by Stacy Gail
“I tracked you to this neighborhood and figured since you were visiting at this time of night, it had to be dinner.”
“It’s an important Santiago family tradition. Sunday night means dinner over at Mom and Dad’s.” Then she shook her head. Like he needed to know any of that. “I wish I’d known you were going to be in town, sweetheart. I would have invited you over for some great home cooking.” And yeah, she’d admit it—to meet the family.
“I didn’t know I was going to be back in town myself until the guy we’d been hired to guard went home early. You ready to follow me out of here? I’ve been sitting here for a while imagining having you all to myself, and I’m getting pretty antsy to make all my imaginings a reality.”
Feverish heat flushed her skin in an all-over body blush. “You should have knocked on the door as soon as you got here. We could have made our excuses and been together all this time.”
“If I’d done that, there’s no way I could’ve gotten you out of there without getting the third-degree by everyone in that house. Since that was a definite deflating prospect, I decided to keep to myself. Now,” he went on when the mention of deflating made her smirk, “are you going to follow me outta here, or what?”
For an answer, she reached for her seatbelt and started the car.
She wasn’t surprised when he took a route that led straight to his place, though her place was closer. Her tiny studio didn’t have enough room for what she suspected he had in mind, considering there was only room for the couch. Her suspicion was pretty much confirmed after she parked next to his truck in a private garage nestled in the building he owned. As she closed the car door behind her, she didn’t even have time to pocket her keys before she was hauled into Steele’s powerful arms. Her feet left the ground as he enveloped her in a fierce embrace, his face coming to press into the hollow of her neck as if he wanted to burrow under her skin and become a part of her.
“Damn, you feel good, Essie. Like comfort and happiness and home.” His words were growled into her throat, vibrating through her until they were all she felt. “I’ve had some long-ass days in my time, but I swear these past eight days were the fucking longest.”
Happily she sifted her hands through his thick, waving hair. She could play with his hair for days and not get bored. “Tell me about it.”
“Did you miss me, sweetness?”
“I never knew I could miss someone like I’ve missed you.” His mouth came up and captured hers on the last word of her confession, as if he couldn’t wait long enough for her to finish speaking before he got a taste of her.
Even if he hadn’t held her suspended inches above the ground, she had no doubt that she would have floated right off her feet as his mouth opened on hers. Vaguely she was aware of him walking through the semidarkness of the garage before they emerged in the yellow and bronze glow of the entrance hall. And all the while, his mouth never stopped making love with hers, as if he couldn’t fill himself enough with the taste of her.
“I’m addicted to you,” he muttered against her lips, at last setting her on her feet so they could ascend the stairs. “So fucking addicted that I don’t even care that I’m hooked. All I care about is getting my next Essie fix.”
“Here’s hoping you never enter a twelve-step program to kick the habit.” As they moved up to the second level, she offered her mouth to him while sliding a loving hand down his back to the curve of his rock-hard ass. Her fingers dug in, testing that spectacular strength, and gloried in his quick intake of breath. “I’m just as addicted to you, and I don’t want to be alone in that addiction.”
“No worries on that score.” He grabbed her again as they neared his darkened bedroom, hauling her up like a princess and capturing her mouth again in a quick, hard kiss. “We’re in this together.”
That sounded great to her.
He deposited her on the military-neat made bed with a light bounce before he left her. A moment later light flared by the bedside, and she watched him with a burgeoning excitement she couldn’t hide. “I’m glad you put the light on. I love watching your face when you come inside me.”
“Listen to you.” Something both ravenous and delighted rippled through his expression, even as his scorching gaze roamed over her. “Where did my shy little Teacher’s Pet go?”
“Do you not approve?”
“You kidding? I’m frigging proud of how far you’ve come, Es. Your courage is one of the many, many things about you that gets me hot.”
“Really?” Kicking off her leather mules, she sat back on her calves in the middle of the bed and held a hand out to him. “Come show me just how hot you are. I need convincing.”
“Damn, woman.” He took a short breath, as if he couldn’t find enough air in the room, before opening a drawer in the nightstand to fish out the almost-depleted box of condoms. “Last couple of times we’ve been together, you’ve managed to give me the Holy Grail for men—the legendary multiple orgasm.”
She couldn’t keep stop the beaming smile. “You have no idea how proud I am of that. Felt good, didn’t it, Professor?”
“Jesus, fuck, yeah.” A shudder went through him, his face taut with raw hunger. God, he’d never looked sexier. “Problem is, both times I overflowed the condom. Hell, the last time I obliterated the damn thing altogether.”
“I know.” They’d discussed the condom failure when it had been discovered, and she lifted a shoulder as the faint echo of melancholy echoed through her. “I told you what the doctors said after my attack—they said I’d have a difficult time getting pregnant due to future scarring. Pregnancy could happen, but their exact words were ‘you have the same chance of getting pregnant as you do getting struck by lightning.’ Not exactly promising.”
“I get that, but lightning can strike even when blue skies are overhead, so I’m not taking any chances this time around.”
She eyed the condom box, bewildered. “Are you going to, uh, double-wrap?” That didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun for him.
He shook his head and began unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s time for your next lesson—Oral 201, and on tap for this particular lesson is everything oral. Everything. Think you can handle it?”
Suddenly she was the one who found it difficult to breathe. “I doubt anyone could ever truly handle you, but I’ll do my best. I’ve been very curious about how you taste.”
“Jesus.” A harsh sound escaped him, and it made her pause, suddenly uncertain.
“Is that wrong? Or weird? Or—”
“No, baby, it’s excellent.” The hungry smile he graced her with made her flush all over. “Christ, it’s fucking fantastic.”
She relaxed with a smile. “Whew. Good.”
“Remember this, Essie—there’s no such thing as wrong when we’re together. Do whatever you want, say whatever you want. We don’t have boundaries, you and I. Not when it comes to this. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now… you’re overdressed for class, Pet.”
Without another word, Essie rose to her feet. Standing barefoot in the middle of the bed and eyes locked on his the way he liked it, her hands went to the side zip of her skirt. It was a summer-light creation made of yellow gauze and chiffon, and it floated down to pool at her feet with a shimmy of her hips. The matching sleeveless top was next, and in a handful of moments she stood before him in nothing but a matching set of bra and panties in a pretty shade of buttercup yellow. She couldn’t help but smile as his eyes made a meal of her. The obvious appreciation in his heated gaze made her feel more beautiful than she ever had in her life.
“Now who’s overdressed?”
“You are.” The roughness in his voice thrilled her beyond measure. He sounded like a man straining against an invisible leash that was slowly strangling him, and everything in her yearned to snap that leash in two. “Everything off, Pet. Now. Your Professor wants to see every luscious inch of you.”
“Have you noticed that I’m the only one who regularly gets
naked around here?” Some little devil got inside her, prompting her to pivot on the bed until her back was to him. Taking her time, she reached behind herself to unhook her bra’s catch, then glanced back at him as she gave her shoulders a sinuous shrug to make the straps slip off. “I’ve noticed it anyway. Am I wrong?”
His heated gaze was like a tangible thing, roaming over her bare back, her ass, her thighs. It took him a long while to retrace his route back up to her eyes. “I’ll get there soon enough, baby. Keep going.”
“It’s just that I’m always first. Why is that?”
“As your professor I have to keep it professional, but I promise we’ll be on equal footing tonight. Now, go more slowly with the panties, sweetness. Slow enough to make me hurt. Make me enjoy the view.”
“If you insist, Professor.” She tossed the bra aside, then hooked her thumbs inside the hem of her panties, pleased with how the pastel color looked against her darker, golden skin. With any luck, he liked the contrast as well. “I wonder though… how slow is slow?” With a smile that had to be as naughty as she suddenly felt, she rolled her hips a bit and felt the lacy hem of her panties slide just pass the crack of her ass. Then she arched her lower back and pulled the thin material taut so that it became like a second skin and she could feel the slight discomfort of the fabric wedging between her cheeks. “Is this slow enough for you, Professor?”
She heard him swallow. “You know what, fuck slow. Get them off.”
“But I think I like slow.” Pulling her panties higher until they fit her like a thong, she then ran her hands over the generous bubble of her bare ass cheeks and gave them a squeeze. “Yeah, I’ve decided. Slow is good. We. Are. Doing. Slow.”
“You have,” he gritted out through what sounded like the world’s tightest jaw, “the finest apple-bottom ass I have ever seen, and if you don’t uncover it completely for me in the next ten seconds, you’re going to leave me no choice but to spank every fucking inch of it. One. Two. Three…”
Waves of goose bumps broke out over her flesh at the promise that was both ominous and delicious. Surely he wouldn’t actually spank her, like some misbehaving little brat.
Would he?
“Four.”
Hm.
Wet heat bloomed between her thighs, her cleft throbbing with a rush of blood that was sparked by pure, raw lust. It made her squirm in a fever of delight as she leisurely pulled the fragile material down inch by agonizing inch until it was just under the fullness of her cheeks. There she paused again to give him another look over her shoulder.
“There. That should be uncovered enough for you, right? It should be. I mean, this is exactly what you asked for. But that’s all that you asked for. So that’s all you get.” She couldn’t hide the breathlessness in her voice, even as she gave her booty an experimental bounce, just to see if he’d like it.
His eyes became so hot it was a wonder she didn’t explode into flames as their focus moved from her butt to her, and inexorably back again as he began to strip. “Five, six, seven, eight.”
“Too fast.” A squeal escaped her as she slithered the panties down her thighs. She could have simply let them fall once they reached her knees, but if her man wanted to get an eyeful, that was what he was going to get.
“Nine.” She heard the jingle of his belt buckle, then the sound of clothes hitting the floor.
Ah.
Music to her ears.
She wasn’t an insanely flexible person, but she could touch her toes and almost press her nose to her knees. That was the position she assumed now as her panties at last brushed her ankles. She concentrated on lifting a foot free of the delicate material without losing her balance on the cushioned surface when hard, scorching hands clamped unexpectedly around her naked hips.
“Ten.” Before she could draw a breath, she felt his teeth sink into the inner swell of her ass cheek close to where her legs came together.
“Steele.” Shock, and a vast wave of desire surged through her when her velvety folds hiding the entrance were brushed by his mouth.
“You offer yourself up by getting into this outrageously fuckable pose, don’t be mad when I take you up on it.” His hands moved to possess her butt cheeks and exerting pressure so that she had to step wider or fall over.
“Yeah, that’s it. You know you want to spread wider for me, don’t you?” The wet slide of his tongue against her outer folds shocked her anew and she stiffened, trying to straighten. What the hell, she thought, her heart thudding. When he’d mentioned oral, she’d assumed he’d meant just him. He couldn’t possibly like the taste or smell of her intimate place, especially when she’d already soaked her panties through before she’d stripped them off. She couldn’t let him do that again, she absolutely couldn’t.
Feverishly she tried to wrench herself out of his grip. “Steele, no. Don’t.”
“Easy. Easy. This is just part of the lesson.”
“I don’t want this lesson.”
He paused even as her alarmed voice rang around the room, and that stillness calmed her, as it was clear he had at least heard her. “Were you hurt by that fucker’s mouth? Am I scaring you because of that?”
“No, it’s not that, and that guy is dead so he’s not even a consideration anymore. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting, uh…that. This is just…”
“Wonderful, is what it is, baby,” he finished for her when her voice got drowned in a sea of embarrassment. “But I get it. I’m going too fast for you, so I need to teach you nice and slow before we get to the heavy stuff how incredible this will be. Get down on your knees, Pet, but keep them wide open for me.”
“Steele, seriously, I think I’ve hit my limit.” Her face and neck were uncomfortably hot as she did as she was asked, her hands coming to rest on her thighs. As she settled in, he climbed onto the bed behind her, and one brush from his body told her that he’d gotten rid of the barrier of his clothes. “I’m fine with my mouth on you, but as to having it the other way around…just no.”
“I hear you.” His arms came around her from behind and gave her an almost brotherly hug. Brotherly, except for the red-hot erection poking into the small of her back. “I’m hearing you say no, all right? And I respect that. I’m just going to do my best to convince you that you’re completely wrong.”
Oh, hell. “Look, the mood’s seriously been broken for me. I mean—” Her breath sucked in sharply when one of his hands slid up to possessively engulf a breast, his fingers boldly tweaking the nipple to aching life, while his other hand went between her legs to do the same to her clit.
“I’ll tell you now, it’s just a damn shame you’ve lost the mood, Pet.” His voice was rough velvet against her ear as he began a synchronized massage of these two unbearably sensitive hot spots. “A man’s got a lot to answer for if he’s careless enough to let his woman’s mood slip away, especially when she went to all the trouble of getting as wet as you’ve gotten for me. Don’t you agree?”
“Ah.” She tried to form words. Tried to even remember what words were. But her brain wouldn’t work. It had been irrevocably shut down by savage, throbbing sensation pulsing from where he touched, making every nerve in her body hum with pleasure.
And he wanted to have a conversation?
Yeah. No.
Not going to happen.
“Yeah, you do. You agree with me.” His chin nudged her hair away from her ear so he could gently sink his teeth into the lobe. Magnificent. “Now I’ve got to get my shit together and do everything I can to rekindle your mood, but I’ve gotta be honest with you, sweetness. I don’t know if I can do it. I think I’m going to need your cooperation. You think you can do that for me?”
Her gasps were short, shallow, and in perfect sync with the rhythm of his hands. She could only reach behind her to pull him flush against her before pressing her hands over his. The steel-pipe length of his erection pressed almost completely against her, exciting her all the more. She rubbed up against him, nudging her ass up so that h
is shaft got stroked by her crack in the hope that she gave him at least a fraction of the pleasure he gave her.
“That’s a good answer, baby.” His breathing became audible, a disturbance that thrilled her even as he played her body like a fine instrument. “Mm. That’s some sweet-ass cooperation right there, but I’m also going to need your patience and a little open-mindedness for what’s going to come—which will be you. Over and over again. You do want to come over and over again, don’t you, Pet?”
“Yes.” It was no more than a tremor of breath as pleasure sank into every cell of her body.
“Such a good Teacher’s Pet.” Again he bit at her lobe. Harder this time, before his mouth sucked away the faint pain. “You need to know that I’m going to do my damnedest to make you lose your fucking mind, Essie. Lose it so bad you never fully get it back. I want it so fucking blown that whenever you remember this night, even if it’s only for a second, not only will you be instantly in the mood that I need you to be in, you’ll also be in need of either a panty change or an immediate fucking. You know what mood I’m talking about, right?”
During this long and deliberate speech that was whispered against her ear, Steele stroked her without mercy, his powerful arms an inescapable cage as she shuddered and cried out, at first instinctively trying to escape the unrelenting stimulation that was simply too much to endure. Then something happened, a sweet drugging of her system, and without conscious consent her head fell back against his shoulder. Her eyes lost their focus as she concentrated only on where his hands touched her, her lips parting for her moaning breath to escape. In that moment she became his to control, his to command, her hips pumping against his hand while her brain checked out, too high on pleasure to know or comprehend anything else.
“I asked you a question, Essie.” His mouth moved to her shoulder and, just like her ass, bit down with a tantalizing sting, and it was enough to snap her out of her euphoric trance. “The mood I need you to be in…you know what that is, right?”