with everything that was Tag. They fit. Their outlooks, their passions, their ambitions—all of it meshed perfectly. It was as though long before they had come into the world, they’d been a complete and miraculous whole. Then they had been thrust into this chaotic existence, trying to struggle through it day by day without ever knowing they were missing something vital.
Then their wholeness had been rediscovered when they met, and suddenly everything made sense. All she needed in the entire universe was sitting right next to her, because he made her complete.
When she had Tag, who needed magic?
“If you all will remember, last week Tag and Ivy were given the theme for their third challenge—the animal kingdom.” Leaning back in his chair, Payne motioned toward the covered panels of art waiting to be unveiled. “Worldwide, animal tats make up nearly fifty percent of tattoos, so this was an easy theme to choose. Both artists came up with some brilliant shit, so this time around there’s no way I can choose a personal favorite. All I know is that I’m fucking lucky to have such incredible talent working their magic under the roof of House Of Payne, so without further comment, I give you Tag’s and Ivy’s designs for this week’s animal kingdom challenge.”
The veils dropped from the panels behind them, and Ivy turned to look. She didn’t care about hers—a hooded cobra with a shadow beneath it to give it a 3D effect, and her gem tag glimmering deep within one of its eyes. Instead, all she could focus on was the design Tag had come up with.
Wow.
She loved her man, that was true.
But she loved his artistic talent almost as much.
Highlighted under the lights was a portrait of a tiger’s face. The amount of detail he put into it was insane, right down to the fur and whiskers so that each hair stood out. The velvety-looking muzzle was wrinkled back in an incredible snarl, and so realistic she would have sworn, under oath, that an actual snarl came along with that tattoo design. The eyes seemed to glow against that ominous expression, the bared teeth dagger-like and deadly. But what made it memorable for her was the hint of jarringly peaceful black jungle behind the deadly tiger’s head, the pale shimmer of a full moon peeking through the trees.
It was brilliant, plain and simple, and she couldn’t help but squee just a little that he’d chosen a tiger as his animal.
“There they are, two amazing animal tat designs—one with such an incredible amount of realistic detail you can almost hear the tiger’s roar, and one with an intricate shading that makes it so 3D it looks like it’s ready to slither off the skin and into the real world. Good luck in deciding which one you like best, because I love them both.”
“Fuck me, you’re amazing, baby.” Eyes riveted to her panel, Tag slung an arm around her shoulders. “I love your art, you know that? Fucking love it.”
“I was just thinking the same about you. You chose a tiger?”
“Of course.” His face was relaxed as he at last turned to look away from their designs to brush his lips across hers, uncaring that they were on display for the whole world to see. “My tiger. Fucking lov
e your art, and I fucking love what you do to me.”
She was about to ask him what exactly she did to him—though she had a fairly good idea—when Payne tapped the microphone loud enough to make her jump and her already-touchy head threaten to explode.
“Okay, I’ve got their attention.” He grinned, glancing their way while the reporters gathered there chuckled. “Sorry about that, but I want to make sure our two artists hear what their fourth and final challenge is going to be. Next week, we’ll all meet back here for the grand finale of our urban artist challenge, and we will unveil their art depicting the theme…of their choice.”
Tag’s brows went up while Ivy blinked behind her tinted glasses. “What?”
Payne nodded. “You heard me. Whatever you want to do, whatever you think would make a great tat and great art, go ahead and do it. The only limit you have is your imagination. Though I do strongly recommend you remember that whatever design you come up with, it’ll have to fit somewhere on the human body, so that should probably be taken into account as well. Okay, if there’s nothing else, we’ll be happy to take some questions, and then our artists—no matter how hung-over one of them might be,” Payne added with a wry glance Ivy’s way, “will be happy to mingle with all of you.”
Ivy kept her moan down to a minimum. If she got out of there without throwing up on anyone’s shoes, it would be a miracle.
A woman stood up with a microphone that House Of Payne’s manager, Scout Fournier, handed over to her. “First off, the Cloud Life Digital email art piece… Tag, what is the name of that piece, and secondly, Ivy, have you heard of any fall-out from that company regarding their obvious prejudice against female artists?”
Tag cleared his throat and leaned toward the tabletop mic. “The piece is called Ivy, Invictus, mainly because she reminds me of that poem. She’s unbowed by this kind of bullshit thrown in her path, and she just keeps going. Knowing that, it’s no wonder she’s become my inspiration.”
That made her heart flip over so much she almost forgot that she had to answer a question as well. “So far I haven’t received any word from Cloud Life Digital, but then I never expected to. I did hear on the radio right before we got here that Tag’s latest project has caused quite a few of their clientele to jump ship. More than that, several female workers have been inspired to sound out on social media about the intolerable misogynistic culture within that company, so maybe Tag’s art will help them evolve into a better, more balanced workplace. We can always hope.”