“You don’t have t—”
I stopped his argument by kissing him as fiercely as I wanted him to kiss me. My tongue tangled with his, gliding back and forth in a familiar dance. A few seconds of that, and his hands were moving again, like he meant business. He had my pants undone and sliding down my hips so fast it left my head spinning.
I wasn’t a passive party by any stretch of the imagination, working the buttons of his shirt loose and pushing it down his arms so we could be skin to skin, chest to chest.
“Fuck, baby,” he said, kneading my bottom until I arched my back, thrusting my breasts up toward him. He kissed the hollow of my neck, nibbling lightly. “Have I ever told you how much I love your tits?”
“Not in words, no.” I laughed, but it came out as a sultry sound I didn’t recognize as my own.
Then he was up on his feet, drawing my legs around his waist. I put my arms around his neck and held on as he carried me first to the kitchen for the condoms and then to his bedroom. When we got there, he flipped on all the lights and lay me back on his bed. He pitched the condoms next to me and skinned my pants down my legs, dragging my panties with them, and tossed it all to the floor. Then he stripped the rest of his clothes and added them to the pile.
Hunter sat on the edge of the bed, one hand resting on my upper thigh. I wriggled closer to him, wanting his touch in a far more intimate place. With one finger, he stroked the outer lips of my sex.
My breath caught in my throat. I wanted him to do what he’d said. I wanted him to cuff me to the bed and make me come like he’d described, but he was just sitting there and caressing me with the lightest of touches in a way that left me desperate for more.
I wanted him hard and fast and now, but he didn’t give me that. Instead, he drove me wild with tender strokes and gentle kisses, his tongue tracing patterns along my overheated flesh.
“Hunter,” I whined.
He flashed his eyes up to mine, not removing his tongue from my belly button, where he was currently wreaking havoc on my senses. The muscles in my abs jumped like they had a mind of their own.
I held out my hands to him, offering them up so he could handcuff me. I was ready. I wanted it. I wanted everything he would give me and more.
He licked a line up the center of my torso, my chest, my neck, slowly and deliberately, only stopping when his mouth was over mine. But he didn’t kiss me. He held his body above me, keeping his weight fully suspended. I rocked my hips, trying to get contact, and then he flattened himself over me, crushing me to the mattress in the most perfect way. He took my arms in his hands, gliding them up and over my head and holding them in place.
“Oh,” I said, the air rushing out of my lungs.
He kissed the end of my nose, his hands drifting downward over my arms until he could tickle and tease my underarms. “We have a minor problem.”
“What’s that?” I had to force myself not to laugh. It wasn’t condoms this time. I couldn’t imagine what was keeping him from following through with all those deliciously naughty promises he’d made.
“No handcuffs. I could go buy some, but—”
“You have ties.” No chance I was going to wait around while he got dressed, went to the store, and bought something. That could happen later.
A wicked smile stole over his face, and his eyes glimmered with mischief that left me squeezing my thighs around him.
“Gonna let me up to get one?” he asked.
Reluctantly, I released my grip on him. He rolled off me and got up. As he headed for his closet, I rolled over and watched. Hunter really had the perfect body—long and lean, strong muscles that stayed just this side of being too much. He had a tight butt and sculpted thighs. I’d already known about the dragon on his arm. Now I realized he had another tattoo on his butt, a pair of manicured women’s hands, one gripping each cheek.
I bit down on my lip to keep from laughing as he disappeared into the closet. A moment later, he came back with a couple of ties in his hands.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded, trying to sound gruff but failing miserably.
“Not funny. Just surprising.”
“The hands on my ass?”
I nodded, raking him in with my eyes.
He sat on the edge of the bed again and reached for one of my hands. “Blueprints,” he said. “That’s where your hands should be when I’m inside you. If I don’t have them tied, at least.” Then he winked.
My pulse had gone rogue, starting and stopping and stuttering and sprinting, giving up all pretense of a regular rhythm. In no time, Hunter had my wrists strapped together and tied to the headboard.
“That doesn’t hurt, does it? Not too tight?” He traced a finger down my arm, tickling the inside of my wrist and elbow as he went.
I shook my head.
He put an extra pillow under my head, then picked up a couple more. “Raise your hips for me,” he said.
As soon as I did, he put the cushions beneath me, angling my hips up.
He settled himself between my thighs, spreading them apart and opening me to his view. And he didn’t just look. He devoured me with his eyes.
With the lights on like that, I suddenly felt insanely self-conscious. I was used to being meticulously examined, but only after I’d been thoroughly plucked and waxed, my makeup airbrushed, every detail of my wardrobe gone over with an exacting eye, not a single hair out of place. This was entirely different. The longer he looked, the more uncomfortable I became. I tried to bring my thighs together, but he put a hand on the inside of each knee and pressed my legs up and back, until there was nothing hidden at all.
“Keep them open for me?” He phrased it like a question. Like it was something I could do for him. And I wanted to give to him as much as I took, but I wasn’t sure I could give him this.
“Can you turn out the lights?”
He cocked his head to the side, meeting my gaze from a different angle. “I want to see you.”
“But I feel so exposed,” I said. Not to mention vulnerable. He might as well be able to see straight into my soul with the way I was laid out before him, like a feast just waiting to be eaten.
Hunter’s gaze filled with heat. “What don’t you want me to see?”
I shook my head, confused. I just wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to be inside me. I wanted him to…make love to me, I realized. I didn’t want sex; I wanted love. And that wasn’t something I knew how to ask for. Love wasn’t something I’d had a lot of. Daddy loved me. I supposed Mama had in her own way, for whatever that was worth. Hadn’t she? Did she love me now? I honestly wasn’t sure, since I’d hardly had any contact with her since Hunter and I had married. But the two of them were really the extent of my familiarity, the only experience I’d had with love. But this, whatever it was I felt for Hunter? It was big and only getting bigger, consuming me. It might swallow me whole if I let it, especially if he didn’t love me, too. The thought of telling him what I was thinking, what I was feeling, when he might not ever share that love with me, was enough to rip me into shreds.
Hunter slid a finger between my folds, my slickness easing his path. “I already know you’re wet for me, so surely you don’t need to hide that. You’ve got such a pretty pussy, Tallie. Pink and perfect.” He moved that finger up until he found my nub, tracing circles around it that had me bucking my hips toward him.
“It’s not that,” I forced out when he slowed his movements.
“Then what?”
He fell into a constant rhythm, around and around, until I couldn’t stop myself from squeezing, trying to grasp and hold on to something that wasn’t there. Hunter lowered his head and suckled my clitoris, shifting to slide his finger inside me. That was all it took. I exploded as he licked me, easing me through the reverberations of my release.
“Tell me,” he said as my orgasm subsided. “What are you trying to keep hidden?” But now his fingers were pumping inside me, working me up again. He turned his hand so his palm was facing upward
, and he curved his fingers so they rubbed against a part of me I’d never known existed before. Each little touch, every sensation, brought me closer to a new crest. He kissed the inside of my thigh.
“Hunter,” I pleaded.
“You want to hide from me?” he teased.
“No.” I huffed out a breath, and the hair that had fallen into my face went flying. “I just… I need— I need to come again,” I quickly amended before admitting the truth. “But I don’t think—”
“Don’t think, baby. Just tell me. Whatever it is. Let me know what you need.”
Hunter came up over me again, staring down into my eyes while he stroked me higher and higher. He kissed me, long and deep, seeking out my clitoris with his thumb and building up the most perfect pressure that bordered on pain without falling over into that territory.
This time when I came, I shattered. It was as though everything within me broke apart, splintering into thousands of tiny shards.
Hunter broke off the kiss, raising his head and lifting his free hand to brush my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Why are you crying, baby?”
I shook my head, afraid to give it words, but it was impossible to stop them. “I need you to love me.”
He chuckled and gave me a smile just before kissing my cheek. “What did you think I was doing if not making love to you?”
But then, before I could process his words, he put on a condom and pressed his cock to my entrance, and I was lost to the sensation of being completely filled by him. It was only later, after he’d released my arms and was gently massaging them and kissing them, that I was able to think again.
What did you think I was doing if not making love to you? That was what he’d said to me. But did he equate making love with being in love, or to him was it just sex?
NOW THAT OUR relationship had turned physical, I really couldn’t seem to keep my hands off Tallie—and she didn’t appear to want me to. She was sexy and sweet, she had a heart as big as the whole fucking state, she was both responsive and giving in bed, and she was starting to ask for what she wanted without acting like it was a huge imposition. Right now, I might think she was a dream come true, if not for the fact that her arms were once again covered with bruises caused by an utter asshole.
I wasn’t satisfied with bringing her to orgasm only one or two times. For that matter, it wasn’t enough to find my own release with her only once or twice in a night. We kept coming back to each other, seeking more when we ought to be sleeping. A simple touch turned into a full round of hot, sweaty, sticky sex in no time. And her hands? She put them right where I’d encouraged her to, covering the tattoos on my ass, beckoning me for more and even taking control of the situation sometimes. She was learning what she liked, what she wanted, and just asking for it wasn’t enough; she was reaching out and grabbing the bull by the horns. That turned me on more than I could have ever imagined.
The morning after her most recent run-in with Lance, I convinced her she had to file a restraining order against him at the very least. But she didn’t consent without some serious argument. She was right that going to the police for any reason would only bring more attention down on us, and likely not the variety of attention we were supposed to be trying to get, but her safety was my bigger concern.
The man was going off the deep end, and I wasn’t on board with letting him take her along for the ride.
I got her father involved, too, since for the most part, he seemed to have Tallie’s best interests at heart.
“I always knew that little prick was trouble,” he said when I called and explained the situation. “I’m glad Tallie has you looking out for her now, son.”
He called me son again. And this time, I didn’t mind. I chose not to analyze that at the moment. Neither of us mentioned the fact that my marriage to Tallie wasn’t meant to last or that she likely wouldn’t have me looking out for her beyond the time we’d agreed upon.
He took the day off work to accompany her when she—reluctantly—filed a police report and started the process for filing the restraining order. They did all of that while I was at practice. In the afternoon, he went with her to visit Kade, waiting in the rehab center’s lobby while she was inside. I wasn’t sure what he told her mother, if anything. I had to wonder what Mrs. Roth would think, since she seemed to be under the impression that Lance Benton was practically a god.
As for me, I spent the afternoon at a security firm with John at my side, working out details for a personal bodyguard for Tallie. My job wouldn’t allow for me to be with her all the time. Hell, I would have to be out of the state—sometimes out of the country—for days at a time, maybe even longer than that. I’d be gone as often as I was at home. John had offered to stay with Tallie, but my agent wasn’t exactly security material. I felt much better trusting him to look after my business endeavors and finances than asking him to protect my wife from a crazy man.
And even though Mr. Roth was taking some time off now, he couldn’t be with her constantly, either. Besides, I honestly wasn’t convinced he was enough to protect her from Lance. The way I saw it, he hadn’t done a very good job of looking after her before I’d come along.
They were going to send some guys over for me to interview on Friday. I wanted to do it sooner, but I had the Ice Breaker coming up and another game, and there wasn’t time. Still, if we hired someone on Friday, they could get started before I had to leave with the team for our first road trip. And I would be able to feel more confident about her safety while I was gone.
That was another bone of contention between Tallie and me. She seemed to think I was going overboard with trying to protect her from Lance.
“He’s not going to try anything else,” she said that evening from across the bar, tossing some sliced cucumbers into a salad bowl. Her father had waited at my house until I returned, saying something about how he had some business to attend to with her mother as he headed out the door. She rinsed her knife and cutting board and patted them dry with a paper towel before starting work on a tomato. “He’d be stupid to, especially now that the police are going to talk to him. And there’s the restraining order.”
“Which is really just a piece of paper,” I reminded her.
“Exactly, which makes it silly that you insisted I get one.”
“You won’t think it’s silly if he does try something again, and you decide it’s time to press charges. This way you’ll have a paper trail. It’ll go a long way toward getting his ass locked up behind bars.” Which was exactly where he belonged, as far as I was concerned.
Tallie wasn’t of the same opinion. “He’s not like a common criminal,” she said, now moving on to some fresh carrots.
“Oh, isn’t he? What do you call a man who physically assaults a woman here in Oklahoma, then?” My sarcasm was back with a vengeance. I should have taken a step back from the situation, calmed down before I said something stupid as I was so apt to do.
I didn’t walk away. I stayed put, right where I was, taking a sip from my water glass.
“You’re blowing this way out of proportion, Hunter.”
“Is that so? So I’m making this into a bigger deal than it is, huh? Around here, it’s okay for a man to leave bruises on a woman—not just once, either—and everyone’s just going to brush it off? No problem here? Well, she must have been asking for it? Is that how it goes around here? No wonder all those fucking hicks had a problem with me calling them backasswards. They are, and this just proves it.”
“So I’m backasswards?” she demanded. She tossed her butcher knife on the counter so hard it rattled before settling.
“If you’re going to say stupid things, I’ll call you stupid,” I shot off.
“Now you quit being ugly, Hunter Fielding,” Tallie said, hands on her hips and eyes molten gold. “For one thing, I am not stupid. I’ve got a 4.0 GPA in college, and I was salutatorian in my high school class. Besides all that, you’re pitchin’ a fit over nothing. Lance is harmless. You’re picking at
him and just making things worse.”
“How the fuck am I making things worse?”
“You don’t think getting served with a restraining order is going to rile him up? If not, you’ve never seen a gay Southern man throw a temper tantrum.”
“I may not have seen a gay Southern man throw a temper tantrum, but I’m sure as hell seeing a Southern belle throw one now.” Damn if it didn’t turn me on, too.
Tallie didn’t look like she was getting turned on, though. If anything, she was getting madder by the minute. I was glad she didn’t still have the knife in her hand—based on the look in her eyes, she might very well use it on me if she thought of it—but it was within reach. I needed to calm her down, so I moved around to her side of the bar and tried to put my arms around her waist.
She spun around and glared at me. “Don’t you be trying to get frisky with me right now, buster. I’m madder than a wet hen, so you’d better take a step back if you know what’s good for you.”
I held up my hands in surrender and backed up a few steps. “Not getting frisky.” Not that I’d be opposed to it.
“Well, you’d just better take a page from my mama’s book and keep your hands to yourself.”
“All right.” I took another step back and wondered how long it would take her to cool off and think things through rationally.
She picked up her knife again and went to town on another carrot. “I don’t need a bodyguard,” she muttered.
“So are you saying you won’t cooperate at all? No matter what, you’re going to resist the idea of letting me protect you?”
“I’m going to resist the idea of letting you make a mountain out of a molehill and exacerbate things worse than they already are,” she said, sounding petulant and dangerous all at once.
I sighed, deciding to let the subject drop for now. We clearly weren’t getting anywhere by arguing, and we were both digging in our heels, refusing to budge an inch. We ate our dinner in near silence. Afterward, we cleaned up side by side, neither of us saying much.
[Tulsa Thunderbirds 01.0] Bury the Hatchet Page 21