Protecting His Brat (Rock Hard, Love Harder Series Book 1)

by Brandy Ayers

  His big, warm hand squeezes my knee once before returning to his lap. I’m weak enough right now to wish he would have left it on my leg. Once I get my sass back, I’ll go back to wanting him far, far away.

  “I won’t let you sleep on the streets. You have any other family? Friends?”

  I shake my head. For the first time in my life, I feel truly alone. Father is the only family I’ve ever known. Friends came and went, never sticking around unless I had something to offer them. Except Marci. She’s always been there, never taking anything except my time, which I wanted to share with her. But even she’s lost her patience for my antics.

  Scott points to the loft bedroom I slept in last night. “You take the master bedroom. I have a spare twin bed in the storage room. I’ll pull that into the unfinished bedroom and sleep there for the time being.”

  The place has potential. Behind the plastic sheets and bare walls. Not my taste, but still, not the worst either. “Ugh, I guess I can put up with living in a construction zone until this gets straightened out. But so help me, if we get arrested for squatting, I am kicking your ass.”

  “Not a squatter.” Scott laughs and shakes his head. “How about I order dinner, and you try calling that investigator. Maybe he can get your accounts turned back on.”

  I pull the card from the shirt pocket where I had tucked it earlier. As you’d expect a government employee’s business card to be, it is a plain white card stock with the FBI logo and Agent James Rose’s contact information listed.

  A deep sense of foreboding sweeps through me just looking at that plain card. Just like fear, doubt has never been an affliction that plagued me. I don't like it. I don’t like any of this. And I’ll be damned if I take it sitting on the floor of this hell hole.

  My cheeks burn as a single tear tracks down my cheek. I hate crying. Crying is for people who don’t know how to get what they want. Crying for my father to let me stay with him didn’t do a damn thing when he dropped me off at Mary Teresa’s School for Young Ladies. And it won’t do a damn thing now.

  Plus, this strange man witnessing my top five most embarrassing and pathetic moments in the span of twelve hours pisses me off to no extent.

  Scott slings his arm around my shoulders and pulls be into his side. “I promise, we’ll figure this out.”

  I close my eyes and allow myself exactly five seconds to enjoy his warmth. The spicy scent of his cologne and natural masculine pheromones. The restrained strength evident in the press of his fingers into my biceps. I indulge in the sweet burn of arousal that zaps between my legs. For exactly five seconds, I give into every forbidden thought I’ve had about this man so far below my status. I let them fill me up, entertain giving into them.

  After those five seconds pass, I steal my spine, climb to my feet, and do what I’ve done my entire life. No matter how much I want to lean into the safety he naturally provides, I have to rely on myself and block his misplaced hero complex with a snarky comment.

  It would be so easy to ignore the red flags my mind is throwing up left and right. To just let him past the walls. But going down that path leads to nothing but disappointment and smudged eyeliner. “Thanks, I’ll let you know if I need a jar opened or tips on how to buy second hand. Leave the planning and negotiating to me.”

  Scott’s disappointment in me is a living beast stalking me back up the spiral staircase to the loft. I ignore it and the spike of pain stabbing me in the chest as I sit on the edge of the bed. Phone in hand, I make one of what turns out to be many calls to fucking Agent Rose.

  Chapter Five

  Lacy

  My brain must be short circuiting after the events of the last few days. It’s the only explanation for why I’ve let this unkempt, uneducated, unacceptable, unbelievably hot man lay me out naked on the table like I’m a buffet he’s about to gorge himself on.

  Not only have I let him do it, I’m freaking taunting him, trying to get him to fuck me good and hard. Truth is, I want him to do it. Faster than I ever thought possible, I’ve started liking Scott. He’s nothing like any man I’ve known, in the best ways possible. I date hedge fund managers and heirs to fortunes. I date men who drone on for hours about the stock market, never noticing the glazed over look in my eyes. I date men who have selfish one-sided sex and expect me to fake orgasms.

  I’ve never once come from a sexual encounter. If I were an actress, my shelves would be lined with dozens of Oscars for the kind of show I put on during sex. When in reality, most the time, I’m lying there thinking about my social media posts for the next few weeks.

  But just Scott’s eyes taking in every inch of my flesh, and, oh God, his drugging kisses, have put me teetering on the edge of a kind of pleasure only high-tech vibrators have been able to achieve. And the only thought in my head is more, more, more.

  “Look at this pretty pussy.” He strokes my soaked slit with two fingers, parting me slightly. “She’s practically pouting, she needs relief so bad.” Scott’s voice goes even rougher when he’s aroused. It’s something I’ve learned since becoming his unofficial boarder.

  Every time I walk around in a towel or bend over in front of him, his voices gets this gritty quality I want to roll around in. That voice makes dirty promises, even when he’s talking about something as mundane as the plans he has for the apartment.

  But he can’t know how I feel about his voice. Or his hard, muscle-packed body. Or his too-long hair which flops over his eyes in this way that makes me melt. Or how much I’m beginning to rely on his quiet strength and infinite patience. He can’t know any of that, so I hide it all behind attitude.

  “Stop anthropomorphizing my vagina and get on with it.” My accompanying eye roll morphs from sassy to holy shit in a fraction of a second as his fingers sweep up and down my slit, grazing my throbbing clit.

  “If you’re able to use words like anthropomorphizing right now, I’m obviously not doing my job right. Yet.”

  I’m going to agree. Tell him how bored I am. How inept he is. Or some other complete and total lie, but the words die before they can even form. Because suddenly, there is only his tongue, and his lips, and his goddamn teeth doing the most erotic things between my legs. My hands fly to his hair, gripping the long, silky strands between my fingers. It might not be long enough to pull into a ponytail, but it is the perfect length to help steer his talented mouth to where I need it most. My core tightens, muscles coiling, waiting for some invisible force to snap and make me unravel.

  A delicious pleasure unlike anything I’ve experienced before builds, each touch, lick, and nip stacking on top of each other like blocks, higher, higher, higher, until I’m wavering, right there on the edge of toppling, waiting for one little push to finish the job. But just as all the pleasure is about to crash down around me in a hail storm of God yes, Scott backs off, kissing my inner thighs, which are sticky with my arousal.

  “What the fuck? I was almost there.” I’m whining. I know I am. It’s annoying even to my own ears, and just like so many other times in my life, I wish I could stop. But I don't know how. The only way I’ve ever gotten anything I needed was by scheming, whining, and throwing fits.

  “Are you ready to beg for it?”

  Propping myself up on my elbows, I look down at the man camping out between my legs. “I’m not going to beg for your cock.”

  “We’ll see.” He dives back in.

  I should be embarrassed by the wet noises happening down there. By the animalistic sounds spilling from my mouth. But I don't have enough brain power to be embarrassed.

  The whole beard thing is an entirely new experience. All my past lovers were clean shaven, but the rough scrape of his short beard against my inner thighs as his mouth works me is indescribable. The soft, wet heat of his tongue toying with my pussy and the coarse hairs of his beard abrading the sensitive skin on my legs combine to make a symphony of sensations.

  Every time I get to that magic line where I’m just about to tip over the point of no return, he back
s off. My protests and whining quickly turns to begging. I hate that he was right, that I’m ready to beg him to stuff his cock inside me, anything so long as he lets me come. Everything is throbbing and aching with this need to let go.

  “Oh God, stop toying with me, please.” I’m going to regret this tomorrow. Even through the veil of lust obscuring my vision, I know with complete certainty that this is a mistake. But in the wise words of Justin Bieber, I’m not perfect. I’m not a robot. “I need you inside me. Now.”

  “Like this?” Two fingers spear into me. Scott smirks when I gasp and arch my back off the table, trying to thrust down onto his face and hand. “You want me to fuck your pretty pussy with my rough, low-class fingers?”

  He sucks my clit into his mouth, and I scream, clawing at the edge of the table. My communication skills have been reduced to nothing but whimpers and moans, screams and grunts. Every ounce of class I once had has been left behind in favor of pure need.

  You would think that is the end. That was the height of pleasure, but Scott finds some secret spot inside me that ratchets everything up one more notch.

  “There it is.” He licks and sucks between words. “Look at me. I want you to watch as the man you wouldn’t give the time of day under normal circumstances makes you come like never before.”

  There’s no reason to obey his order. I don’t obey anyone but myself. But the moment the words are past his lips, I find myself gazing down over my body. Locking eyes with him. The moment I’ve done as he says, Scott takes mercy on me and does this tongue flick, suck, bite, finger tap combination that makes me absolutely detonate.

  I curl in on myself, grip the back of his head and hold his talented mouth tight against my sex, cross my ankles behind his shoulders. Despite how tightly I’m holding him, in reality, I’m letting go. Of my assumptions, my so-called standards, my world.

  The world goes black and fuzzy around the edges, but not in a scary way like the other night. In an amazing way. I know I’m making noises no respectable socialite could ever fathom, but I can’t seem to care about that when my whole body, my whole world, feels like it has shrunk down to just the few inches between my thighs.

  After god only knows how long, I slump back onto the table, panting and struggling to catch my breath. Delicately, Scott kisses my inner thigh. Then my hip. My ribs. Bottom slope of each breast. Collarbone. Temple.

  Each brush of his lips against my skin sends a wave of contentment through me, and my chest constricts with an emotion I’m not at all familiar with.

  “You up for more?” He thrusts his still covered cock against my inner thigh. It’s thick and hard, and yeah, I’m more than a little curious. This guy just blew my mind with his oral skills, so he must be making up for something in the sex department, right? It certainly isn’t his size.

  “You really think you can top that performance? Wouldn’t you rather leave things on a high note than take me to that level of euphoria and then make me suffer through five minutes of lackluster sex? I could just lay here like this while you jack off. I’d probably get the same amount out of that as I would letting you shove your dick in me.”

  Scott reaches up and shoves his thumb into my mouth, silencing my rambling. “You’ve got a sassy little mouth on you, don’t you?”

  I nod, because, yeah, I do, and damn proud of it.

  “There are so many things I want to do with this mouth.” He leans down, pinning my entire body against the smooth wood table. His lips brush against my cheek as he talks directly into my ear. “I plan to fuck this mouth.” He thrusts his thumb a little deeper between my lips, and I swirl my tongue around his thick digit. “I plan to kiss it until your lips are swollen and red. And I’m going to make you scream with it too. But not now. Right now, I’m going to prove how much of a pre-show warm up my tongue acrobatics were.”

  Backing up, Scott looks down at me, his eyes intense and his face set in that scowl I hate to admit I find more and more sexy every day. “You good with that?”

  I roll my eyes, despite wanting to rub myself against his chest and do whatever he asks. “I suppose you can try. But, fair warning, when you turn out to be a two-pump-chump, I will absolutely tell you I told you so.”

  His eyes light up, and that scowl turns up into a mysterious grin. Before I can give him anymore shit, Scott flips me over, so my stomach and chest are pressed against the table. I start to protest, but his wide palm slaps against my ass. Warmth spreads across the delicate skin there, a slight sting making the blood rush to the spot.

  I melt.

  Every muscle in my body goes to liquid. Every smart-ass comment dies on my tongue. I shouldn’t like this. I should be appalled a man like Scott, hell any man, laid a hand on me in anything other than complete worship. But a strange sense of rightness flows through me. I’ve been missing this my whole adult life.

  Like a predator, Scott senses the very moment I give in, and he pounces. “You like that do you?”

  I nod. Whimper.

  The head of his cock nudges my opening, and then he’s thrusting deep inside me, slapping my ass at the same time. I want to cry, it feels so good, right down to my soul. He must have just pushed his jeans down a little bit, just enough to get his dick out and into me, because I can still feel the rough denim against the backs of my thighs.

  “You need someone to put you in your place, don’t you?”

  I shake my head, because fuck that.

  “Yeah, you do” He pulls his length slowly out, the thickness of his cock brushing every sensitive place inside me on his retreat. “Just in this one place. You need someone who takes the control. Sees through the bullshit and gives you what you want. What you deserve. Everywhere else, you take the control you need. But here, with me between your thighs, you give me everything, and I’ll slap this fantastic little ass until you give it to me.”

  He does it again. Brings that big bear paw of a hand up and lands it in a slap on my other ass cheek. Flesh hitting flesh echoes through the cavernous space. My pussy clutches onto his thick invasion. My clit throbs and I grind down against the table, trying to give it more attention.

  Scott grips my hips just as the head of his cock threatens to fall from my opening and thrusts full-force back in. “How many thrusts was that? Two?”

  I don't answer. A smile threatens to break out over my face, and I bite my lip to prevent it. Who smiles during sex? It’s weird, right? But this is fun. Hot and erotic and more gratifying than anything I’ve experienced, but also fun. I want to grin at the awesomeness that is our banter and the way our bodies meet.

  Faster now, he pulls out to the tip again before plunging back inside to the root. My hips seem to tilt up all on their own, giving him better access, trying to meet each thrust. A gasp makes me lose the grip my teeth hold on my lip, and the grin I’m trying to hold back breaks free, along with more moans. I almost laugh when I realize all those times I faked it with other men were poor after-school special acting compared to the real deal. I have a feeling I’ll never be able to fake it again.

  “That was three. Still going.” Scott’s hands glide up my back, down my arms. He laces his fingers with mine, and an odd zing of affection pings through my chest.

  Affection isn’t something I’m used to. None of my past lovers gave it. My father certainly never did. Not the nannies and tutors paid to care for me. Even with Marci, the person I considered my best friend, things rarely went below the surface with us. Scott has shown me more care and tenderness than I’ve felt in my life. Even while he’s banging me from behind on the dining room table.

  Again, that zing ricochet’s through me as he squeezes my hands, I think in reassurance, but I’m not sure.

  He pulls my arms up over my head and pins my hands to the table. Every inch of his body is plastered to mine, holding me tight against the surface. I can’t move at all. But I’m not frightened, just the opposite. I’m excited, thrilled to see what comes next.

  “You haven’t been paying attention since
moving in.”

  The comment confuses me, but Scott doesn’t leave me hanging for long.

  “If you had been, you’d know I have stamina for days. I’ve been doing manual labor from sun up to sun down since the moment you stepped foot in my apartment that second day. Distracting myself from wanting to pin you down and fuck you every second of that time. Two pumps? Oh, beauty, you have no idea what I have in store for you.” His words are a promise and a warning. I’ve pushed and pestered this man to the edge of his patience. Now I get to see the result of all that brattiness. And it is everything I’ve ever wanted.

  Holding me captive against the hard wood, Scott unleashes days of lust and frustration. Growling into the crook of my neck. Biting my shoulder. Telling me what a beautiful brat I am and how he’s going to fuck me into submission. A part of my brain rebels against the filthy, domineering words. Another part aches to hear more.

  Scott’s hips become perpetual motion. Thrusting up, deep into my core, pulling out until he almost falls free before surging forward again. His pace grows faster, more urgent, racing toward a place I’m almost afraid to go. My fingers grip his, squeezing, silently begging for him to ease up. But he doesn’t. He goes harder. Faster. Exactly what I need to breach the thin barrier between amazing and holy fucking shit mind blowing.

  I scream and thrash, trying to pull my arms into my sides, but he holds them still. I arch my back, press my bare chest into the now heated wood and my ass into his belly, giving him more room to go deeper. Oh god deeper. Hot tears slip from the corners of my eyes and trail down my nose to pool on the table below me. I squeeze them closed and will the waterworks to stop. Hope he doesn’t see. The protective shell I wear day in and out is cracking, and he’s not giving me even a moment to repair the holes. The pure, raw pleasure is ripping long buried emotions free.