Loose Ends

by A. M. Hartnett

  When he reached for the glass she held it away from him. “No, this isn’t for you. It’s for me.”

  “Going to make me work for it?” he asked on a chuckle.

  Sophie merely took a sip, set the drink aside, then settled back against his thighs. She slipped her free hand between them and replaced his fist with hers around his shaft. Ben gurgled and turned his head to escape her hungry mouth.

  He gave her bra a snap. “Take this off.”

  Ignoring him, Sophie burrowed into the crook of his neck and breathed him in. That foul cologne wasn’t half as foul now that it imprinted itself on her brain, forevermore associated with the raw sex that radiated all around him. She licked and sucked along the hot slope, then bit down as his cock jumped in her hand.

  Another growl and he tugged at the bra until it gave. The straps cut into her upper arms as he yanked it aside.

  Sophie gasped as pushed her down on the seat. He rose up onto his knees and hooked his fingers into her waistband.

  “These, too, and then we’re coming up with a few new scenarios that’ll put all the other ones to shame.”

  She clapped her hands on his wrists to stop him. “Tell me you’re the type of guy to keep condoms in his office.”

  He flashed his grin. “I’m the type of guy who keeps condoms in his desk drawer, but I’m not going to need them with what I’m about to do to you.”

  A shiver went through her as she loosened her grip, ending in a delicious ripple coasting along the length of her pussy. She raised her hips, then her legs. Once her panties were banished, she pushed up onto her elbows as he pushed her thighs apart.

  “Seems as though I’m a little overdressed now,” he said, and gave his tie a tug before slipping his fingers between her thighs.

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Sophie grasped the tie and pulled him into another kiss. He gave her none of the power now, tongue invading her mouth with the same insistence as his fingertips. Drawing her legs closer against her, Sophie opened up and welcomed the invasion of one finger.

  Corking her to the knuckle, Ben drew back and hissed. “Jesus, you’re tight.”

  “You sound surprised,” she managed to reply as he stroked precisely along her inner wall, sending one tiny spasm after another along her pussy.

  “I’m a little surprised,” he replied at last, his latest entry sinfully slow. “I would have expected a woman who once wrote about ogre sex to be a little more --”

  Sophie gave the tie a tug, but laughed nonetheless. “That’s the sort of thing that gets you stabbed in the neck in my books.”

  He returned her breathless laughter. “I know. That’s why I’m glad we’re at a safe distance from the cup full of pens on my desk. Though, if you like a little bit of pain I can deliver that as well--both ways.”

  “Oh.”

  The word chucked from the back of her throat, as much out of surprise as it was from the perfect ripple that ran through her. Ben’s smile faded, but the effect was perfectly devilish, as though he could see the chaos he had put in her head.

  Holding onto that awful tie, Sophie bucked up in tune with his thrusts. While his strokes remained steady, she craved a rougher touch. The plea was on the tip of her tongue, but as she gazed into his eyes she could’t bring herself to make it. That look was far too knowing and bore too much of a challenge. He knew what she wanted, and there’s no doubt he’d give it to her if she asked, but she found herself far too addicted to their own push-and-pull relationship to give it up too quickly.

  She wanted him to hold back, to work her over and over until she couldn’t stand it any longer--or he couldn’t.

  And so she tipped her head back against the armrest and kept up with his infuriatingly slow pace. She let him build her pleasure slowly, and gave him only the sounds of her body as he tuned her so perfectly. Through the buzzing in her ears she caught his low laughter.

  “I’m not out to make you come just yet,” he whispered, then buried to the knuckle and flexed his fingers. “I just want you good and ready.”

  “Ready for what?” she asked, her blood singing with the possibilities.

  “Anything. Everything.”

  Another minute, or maybe more--Sophie had lost her perception if time--he withdrew.

  She opened her eyes as he kissed her, tongue so slow and seeking that it invoked the ghost of his fingers moving inside and sent a ripple through her.

  Ben lowered his face into her neck. “Comfortable?”

  As the resonance of his question and the scratch of his beard penetrated to the bone, Sophie sighed as he moved lower.

  “Very,” she managed to say, but lost whatever it was she meant to say next as he snaked his tongue around her nipple. With the nip of his teeth she almost begged him for more, but it seemed as though this was only a warning shot. He lifted his head and rose up.

  Looking down between them, Sophie found him so hard she wondered how he could stand it. Though in the shadow of their bodies, his cock was brilliant in its arousal, shining at that smooth head and arced almost completely to his belly. She longed to wrap her hand around it and do to him what he did to her, but she knew she didn’t have half his patience. She’d lose herself in the frenzy and when it was all over they’d be completely sated, and she’d have to wait to know what it felt like to have him belly-to-belly, chest-to-chest, and mouth-to-mouth as he drove into her.

  “Up,” he said, and at the same time he caught her by the wrists and pulled her up. He led and she followed, until Ben rested on the floor, head resting against the seat, and he guided Sophie up, up, up over his brawny body.

  With his hands cradling her, she eased down onto his mouth and grasped the sofa back just as he gave her the length of his tongue along her slit.

  It was a dirty trick, she realized almost immediately. He’d given her far too much room to move, and possessed by the perfection of his tongue curling around her clit and move she did. He kept no pace but hers, lapping to the rhythm of her hips. As she predicted, the bristle on his chin rubbed her raw, but rather than irritate the friction only made her hotter when combined with the silky glide of his tongue.

  But it was the hungry sounds he made as he devoured her that made the ride so delicious. Though muffled between her thighs, the pleasure he gained from the act swirled around and inside of her.

  The sudden intensity as he sealed his mouth around her made her push up onto her knees. Ben grasped her hips and pulled her back down. She didn’t fight it. It had just been a moment of weakness after six months of solo sessions, her body trying to escape a pleasure that couldn’t be controlled, but the moment had passed. She was his, rocking to match the way he sucked her, licked her, until she went into autopilot and she soared into oblivion with the tip of his tongue as her vessel.

  When she could take no more, Sophie shunted her hips and Ben released her. Her head still bobbing over her heavy body, she leaned against the sofa back and shuffled her legs to free him. Any thoughts of showing him her bravado vanished as he righted himself.

  Sophie flopped down onto her side and muttered for him to give her a minute to catch her breath. She felt his smile curving on his mouth as he kissed from her ankle, all the way up to her shoulder where he propped his chin.

  “Crows,” he whispered, prompting a sleepy giggle.

  “Care to guess the meaning?”

  Kneeling at the edge of the sofa, Ben stroked over the black marks on her upper thigh. “One for every book published?”

  “Finished,” she corrected him, and with a sigh she propped up on her elbow to watch is examination of her tattoos. “There are five crows, see? Three published, and two more finished.”

  Ben raised his brows. “Really?”

  “The first three were published in one year, but now that the money is coming in it’s about the frenzy, the companion book and the graphic novels and so on, the fifth book is being held until the TV series debuts.”

  “You’re only twenty-nine. By the ti
me you’re sixty, you’ll have a whole murder of crows winding around you.”

  As though following the imaginary flight of the crows yet to be inked, Ben ran his hand along her flank and to her breast. His thoughtful look gave way to that mischievous satyr beneath as he pinched the hard nub between thumb and forefinger.

  “So which scenario is next?” she asked, eager for more as his touch chased away the syrup-like lethargy in her blood.

  “Conference table,” he said quickly, and tucked his hand between her legs.

  Still sensitive, she flinched as he brushed the puffy flesh around her clit, but parted for him as he sought the wet shelter he had made.

  “I think that’s a little cliché. Conference table. Desk. You might as well suggest we do it in front of the window. It’s like we’re staging a porno.”

  “You just ran out of surfaces,” he teased.

  “We says we need a surface?” She looked past him to the bookshelves that ran across one length of the wall. “ Is that bolted on good enough?”

  He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “That depends on that you have in mind.”

  “You mentioned this before in your scenario where you bang the book nerd up against a wall of law texts.”

  Ben touched his forehead to hers. “From the front and from behind.”

  “Then let’s scratch both those off your list.”

  “You think you’ve got your land legs back?” he teased, and righted himself. She wasn’t so sure as she took his hands and got to her feet. Shaky, yes, but the promise of things to come gave her the mettle she needed.

  Chapter Four

  He maneuvered her in front of him and kept his grip upon her hips as he guided her towards the library.

  “Hands up,” he said once she stood before the bookcases.

  Sophie reached up and grasped two shelves. “You know what this makes me think of?”

  He slid one hand over her ass as the other hooked behind her knee and lifted her, opened her. “Of course I do. Sym and Bess when he first imprisoned her in that dungeon.”

  She may not have been a warrior queen shackled to a stone wall, but it was Bess’s pose that Ben had given her.

  “This isn’t some fanboy fantasy, is it?”

  He pulled her hair away from her neck and spoke close to her ear. “ It’s your fantasy, isn’t it? How wet were you when you wrote that scene?”

  “Soaked,” she admitted. “Took me damn near a week to write that scene. I wrote half of it one handed, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer I went into the bedroom, grabbed onto the headboard and rode my vibrator until it cried for mercy.”

  She shuddered as he rubbed along her crack. Two fingers pinched and pulled the slick skin taut. She curled her toes and withstood the ticklish shocks until they became intense pulses and her clit swelled from its hood.

  “I’d like to think I have a little more finesse than Sym,” he whispered into her ear. “No bragging about how I killed your lover with my bare hands and I won’t turn you around and gave you a couple of cracks in the mouth while I make you moan, but I will make you moan.”

  “That’s ... a relief,” she said on a sigh. “I’m not much into the slapping, at least not in the face.”

  The snap of his teeth on her earlobe preceded the hard smack on the meat of her ass. Her yelp turned into a fizzy laugh as he squeezed where his hand had made flesh hot.

  Sophie maintained her pose as he made a quick dash to his desk, but the compulsion to get another look at him while he was still hard and ready for the rut.

  Even if this was only a one time thing--and at that moment she had her doubts about making that distinction when they were done--she’d keep with her the memory of how glorious he looked in the bronze light, God-like with his armor shed. In profile he looked fierce as he bent his head to unfurl the condom over his cock, and when he turned to her she didn’t bother to hide her shiver. He was all breadth and muscle, and his purposeful stride didn’t make her feel small but eclipsed.

  The brusque way he handled her now sent the message that playtime was over. He plugged her and clamped his hands on her shoulders.

  “As much as I’d like to be the big fierce man and just ravage you, I’m too much of a gentleman.”

  With his first charge, Sophie went up into her toes with a gasp and gripped the shelves, but Ben merely kept her in place, cock twitching between her inner walls as his rumbling growl sent a shiver through her.

  “Do it,” she whispered, pushing back against him to spur him to action. “Fuck me, Ben.”

  He shoved back, pinning her inside and out. “All the times I’ve heard that word come out of your mouth in our meetings and I always wondered if it would sound as dirty when you’re spread out and ready like this.”

  Once more she challenged him, and once more he met her challenge with his bulk. It made her laugh, breathless and wrapped in slight desperation.

  Ben brought one hand to her neck, and its heat reminded her of the virility unleashed tonight. Had she seen it before as he stood behind her at that conference table and pushed her chair in, a ritual she had always thought was slightly condescending? If she had tilted her head up and looked at him instead of glaring at the leather surface of her portfolio, would she have been unraveled sooner?

  “If you’re waiting for me to beg ...” she said quietly, knowing she would do it if he asked her to.

  His reply was quiet, as though speaking to himself. “I’m just getting my footing.”

  He ran his other hand down her spine, then orbited her waist and sought her clit. With those feather-light circles, Sophie gasped at the intensity of the pleasure they delivered. She went forward, squashing her upper half against the library as she butted back against him.

  Ben didn’t push back. He remained like stone, save for the wriggling tip of his finger, as Sophie squirmed. The friction from the hairs on his belly made the hot mark he’d made with his hand even hotter.

  It was as though all the energy in the world had been captured in the point of his middle finger. It pulsed around her clit and throughout her restless body. Her inner walls shuddered against him, and she could feel the effect of his attention wasn’t only for her. The twitch of his shaft came faster now, and the stream of breath against her damp skin stuttered.

  At last he started to move, shunting his hips along with her as though he could no longer resist the rhythm he strummed into her. He echoed the throaty melody she made and rested his chin against her shoulder, and it was this guttural soundtrack that filled Sophie’s head as her second orgasm came upon her.

  Ben shifted his hold upon her and dragged her from one cyclone and into another. His hands moved to her hips, slick fingers pressing into the swell as he gave her every inch of his cock before taking it away.

  If she’d been left with any illusions about Ben maintaining his slick exterior, they were gone. Here in a place where Sophie had watched his performance again and again and loathed it, that arrogant exterior had split open to let out this voracious thing that pumped into her.

  With every stroke, Sophie was grateful for the craftsmanship of his library. The heavy structure didn’t so much as creak as Ben pushed and pulled her to meet his thrusts, but Sophie’s outbursts came in little pops as she fought to catch her breath.

  “That’s one,” he hissed, and withdrew long enough to turn her around.

  Clamping her hands on his shoulders, Sophie raised one leg as he penetrated her again, and once he lifted her she locked both ankles against the damp hollow above his ass.

  Ben’s grin resurfaced on his red face as he further tested the mettle of his library by shoving her hard against it. “Much better. I didn’t get to watch you while you were coming the first two times. Now I can see what I’m doing to you.”

  “Keep doing it,” she urged, becoming more feral as he looked as he pounded her, and she tipped her head back and welcomed this explosive denouement.

  She couldn’t recall a time when she�
��d been so thoroughly fucked. Never with Ray, and though those casual encounters after her husband were remarkably dirty, they weren’t particularly explosive. Maybe it was because it had been a while since she’d had an actual flesh and blood man filling her to the hilt, or maybe it was because of her dislike for Ben Croft up until that evening.

  Or maybe it was just the way he moved, battering her against the library and uncaring that the shelves against her back or his fingertips digging into her ass would leave bruises, and the bared-teeth and savage stare that bore down on her as he pounded her.

  “Come on my cock again,” he hissed, riding her so hard now that Sophie tightened her grip around his waist just to give herself some semblance of control even when they both knew he had it all. He’d bid her with his words as well as his body, and she had no choice but to do as he told her.

  Sophie looped her arms around his neck as the thick head bumped her g-spot, until the cataclysm erupting within washed her world in a pulsing red haze. She held onto him as though he could save her from the onslaught and wasn’t the orchestrator of it.

  He pressed his lips to hers and Sophie opened up for him. It wasn’t a kiss, this joining of tongues. It was as much a part of the fucking as the fucking itself, getting as close and deep as possible as he rode the last intense pulsations of her climax to his own. The jolt of his last thrust sent one final and glorious shudder through her that just went on and on as Ben’s cock swelled with his deluge.

  “Jesus,” he said in a huff at last and loosened his grasp.

  Sophie went down, leaning against the library as Ben stumbled back and found his perch on the edge of the conference table.

  All she could do was smile goofily as she watched him heave with every gasp. Even weakened and flaccid, he was still a sight to see, even more so now that the sheen of sweat clinging to him and the way his hair stuck out in licks evidenced his complete undoing between her legs.

  “I need a drink,” he muttered hoarsely, and Sophie mustered everything she had to shove away from the bookcases.