Slipping into the faded pink terry robe her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday—she’d never been able to part with it no matter how much it wasn’t her style—she smiled. She’d managed to accomplish her primary objective last night. Dusty was firmly dislodged from her head as a nice guy.
Five minutes later, energy slowly pushed through Liz’s body as she sat at the small, round kitchen table, sipping the still-warm coffee Colin had left behind. She was a firm believer in the idea that food off someone else’s plate, or in this case drink from someone else’s mug, tasted better. Her brother had had issues with her sharing habit when she’d first moved in, but now he made it a point to leave enough coffee in his mug for her to have a few drinks.
A thump sounded through the door that led from the kitchen into the living area. Liz frowned. Colin should have already left for work, and she hadn’t seen any signs of Joyce when she’d made her way downstairs. Grabbing the coffee mug, she went to investigate. The door swung inward as she reached for the handle. Liz screeched and teetered backward, sending coffee sloshing over the rim of the mug. Two male hands, judging by their firm grip, grabbed her upper arms, stabilizing her.
“Jesus, Colin! You scared the shit out of—” The words died on her tongue as she connected with Dusty’s concerned look. The hands on her arms went from solid to steaming in a heartbeat. Her cheeks warmed just as quickly, both sets of them.
“You okay?” he asked.
For an instant, the sincerity in his expression and tone reminded her of the gentle way he’d bandaged her finger, and she almost smiled. Then her brain started functioning again. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about her welfare. If he did, he wouldn’t have made her feel like a complete moron last night. She attempted to jerk from his arms, but he gave her a look that said she needed his support and held firm.
She narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing in my house?”
“It’s my house, or ours.” Colin appeared a few feet behind Dusty. He wore faded Levis and a tan chambray work shirt that suggested he would be spending the day with one of his landscaping crews instead of at the office. “I asked him to stop by to help me load the sycamores for Branson’s backyard.”
“The trees are out back.”
“The coffee’s in the house,” Dusty said, bringing her attention back to him. Back to the fact that his hands were still on her arms, still burning through her robe and bringing wet need to life between her legs.
She remembered what she wore and groaned. It was bad enough he was seeing her in girly pink, but beneath the thin layer was nothing but her naked and quickly heating body. One little tug on the sash binding her robe and his hands would be on her skin, sliding down her arms, over the swell of her breasts, along the rise of her belly to bury in the liquid heat stirring in her pussy. Right where he’d had his finger last night…because she’d made him put it there.
Liz closed her eyes on the memory. Her brother had said that she wasn’t her mother, but everyone knew actions spoke louder than words. Given her behavior with Dusty, she might as well change her name to Penny and write “whore” across her forehead in permanent marker.
“You’re too late,” Colin observed. “She’s already confiscated your mug.”
She opened her eyes to ask, “His mug?” At Dusty’s nod, she swiped her hand across her mouth, barely resisting the urge to spit.
“Relax, Liz,” Colin said. “If he had cooties, you would’ve had them by now.”
She whirled on her brother, managing to catch Dusty off guard and dislodge his hands in the process. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Grabbing a coffee mug from the overhead cupboard, Colin shrugged. “Figured they were an airborne germ. He’s over a lot.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire. (Lovely, only Colin could reduce her to sing-songy childhood phrases.) That her brother lied was clear in the smile that crinkled at the corners of his eyes. He knew something. Or thought something. She wasn’t about to question what that something was with the current undesirable company.
She thrust the coffee mug at Dusty so that he either had to take it or let it fall to the floor, then nodded at Colin. “I need to get moving. Have a good day, Col.” She glanced back at Dusty and said in a voice that dripped with sarcasm, “Be careful with those trees, Marr. I’d hate to see one fall on your head.”
“Liz, you have company.”
“Thanks,” Dusty said to Diane, the middle-aged woman with graying brown hair who’d led him into the kitchen of the restaurant Liz worked at. Liz stood punching keys on a computer system. He saw that she still wore his bandage wrap on her finger and thought to remind her to clean the cut with antiseptic. He snorted then, unsure which was stranger—that he believed she might follow his advice or that his first thought on seeing her wasn’t about getting her naked but about her well-being. He would take it as a sign that they truly were meant to be friends alone, if his second thought wasn’t how quickly he could get the tuxedo uniform off her body and his hands and mouth on it.
Liz looked up. Loathing flashed through her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“He said it’s an emergency.” A teasing glint in her gray eyes, Diane let go a low whistle. “Another sundae in jeopardy of melting by the looks of things.”
“Not even close,” Liz assured as Dusty grinned at the other woman. Liz looked back at him in time to catch the grin, and her expression turned frosty. “Obviously this emergency isn’t serious, so if you don’t mind, I have a job to do.”
He sobered instantly. What he’d come here to say was more serious than anything he’d said or done in years. He’d thought turning Liz down had been the right thing to do, that they could be friends. If the erotic role she’d played in his dreams the last two nights wasn’t a sign of how wrong he’d been, then their encounter in Colin’s kitchen yesterday morning was.
All it had taken was a touch and his body had reacted to her. The idea that her lips had been in the same spot as his on a coffee mug had shot his testosterone level through the roof. It was an asinine, pubescent reaction, and one that even now had him growing hard thinking about. Liz had been just as affected—that much was clear from the way her nipples jabbed at the surprisingly feminine robe that matched the color that rose in her cheeks.
He’d done some hard thinking on the idea that there was only one right guy for her, and what he’d come up with was the concept was bullshit, nothing more than a flippant remark on her part. She’d said as much two nights ago. That didn’t change the fact that she held no respect for her mother’s loose ways and, quite likely, suffered the inability to enjoy sex enough to orgasm because of them. That inability had to be the reason Liz had attempted to seduce him, because despite her accusations to the contrary, she believed in his reputation as a gifted lover. She believed he could deliver her from orgasm exile. And she was right, he could.
Dusty had vowed not to sleep with her again, but that was before he knew sex was the best thing for them both. Showing Liz that she had a working G-spot would get her out of his head while repaying the favor she’d done for him. Massacring his ability as a lover had accomplished more than make him reflect on his roots and feel like a once-again failure. It had opened his eyes, made him see he wanted more out of sex than to know he was the champion of the fast, easy fuck. That wasn’t to say he wanted a relationship. Just to spend more than a handful of minutes chatting with a woman before he banged her. He wanted to know there was a little challenge involved in getting a woman into his bed and that she wasn’t there solely because of his reputation.
“I need to talk to you now. Is there someplace private we can go?”
The need to move past his want for her brought unexpected desperation to his voice. Desperation Liz clearly heard, because she frowned but then nodded. “Fine. We can use the stockroom.”
“Order up in three, Liz,” a guy in a white sous-chef hat and matching chef’s coat called from behind the hot food line.
“Which
way?” Dusty asked.
She nodded toward a stairwell on the opposite side of the kitchen. “Down the stairs and to the right. I have three minutes, so whatever’s on your miniscule mind, I suggest you share it damned fast.”
Fast wasn’t nearly long enough for the sexual awakening he had planned. But fast could allow enough time to entice her into coming over to his house later.
Liz followed him down the stairs and inside the stockroom, flicking on the overhead light. He closed the door and twisted the lock, then turned to find her sinking back against a metal-rod-framed shelf of canned goods.
With a wary glance at the door, she crossed her arms under her breasts. He guessed she meant the move to make her look standoffish, but all it accomplished was plumping the soft mounds in an alluring way even her manly uniform couldn’t hide.
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you want, Marr?”
“You.”
Gasping, she shot to her feet. “What?”
She’d called for fast, so that’s how Dusty moved. He grabbed her arm and spun her around so that her ass rubbed temptingly against his groin. Dropping his lips to her ear, he popped the button on her tuxedo pants, yanked the zipper down, and slipped his hand inside, past her panties, to find both the soft cotton and her curls dewy.
Pleasure to know that he got to her as thoroughly as she did him cruised through his body and had his cock expanding to new limits. Pleasure that was all about the physical, he assured himself. “Got the party started early, babe. Your pussy’s already nice and juicy wet for me.”
“I am not—” The denial died on a moan as he parted her curls to tease her clit. He circled his thumb around the bundle of nerves. She reared back, sliding her buttocks along the length of his dick, nearly eliciting a moan of his own. “Ohmigawd. This is sooo wrong. I work here. We could get caught.”
He nipped at her earlobe, inhaling her scent. So many of the women he slept with covered themselves in perfume and body spray. Liz’s scent was natural, the clean smell of soap and woman mixed with the musky tang of her excitement. He loved that about her. Loved, in the purely nonromantic sense of the word. “It adds thrill, remember?”
She wriggled around his finger as he sank it into the deliciously wet warmth of her sex. Her hips shot backward. He drew his finger out partway, then pushed it in again, repeating the act when she whimpered and contracted her feminine muscles.
One of her hands reached behind her, finding and squeezing his shaft through his jeans. “And, apparently, kills brain cells.”
Something that felt too much like bitterness pushed through Dusty with her insinuation that she would have to be stupid to sleep with him. He laughed it off. “I owe you a little added thrill for the other night.”
Liz stiffened. “I’m not one of your cheap-thrill flavors of the week. If you think you can leave me to screw someone else and then come back days later to finish what we started, you’re wrong.”
His finger stilled with the tone of her voice. Hurt, and beyond that, jealousy. But no. He had to have heard wrong. She’d just made it clear she thought their behavior was foolish, and beyond that, neither of them was in the market for a relationship.
Not as content with that truth as he should be, Dusty resumed the insert-and-withdrawal play of his finger. “Relax, killer. There was no one else. I was hard for you. There has only been you since that first night.” She stiffened again with that last part. Words he hadn’t meant to speak and ones he wasn’t going to waste their precious time dwelling on. “Enough talk.”
He shoved her forward so that she had to brace her hands against the shelving to stop from careening into the canned goods face forward. She screeched and then hissed out a breath as he jerked her pants and panties midway down her thighs, exposing her ass to the kiss of the air. Later he’d plant several kisses of his own upon her fine behind, then follow them up with some long-deserved spankings. Now, he brought his fingers back to her clit. He plucked at the stiff bud with one hand while he freed his aching cock with the other, exposing it between the vee of his zipper. He dipped into her sex with his fingers, found that she was still good and dripping, and then rammed into her from behind.
Liz puffed out a gasp and coiled her fingers around the shelf’s metal framing while her pussy received him with a tight, wet, wonderful squeeze that could never feel the same encased in a condom. Savoring the raw sensation of skin on sensitized skin, he slid his free hand beneath her shirt and bra to her breast.
Two pumps of his hips, two tweaks of her clit, and a single nipple rub and she thrashed in his arms like a woman possessed. “Holy shit! I’m going to come. Like really, really soon.”
Without the latex between them, Dusty could easily feel her tightening around him, milking his length, edging her ever closer to orgasm. The idea he might be the first to supply her with a real climax took a hit at his self-control. The lack of latex pushed that control to the snapping point, hurtling him too damned close to his own release.
Time to get out before he completely lost it.
He allowed one last thrust and then pulled from her body, conscious of the shaking state of his limbs. Direct connect was all that it was about. It had been years since he’d done anything as stupid as having sex without a condom, and then it had been with a woman he trusted enough to believe her when she said she was on birth control.
Ignoring the throb of his erection, he eased his hand from beneath her bra, then pulled her pants up over her hips and tugged at the zipper.
Liz rounded on him before he could get to the button. “You, bastard, don’t you dare stop now!”
Because stopping was the last thing he wanted to do, Dusty focused on adjusting his clothes. “Your order should be up.”
“My order? Forget my damned order and focus on my orgasm!”
“And let you lose your job? Not a chance, babe. You want to finish this, ya know where I live.” He went to the door, turning back when he reached it. The unguarded need in her eyes was almost his undoing. When she looked at him that way, with every bit of her tough-girl edge stripped way, it made him want to do crazy things, not to mention think crazy thoughts he had no desire to have. The kind of thoughts that belied his vow never to settle on one single lover. The kind of thoughts she would probably coldcock him for if she found out about them.
Dusty shut out those dangerous thoughts and the acute urge to pull her back into his arms. He kept his voice even, if not a little on the cocky side—it was what she expected of him. “And, Elizabeth, bring an overnight bag. I don’t care if it takes all night or all week, you’re not leaving until you get off for real, several times.”
8
“You need the added thrill.”
Hey, how’s it going to you, too? Liz thought nervously as she stepped inside Dusty’s house. She’d dropped Colin off here before, when his truck had been in the shop, but had never ventured inside the ranch-style house. The décor reflected Dusty’s Texas roots, from the knotty pine furniture finished naturally with shellac and stain to the tanned brown and white cowhide rug that centered the living room’s pine floor. Country wasn’t generally her thing, but here the theme felt right.
Liz brought her attention to the man who’d opened the door before she could knock. A pleased grin lit Dusty’s face, drawing out the strong angles of his whisker-roughened jawline and spotlighting straight white teeth she had the sudden and burning desire to slide her tongue over. Aware that one more step inside would mean no turning back, she didn’t budge.
She’d been uncertain about coming here. Afraid to know the reason he hadn’t stayed true to his reputation and banged several dozen women over the course of the last few months.
Jesus, there had only been her.
Unless that claim had been a lie. Gawd, how she wanted to believe it a lie.
Not able to look Dusty in the eyes and keep up a composed front, she slid her gaze downward. To find his blue-black dress shirt sexily rumpled and open to reveal the hard, lean lines o
f his torso from neck to abdomen. Warmth unleashed in her belly and quickly spread outward, further wetting a pussy that had been damp since he’d shown up at her work. Shown up and, with just a few strokes, reduced her to a quivering mass of horny female.
She struggled to sound blasé. “Added thrill for what?”
“To come.”
Her nerves frazzled a little more. She truly did have the IQ of a stick of Juicy Fruit to believe a man with his track record wouldn’t be able to tell when a woman was faking orgasm.
Fighting the urge to shift, Liz met his eyes with a roll of her own. “Pull-eaze. I’ve come a gazillion times.”
“Guess you aren’t interested in my idea, then.”
She should say no, explain that she’d only come here to tell him to stop messing with her head or risk losing his nuts to her Leatherman while he slept. Only, she didn’t have a Leatherman. And she had plans for his nuts.
She shrugged out of her jacket and handed it to him. It was, either that or act like a complete chicken shit and make a break for her car. No way would she allow him the satisfaction of knowing he had the power to unnerve her. Planting a hand on her hip, she shrugged. “Fine. Humor yourself.”
A smile twitched at Dusty’s lips. She expected a sarcastic remark to follow. Or worse, for him to prove how badly she wanted to know his idea by tempting the words out of her with an expert caress. He didn’t make a move toward her but turned away to toss her jacket on the back of the only piece of living-room furniture that didn’t appear handmade—a faded burgundy La-Z-Boy that looked older than he was. He turned back to ask, “Do you trust me?”
His expression was as sober as she’d ever seen it. Liz snorted anyway. “That supposed to be some kinda joke?”
“I need your trust and your agreement to do whatever I ask.” He moved into the center of the living room and took a seat on the couch. “You know I’d never harm you, Elizabeth.”
Operation G-Spot Page 9