“The back edge.”
“Seriously? I’ll fall and twist my ankle.”
“I’ll have you,” he said. “I won’t let you fall.”
There was something in the tone of that statement that felt bigger than just a comment about physical safety.
Then it hit me. I did trust Mason. Maybe more than I’d ever trusted anyone. We didn’t have years together. I had no evidence he could be trusted. Yet, in my gut, I naturally trusted him.
I remembered the question marks I always had in my mind when Brandt spoke to me…lied to me. I’d found out after the fact, he’d also been dating women his mother wanted him to be with, behind my back.
I should have listened to my gut then.
Whatever this was with Mason, I wanted to see it through. I had to.
I balanced precariously, one bare foot on the saddle horn and one on the lip at the back. The position was extremely uncomfortable to my feet.
“Am I being punished for something?” I asked.
“Nope,” Mason said. “I just think you’re crazy-perverted enough to like this.”
There was that “p” word. Except it didn’t bother me this time. Maybe because Mason’s eyes twinkled at me when he said it, and I liked the idea of Mason teasing me. The idea of him knowing me enough to figure out what I’d like before I did aroused me.
Mason ran his hands up my sides and ducked his head to capture my breast between his greedy lips.
I moaned and wiggled and nearly fell off my perch, but he took my ass firmly in the palms of his hands.
After he attacked the second breast, he pulled my hips into him. As his hard cock pressed against my pelvis, I was glad I was on the saddle because it would be easier for him to fuck me this way.
Mason glanced up at my wrists. “Do you want me to let you down?”
I wiggled my fingers. I still had feeling in them and I didn’t want to miss out on whatever he had planned.
Mason was clearly right about me.
“I’m fine,” I replied.
He made some adjustments and I felt his cock at my entrance.
His bare cock against my naked pussy. I creamed at the thought.
“I need for you to be mine, completely, Krysta,” Mason said quietly.
He needed a sense of control over his life. He needed me to never leave him like almost everyone else in his life had in one way or another—his uncaring dad, his sick mother, and his wife.
I couldn’t promise him I wouldn’t die. I couldn’t even promise we’d stay together forever. All I could do was give him the illusion of control right now. Sometimes illusions were all you had.
“I’m yours, Mr. Maddox. My body is yours to use…however you wish.”
He took in a sudden, big breath and I knew I’d gotten to him. Leaving one hand on my backside for support, he grasped the back of my head and pressed my lips to his.
I opened my mouth to him as his cock entered me in a slow stroke, then retreated.
His kiss became aggressive as he thrust into my pussy again and again, shocking me with his thoroughness. I was full of Mason. His touch, his taste. This was what I’d wanted for so long.
A whimper escaped my throat. It contained the evidence of all the need, and passion, and care I felt with him.
He stopped moving. His lips left mine.
“I don’t like the way this feels,” he said.
I knew immediately he didn’t mean the physical sensations.
It was us, together. He cared for me as I cared for him and he couldn’t stand the thought of loving and losing everything again.
I couldn’t let him run from love permanently. Not as the woman who loved—yes loved
—him, and not as a future shrink.
He had to find a way within himself to escape the feeling of helplessness human emotions brought on.
“You’re in charge, right now, Mason. Just be in control.”
His cock retreated. I was afraid it was over. Had he decided we weren’t worth the risk to his emotions?
He took me by the hips and turned me around, forcing me to gain my balance on the saddle all over again.
I looked up at my wrists to see that the leather in the center had twisted. The bindings were slightly tighter.
When I turned to glance behind me, Mason was squirting lube from a small bottle and greasing his cock with it. He grabbed a towel from the bag and wiped his hands.
I rested my wrists against the wall for added stability. Then I felt him behind me, his slick cock between my ass cheeks.
“I’m in charge,” he said into my ear.
Was he taunting me, trying to scare me away so he wouldn’t have to deal with what was happening between us? Or was he taking my advice and doing whatever it took to feel as if he could control our situation?
He pressed his cock firmly against my asshole. I remembered how hot I’d gotten when he fucked my ass with his finger. The orgasm had been earth-shattering.
But there was a big difference between his finger and his cock. A big difference.
“Are you afraid?” His breath heated my ear.
Some part of him really was trying to frighten me away so he wouldn’t have to deal with this…with us.
Then it would be my fault for reneging on our contract and he could continue with his safe, isolated life.
The hell he can.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m afraid. You’re in charge, Mr. Maddox.”
I tried to steady my breathing. The fact was, I was afraid. I was afraid of the pain that might come. I was afraid of his big cock in my little hole.
He pressed harder, almost breaking through. Every muscle in my body tightened against the invasion.
“You could leave now, Miss James.” He hissed in my ear like a snake.
I glanced back unexpectedly and caught the look in his eyes. He didn’t truly want me to leave.
“Do your will, Mr. Maddox.”
I pressed my wrists harder against the wall, bracing for what would come next.
His hand slid over my belly, down to my pelvis. A finger found my slit and caressed lightly inside.
I was so focused on the new sensation, I forgot everything else. His cock popped into my ass.
There was that strange, confusing feeling of this being so right and so wrong at the same time. Like with his finger in my ass. Like with the whip in my pussy. His cock didn’t belong there, yet I wanted it there.
He tried to push in farther and I flinched from the pain in the muscle currently encircling his shaft.
“You can still go.” He whispered so quietly I thought it was a voice in my brain.
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
All at once, he pinched my nipple, stroked my clit and plunged his cock fully into my ass.
I convulsed with the wild shock of pleasure, then pain, then pleasure again as he continued to toy with my clit.
He waited a moment for me to recover, then pulled back slowly until he was almost out of me.
I didn’t want him out. I wanted more. I wanted him to finish what he’d started. I wanted him to come in my ass.
I needed to push him beyond any constraint.
“Please make me yours, Mr. Maddox,” I said breathlessly. “Take all of me.”
He growled behind me and I knew I’d done it. Every-day Mason Maddox didn’t growl.
This was the extreme version, and I liked it.
He grabbed my hips and thrust hard into me, pummeling me fast and furious.
“Oh, God, touch my clit,” I begged.
He slipped his finger back in and swirled my clit, pressing harder as the pressure built inside us. Bolts of electricity surged through me. He stabbed me harder with his rigid shaft. Faster. Punishing my ass over and over again.
I wanted to be punished. With every thrust, I reached a new level of sexual arousal.
My body tightened just before his went rigid. The carnal pulses from my clit met with the lascivious ache in m
y thoroughly fucked ass, creating something I’d never experienced before.
My sphincter muscles started contracting involuntarily. My screams echoed off the stable walls as I was hit with the big one, an earthquake inside me so devastating, I lost control of my body.
Mason began shuddering behind me, his hot cock finally releasing into me. We took turns convulsing in mini-aftershocks.
At some point, I became aware that my toes were barely touching the saddle. Mason supported all my weight, squeezing me against the front of his body.
This was a far cry from the man who refused to shake hands with me when we met.
I was rather proud of myself at how far away from the fake OCD I’d driven him.
He reached up and freed my wrists from the hook. My still-bound hands flopped down in front of me, since my arms had lost all muscle strength.
His cock still nestled inside me, Mason wrapped his arms tightly around me from behind. Our skin melded together and in that moment, we were one person.
“Just tell me you’ll never leave me,” he panted into my ear. “I don’t even care if it’s true or not. Just tell me.”
“I’ll never leave you,” I said. I realized I meant it.
Chapter Eleven
There was no feeling in the world sweeter than lying next to Tessa in her bed with her head resting on his shoulder.
She reached out to trace a circle around his nipple, her magically soft hair floating across the skin of his arm.
Dix hadn’t spent a lot of his life stressed or generally unhappy the way his brother had. Yet there’d always been a vague emptiness that no amount of one night stands with siliconed debutants could fill. But he felt full now.
Tessa’s pink pillowcase rustled when he leaned down to kiss the top of her head. He wondered if, when he married her, she’d make him sleep on pink pillowcases permanently.
He didn’t care. She could decorate their bedroom in hearts and flowers and those weird little amoeba things—paisley. That was it. She could even decorate their master bedroom in paisley.
Then it hit him that there was still a local boyfriend to contend with. As much as he didn’t want to lose this perfect moment with her, he had to know if she was on the same page in their relationship.
“Tessa?”
She tilted her head up and he gazed into her eyes. Big, innocent eyes with Hershey’s chocolate bars melted where her irises should be.
He knew, at this moment, he’d accept anything she told him. He also knew she was naturally honest. Not the kind of girl who played games.
He braced himself for the truth.
“You know I didn’t just come here for the sex, right?” Wow, he was beating around the bush like Mason. This situation with Tessa was the first time he’d had a taste of the anxiety his brother suffered from. “I, um, I care about—I mean I…” It hit him that he’d never, ever said the “L-word” to a woman before.
Her eyes shone up at him. “I feel the same way, Dix. Hardly an hour went by in the past six months that I didn’t think about you.”
That was good news. He took a deep breath for courage.
“I need to know about the other guy,” he said. “I need to know where I stand.”
Tessa blew out an annoyed breath and sat up. “Since you walked in, you’ve been talking about another guy, and I swear, Dix, I don’t know who you’re talking about!”
Wow. It was unusual to see Tessa like this. She actually sounded annoyed.
The idea of asking her to mount him for some angry Tessa sex flashed through his mind for a moment, but he remembered his priorities.
“I got over-eager and called here a few days ago. It was the middle of the night, and your roommate thought I was Daniel. She told me you were out with your boyfriend again.”
Realization seemed to dawn on Tessa’s face. Was it the realization that he was onto her?
“Look, I told you to date other people, but if there’s a boyfriend…I just need to know
—”
Tessa burst out laughing.
Now Dix was pissed. There was nothing funny here as far as he could see.
“Dix—” She interrupted herself with more laugher. “We got tipped off that a night orderly was stealing supplies at the hospital. The administrator wanted someone there with him from human resources as a second witness, so the guy couldn’t claim the security footage was doctored, like people do nowadays in court.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with—“
Tessa put her fingers to Dix’s lips, so he stopped talking.
“We had to go to the hospital several nights in a row to catch him red-handed. My roommate started joking that Mr. Shleppke, the administrator, and I were having an affair.” She chuckled as she pushed her hair behind one ear. “She thought it was funny because he’s, like, seventy years old and smells like Ben Gay.
“So, every time I left, she’d say, ‘Oh, another date with your boyfriend, tonight?’ She got Daniel in on the joke, too.”
Dix had never felt so relieved in his life. He sat up and pulled Tessa’s naked body against his, for once not having one sexual thought about it.
“Thank God,” he whispered.
She pulled back and stared into his eyes. “Were you really worried I’d found someone I liked better than you?”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I know. Seems pretty ridiculous when you think about it.”
She rolled her eyes. “It sure doesn’t take much to bring cocky Dix back to life, does it?”
He smiled and reached up to smooth a rogue lock of hair away from her eyes. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone else, and I’ve never said it to anyone else…” He grasped both her hands in his. “I love you and you’ve ruined other women for me. So I hope your intentions toward me are honorable.”
Tessa laughed so hard she doubled over and bonked her head on his chest. “Dixon Maddox, international playboy, is asking me about my intentions?”
“I don’t want to play with anybody but you,” he said very seriously.
Her laughter dissipated and her expression turned equally serious. “I love you, Dix, and I don’t want to ‘play’ with anyone else either.”
“Oh…” Dix nodded his head side to side before continuing. “I’ve got a trunk load of Christmas presents I want to watch you open. But before you get pissed about me throwing my money around, just know that I resisted buying the ring I wanted for you.
Didn’t want you to feel like I was rushing you. And I need some time to get you on board with the size.”
“You mean Texas-sized?” she asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“It’s not in the shape of Texas, is it?”
“Nope.”
“Then we’ll see.”
She pushed him to the bed and straddled him. As soon as her moist warmth made contact with his cock, it swelled to full size.
“I’m gonna ride you like a prize pony,” she said.
Dix laughed. “Could you make that ‘stallion’?”
“Just shut up and do as you’re told,” Tessa said. She grasped his cock and impaled herself on it.
“Damn.” Dix replied. His eyelids fell closed from the sheer enjoyment of being inside her again.
She didn’t move for a moment and Dix opened his eyes to see a mischievous expression on her face. She was enjoying being in charge.
“Okay, stallion, pony, whatever you want,” he said. “Just take me, Tessa.”
And she did.
Chapter Twelve
For once, Dix was the quiet one, watching his three favorite people in the world chat about the upcoming festivities.
They were out to dinner, which was to be followed by a New Year’s Eve party at a ranch not far from Mason’s.
Tessa had the week off and agreed to fly to Houston with Dix. And now the ladies were decked out in sexy holiday dresses and some of the highest heels Dix had ever seen.
He and Mason had considered all the
ir holiday invitations carefully, and picked the party where the hosts would be warm and inviting and real, not phony and covered in fur, which would happen, despite sixty degree weather.
The brothers wanted to prove that life with them didn’t have to be full of cold, uppity back-stabbers, although they did have to disregard a majority of their invitations for that reason alone.
Mason and Tessa laughed at something Krysta said. It was such a relief to see his brother relax and enjoy himself again. Today, Mason was so distracted by Krysta, he hadn’t even inspected the silverware for spots or sent any of his food back to the kitchen.
“Right, Dix?” Krysta asked.
Dix came to and found he had no idea what they were talking about. One look at Tessa’s pink cheeks told him that Krysta was probably teasing her about her and Dix.
Krysta had been treating Tessa like the younger sister she never had, and Tessa found Krysta hilarious, even when she was the target of her teasing.
Dix thought about how this group of people already felt more like a family than the one he and Mason had grown up in.
“Come help me fix my makeup, T,” Krysta said.
“Thank God. I thought you’d never ask. You look awful.” Tessa chuckled as she got up from the table and headed for the bathroom.
Uh-oh. Sounded like Krysta’s sarcastic sense of humor was rubbing off on his sweet Tessa. Dix smiled at the thought, so glad everyone was getting along.
Krysta stood and leaned down, placing her arm on Dix’s. She spoke into his ear. “You did good, you cocky bastard. I love her!”
Dix laughed out loud as he and his brother watched the ladies’ backsides disappear into the back of the restaurant.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen you looking so happy, Mase,” Dix said.
Mason gave a little nod, but didn’t reply for a moment. Finally he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you acting so…settled. You always had that ADD attitude, like you didn’t want to let too much grass grow under your feet, at least where women were concerned.”
His brother was right. Although Dix had never been an unhappy person, exactly, he’d never been sure where he belonged. He’d changed women on a weekly basis and tended to move every few months, never letting himself stop and think why.
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