“I think it's just a sprain,” he said, gently probing my swollen ankle with a touch that was surprisingly delicate. I still winced at the physical contact, yet every time he pulled his hand away, I found myself missing his touch.
“Damn gopher hole,” I spat, my voice laced with contempt. “I've been meaning to do something about that...”
“I think you'll be alright,” said Derek, and there was something oddly reassuring in his voice, at odds with his character up to this point. Like everything he'd shown me of himself so far had been a simple act, a show of tough guy machismo, and this gentle, nurturing version of him was the true Derek. Or maybe it was really the other way around? I didn't know. My head was far too addled at that point to make much sense of anything.
“Could you grab me a couple of Tylenol?” I asked, not wanting to impose anything more on him, but feeling too weak to get up and get it myself at the moment. “It's in the kitchen cabinet, next to the back door.”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod and started for the bedroom door. “You want anything else? Something to drink?”
I hesitated at this, my mouth slightly opening and then closing. I was fazed by how drastically the dynamic seemed to have shifted between the two of us, almost entirely without warning.
“Um, yeah... Tea would be nice if you don't mind putting some on.”
He nodded, with just a flicker of a smile, and headed out the bedroom door.
I laid back in bed and wondered, had I really misjudged him so severely? I didn't think I had. He'd been a class A tool just minutes ago, insulting me in my own backyard. But now that I was injured he was treating me with the utmost care.
I tried to make sense of this in relation to my profession. Again, it felt like it could have more to do with power than any inherent goodness Derek had suddenly discovered within himself. It took seeing me weak and dependent on him for him to adjust his attitude, and maybe that's what he'd been going for all along.
In any case, the fantasies I'd been having prior to that point suddenly started coming back to me- amplified by the fact that he'd just carried me shirtless onto my bed- and I did my absolute damnedest to suppress them. Quickly enough, the real Derek reentered the room, placing a cup of tea on the nightstand beside me, and popping two pills into my open palm.
“Thank you,” I said, downing the pills, and taking a sip of the tea, which tasted absolutely divine. I couldn't quite picture him as a tea drinker, but he'd made it just the way I liked it.
I sighed with slight relief, and he studied me for a moment, a palpable tension creeping up between the two of us.
“You think you'll be alright?” he asked at length. My eyes fell unintentionally down to his gently heaving chest, glistening with perspiration in the darkness, and then whipped back up to his own as soon as I could catch myself.
“I'll be fine,” I said with a nod. “You can go.”
His mouth slid into something that barely qualified as a smile, and he gave me a nod. He turned and started for the door, and I instantly felt a wave of dread wash over me at the prospect of his absence. I wracked my brain for something to say to him, and though I knew that I'd been right earlier in calling him out on his behavior, I said the only thing that came to me.
“Wait!” I said, a little bit too urgently, and he turned around attentively to face me. “I, um... I'm sorry if I was a bit hard on you earlier. I did think your comments were... Uncalled for... But maybe I went a little bit overboard. I don't know. It's been a long, long day.”
“Nah,” he said, sighing. “I was a dick. I deserved to have my ass handed to me.”
“Maybe we can start over?” I asked, secretly hoping that this could result in more types of reconciliation than one...
“I would like that,” he said, and then added, in a way that made the words seem foreign to him, “I- I'm sorry. I guess I've gotten too used to being treaded like shit all the time, people thinking that they're better than me or whatever. Sometimes it's hard not to repay it in kind...”
I raised an eyebrow at him. I could tell we were making progress, and maybe I shouldn't be poking the hornet's nest here, but I really couldn't help myself. “Derek... I'm a 55-year-old black woman who works as a gender studies professor. Do you think I've spent my whole life having the red carpet rolled out for me? But I sure as hell don't use that as a license to act like an ass to people.”
“Nah, I'm not saying that,” he said. “You're right. I was an ass. I just... I get tired of doing this, I guess. Working like a dog for unappreciative rich snobs, being treated like my time doesn't matter.”
“Hey, I'm far from rich,” I said to him, my eyebrow lifting higher still. “And I'm not unappreciative, either. Up until our spat I thought you were doing a great job, I just... Needed some time to myself tonight.”
He smiled at me. “Yeah?”
“Yes. And you know, if you really dislike what you do so much, why not get into another line of work? I'm sure there must be all kinds of things you're good at...”
As soon as I'd spoken the words, it felt as though they were laced with innuendo, though I hadn't consciously meant to do so. I saw the inkling of a smile flash across those sweet lips of his like he'd recognized it in there, but he didn't acknowledge it.
“Well,” he said with a shrug. “I had been thinking about going to school for massage therapy. I've always been told that I'm good with my hands...”
I stiffened a bit, and I thought, from the bulge in his jeans, that he might have too at that moment.
“Oh really?” I asked, my throat incredibly dry all of the sudden.
He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot I don't know about doing it professionally. But as far as the basics, I've never had any complaints from anyone I'd given a massage to.”
Somehow the conversation had taken a most unexpected turn, and I wasn't prepared for the next words I spoke as they made their way from my mouth.
“Well... To be honest, I'm feeling a little bit achey from my fall. I could really go for a massage right now. I'll gladly be a test subject for you if you'd like. You can just add it onto my bill.”
He grinned at this, and I think he saw quite clearly through my desire for him.
I didn't care anymore.
I wanted him, so, so badly, and I didn't care how desperate it was making me look.
“Yeah? What should I charge it under?”
“Miscellaneous services,” I said with a grin, and he laughed.
“Alright, then,” he said. “Why don't you roll over onto your stomach, then, if you can? And I'll give you the miscellaneous servicing of your life...”
I'm pretty sure I visibly trembled at that.
I rolled over so that my arms were crossed beneath my chin, staring ahead at the headboard of the bed. I felt the springs of the bed giving way as he climbed up onto it with me, and I shivered as I felt his hands make contact with the small of my back.
“Just relax,” he said, and his palms began to sweep over me. He pressed down along my spine and pushed between my shoulder blades. It didn't take long at all for me to realize that he wasn't kidding- he really would make a great masseuse. He moved up and down along my back, gently pressed on my arms and legs in a way that drained them of all tension. He made me feel like I was in heaven, and the more and more he touched me, the more and more I wanted him to touch me, in ways and in places that I really shouldn't have wanted him to...
Thankfully, though, he read my responses to his touch like an open book. Before long, his hands were moving down along my hips, hinting at the top of my ass, but with just enough restraint to give him some deniability if I decided to tell him to stop.
“You're getting a little low,” I said, testing the waters, wanting it to go on, but deathly afraid to let it.
“Is that a problem?” he asked, his voice laced with the confidence that I'd seen as arrogance before, but that I now found sexy as hell.
It was exactly what I wanted to hear.
<
br /> “Hell no,” I said desperately, and he grabbed my ass, squeezing the cheeks through my skirt, sending intense waves of pleasure through my body at the thought of how much further this could possibly go.
I think it was at that moment that the floodgates burst within me. Gender roles, social norms, all of that be damned. At that moment, I surrendered myself to animal instinct, craving him like I'd craved no man before him, and determined to get exactly what I wanted out of him before I let him out of my sight.
His hand slid down my ass, and moved up between my legs, squeezing the insides of my thighs, hinting at a more intimate destination if I only said the word.
Unable to stand it any longer, I rolled back around onto my back, panting like an animal, my nostrils flaring wildly at him. He looked at me, grinning, seeming to think he had me exactly where he wanted me- and the feeling was very much a mutual one.
“See?” I whispered to him. “It's not so hard to treat a woman right when you want to, now is it?”
“Not at all,” he said. “But I do have something else that's hard right now that I really need taken care of...”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, and I lifted my hand to his chest, placing my fingers delicately in the center of his pecs, and letting them drip slowly, slowly down toward the unmistakable bulge in his jeans.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think I just needed a teacher to show me how to treat a woman right...”
“I'll be glad to teach you,” I breathed into him, and somehow, without realizing it, my face was mere inches from his.
And then we surrendered.
He grabbed the back of my head, and I pressed my fingers around his rock hard cock, squeezing him through the denim of his jeans. He pulled my lips into him, and the two of us kissed like it was going out of fashion, his lips sweet, his tongue hot as it swept around inside my mouth, tangling with my own, making me shiver and shake with an ever delectable pass it made, around and around inside me.
His massive hands slid along the sides of my body, my flesh crawling as he touched me all over in that expert way of his, craving more and more of him with every moment that passed. He moved from my thighs to my hips, to my belly, and cupped my breasts through the fabric of my blouse, making me gasp as his fingers closed in around me.
And then, thank God, the clothes started coming off.
I felt like I was melting straight through the fabric as he began to undress me, peeling the sweat-soaked material from my quivering flesh, stripping me of my blouse, my skirt, my stockings, and at last my bra and panties.
It seemed like it had been ages since I'd last revealed myself to a man in this way, and there was a moment following my undressing that I experienced a very intense awareness of myself. I was worried, now that he saw me, that he might not like what he saw. I was probably twice his age, and unlikely the kind of woman he was used to. I felt particularly self-conscious of the dark triangle of fuzz between my legs, which I was sure wasn't the norm for him, as natural as it might have been.
The moment seemed to last forever, his eyes roving over every inch of me. But then, at last, it was made entirely clear that his aim wasn't at all to judge me, but that he was, instead, taking me in like a cool drink of water- just as I'd done to him only a short while earlier through the window of my study.
He dove for me, plunging forward headfirst like a diver into a body of water. He gripped my spine, and held me against his bare chest, rubbing his bare palms over every inch of my warm, dark skin as though he couldn't possibly get enough of the feeling of me. He kissed me deeper still than he had before, his tongue edging right toward the back of my throat, my own pushing back against his as adamantly as I could manage between short, desperate breaths.
“I want you so fucking bad,” he whispered into me between kisses and a warmth that was unlike anything I'd felt so far spread over me, my heartbeat quickening to an almost dangerous pace.
“You have me,” I whispered back to him and nibbled on the lobe of his ear. “Do whatever the fuck you want to me...”
He sure as hell didn't need to be told twice.
He pressed his lips hard against the side of my neck, biting gently on the flesh and making my toes curl with pleasure. I cried out, and he moved his lips inward, kissing me all over- my cheek, my lips, my chin, and down along the slope of my throat. He pushed his fingers into my right breast and began to knead the flesh like dough, then slid his lips around the right nipple, suckling hungrily on me, and pushing his teeth ever so lightly into the skin. I whimpered, and he pulled and proceeded to ravish me in this way, rolling his tongue slowly, seductively around the nipple. He moved slowly, methodically, back and forth between each breast, making me ache with an untold longing for him, and making me so wet for him down below that I didn't think I could stand it.
And don't think for a moment that he let this particular detail go ignored...
A few minutes into the luxury of his nipple play, I felt a free hand roving down along the side of my body, moving to a spot that was entirely too predictable. I held my breath, and opened my legs wide to let him in, then closed them tight around his hand once he was safely in place.
He was exactly where I wanted him to be, and I wasn't about to let him break free if I could help it...
His fingers slid up inside me, and my jaw fell wide open as he caressed the moist slit of my womanhood. He gently traced the lips, and pushed his digits inside, and vigorously rubbed against my clit, sending almost violent waves of sensation up through the core of my body, making it next to impossible for me to breathe.
“Oh fuck... Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I began to chant, my eyes open wide to the ceiling. It was a word I seldom ever used, finding it crass and unattractive, but under the circumstances, I felt like it was the only possible syllable that could describe what I was feeling in that moment.
He continued to finger me with the utmost enthusiasm, pushing himself in deep, twisting, stroking, caressing, seeming to know exactly what I wanted, exactly where I wanted it. By the time he was finished and pulled his fingers out against the protestations of my trembling thighs, I was already entirely ready for him- I wanted more than anything for him to flip me around, bend me over, whip out his cock and fuck me like there was no tomorrow.
But I still had an unexpected interlude of pleasure to make it through before anything like that could happen just yet...
I didn't expect to be as turned on as I was when he reached up for my open lips and pushed his dripping wet fingers into my mouth. I closed my eyes and slid my tongue slowly around his digits, craving the taste of myself on him, and hoping that this symbolized what I thought it might.
I opened my eyes just long enough to see him leaning in to kiss me. I closed them again and received him happily, and shivered as he brought his mouth to my ear, and whispered softly, “Lie back down on the bed.”
I do believe my womanhood did somersaults at that moment, at the realization of what was in store for it.
Dutifully I returned to my back, grabbing the twisted sheets for support as he slid his palms up along my thighs, and pushed them gently open. He smiled at me, licking his lips at the sight of my glistening, ebony pussy. Then he bowed his head down, extended his tongue, and entered me.
Once again, I was in heaven.
He began to lick me, kissing my vulva, penetrating me with the pink spade of his tongue, exploring every inch of me inside and out. His head began to nod, and his fingers tightened around my thighs, and my bones ached as I tried to control the severity of feeling now raging through me, and failed to do so miserably.
I low, swelling moan found its way from my throat, and my thighs closed up around him, moving tighter and tighter as his tongue pushed deeper and deeper, gripping me to my very core. I ran my fingers through his hair, both lovingly, and as a means of pulling him in closer whenever he hit a particular sweet spot.
The entire room felt like it was spinning around me, and everything else in the world seemed secondary to what was
happening right now, right here, in this very moment, in this very place.
“Fuck!” I shrieked, as an orgasmic jolt suddenly raced through me, coming up without warning, and causing me to seize up around him. I inhaled violently through gritted teeth, and tensed up from head to toe around him, never wanting the sensations to die down.
At last, the feeling evened out, and I released myself around him, freeing him from the prison of my thighs as stars flashed before my field of vision.
“Jesus Christ,” I sighed, trying to settle down, and gently he brought his lips from my pussy, and let them curl into his familiar, confident smile.
“Nope,” he said. “Just me...”
Then he leaned in and kissed me, and my taste was all over him, making me want him so much more than I already did. The two of us kissed, and groped, and breathed one another wildly in, and at last the moment I'd been waiting for arrived. He unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and cast them down over the edge of the bed.
I think my eyes bugged a little at the sight of the appendage now standing hard from the center of his pelvis, a massive cock that I almost couldn't fathom being used on me, but that I absolutely couldn't wait to get into my body.
Thankfully, I didn't have to wait long.
I didn't know what to expect from a man like Derek position wise- I'd imagined him taking me doggy style, which would have been thrilling enough as it was. But tonight, my sexy little construction worker was all animal, and he picked me up off the bed in a way that was absolutely dominant, wrapping my open legs around his midriff so that his cock slid up between my spread cheeks, and carried me across the room.
He pinned me up against the far wall, my arms wrapped around his neck for dear life, and my open legs dangling down on either side of him, making me feel entirely his as he positioned himself up into me. I held my breath, wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into, but desperate to find out. Then I felt his tip pressing into me from below. He slid up into my folds, opening me up nice and tight, breaking my seal in a way that hadn't been done in ages, and driving himself all the way up inside me, stuffing me with his massive cock, and claiming me so thoroughly, so perfectly, that I never again wanted to be anything but his.
The Builder: BWWM Romance Series (The Handyman Series Book 5) Page 2