by Lauren Dane
He froze and took a deep breath. She felt his lips press the top of her head before he leaned back and tipped her chin to look into her face. “You do? You’re not just saying it?”
She laughed. “Yes, I do, and no, I’m not just saying it. I love you, Todd. But if you leave me, if you get hurt or dump me, I will kill you myself.” She held on to his belt loops and snuggled her body into his.
“I’m not leaving you. I told you that. The sex is really good and you’re a rockstar in the kitchen. Oh, and in general.” He grinned.
“So go. I’ll see you at your house at seven. I suppose Ben and Cope will be there too?”
“Not Cope, but Ben. Does that bother you? He likes you. He likes to hang out with us, but he won’t stay super late. Now that Cope is seeing this new woman, I think Ben is sort of feeling odd man out.”
She did like Ben, a lot. Since he was around so often, she’d become friends with him as well as his brother. They clicked in a way she didn’t with most other people. He often cooked with her or hung around outside when she worked in Todd’s garden. She had the sense that he stayed out there if Todd wasn’t around, simply to make her feel safe. Which made her feel exactly that. He shared her intense love of music. She liked his easygoing manner, she liked his sense of humor and he’d taken on the gargantuan task of trying to teach her to play cards. She sucked at cards and most people just considered her a lost cause, but he kept at it and never lost patience with her.
He and Todd were close, really close, and they brought her into that bond they shared. There was this something between them sometimes. Nothing either would act on, but sometimes it felt like it was a relationship of the three of them because he was there so often and they’d all assumed such an intimate and close friendship. Todd never seemed bothered or uncomfortable and she always kept an appropriate distance.
“It’s fine. I like Ben. It’s not like I can complain about spending the evening with two very fine male specimens. I’m bringing the pizza, fully loaded, so don’t fill up on crap.”
“Speaking of you talking like my mother, don’t forget Saturday.” Saturday was Independence Day and they had plans to spend it with Todd’s family. Erin was nervous as hell. But she’d spoken to his mother on the phone twice now, and Lorie Keenan seemed like an incredibly nice woman who cared a lot about her children.
“I won’t. I’m even going to the hairdresser’s Friday morning.”
“Why? You getting a cut? I like it long.” He sort of pouted, and yet he still looked hot and menacing too.
“No, silly. I’m having the pink stripped out and going back to my natural color. I can’t meet your family of cops with pink hair, Todd.”
“The hell you can’t! You will not color your hair any which way unless you want to. My parents know about you. My brother and his wife are big fans I’ve recently come to find out. I love you and you’re a free spirit. If you want pink hair, you’ll have pink hair. I don’t want you thinking you have to change yourself.” His eyes darkened and she realized this was about more than just pink hair.
“I didn’t think they’d hate me. I just didn’t want to scare them or have them think I was wrong for you. I want them to like me.” Which was sort of scary for her. She hadn’t worried about Jeremy’s parents liking her, although they had. But Todd meant too much to her, and she knew he was close to his family so that was important. Being part of them was necessary. She’d gladly go back to dark blond if it meant easing the way.
He kissed her hard. Fiercely. “No one else in the universe makes me feel so at home with who and what I am. Do you know what a gift that is? I love you. I love your tattoos and your funky hair and your artsy-fartsy clothes and attitude. I don’t want you to change who you are. I love who you are and I want you to be comfortable with that. If I ever thought I made you feel ashamed of that, I’d hate myself.”
Oh. That was so sweet. “You’re going to make me cry. Stop it.”
“Keep the hair?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“See you at seven. Don’t wear panties.”
With that little missive, he let himself out and stood there while she locked up and turned on the alarm for the front of the shop. She looked at the bag but left it there. Obeying him was hard sometimes, but he always made it worth her while.
Todd opened his door to meet her as she walked up his front steps. He took the pizza from her and noted the flush on her face. “You wearing them?”
She nodded and he chuckled. “Good.”
Ben was there already, drinking a beer and watching television. His gaze went to Erin and the long expanse of leg she showed in the skirt she wore.
For some reason, it turned Todd on to see it, to see his best friend attracted to Erin and to know Erin was his. How could a man not look? She looked ridiculously sexy in what she wore. That Todd knew what she had on underneath made it all even more delicious.
“Be right back,” he called out after he put the pizza down on the table. The remote fit nicely in the pocket of the cargo pants he wore, and he gave the knob a pulse of power, smiling to himself as he imagined what her face must have looked like.
When he came back around the corner, she was bent over, putting plates on the table. Nothing indecent showed, but the fine, pale expanse of upper thigh made his fingers twitch.
“You’ve been very busy,” she said in an undertone as she moved to grab the red pepper flakes he liked so much.
“Not as busy as I’m gonna be, making your cunt nice and wet as I play with the vibrator all night long. I can’t wait to watch you squirm. Like now.” He turned it on, knowing the vibe was inserted deep in her cunt. With his free hand, he reached under her skirt and felt the rubber attachment that fit over her clit. The soft hum let him know it was working.
Her breath caught and her eyes cut to the doorway where Ben leaned. He probably heard and saw. Todd moved his hand away and turned off the vibration. The scent of her cunt filled his nose, made his heart beat all the harder. He wanted to fuck her right then and there.
“Dinner ready?” Ben asked in a slightly teasing tone. Yeah, he’d heard.
“Everything is ready,” Erin answered as she sat and took a pull of her beer. Automatically and with her own grace, she put two slices of the pie on a plate for Todd, even shaking on the red pepper just how he liked it. “Ben? Two slices?” she asked, holding another plate. It wasn’t the same as it had been for him, but she was being nice to his friend and Todd liked that. Liked that Ben and Erin got on so well.
Todd watched her, knowing she wore the weights on her nipple rings, wondering if they throbbed yet in just the right way. He toyed with the remote, watching her face flush as pleasure rolled through her cunt.
Her fingers flexed on the table’s edge; her eyes went glassy. There was no way Todd would be getting up from the table anytime soon; his cock threatened to burst through his jeans.
He eased back and she blinked. Her nipples stood hard against the soft material of her shirt, and he saw the shadow of the weights hanging from the rings. He’d gone a little retail crazy at a few places online. Then he’d finally gotten out of his truck and gone inside The Crypt, a sex toy store in Capitol Hill. The name made him sigh, he didn’t really envision himself as the kind of DOM who spoke in all CAPS and made his sub call him MASTER and all that stuff. He supposed his mixed feelings about what he’d come to realize was a very wide variety of people involved in BDSM was one of the biggest things that had kept him from really investigating without shame.
But once inside the store, he’d begun to relax. There weren’t black candles and people in ball gags, although they certainly sold ball gags and enough porn to supply the entire state of Washington quite happily. The gear went from mild and silly to items that gave him pause and even a wince or two once he’d looked at them carefully.
In the end, he’d carried out a large bag of different items and was satisfied with the realization that he wasn’t a freak for liking what he liked.
Erin’s thighs trembled and her nipples throbbed. She needed to come and badly. Todd had used that damned remote on her, ramping her up and then pulling back over and over all through dinner.
Ben knew what was going on, watched her, slowly drinking his beer and talking with Todd. It should have embarrassed her, but instead it turned her on. Ben was incredibly hot and she’d be lying if she denied some attraction. She wondered though too about the way Ben looked at Todd sometimes. Todd never seemed to notice or comment on it. Ben oozed sexuality in a way that sometimes seemed to catch Todd in his radar. It was hot, she had to admit it, and hello, how could people not look at Todd and think he was gorgeous and fuckable?
“I’ll be right back.” She stood. She was going down the hall to get a bit of relief, damn it.
Todd looked at her as she walked by, taking her wrist as he did. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Did he just tell her not to make herself come? Without specific instructions, she couldn’t really read it that way and so fuck that.
She smiled at him. “I can’t pee standing up.”
Ben laughed, and when he looked at her, she wondered just what Ben got up to when the doors were closed and the curtains were drawn.
Todd raised a brow and stood up, weaving an arm around her waist. Without a word, he walked with her back toward the bathroom just off his bedroom.
“You were going to finger that hot little cunt and make yourself come, weren’t you?” he asked once they’d gotten to his doorway. He’d left the door open and she examined his face. He knew Ben could hear. Heat flushed her face.
“Yes, I was. You can’t leave me this way! My nipples are throbbing, my clit is hard, I’m so wet it’s on my . . .”
He dropped to his knees, shoving her skirt up. His breath was hot on her thighs, against the slickness there.
“Your cunt is so pretty this way,” he murmured, removing the harness holding the egg and the clitoral stimulator onto her body. The egg came out easily, and her inner muscles fluttered at the sensation. So good but not quite enough to come.
He licked his fingers and she groaned, leaning back against the wall next to his door.
“Hold your skirt up. I want to see all of you as I eat your pussy.”
She swallowed at how much his words, how much what he did, turned her on.
“Widen your legs,” he said, his gaze gone dark, focused on her body. She obeyed, readily.
She looked down her body, watched that caramel-toned head move to her, and then she felt it, his thumbs pulling her labia apart, the cool air against hot flesh and then the slick of his tongue sliding through her, up and around her clit.
She choked out a strangled cry, her free hand seeking the softness of his hair, cradling his head to her.
Her head moved from side to side, her hair a breath over her face as he put his mouth on her and slid his fingers up into her gate. She’d already been on the verge, but the way he’d teased her over the last hour had built like a storm inside her until it exploded and her knees nearly buckled.
He surged up her body, his mouth finding hers as he kept her pinned to the wall. Her taste still coated his lips and she groaned, trying to get closer.
“Fuck me,” she said into his mouth.
“I will.” He stepped back, chest heaving. “But not now.”
“Why?” she nearly wailed.
He laughed. “Because it’s my job to make you come and you tried to do my job for me.” A shrug and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“This is like what? Punishment? Because you just licked my pussy until I came. The only one hurting now is you.” She motioned toward his cock.
“You want my cock, don’t you? You’re hungry for it? You want me to pound you right here, right now, against the wall? With the door open so Ben can hear it?”
She swallowed again, not sure what to say.
“Tell me, Erin. I want you to tell me.” His eyes glittered and she wanted to fall to her knees to suck him off right then and there. She wanted to worship what he’d become, who he was to her. He held her desires in his hands.
“Yes.” She stepped closer to him and ran her palm up his chest, up his neck. “But I want you. Always you. I love you.” She needed him to know the last bit about Ben wasn’t anything that would displace him or even hold the slightest threat of that.
He kissed her again.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he said against her mouth. “I want to fuck you where everyone can see it. I want every man and woman in the room to know how beautiful you are. To know you’re mine.”
He ripped open the front of his jeans, his hands shaking. Hell, her knees were still rubbery from orgasm and how intense he was. But when he pulled his beautiful cock out, she couldn’t help but lick her lips.
“Christ. Hold on, honey, I’m gonna fuck you right here and right now.” He rolled a condom on quickly, leaving his jeans around his ankles. She tossed her leg up, wrapping it around his hip, opening herself up to him. “You’re so fucking wet.” He traced around her gate with the head of his cock, teasing with small thrusts and pulling out again until she whimpered.
“Please,” she begged. “Fuck me.”
One flex of his hips and he shoved his cock in deep, straight to his balls with a feral groan. “Pull your shirt up, I want to see those nipples and the weights.”
She obeyed quickly and he groaned—hell, she groaned too. Her nipples throbbed in time with her pulse as the beads on the chain running between her breasts swayed merrily.
“Oh honey, how does it feel?” He grunted, fucking into her body furiously.
“Hot. Hard. So good. The weights are like tiny tugs on my nipples. Oh god,” she wailed softly. It felt so good it nearly hurt. The wet slide of his cock deep into her over and over was an intimate lick of flesh against latex, and she knew she’d need to talk to him about testing. She needed to feel his cock, naked inside her.
She moaned and he swallowed it with his kiss.
In the mirror on the far wall she watched the muscles of his ass flex and hollow as he pushed his cock deep, watched her eyes, the eyes of a woman fucked to near mindlessness.
Her nails dug into his shoulders and he groaned.
“Wet your fingers and play with your nipples. You can take the weights off if you need to.”
No need to tell her twice. In two movements the chain slid loose; the small sound of it hitting the ground was followed by his moan as she wetted her fingers in her mouth and began to tug on her nipples as he fucked her.
“Damn that’s so good. So pretty. Hot. God you’re so fucking hot.”
Pinned to the wall like a butterfly, she received his cock over and over, loving the way he burrowed into her flesh and came out. Inside her, a fire grew. She was sated enough from his mouth on her just moments before that she was happy to feel his cock slide deep.
But he managed to find her clit with one long finger, stretched around them both, just a light touch, but it was enough as she ground down, her nipples pinched between her fingers, her breath short, desperate now to take her pleasure. His cock seemed to swell inside her until she came and then, within the maelstrom of her climax, she heard and then felt him follow.
Slowly, he lowered her to the ground and kissed her before pulling out and straightening her skirt back down her thighs.
“Be right back,” he murmured.
By the time she’d readied herself he had returned to kiss her and walk back out to the kitchen, bold as you please, where Ben waited, a smirk on his face and a hard-on so big she worried for him.
16
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you this at ease and happy,” Adrian said as he sipped his cup of coffee.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt it.” She shrugged. “I am happy and at ease. Things are good.”
“I want to talk to him.”
She looked at her brother, all broody and handsome. For someone with so much privilege and luxury, he wore it well. He appreciated what he had and hadn’t forgotten where he came from. After Adele died, he’d come back to Seattle with her, set up a house and a studio. He’d never made her feel guilty for leaving the band.
In a lovely bit of karmic justice, he’d remained a star, had become even bigger without the rest of them.
“Why?” She shot a look at the two girls who’d been edging closer. This was her place, a haven for Adrian and their friends. No little groupie girls would change that. They tried to ignore her. She touched Adrian’s hand to shush him and then moved to the girls.
“You two have a problem?”
They blinked up at her, but she narrowed her eyes. They shoved their hands in their pockets. “We just wanted his autograph,” one of them said sullenly.
“He’s having a cup of coffee. Leave him alone. If you’re at a show, that’s when he’s working. Show some manners, girls.”
Muttering, they shuffled out and her regulars chuckled.
“My valiant protector,” Adrian said with a wink. “Back to the subject, I have his number. I’m not asking your permission or anything. I just thought I’d let you know I was going to get in touch.”
She frowned. “All right. But don’t be a dick.”
“He’s the dick, Erin. He broke your damned heart ten years ago and I don’t like that.” He held a hand up to stop her from speaking. “I know and I agree, he’s making up for that now. He seems a stand-up guy and all. But Brody and I are your family and we deserve to know what his intentions are.”
She snorted, moving to pour a cup of coffee for a regular who’d just walked in. It was sweet, this protective thing her brothers did. Todd could handle himself, she knew that much.
“Fine. Just be nice or I’ll let the girls get at you.” She winked and he laughed, pushing the hair from his face.
“That’s low. By the way, Jeremy called me this morning. Studio loves the new material. They want me to tour. This will be the first big one without you up there with me.”
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