‘Blaser? Downstairs? Your brother?’
‘Yeah, he owns a garage as well. He’s a mechanic by trade, he used to chop cars.’
‘He’s a busy guy, isn’t he? How did he manage to get himself in trouble with Gary?’
‘That goes back to when they were teenagers, it’s a long story.’
‘One I shouldn’t ask you to tell me while I’m working,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’ll tell me another time?’
‘Sure. No running off tonight. I’ll take you home… we’re not hiding from this guy. I’m not working for you anymore; I don’t need to conceal my identity. If he wants to come after me then let him.’
‘Don’t you go looking for a fight,’ she said. ‘I was worried about Suzette’s safety when she spent time with me. I have to give you the same warning.’
‘Don’t you worry about me, Cherrypop. I’ve got my brothers watching my back and I know what I’m doing.’
‘Ok. Your apartment is closer and I’d love to see it.’ Exaggerating the flutter of her eyelashes made him smile out a laugh.
‘Whatever makes you happy, Miss. Lys.’
Rising from his embrace, she sought out her shoes to slide them on again. ‘The quicker I get to work, the quicker time will go and we can get home… to bed.’
Colt stayed at the bar with Ruger throughout the rest of the night, but his attention was never far from Lyssa as she buzzed around the room and back to the bar to fill orders. Occasionally they’d exchanged banter, but it was the touches that affected him the most. She’d come over and loop her arm around his, or she’d rest her head on his shoulder. Or she would relax her body on his back when she wound her arms around him. Lyssa wasn’t afraid of publicising their association, she didn’t touch other men in the establishment in the way she did with him.
Blaser filled an order for her and put the last glass on her tray. As Lyssa slid it from the bar Colt squeezed her ass, earning him a smile. He kissed the ball of her shoulder before she spun to leave and serve the drinks.
‘We’ve got rules about touching the girls,’ Blaser said from his side of the bar. ‘You do it again and I’ll have to call security.’
‘I didn’t see her complaining,’ Ruger said. ‘I think our brother has got himself a girlfriend.’ The mocking grin and pronounced nudge Ruger gave him made Colt laugh.
‘You move fast,’ Blaser said. ‘She’s a good girl. Shame she sucks as a waitress. It’s a good thing that she’s sexy, that ass could hypnotise a guy.’
Colt had noticed the sway of her hips himself and he was proud of the confidence she exuded in this environment that was alien to her. The ambition in her was admirable; she’d go to any lengths to follow her dream. This book she was planning was something she’d wanted to do all of her life and now she was pursuing it.
Blaser filled another order for another of the girls then came back to him and Ruger at the same time that Lyssa came up behind him. At least he hoped it was her because the female lifted the hem of his shirt and trailed her fingernails up and down his lower back.
Ruger leaned back, making an obvious show of watching her actions, Colt kept his elbows on the bar and slurped his beer.
‘Are there rules about the girls touching customers?’ Ruger asked Blaser.
‘Are you feeling left out?’ she asked. Leaning toward Ruger, she kissed his cheek.
‘Hey,’ Colt said, while his brother grinned like an idiot. ‘No more of that.’
‘He’s easily riled,’ Ruger said. ‘You’ll have to be careful what you do with those lips from now on.’
‘Yeah, the only male they’re allowed to touch is me,’ Colt said.
‘So I can make out with women?’ Lyssa asked.
Ruger swung around, leaving his weight on one elbow while he observed the rest of the room. ‘There’s plenty here to choose from, pick any one you want to. Any girl is fine with me as long as we get to watch.’
‘We?’ Colt said.
‘You’re going to keep that show all to yourself?’ Ruger asked. ‘My birthday is coming up.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘It could be. She didn’t know any different, I could’ve got away with that,’ Ruger shrugged. ‘You’re a spoil sport.’
Blaser sauntered over. ‘You can head off early if you want,’ Blaser said to Lyssa who propped her cheek on his upper arm.
‘Why do I get to head off early?’ she asked.
‘You’re doing management, you can pretty much do anything that you want to now,’ Blaser said.
Lyssa picked up Colt’s arm and hooked it around her so that she could move in against the bar. ‘Your assumption is that I’m starting a relationship with your brother in order to get perks here at work?’
‘I’d have thought that the perks came in the bedroom,’ Ruger muttered into his beer bottle.
Colt resisted the impulse to smack his brother because Lyssa was intent on Blaser and probably hadn’t heard Ruger. Colt recognised the earnest, blinkered expression on her face, so she hadn’t been offended by Ruger’s glibness, not that he’d ever actually seen her offended. It was as if the training she had kicked in and she believed the comments said more about the speaker than who they were speaking to.
‘What other reason would you have to date such a loser?’ Blaser said, not missing an opportunity to rib his twin.
‘It couldn’t be that I’m just immensely aroused by this knockout hunk of man?’
Now both Ruger and Blaser were laughing, her eyes narrowed and he knew she was about to launch into some deconstruction of their reaction, so he brought up his hand to plant it over her mouth.
‘Why don’t you get your shit together and we’ll bail,’ he said, lowering his hand to her taut abdomen.
‘I have to have my shower, will you wait fifteen minutes?’ She glanced over her shoulder at him.
‘Shower at home,’ he said.
‘I shower here because…’ Her saucy smile grew and she relaxed forward to kiss him. ‘Ok.’
After another kiss, she left him to retreat to the locker room backstage. Blaser went to fill an order for one of the waitresses.
‘Why does she shower here?’ Ruger asked.
‘A creep is stalking her and might sneak into her house while she’s vulnerable in the shower in the middle of the night.’
‘No danger of any stalker sneaking in while you’re there,’ Ruger said. ‘You’ll be the one doing the sneaking.’
‘That’s the idea,’ he said, finishing his beer. ‘I hope the bastard makes a move, I’d love to take him down.’
‘Don’t borrow trouble. This guy could be crazy and he won’t like the idea of her having a boyfriend.’
‘Lys has already said this to me.’
‘She’s a smart cookie. A very smart cookie.’
‘She has a medical degree, that’s not an easy get,’ Colt said. ‘Smart, sexy and sassy, I’ve hit the jackpot.’
‘Sassy is less important to me,’ Ruger said. ‘I like my women compliant.’
‘Do you enjoy wearing women’s clothing?’
Both he and Ruger turned to see Lyssa standing behind them wearing her backpack and therapist’s expression.
‘Excuse me?’ Ruger asked.
‘Do you enjoy wearing women’s clothes or shoes?’ she asked. ‘Or make regular visits to the beauty salon?’
Ruger turned to Colt. ‘What is she talking about?’
‘Men who feel the need to exert dominance over a submissive woman can have control issues or may have been a victim of sexual assault or have a history of abuse in childhood. Or sometimes the need to display overtly masculine traits can be a disguise for what may be deemed feminine fetishes, such as wearing lingerie, or make-up, or—‘
Colt’s laugher cut her off dead; Ruger was so stunned that his face was completely suspended in disbelief.
‘I think he’s going to be stuck like that for a while,’ Colt said, still trying to stop laughing.
‘What’s funny?’ Bl
aser asked on his approach.
Colt put a hand on Lyssa’s hip to guide her out. ‘Ask Ruger to show you his pink lace thong,’ Colt said, maintaining pressure on Lyssa’s hip when she tried to pause to say more. But he got her out of the club and one of the bouncers went to get them a cab.
‘I didn’t say that to upset Ruger,’ Lyssa said, taking his arm to bring her body close to his for heat.
‘Maybe you got it right on the button. But I’d rather not know too much about my brother’s fetishes.’
They waited a few seconds. ‘Not all fetishes are unhealthy,’ she said. ‘We all have sexual preferences.’
‘We do?’
‘If it elicits an erotic response or you have a fixation, which causes arousal, on any object, or a non-genital part of the body, then it’s classified as a fetish. Do you have a fetish?’
‘Will you pander to it?’ he asked, bringing her around into his arms and pulling his jacket around her to hold her.
‘I might,’ Lyssa said. ‘I am quite open when it comes to sexual matters. Are any of your preferences illegal?’
‘Aren’t you professionally prescribed to report it if I admit that they are?’
‘You’re not a patient,’ she said.
The tolerance in her expression was so patient and non-judgemental that he realised then just how good she was at her job.
‘Are you going to let me read your book?’
She twisted around, remaining in the same space but putting her back to his front. ‘Eventually, when it’s finished.’
‘Am I going to be in it?’ he asked. If he was going to be her sexual partner he had a right to know if their antics would be shared.
‘I keep my personal and professional lives separate. You’re mine, all mine,’ she said, rotating enough to kiss his jaw.
The cab pulled up, so she linked their fingers again and bounced forth to lead him into the vehicle.
They could have walked to his apartment from the club, it was only a couple of streets away, but she wasn’t wearing a jacket and it was the middle of the night. This was an unknown area to her and she would have to talk to Colt about safety in the area, in case she was ever taking this walk alone. She wasn’t exactly street savvy, though she was no idiot either.
Right here in the back of the cab, she was unzipping the fly of his jeans and pressing her chest into his. The juxtaposition of her soft breasts squashed against his unyielding chest expanded the pressure of urgency in her. He’d been the one to kiss her first, here in the cab, and he probably regretted it now because she went from cool to searing in a nanosecond and he was struggling to contain his own animal urges. His white-knuckled fists tightened and watching him struggle with his control spurred her on.
When they eventually stopped outside his block, he threw money at the sniggering cab driver and hauled her out of the seat. Ignoring her exuberant laugh, he swept her off her feet and took the external stairs up to his first floor apartment two at a time.
Sandwiched between him and his front door, her elbows clamped on each side of his neck as her hands grabbed the hair at his crown. Somehow the door gave from behind her, and with her legs gripped around his waist she could do nothing except let him catch her weight. But, she trusted him. His mouth met hers eagerly, and swallowed the moan of impatience from her throat. The sound of the door slamming joined them on their way across the room.
When they started to fall her instinct was to grasp for the closest stable object, so her body braced around his. But caught in the cradle of a couch she relaxed and went straight for his belt to loosen his jeans and free his member. Less than five seconds later he pushed into her. Impatience was relieved for only a split second, he pulled back and in desperation not to lose their connection her hips came up to meet his and he growled.
Even in the darkness she could see the possession in his eyes. Essentially they were still clothed, she had on everything except her shoes, but that didn’t matter to either of them, not in this second, all that mattered was they had finally been granted their wish.
Her legs climbed his back, his jeans were still on as was his shirt. But she needed him, all of him, now, more. His whispered words of appeasement didn’t placate. Digging her heels into his waistband, she shoved at his jeans, but didn’t manage to lower them. They lost their rhythm when they almost rolled from the couch.
In anticipation of her want, he nipped at her lower lip and sucked her tongue to his mouth while throwing the coffee table to the side out of the way. Then on lurching from the couch she called out, but distress turned to desire when she realised he’d given her just what she wanted, all of him, in her so deep that if she wriggled she’d be coming all over him.
The pulse of him inside her trembled in her belly. This man knew what she wanted, before she knew it. Trailing her lips away, she sat up on top of him, pushing him against her core. The moment of sheer liquid pleasure felt private, and so profound that she couldn’t share it with him. Yet it also made her feel primal, like her skin was too tight. Her clothes made her hot and sticky, they were completely out of place. Pulling her top off, her bra followed, and immediately her breasts were covered by his hands. While he massaged, she broke the last of the buttons on his shirt, exposing his chest for herself.
Shoving his hands away from her chest, she bowed, devoured by the need to taste him, to feel his flesh under her mouth, yielding to her. His groan of ecstasy had her cascading into the deepest burst of her own pleasure. His commitment might be the greatest gift, but his body and hers belonged together, and there was no denying it.
Shifting from her knees, she stretched her legs and he pulled off her high-heels to kiss her instep. Her weight was completely on him now, and the tickle of his chest hair on her calves sent another barb of pleasure through her. Pushing her weight onto her palms, she moved up and down, his teeth grazed her ankle, then he grabbed each of them and steadied her. He sat up forty-five degrees, which made her almost lose her balance. She grabbed for him, but his thick arm held her weight as though it was nothing. Shirking his shirt from one arm, he traded arms and cast it off the other arm to leave himself topless.
In this vulnerable position his groin crushed her clit between them, and she cried out when another orgasm ripped through her, he shifted, and she came all over again. Her head came forward, and she saw the ownership in his eyes. The craving in him only increased hers, and shoving at him until he lay back down, she managed to manoeuvre a turn keeping him inside her as she rotated to face his feet. His hands slid up her back, and her shiver quaked to her still sensitive clit. Pushing her hands under his knees he drew them up for her, and she leant against his thighs. With the denim rasping her nipples, she wriggled him deep and slid up his shaft until he almost left her, then she dropped her weight onto him.
His groan prompted her on again, his hands steadied her hips, and they moved together. Slowing the motion when his fingers dug deeper against her, she wanted to keep him on the edge for as long as she could. This moment might be the first of many, but it didn’t make it any less special. Getting used to it might take time, but she wanted to blend with him, merge so completely that even outsiders wouldn’t mistake their propriety.
In an oddly intimate move while she glided up and down his phallus she reached over his knees and unlaced his boots. Such a normal, everyday thing, yet in this moment she felt entitled, and it became intimate, not because they were currently part of each other but because it proved she had the freedom of him. She pulled his boots, which clamped her inner muscles around him. He cursed her name, and sat up, kicking off the boots. She squealed at the motion that had her back to his chest. Sweeping her hair from her throat he sucked hard, and pinched her nipples.
One hand travelled south, and she was about to tell him if he touched her that she would combust, but instead of going where she thought he was going to, his fingers curled into the band of her skirt, and with one motion the flimsy fabric ripped. The sound of tearing echoed throughout the ap
artment, and again she was coming all over him. As the last quakes passed he grabbed her knees, and pulled them back sending her face down. Lyssa caught herself on her palms, putting her on all fours, and he was behind her pounding into her hard, ready to complete his own cycle. Fearing she wouldn’t be able to hold out, she gasped his name, but her climax hit, and in the blast of his name on her lips, he followed her, the roar in his throat paired with his fist grasping her hair.
Neither moved for what could have been a lifetime, then she leaned forward and straightened her leg, managing a flip that let her lie flat out on the hardwood floor to stare up at him, still high on his knees where he had been. Again, they shared the moment, and she was sure she could have stayed there all night, except she couldn’t because the floor was cold and she was thirsty.
Turning onto her knees, she got to her feet and with a quick look around she pegged the location of the kitchen in the open-plan space. She headed for the fridge and found a beer, which was the only chilled liquid in the appliance. Popping the cap, she gulped past the bubbles, and quenched her thirst.
‘There’s a sight that’ll have us starting all over again.’
Dropping the bottle from her lips, she saw him standing between the couch and scaled coffee table, admiring her. He sauntered toward her, and when he reached her she pushed the cold bottle to his chest making him flinch, then took it from her to finish the liquid.
Hopping onto the counter, she slid her calves up and down his legs, then to the back of his thighs bringing him closer. The bottle hit the counter, and he was kissing her.
‘Maybe this time you could show me the bedroom,’ she whispered into his ear and he scooped her up.
‘Doctor’s orders?’
She laughed and nodded, so he carried her toward the back of the apartment, past a bathroom and an external back door into his spacious, night-soaked bedroom, where she’d end up spending the rest of the weekend… naked.
Chapter Ten
She wasn’t actually naked the whole time that they were at his apartment. After a long lie, more sex, and a cooked breakfast, he’d taken her out to show her around the apartment complex. It was a two storey building. Each front door led off an external terrace and each property had a back door, which led to a balcony that ran the full length of the building. The apartments were all one bedroom, and certainly nothing fancy, but in this area you didn’t want fancy.
Take a Risk (Risk #1) Page 11