Pay Up

by Kaily Hart

  No, you managed to do that all on your own.

  She shook her head. God, she just wanted to crawl into a tiny ball in the comfort of her own bed, wrap her arms around herself and cry, just let it all go. She didn’t think she could hold it together much longer.

  “I just need to get out of here,” she rasped, her voice sounding odd, even to her.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  Only if you consider a ripped and bleeding heart feeling all right.

  “Fine. I’m fine. I just need to leave.” “Okay, I’ll take you.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s just a few blocks.”

  He frowned and grasped her arm lightly as she turned back away from him.

  Carly looked down at his arm. Even though he was wearing a long-sleeved navy shirt, she could still clearly picture the ragged scar that made her sick to her stomach every time she saw it, thought of the danger he regularly faced. It also served as a mocking reminder that while she might treasure every word, every second of that night, he didn’t even know he’d touched her, held her, been inside her.

  “You can’t walk by yourself. It’s dangerous and—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Just go back to your—what’s her name—and…”

  “Who? Carly, what’s wrong?”

  I’m jealous, you moron!

  She almost yelled it at him. Almost, but she caught herself in time.

  “Me?” she asked instead and shrugged his arm off. Was he really that clueless or was she just a much better actress than she’d ever given herself credit for? Carly looked around the crowed bar. Any number of Rio’s buddies would be better than trying to pretend everything was still good between them and it would satisfy his protective streak.

  “Fine, but I’ll get someone else to walk me back.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  Carly turned for the door. “I’m leaving. I’m just…leaving.”

  He grabbed her arm again. “If you think I’m going to let you just walk out of—”

  “Let me? Let me? What I do has nothing to do with you. I—”

  “Christ. If you’re leaving, I’m taking you and that’s that.”

  “You have no right to—”

  Carly broke off when he yanked her against him. Hard. It brought her up solidly against his chest and shut her up as probably nothing else would have. With the four- inch heels on her boots, it also brought her face almost level with his.

  His jaw clenched, his nostrils flared slightly.

  Carly swallowed as she looked at him. She was clamped hard along the length of his big body. He smelled fresh and male and musky. She’d never been this close to him before. Well, she had, but it had been over so fast she’d barely had time to appreciate the sensation and certainly not when he was looking at her with blazing eyes that dropped to her lips when she licked them. Not for the first time she mentally kicked herself for not taking advantage of that one time she’d had to touch him, to taste him, to just kid herself, even if it was for only a minute, that he was hers.

  Carly didn’t know what came over her, didn’t know where she got the nerve, but she stood on tiptoes and put her mouth against his. In the instant she realized what she’d done, she pulled back, but he clamped a hand to the back of her head and held her in place, angled his head more to the side and…kissed her. Deep.

  It could hardly be called a kiss. His tongue licked at her lips and then dipped inside and then out again in a rhythm that had her pressing her body farther into his to try to find some kind of relief from the fierce and immediate hunger raging through her. It felt as if he were fucking her with his mouth. It might have been brief, but her body remembered what he’d felt like inside her. She felt the clench between her legs, the moisture she couldn’t prevent, the burn in the pit of her stomach, and felt so dizzy all she wanted to do was lie down. With him on top of her.

  She felt his other hand against her lower back, pressing her into him and then she felt…him. He was huge and hard against her abdomen, even through two layers of denim.

  Carly met his tongue with her own, groaning into his mouth, clutching at his shirt with fisted hands, trying to get even closer to him.

  She heard the whistles and cheers as if from a distance, gradually permeating the fog of hunger and need clawing at her.

  “About damn time.” She heard someone call out as Rio pulled back. He glanced around.

  “Fuck,” he snarled. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Carly shivered in the sharp, crisp air outside the bar and wrapped her arms around herself. She hated wearing anything that made her feel hot when she was out and never wanted the hassle of having to carry a jacket, which meant she usually froze going to and from.

  Rio shrugged off his jacket and draped it across her shoulders. God, it smelled just like him, and with the warmth of his big body still lingering inside it, she could almost imagine it was his arms wrapped around her.

  “Rio, no, you’ll be cold. Take it back.”

  “You know me better than that.”

  Yeah, she did and that was half her problem. She knew him, needed him, loved him until she ached with it. He might be rough around the edges, but he had the ingrained manners of the most finely educated gentlemen. Compliments of a traditional father who believed women should be cared for and treasured, Rio had once told her.

  The gesture, despite his anger and how much of a bitch she was being, brought the sting of tears to her eyes again and a thick knot to the back of her throat.

  He walked beside her, his hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the cold. Separate. It just drove home how she’d become used to him walking beside her, close, holding her arm or his hand resting in the small of her back. She’d become used to his attentiveness, his consideration, his caring. And now? She only had herself to blame because he was already distancing himself from her and she couldn’t help but push, and now she’d probably pushed him all the way out of her life.

  Chapter Five

  “Look, I’m sorry about the kiss, okay?”

  “You are?”

  She frowned. “You aren’t?”

  “I prefer to do my kissing without an audience.”

  What kind of answer was that?

  She’d thought he’d just shrug it off. Since they’d come up to her apartment, the way he was looking at her was doing weird things to her stomach.

  She wet her dry lips. Her breath caught with the realization that he’d been licking them not that long ago. She could almost imagine she could still taste him.

  “Why did they say ‘about time’? At the bar, I heard someone shout it.”

  “Cole. It was Cole and I guess I haven’t been as subtle as I thought I had.”

  Huh?

  His eyes were focused on her mouth. She held her breath as Rio walked to her and put a big hand on either side of her face, his fingers feeling a little rough against her cheeks. Her heart beat so hard she was sure he must be able to hear it.

  “I’m done with subtle,” he warned.

  She swallowed. He looked at her for a second, two, before he lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her in a string of nibbling forays, each one deeper than the last until his tongue was mating with hers in a series of movements that shot sensation straight between her legs, had her gasping for air, her hands fisted in his shirt on each side of his waist.

  She registered his hands at the back of her neck but didn’t realize his intention until she felt cool air against her naked breasts. She shivered in reaction.

  He pulled back to look at her. Her breasts had to be completely bare to him, yet he didn’t take his eyes from hers.

  “I’ve never seen you naked before,” he whispered, his voice guttural. “I’ve never touched you like this before, at least not with what’s in my head right now…yet it doesn’t feel as if I’m touching you for the first time, as if this is a first time for us. Do you know what I mean?”

  Yeah, she knew exactly what he meant
.

  “I…” She moistened her lips, tasting him, and swallowed against the dryness of her throat. God, should she? “Um…technically, it’s not…our first time, I mean.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, the look in his eyes searing. “Doesn’t count. I thought I was dreaming, for one.”

  The way he looked at her made her stomach flip-flop and she felt it low down in her abdomen. “You—you remember?”

  “You thought I didn’t?”

  “You didn’t say anything.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “Then how do you know it was real?”

  “I did think it must have been all in my head until…”

  “Until?”

  “Until you cleaned me off. I knew it wasn’t a dream for sure when you cleaned me off. No one else would have touched me so carefully, taking care of me like that. Carls…” He took a deep breath. “God, Carls, I didn’t force you, did I?”

  “Force me?”

  “I outweigh you by probably a hundred pounds. I was…out of it, delirious at best. At first, anyway. If you’d wanted to, I’m not sure you could have stopped me and I—”

  “I didn’t even try.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “Did you come?”

  “You mean, you don’t know?”

  Rio shook his head.

  “You asked me, you know. After…you asked me.”

  “And?”

  “And…yeah, I did.”

  He let out a breath he must have been holding. His eyes finally lowered and he looked his fill, his gaze blazing a heat she could almost feel against her skin.

  “I can do a lot better than that. In case you were wondering.”

  It had eaten at him, tormented him as nothing ever had, the thought he might have forced something on her she wouldn’t have chosen otherwise. That and the probability she hadn’t gotten any pleasure from it.

  God, she was gorgeous. Her breasts were rounded, full on the bottom with small pink nipples on top. As much as he wanted to touch her, kiss her, lick and suck on them until she squirmed against him, there was something he wanted more, something he hadn’t been able to get out of his head time and again as she’d tortured him in those barely there shorts.

  “Turn around.”

  His voice came out rougher than he’d intended, but the punch to his gut he got almost brought him to his knees when she did as he asked without question.

  He stepped to her back, his lips at her ear, the sweet scent of her making him lightheaded.

  “I want to touch every inch of you. Hell, I want to lickevery inch of you,” he rasped.

  His balls tightened when he felt the shiver chase across her skin. He ran his hands over her shoulders and down her bare back, trying to keep the touch light, around the slight indentation of her waist exposed by the low-slung jeans and up her front until both hands covered her breasts. He groaned as he weighed them, sliding his palms back and forth across her silky skin. He could feel the hard points of her nipples against their center and the short, erratic breaths she took each time he brushed against the sensitive peaks.

  He bit her neck carefully. God, her skin was so soft and smooth right where it met her shoulder and she smelled so damn good.

  Shaking with need, he eased one hand down the smooth skin of her abdomen and into the waistband of her jeans. He wasn’t in the mood to drag it out as he once might have. His fingers delved straight under the thin panties and met hot, wet flesh. He smiled savagely when she jerked at the contact and was rewarded with a moan that sounded as if it were torn from her.

  He glanced at her. Her head was thrown back against his shoulder, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open as she panted.

  He felt the pre-cum he couldn’t have prevented if his life depended on it. It was almost as if his cock knew what he cupped in his palm…and it wanted. Hewanted. God, he wanted nothing more than to yank down her jeans, bend her over and plow into her from behind until he was buried inside her as far as he could go. But first, first he wanted to explore the curve of her ass where it met her leg. The thought of it had driven him crazy for months when she’d pranced around in her miniscule shorts.

  Carly couldn’t prevent the whimper when he eased his hand from between her legs. The light touch hadn’t been nearly enough. The protest she’d had ready died in her throat as he yanked at the button of her jeans, taking the zipper down in the same savage movement, and pushed the snug denim down her hips in rough, jerky tugs.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he groaned.

  What?”

  “You were wearing a thong almost the same as this the day we met.”

  All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing as he knelt on the floor behind her and cupped her bare buttocks exposed by the thong in his big, rough hands.

  “And you would know that…how?”

  “I saw the edge of your panties when you bent over. They were a blue-green color, edged with pink lace. I’ve never been able to get that sight out of my head.”

  Carly jumped when he put his mouth to her, opened it against her skin, low where her buttock met her thigh, and sucked lightly. She tried to drag in a much-needed breath when he continued to nibble, lick and suck on her, alternating back and forth between the cheeks of her ass until it felt as if he’d kissed every exposed inch of her.

  “I can smell how wet you must be.”

  She gasped when he placed a hand against her lower back.

  “Bend over.”

  Trembling, Carly grabbed for the nearest solid surface and ended up grasping one of her breakfast stools as she leaned forward.

  “Oh Christ,” he breathed as he slid a single finger between her buttocks under the thin line of her thong and pulled it to the side. He rubbed lightly between her legs, up and down her slit, spreading her moisture until she couldn’t keep her lower body still against the sensation. She just wanted to thrust back on his finger, impale herself on it, anything to stem the ache he’d created.

  “Rio…”

  “I want to learn every single thing you like. I want to know what turns you on, what makes you come. And then I’m going to start all over again.”

  Carly felt his hot breath against the throbbing wet flesh, felt him gently part her with his hands before he put his mouth to her and licked in a bold, firm stroke along the length of her, from the front as far as his tongue would reach all the way back to the puckered entrance of her ass. She gasped at the feel of the slight rasp of his whiskers against the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. He repeated it, his wicked tongue licking at her, over and over, until she was struggling to breathe. She closed her eyes against the crescendo of need, but it only focused her senses on the soft, wet suckling sounds as he ate at her.

  The ache between her legs, centered in her swollen clit, was so intense she stung from it. Carly reached between her legs, aching, desperate, the sensations almost more than she could stand. She just needed a firm touch, just one, but Rio grasped her hand before she could make contact with herself.

  “No. As hot as that is, you’ll get your pleasure from my mouth, my hands, my body. Maybe next time you can tease me with how and where you like to touch yourself. This time it’s going to be all me.”

  “Rio… Rio, please…the bed.”

  “Not yet,” he growled against her as he put his mouth to her again.

  And then she felt the much-needed pressure against her clit…a finger, a thumb, rubbing in a circular motion in perfect concert to his relentless tongue, and just like that she was catapulted over.

  Carly threw her head back as the sensations exploded between her legs and speared out in tingling rivulets to every part of her body. She called out, she must have, because her throat was dry or perhaps that was just because of the lungfuls of air she struggled to drag in.

  She’d never come standing up before. Her legs still felt shaky, her breathing nowhere near normal when he dropped her on her bed. He must have carried her and he had
to have been holding her up at the end, because she doubted she’d been able to stand through that on her own.

  She watched, dazed, as he yanked her boots off, tugged her jeans down and flung the top that had gotten trapped around her hips aside.

  When she tried to help him by lifting her hips up to take off her thong, he stopped her.

  “No,” he rasped. “Leave them on for a while longer.”

  Rio could still taste her against his tongue. The smell of her filled his nostrils as he took a deep breath. It was rich and musky and caused his cock to throb in response. He was already harder than he’d ever been before and now it was almost painful in its intensity.

  There was the overwhelming need again. The screaming need to hurry, to take, to just…fuck. Mindlessly. He shook his head. He’d be damned if he’d jump her like a horny teen again. No, he was going to use every ounce of experience and expertise he’d ever gained. He was going to make her scream and beg and cry out his name. He was going to make her want him as she’d never wanted another man before and damn it, she wouldn’t forget it or him anytime soon.

  When her thighs shifted on the bed and his focus went between her legs, he knew he wanted to go down on her again. This time he wanted her completely open to him, her thighs up on his shoulders and her hands clutching his hair, showing him just how she wanted it. And he wanted to look up at her and watch her face when she went over.

  He nudged her thighs a little farther apart as he settled between her legs on the bed. He kissed and licked the smooth skin on the inside of her knee and worked his way up with a string of kisses until he met the edge of her panties. She smelled incredible, her release making it richer, sweeter, hotter. He skipped to the other side and made his way up to her other knee. By the time he licked his way back down again she was writhing on the bed, panting, her hips pushing up to him.

  “Don’t you dare,” she whispered, her voice ragged.

  He laughed against her. He’d been going to skip across the triangle of silk again. Instead he relented, using two fingers to gently ease the soaked panel of her panties aside, and blew gently against her. She shivered and groaned. She was golden here too. Soft, short strands of light hair, trimmed into a neat strip above her wet, swollen folds. Beneath she was pink and glistening, her clit a small, engorged bud. He could barely wait to put his mouth to her again and lick up all of the juice he could see.