by Cat Porter
Her fingers stroked over my hard dick.
“Let’s not lose it now,” I said on a hiss.
I fell back on the mattress, and she slid down my body. Her mouth took in my tip, her hands digging into my ass.
“Fuck, woman. Stop teasing.”
She took me all the way in and swallowed me down her throat, like the hungry girl she was. My jaw clenched, and my lids lowered over my eyes as sweat prickled my skin, low grunts escaping my tense lips. Her hand twisted my base, rubbing hard.
“Ah, baby. That’s it. Yeah.”
Her mouth worked hard and steady, and I gulped in air.
“Fuck, Scarlett…feels so damn good.”
She pulled up and climbed on me, straddling my legs.
Her eyes blazed over me, her hand still working me. “I want you inside me.”
“Demanding bitch.” I let out a growl and shoved her hand away from my cock. I pulled on it myself, her saliva making it easier, faster. “How do you want me, Scarlett?”
She positioned herself, her hands planting on my chest. “I get to choose?”
“This is all yours.”
“Slow first and then hard,” she whispered, rocking over my dick, her wet softness killing me with every pass.
I stroked her clit with the tip of my cock, and she moaned, her jaw going slack, her hips squirming at the contact.
“I love this, the very beginning.” Her voice had a dreamy quality to it, her large eyes simmering in a glaze. “The very, very first…ooh.” She bowed her head down as she rocked into me, taking me in.
I lifted her face at her chin, and our eyes hung on to one another’s in the same mist. I took in every little sensation—her cries, the tingles, the burning, the fullness of having Tania all around me. The heat of our bodies, us moving together—all of it carried us both somewhere other than this bed.
I pushed up and took her in my embrace as we made love, her arms tightening around me, her gasps in my ear. My own harsh breath jammed in my lungs.
“I love you. I love you,” she murmured to me, to herself, to the world.
I held her tightly and thrust inside her, taking her with me.
Into us.
I HADN’T SEEN BUTLER in almost a week. Things had gotten very busy at the store, and he was heavily involved in club business as well as preparing for the go-kart race with Wes and the Jacks. We talked on the phone a lot, texted, sexted, but I missed him. I missed him badly.
However, it had given me a perfect opportunity to get another item on my wish list done. Something special for Butler. For me.
“There is nothing like smoky eyes. Nothing. There. Just right.” Jill’s eyes scanned my face, her hand at my chin while Grace adjusted the light the photographer had let us use.
Jill, Grace, Lenore and I had spent the morning blocking the glass windows of the Rusted Heart with cardboard, and then we’d set up the “stage” for my photo shoot.
“Ah, Jill! Natural but va-voom-boom all at the same time,” said Lenore, who stood behind her, both of them studying me. “Tania, you’ve got to start wearing it like that every day. Seriously.”
“I tell her that all the time. She won’t listen,” Jill said, crossing her eyes at me.
I blinked at Jill’s handheld mirror. They were right. “I think I’ll take your advice from here on out, smart-ass.”
“Woo!” Jill laughed.
“And your tat healed really well. It’s perfect,” murmured Lenore.
“I love it,” I said.
With Butler away, I’d taken the opportunity to make the appointment with Ronny for the day Butler had left in order to get our design started and have that heal before he saw it.
“Ian’s the photographer you use for your ads, right?” Grace asked.
“Yes. He’s very good, very professional,” replied Lenore. “He does a lot of boudoir shoots, too, if you and Jill are ever interested.”
“I only pose for my husband, honey,” said Grace. “And his drawings of me would make even you blush.”
“Aw, heavy sigh,” said Jill. “I get dirty poems written in my honor. If I got a boudoir shot done and gave it to my old man, I can only imagine what raunchy wordsmithery that would inspire.”
“I think you should find out, don’t you?” I said, laughing.
“Boner’s birthday is coming up,” murmured Jill, chewing on her lip as she packed up her makeup collection. “Hey, Lenore, I’ve been meaning to ask you—I love that you pose for your own ads, but you never show your gorgeous face. Why? You’re certainly not shy.”
“She’s all about the mystery,” I piped in.
“Yeah.” Lenore raised her chin at me, a slight smile on her lips. “Sexy lingerie is all about the mystery and intrigue.”
“This is a terrific idea you had.” Grace took my arm in hers. “You need a shot of liquid courage, or are you okay?”
“I feel a bit nervous, but I’m excited mostly.”
“Good, because I want you to enjoy this. You need to enjoy this. You’re gorgeous. A knockout,” said Grace, releasing me.
“Thank you. I feel really good about this.”
“These photos are going to be amazing,” said Lenore. “I might have to use a couple for my next ad.”
“Oh, stop!”
“I’m not kidding, Tania,” said Lenore. “You can count on Ian’s assistant, Alison to help you through the shoot. She’s experienced. You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“Really, you all can go.” I wanted this moment for me.
“Okay then,” said Lenore as she, Grace, and Jill exchanged glances. “Let’s go!”
“Thank you, guys, for helping me out.”
Jill kissed me on the cheek as she squeezed my arms. “Gorgeous.”
“Kill it, babe,” said Grace, a hand on my shoulder.
“I intend to,” I replied.
“Okay, Ian, we’re off.” Lenore gave the photographer a wave of her hand from across the room. “Take care of my girl.”
“You know I will.” He winked at Lenore, and his gaze darted back at his light meter. “Let’s do this, ladies. We ready?”
Alison led me around the obstacle course of cables, the light stands, and filters toward the tableau we had set up earlier. My new tall black leather boots made a distinctive clicking sound against the floor.
Ian settled onto his knees in front of us, his camera in his hands.
Alison placed the brass crown carefully on my head, and we adjusted it together. Ian glanced up at me.
I undid the belt on my robe. “I’m ready.”
TONIGHT, FRED WAS OUT OF TOWN on business, so Penny and her boys were camping at the house to spend the night with Grandma Rae. Therefore, I arranged to have my own sleepover at Butler’s house. I’d prepared a dinner of broiled salmon, steamed cauliflower, wild rice, and an olive oil vinaigrette with pistachio nuts, packaged it, and brought it with me to his house. I also brought him my gift.
Butler opened the door of his apartment, wearing only athletic shorts that hung low on his lean hips, his feet bare, the skin of his sculpted chest shining with perspiration. His weights were out on the floor behind him. He took one look at me, and that know-it-all self-satisfied smirk slid over his handsome face, uncoiling a shiver of heat over my skin. I took in a tiny breath, savoring the rush.
“Get in here.” He, tugged me into his living room and kissed me. He pulled back, grabbing the tote bags I was carrying. His eyes widened. “What the hell are those boots you’re wearing? Are you my dinner, baby?”
“Dinner is in that blue tote.” I presented him with the gift bag. “And this is for you.”
His brow creased, a frown shadowing his face. “Do we have some sort of anniversary thing?”
“Nope. I’m not one of those girls who takes notes of the first day we kissed or held hands or watched a full moon, then buys a Hallmark card for every occasion, and freaks if you don’t remember every little event.”
“I didn’t think so.”
His lips twitched.
“It’s a gift for you. That simple. I had to, wanted to, felt compelled to. Accept it graciously.”
Butler opened the gift bag and removed a large box that I’d wrapped in a beautiful royal blue and purple wrapping paper tied with a thick gold ribbon.
He stared at the present, swallowing, the muscles of his throat moving with the action. “This is the second time, and…”
“Butler, what is it?”
“This is the second time you’ve given me a present. I haven’t seen a present, wrapped or otherwise, for me in…I don’t remember how long.” His voice was quiet, the lines of his face drawn.
My heart squeezed. “Baby, open it,” I murmured.
He pulled the ribbon off the box, scratched at the paper and ripped it open, his lips pursed, as if he were squelching any kind of excitement. He flung the paper scraps to his side and lifted the 8x10 frame from its box. His body stilled, his eyes focusing on the photograph and widening a few degrees.
“Tania—”
“It’s how you make me feel.” My heart beat outside my chest. “Because you see me like this.”
His gaze darted at me and then back to the photo. “Shit, baby. It’s—you’re so fucking beautiful. You’re incredible.”
“I wanted to be your pinup,” I whispered.
He swung an arm around my neck and kissed the top of my head as we both looked at the photo Lenore’s photographer had taken of me, set off in a ridged white border matte and set in a professional thick black frame.
In the photograph, I wore Lenore’s custom-made corset, my black hair long and wavy around my shoulders and down my chest. On my legs were the new high-to-the-knee black leather heeled boots that Grace and I had found in Rapid. Hanging off one shoulder was one of Gerhard and Astrid’s velvet throws, almost as if it were a part of me. On my head was Astrid’s gold crown with the faux black diamond. In my hand was a sunflower, like the ones Butler had given me at the Rusted Heart’s opening parties.
I reigned over a kingdom of pickings—the bone thrones and towers, the gruesome clay masks, the antique Christmas decorations in crystal bowls, Wreck’s candelabra, his vintage Harley engines and headlamps and dented, scratched tanks lying around me—my minions, my secret rusted treasures in my field of dreams, my field of plenty.
A field that Butler had helped me cultivate.
Dreams that Butler understood, dreams that he’d lived with me. Found with me. Encouraged in me.
And there were more dreams to dream, more to realize—that, I knew with certainty deep in my soul.
“This is my queen,” he whispered back.
My heart fluttered, my skin heated.
“This is how I see you, Scarlett. And more. So much more.”
Butler’s eyes scrunched up for a second. “What’s that on your chest? On your—”
His eyes tightened as his gaze snapped at me, those icy-blue stones piercing me. “What did you do?” His voice had deepened. “Let me see.”
I licked at my dry lips as I tugged off the thin scarf I had draped around my neck and chest on purpose.
He put down the framed photograph, and his fingers stroked the edges of my new tattoo. “Jesus.”
Ronny had transformed the F scar into a B.
“Ronny’s going to fill it in more in a few weeks,” I said.
He traced the edges of the design on my skin. “And a hummingbird on the side?”
I only nodded.
He bent and planted a kiss over his B on my skin and on the delicate hummingbird entwined in its lines. His lips brushed my throat as his hands cradled my head, tilting it upward. His eyes were shining, the brightest, most breathtaking azure blue. Fresh calm. Startling assurance, clarity.
“The last thing I ever expected was to find you. You’re a total surprise to me, Tania. You’re the greatest gift for me, baby. And I’m going to show you that every fucking day. I’m going to show you what I see.”
A small cry escaped my lips.
He bent and kissed me so very gently. “Love you.”
I sighed, my eyes closed. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Scarlett.”
He picked up the photo. “Baby, these boots with this lingerie number…”
“Hmm?”
“This corset yours, or did you borrow it?”
“Unwrap your other present now.”
“What other—”
His gaze darkened and didn’t roam from mine as he undid the belt on my coat and unbuttoned each button, starting at the top, in swift, precise movements. That dazzling, heady trip of arousal flared through me, liquefying everything in its path.
He swept the coat off my shoulders, and it crumpled onto the floor. “Fucking hell,” he breathed, his eyes slowly taking me in from top to bottom.
I wore the corset. And nothing else.
“Get naked,” I said.
He did.
My eyes jumped at the sight of his hard length, and he noticed.
“You know how to make my Brando very, very happy and very hard.” Butler smoothed his hands down the sides of the silky fabric. “This isn’t coming off you just yet.”
He stared at me, raw and blatant hunger in his eyes, as he unsnapped the tiny pearl buttons of the panty. His fingers brushed against me, and I almost came right there and then.
He let out a small groan. “I want to fuck my gift package.”
“Please fucking do.”
He threw me over the arm of his couch and kicked my fantastically booted legs open wide.
He slammed into me.
“Yes!” My fingers dug into the sofa cushion, the throb pulsating through every part of me.
His arm wrapped around my middle and held me up as he plunged deeper inside me. I came quickly, collapsing into the cushions.
He bit my earlobe. “Not done with you yet, my queen.”
His slick erection against my flesh along with that husky, hoarse voice summoned my body forth like some sort of call to the animal in me.
“Oh goody,” I gasped.
He dragged me down to the floor and pressing my booted legs back against my chest, he pounded into me.
The glimmer in his eyes was unmistakable, the musk of his perspiration, the intensity of his desire making me desperate for more. The wave towered over me again. Never before in the history of Tania had this happened. Violent sensations coursed through me. I wasn’t sure where I began and ended.
But I knew who was at the heart of it.
“Markus…”
His eyes held mine, and I was pulled under in the deep blue of his ocean.
There was no going back to average, to routine, to indifference, to settling, to being alone.
No, not ever.
“I see you, Tania. I see you, baby, and you’re everything.”
“WHAT KIND OF SURPRISE?”
Butler pulled a strap on his saddlebag, fastening it. “Will you get on my bike, so I can get us there first?”
“Does this mean I have to ride on your bike with my eyes closed?”
He raised his eyes skyward and brought them back to me. “Tania, all I’m asking is that you let me take you somewhere special, and I promise you, all will be revealed.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He handed me my helmet, and we got on his Harley.
I held on to him, pressed into him, as he took us out of Meager, past the roadside creeks lined with purple and golden wildflowers. We headed east through farmland that lay between Meager and Pine Needle.
My heart beat faster, my breath sped up, and it wasn’t from the wind whipping over me or my man’s strong body shielding me, as it propelled us forward on his beloved hulk of roaring metal, like a bionic orgasm. No, I had a good idea where we were going, and I hadn’t been there in years.
The grasses rippling in the early morning wind stretched to infinity. The vast sky was dotted with soft white clumps of clouds that shed a dappling of darkness here and there over the rolling fi
elds of pale green soy, the gold waves of wheat. I sat up in the saddle. This was dramatic take-your-breath-away splendidness.
And there, there they were, my and my dad’s favorite—the glorious sunflower fields. Sunflowers for as long and wide as the eye could see.
I squeezed his middle.
Butler was taking me home. Home to my family’s farm, to our sunflowers. Land that had been in my family for generations, Dakotan born and bred folk who tended their land with love and pride, and sweat and tears.
He slowed down his bike on the edge of the road and cut his engine.
I tugged on his jacket. “How do you know that this is the property?”
“I did my homework, baby. I wanted you to see it again with me, and I wanted you to show it to me.” He took the helmet from my hands. “You’ve talked about it, but something in your tone of voice always struck me as far away. I asked your mom, and she showed me the photos of you here on this land, at that farmhouse.” He gestured at my great-great-grandparents’ sprawling house. The house that I’d been brought to after birth and raised in, the house I’d left after my father’s death. The house I hadn’t stepped foot in for decades.
He ripped off his gloves and held a hand out to me. My heart chugged through molasses and wine, and I took hold of his warm hand. Together, we walked along the edge of the field.
The sunflowers were at their peak now in early September. The bees were working, and I closed my eyes and listened to their frantic buzzing, the rustling of the thick stalks in the warm breeze.
“I always thought sunflowers would smell more flowery out in the field,” he said. “But they smell of green, growing things, and the outdoors. Almost like a resin, isn’t it?”
“The petals and the leaves smell like that. The bees can smell the blossoms though. Sunflowers need the bees. We’d bring them in special to pollinate.”
“The flowers are huge. I always thought it was odd that they’re not harvested at their peak, that they have to be dried up first.”
“Most people don’t know that,” I said.
“I know. Hell of a lot of sunflower farms up north. Been around them for years, ridden through them, but I’ve never been so up close. Like now.” He brought our hands to his mouth, planting a kiss on mine.