His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1)

by Lisa Renee Jones

  She laughs and closes the space between us, her hands on my knees, her chin tilted up, a smile in her eyes. She’s comfortable again, back inside her limits just in time for me to take her out of them again. I catch her chin in my hand. “What do you think I’m about to do to you, Abbie?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Abbie

  “What do you think that I’m going to do to you, Abbie?”

  I don’t focus on the question as much as I do the use of my name: Abbie. The way Gabe chose that name for me. The way he makes sure that I know he’s here with me, focused solely on me. So sure that I’m naked, on my knees, and at Gabe’s feet, but it doesn’t feel the way it might feel with another man. I’ve been naked and exposed with a man before, but it wasn’t like this. I didn’t feel emotionally vulnerable like I do with Gabe. I felt physically vulnerable and physical vulnerability is something you can compartmentalize. It’s something you can control. This man tears down my walls. He makes me smile. He makes me feel alive again in a way I didn’t think was possible.

  “Maybe it’s you who should be thinking about what I’m about to do to you,” I suggest, thinking of all the places my mouth could go.

  He stands up and takes me with him. “You want your mouth on my cock?” he demands roughly. “Is that what you’re offering?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, my sex clenching, the bold way he talks affecting me, arousing me. “That’s exactly what I’m offering you.”

  He tangles his fingers into my hair and tilts my head back, his long hard body pressed to mine, his free hand cupping my breast, fingers tweaking my nipple. “As much as I want your mouth on my cock,” he says boldly, “tonight isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

  “You assume I’d do that just for you,” I dare.

  “Now you’re just trying to make me forget how sweet making you beg is going to be.”

  I moan with another roll of my nipple in his fingers. “I don’t beg,” I pant out.

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to beg. Not if you moan like you just did.” His hand slides down my waist, over my hips and then he’s stroking his fingers along my sex, his grip tightening on my hair. His woodsy scent is all around me, his mouth a breath from mine when he says, “You’re so damn wet you’re going to make me insane, woman.” His lips slant over my lips, and then his tongue is stroking deep, so very deep, a possessive, intense kiss that I feel everywhere. And his fingers keep stroking my sex, dipping inside me, a tease that is there and gone before I’m suddenly facing the bed and his hands are settling on my hips.

  “Don’t move,” he orders. “Stay right there.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I won’t get naked.”

  “Oh.”

  He laughs, low and sexy. God, I love that laugh. I know he jokes and smiles to cover up some hidden pain, but somehow, his laugh is straight from his soul, the real man that is stripped of pain and a past I don’t yet understand. “Oh,” he mimics, nuzzling my neck. “Don’t move.”

  “I want to watch.”

  “I want you to want to watch and then not get to watch.”

  “You got to watch.”

  “Yes. I did.” He doesn’t give in. “Don’t move or I don’t undress.”

  He steps away from me and I’m instantly cold and aching for his touch, my nipples puckering in the cold air of the room, that is not all that cold, or it wasn’t until he stopped touching me. But he is touching me. His eyes are on me, a caress that I feel in the tingling of my skin, all over. The idea that he’s now staring at my naked body while I can’t see him undoes me. It steals my control. It gives it all to him. I try to turn. He catches my hips. “I said don’t move.”

  “I can’t stand like this.”

  “Easy enough to fix,” he says and then he’s pressing me onto the mattress, forcing me to catch myself on my hands and knees.

  I’ve barely digested my new, more vulnerable position, when he shocks me and smacks my backside. He’s then down on one knee beside me, his lips at my ear, his fingers flexing on one of my butt cheeks. I try to move, and his hand settles in the middle of my lower back. “Don’t move. Stay here. Stay like this for me, with me, for you.”

  “For me?”

  “What do you feel right now?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper, but I do know I realize even as I say differently. My adrenaline is pumping. My heart racing. My skin tingling.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing. I can’t think.”

  “Exactly. You can’t think. That’s the idea. I can take you away. I can show you how more is less and less is more. I can show you how to escape.”

  Escape.

  It’s what I want.

  It’s what I need.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  “That’s where that trust you said an orgasm doesn’t give me comes in. You have to trust me, but I’ll give you the chance to say no.”

  “I need a chance to say no? What are you going to do?”

  His lips press to my ear. “Trust me, Abbie. Stay just like this while I undress and then if you want to stop—”

  “Hurry up,” I demand. “Hurry up—”

  “I’ll hurry. Don’t move. Remember. It’s all about anticipation. It’s all about—”

  “Control? Yours?”

  I can almost feel the shift in the air before he rolls me over and suddenly we are side by side, facing each other, and he’s folding me against him, his hand on my cheek, guiding my gaze to his. “No, sweetheart. It’s not about my control. It’s about yours. You say yes. You say no.”

  “But you give the orders.”

  “To give you the chance to stop thinking.”

  “I could stop thinking if you were kissing me right now. I really need you to kiss me right now.”

  His mouth comes down on mine, a deep stroke of tongue that feels like a lick in other intimate places. That stroke and his hard, big, perfect body next to mine is all that it takes. I need him. God, how I need him and I press into him, trying to get closer.

  My desperation seems to feed his desperation and it’s as if a match ignites between us. A smoldering heat going up in flames. We are all over each other, touching, kissing, sounds of need and hunger sliding from my lips, his lips. I don’t even know how his pants come down, how he’s pressing between my legs, but his fingers are rough in my hair, almost a pull, not a tug, but it arouses me. God, it arouses me and then his hand comes down on my backside again, a firm smack that radiates through me seconds before his shaft thrusts into me.

  I gasp and moan and then his hand smacks my backside again. “Gabe,” I pant.

  His fingers tangle into my hair. “What do you want?”

  I don’t even think. “More,” I whisper. “I want more.” And I know I mean his hand on my backside again.

  He pulls back and looks at me, his eyes burning, probing. “How much more?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. Just more.”

  “We’ll find out together,” he promises, and then he’s kissing me again, rolling me on top of him, but he doesn’t let me sit up. He folds me close, his hand coming down on my backside, squeezing my cheek as his hips lift with a thrust of his cock. I moan and this time when he smacks my backside and thrusts into me, he is so hard, so thick, and so very deep. The sensations that roll through me are all-consuming. I can’t think all over again. I can’t feel inhibitions. I can’t do anything but press into his thrusts, my mouth on his mouth, kissing him with desperation again, the wildness between us like nothing I have ever known. I’m on the edge of that blissful, perfect place where there is nothing but pleasure. I just want to be there, I need to be there. And then I am. I’m shattering, and moaning in this deep, from the soul way I don’t even know as my own self, and he’s cupping my head, shuddering right along with me.

  I’m lost in pleasure and sensations that are eternal and yet so very short. I don’t want it to end, but it’s inevitable. It’s
over and I slide back into reality. I collapse on top of Gabe and the thing that feels so new and right with this man is that I don’t even feel the need to move. I lay there naked, exposed, vulnerable on top of him, and I never want to leave. He doesn’t want me to, either. He holds me tight. He holds me the way I’ve always wanted to be held. Like he doesn’t want to let me go. Like he fears that I really will break his heart.

  I won’t.

  Why in the world would I leave a man this perfect?

  A tiny voice tries to remind me of how bad I am for him, but I squash it. I don’t want to leave this man. I’m not going to leave him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Abbie

  My afterglow from sex is short-lived. I sit up and stare down at Gabe. “We didn’t use a condom. I’m on the pill, but I didn’t pack my prescription. I can’t miss that pill. Not when we just had sex.”

  He flips me to my back and stares down at me. “We’ll go to the pharmacy here in the morning.”

  “Yes, but I think I missed yesterday’s pill, too, Gabe.”

  “You aren’t going to get pregnant because you missed one pill.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I have a friend who fucked a gynecologist for a while.”

  “Why are you not freaking out about this?”

  “I don’t freak out about much. We were in the moment. We forgot.”

  “We forgot?” My hands flatten on his chest. “Gabe—”

  He kisses me. “You aren’t going to get pregnant.”

  He lays down and pulls my back to his front. “You can’t be sure.”

  He lays there a few seconds, something heavy in the air before he says, “I got fixed years ago.”

  That hits me like a ton of bricks. He got fixed? I rotate in his arms to face him. “You—years ago?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want kids. If you want kids—”

  “Gabe—”

  “It is what it is, Abbie. I got fixed. There are good odds that it can be undone if I choose to get it undone. Right now, I don’t.” He turns me around again and pulls me to him, his big body hugging mine. I could be offended. I could feel shut down, but then he whispers, “I just need you, Abbie.”

  He just needs me.

  That confession, low and raspy, undoes me the way Gabe undoes me. There’s a story behind his extreme defiance of parenthood. One he clearly doesn’t want to talk about. I don’t push him. I’m self-aware enough to understand that we do things to protect ourselves and Gabe is a man who protects himself to extremes. He understands the way I need to protect myself and he’s tried to help me escape. God, how I want to help him escape, too.

  He’s letting me inside his world, he’s giving me that chance. I want to be here despite all the reasons I should walk away. I won’t ever hurt Gabe, but the world I live in might. That worries me. I can’t ask this man to let down walls, to support me and protect me, only to have a piece of me cut him. Maybe even bleed him dry. He nuzzles my neck and he smells good, all woodsy and wonderful and for right now, for this night, I just want to be with him.

  My lashes lower and I don’t let myself think of anything but how good he feels.

  ***

  Gabe

  I wake at the dawn’s light peeking through the curtains and lay there a good half hour, holding Abbie, replaying last night. A luxury I have now because I took Dexter out about two hours ago when Abbie murmured something incoherent and fell back to sleep. Now, lying in the dimly lit room, I focus on one thing. I told her I got fixed. I’ve never told anyone. I wear a condom for safety. I wear a condom to avoid questions. Abbie is the only woman with whom I’ve ever gone without a condom. Well, the only one for a long damn time. Maybe she wants kids. I didn’t ask her. I don’t want to know. Not now. Not fucking now. I don’t want to find out there’s anything to divide us.

  I nuzzle her neck and she snuggles deeper into the bed. She’s sound asleep, peaceful. Comfortable in a way I want her to stay here with me.

  I ease out of the bed and quietly head to the bathroom. A few minutes later, my teeth are brushed, and I’m in sweats and a T-shirt when I start a pot of coffee and then feed Dexter. While the coffee brews, I take the pooch for a walk, and the damn dog’s happiness is infectious. He lightens my mood, calms my soul.

  A half hour later, he’s at my feet in the kitchen while I drink coffee, and I’m convinced he’s safe to have the full run of the house. He deserves the freedom. I open my MacBook to dig into a strategy to deal with Abbie’s situation when my cellphone rings. It’s my brother. “What’s happening?” Reid asks.

  “Our father served a lawsuit on Abbie that has our company’s name on it.”

  “That little bitch,” he says. “He was trying to make her think you were playing her.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “File a cease and desist order on him. I’m concerned that him using our name this easily is a sign that he’s doing it elsewhere. We don’t need that connection. We know what he’s capable of.”

  “We do,” he says. “But, Gabe, man, Jean Claude is a bad dude. He’ll do what he needs to do to win. He’ll get bloody. If Abbie’s ex is on his team, he’s no better. What do we know about the reason they want that property?”

  Bloody. Not a word I want associated with Abbie. “We don’t. I’m working on it.”

  “I need to just call Jean Claude and let him know I’m in this. I’m in this all the way because he knows I know ways to hurt him.”

  Which is exactly why I was thinking about Reid during my walk with Dexter. “And now you have a way for him to hurt you. Your wife. Step back from this.”

  “You’re my brother. I’m in this by default, but if you thought I’d step back when you needed me, we have some brother shit to talk through.”

  “That wife of yours is making you too touchy-feely, man. We don’t have anything to talk through outside of you protecting your wife. Stay out of the country. Let me deal with this.”

  “You called me, remember?”

  “I do,” I say. “But that’s before I realized how fucked up this was going to get. Threats are being punched around.”

  “Yours or theirs?”

  “Both.”

  “In other words, I need to come back now.”

  “Fuck, man. What part of stay out of the country do you not understand?”

  “The very fact that you think that I need to stay out of the country tells me that you’re in real trouble.”

  “I’m not in trouble,” I bite out, ready to pour some whiskey into my coffee. “I’m making sure you don’t get into trouble.”

  “We’re both eager to come back and see the furry farm,” he says, speaking of the new dog and cat they adopted right before they got married. “We already booked our flights. We’ll be back by tomorrow morning.” He hangs up.

  I grimace and sip my coffee. Yeah. I need that damn whiskey, all right.

  The stakes just got higher. I now have my new woman to protect, right along with my brother and his wife. Which means I can’t play around. I can’t let this turn into a drawn-out war. I can’t allow blood to be drawn on our side. It has to be blood on the other side. And it has to be now.

  I get up and walk to the bar, pull out a bottle of whiskey and pour it into my cup. It’s time to get serious about doing what I do best. What I don’t want Abbie to know I do best.

  Playing dirty.

  Dexter whines at my feet and I walk to the cabinet and grab one of the treats I bought him, feeding the beast. Then me and my serial killer dog get to work hatching a plan to end our problem: Abbie’s ex-husband.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Abbie

  I wake to the delicious feel of soft sheets around me, the scent of Gabe teasing my nostrils, and I don’t even open my eyes. For a few seconds, I just breathe in this moment, breathe in him. I love how he smells. I love how he makes me feel. Like I matt
er. I want to feel him now. I roll over and my hand hits empty space. I blink and sunlight brightens my view. I sit up and look around the room that is all masculine heavy wood and dark furnishings, a room created by the man who hides beneath humor. Gabe is so much more than he allows the world to see and yet, in this tiny window we’ve been together, I believe that he’s started to let me inside. It matters. It really does.

  I throw off the blanket to find myself naked, and feeling just a little shy, I quickly sit up to grab my cellphone that Gabe plugged into a charger for me. That was thoughtful. Really thoughtful. I look toward the door, where he’s yet to appear, and then dash for the bathroom. Once I’m inside the giant room, I find an old fashioned claw-foot tub and lots of white tile, which is a beachside favorite that I suspect Gabe inherited with the house. It’s simple but pretty.

  I shut the door, and to my surprise find my bag I’d packed sitting on the sink. Gabe did that for me. It’s another thoughtful action that has me eager to thank him in person. What time is it? I glance down at my phone to find that it’s nearly eight. I need to be at the ranch helping my mother and I quickly check my messages to find no missed calls. That’s a little odd for my mother, which worries me, but right now, I’m naked, and I need to put something on my body.

  Hurrying forward, I open my bag, pull out a pair of leggings and a tank top and dress. Once I’m dressed, I dial my mother. She doesn’t answer, which isn’t normal for her. I need to get to the ranch. I brush my teeth and hair, and I’ve just finished washing the remnants of make-up off my face when my cellphone rings.

  Relief washes over me at the sight of my mother’s number. “Morning, Abbie.”

  “Abbie?”

  She laughs. “If it’s good enough for Gabe, it’s good enough for me.”

  She’s playful and happy. “You’re in a good mood.”

  “We survived yesterday. I have every reason to be in a good mood.”

  “And you met a hot, rich cowboy?” I tease of the owner of the ranch.