Primal Force

by D. D. Ayres

  The kitten shrank in her arms for a second then poked her head out and batted at the dog’s nose with a paw. Jori noticed she hadn’t used her claws.

  Samantha calmly accepted the feline inspection. Just added a whiff of kitten to her collection of identification smells of things in the world.

  “That’s right. Sam is a friend.” Jori patted Samantha. “You two play nice.”

  “Somewhere else.” Jori looked up to see Law pointing toward the doorway. “All nonessential personnel out. Now.”

  Offended, Argyle let out a loud mee-now a whole octave higher than usual before leaping from Jori’s arms and disappearing through the doorway.

  Sam glanced at Law, who gave her the go out sign. With what Jori would swear was a doggy sigh of exasperation, the goldendoodle exited the bedroom at a more cautious pace.

  Law quickly closed the door behind the pair. “Now, where were we?”

  Jori pointed to the bed. “Almost there.” Her voice sounded calm but she was looking at his erection with eyes wide. His pants were splayed open, and his thick rigid cock was arching out of the opening. And she had very hungry eyes. Maybe they were a little too bright?

  “How long has it been for you?”

  Embarrassed, she glanced up at the water spot on the ceiling of her cheap apartment. “Four years.”

  “Four—?” She was practically a virgin again after all this time.

  Unless she’d gotten freaky inside.

  “You still prefer dick to pussy?”

  Shocked by his crudeness, Jori jerked her gaze back to him. Right, why should he be any different? All ex-cons must be lesbians. It was one of the clichés everyone wanted to believe about incarcerated women. Her armor of emotional distance clanked into place. “What’s the matter? Worried I might disappoint you?”

  “Just the opposite.”

  Jori studied his expression to see if he was baiting her. He looked completely serious. And a little uncomfortable. “If you’ve changed your—”

  He was on her in a flash, a wall of warm smooth skin covering muscle and bad intentions. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about anything before now. I want to fuck you, bad. Do you still want to fuck me?”

  A flush warmed her neck at his language. Like him, it was direct and to the point. No flowers. No easing into the moment. Just the bald honesty of his erection pressing into her belly.

  “Say something, Jori.” The demand, whispered into her ear, made her belly quiver and her sex tighten in delicious anticipation.

  She smiled. Battise was asking permission, even if it sounded like a command. So his style. She could be as direct.

  In answer she reached down between them and fisted him. He was hot and hard and trembling with the need for action. As he groaned in pleasure she took advantage, pumping him a little just to make certain he knew he wasn’t the only one with control. “No more talk.”

  Within moments they were entangled on the bed. Law had a new directive in his head: Do this right. For her.

  He took advantage of her prone position to trail his fingers down her arms and cover her breasts. Lifting them to his lips, he took a nipple between his teeth, tugging and licking first one and then the other. He loved the way she squirmed under him. No doubt his whiskers tickled her as he whisked his beard lightly back and forth over her tender nipples. She was moaning low. Maybe he was hurting her. But she grabbed handfuls of his hair to hold him in place when he lifted his head to check. Her eyes were tightly shut, her mouth slightly open. The sight was even more erotic than the sound of his zipper being lowered by her. His cock was weeping with need, and they hadn’t even gotten past second base. But that was about to change.

  He shucked her pants and panties down her hips and slid a hand under her butt. He pulled her in tight. That action spread her thighs an inch. Enough for his fingers to slide under and then up. She was wet, so ready for him.

  Jori sighed in surrender to the sensations swirling through her. His stroking was gentle at first, working her tender folds until her body lubed the passage of those thick, clever fingers. Heat pooled in her pelvis and spilled from her body onto his hand from the friction created by his fingers.

  Jori lifted her hands away from the hard expanse of his shoulders and placed them back against the bedding, a moment of complete surrender.

  “Oh yeah. I want you all wet and coming in my hand.” He smiled at her an instant before covering her mouth with his.

  He slipped his other hand up between her soft thighs to tease the feminine nub at the top of her sex. Her shuddery moan made him smile in response. She was juicy and warm, and ready for him. She whimpered as he parted the wet silk of her lips. The jackhammer need pushing him almost made him forget.

  He rolled off her suddenly and sat up.

  Gasping at his sudden withdrawal, Jori sat up. “What? What’s wrong?”

  The annoyed look on her face made Law smile. Oh, she was into him.

  “My leg.” He pointed to his prosthesis. “I need to take this off. Okay?”

  Jori batted the sweat out of her eyes, only now aware that he was completely naked. She must have made a sound as he removed the prosthesis because he looked back over his shoulder at her.

  “Am I freaking you out?”

  She shook her head tightly. What was freaking her out was that he had stopped making love to her when she was on the verge of her first male-induced orgasm in nearly four years. “Just hurry.”

  Nodding, he rolled the sheath down and carefully lay it to one side and then did the same with the protective sock. Finally he turned back to her. “Good to go.”

  His rough beard scraped lightly down her belly until it lost its effectiveness in her own curls. And then his tongue slipped out and began to explore her wet folds.

  “Oh … geez!”

  Law couldn’t agree more. But at the moment he was too busy using his tongue to speak. He spread her thighs a little more to get to the core of her and then proceeded to offer her his own special brand of tongue-loving.

  She came suddenly and hard against his mouth. He held her in place with firm hands on her hips while he gently nibbled her until she stopped erupting in little rhythmic cries of pleasure. Even as she tried to come down the flicks of his tongue were urging her toward another peak that rose so steeply, it bordered on pain.

  “Too much!” She pushed against him, bracing her hands on his sweaty shoulders. “Oh, what are you doing to me?”

  “Easy, easy. We’re just getting started.” He slid up her body and pressed his rock-hard cock against her so that she understood how ready he was.

  When she could catch her breath, Jori looked up to find him hovering above her, balancing his weight on his hands. “Please tell me you have a condom.”

  He smiled and produced a packet. “I was born prepared.”

  That wasn’t as reassuring as she knew he meant it to sound. No, screw that! She felt wonderful and wanted more. Wanted him.

  She grabbed the packet from him.

  “What are you doing?”

  She tore it with her teeth. “You’re moving pretty slow for a heartless fucker.”

  He laughed. She made him laugh. Right in the middle of the most intense moments of sex, she’d made him laugh. And it felt good. But she felt better. When she couldn’t get it on him fast enough, he took matters into his own hands.

  When he was done, she lifted a leg and hooked her heel behind his good knee. Law used the advantage of her parted thighs to slide two fingers deep into her sex. She lifted her hips up off the mattress and into the push–pull of his fingers. But that wasn’t how he wanted to be inside her. He wanted to cram the full length of his rigidly erect cock into her. He reached between them to direct his shaft into the hot silky folds of her sex.

  A faint cry escaped Jori as the head of his cock entered her and met resistance. A worrying thought struck her. It had been a long time. Did a woman’s sex close back to virginal status after years of nonuse? Or was he just bigger than she ha
d experienced? She took a couple of quick breaths, telling herself that she could take whatever he had to offer. But a little cry of distress escaped as he pushed into her.

  “Shhh! Don’t force it. It’ll happen.” His whisper was thick with a sex-drugged urgency yet calm, too. As if they had all the time in the world to work out a capacity problem. Only the sweat dripping off the end of his chin onto her neck betrayed how much force he was exerting not to just ram into her.

  Jori gripped his biceps though her fingers didn’t begin to meet around those taut muscles. Then she lifted her legs to wrap them about his waist, hoping to give him easier access. The head of his cock was positioned so naturally between her lips that when he flexed his butt muscles, he slid home easily.

  “Ah yes. That’s good, Jori. Now hold on tight.” One hand braced against the bedding, his other tightly clamped under her butt, Law began to move her body in a slow, circular in-and-out grind, his whole body flexing when he ended each circle with a deep thrust.

  Jori expelled a soft cry of pleasure each time he thrust, letting his rhythm carry her along until the friction became too much.

  When she came Law didn’t alter his rhythm. He just kept up that slow, mesmerizing grind. Every instinct urged him to move quicker, harder, pound home. But with a kind of perverse pleasure, he held off. Control, in everything. He could do this. Prolong the pleasure. Fresh sweat popped out on his forehead. His face was tight with concentration. The sensation of holding back a dam about to burst, building and building in his groin.

  Finally he felt it, the sudden tension in his shoulders and back, and the extra swelling of his cock inside her. He came in a long hard rush of liquid release that paralyzed him for a second. And then he was riding it out, in long hard strokes that prolonged the sensation of free-fall satisfaction.

  He heard her gasp out his name. Nothing faked about her stuttering breathless response to her third orgasm. Smiling grimly, he clutched her tighter, hips still moving to wring out every ounce of pleasure to be had from her body.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Law lay on his back, counting the seconds before he got up.

  Jori hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d rolled away from her. Was she okay? Most women let him know, sometimes in very explicit terms, that he’d satisfied them. Jori had just hugged him once, tightly, and then let him go. It had taken him a few seconds to realize that he was the one still holding on to her for dear life.

  It had been awfully hard to pull away from her soft warmth, harder than he’d thought it would be. But he’d done it. Because to do anything else would mean that he wasn’t ready to leave. And yet, he was still here.

  Worried, he glanced over at her. Her eyes were closed but she was smiling. That smile made him feel proud, as if he’d done something wonderful. Damn! No strings had just sprouted a few tendrils.

  He felt her roll toward him and then her warm little fingers were moving across his thigh toward his groin. If she touched him again, he wouldn’t get out of this bed for a long long time. He grabbed her hand before it found its goal and moved it away.

  She looked puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t know. Well, maybe he did. But it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

  He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just, you know, satisfied for now.”

  He saw the light dim in her eyes and could have kicked his sorry ass to Memphis and back. He didn’t have to hurt her. Or lie. He was more than half hard again. But he couldn’t do this again, not with her. It was there in her expression. She was beginning to like him. And that made his stomach feel funny.

  He wasn’t a good guy. He’d warned her. Some men knew how to handle women with charming words and easy smiles. He’d never had what people called finesse. He only knew how to be a bastard.

  Leave ’em quick and leave ’em mad, son. That way they won’t be eager to come back for more. Did all fathers give their sons such advice?

  He felt her move away and flop back on the mattress beside him. After a moment she spoke, her voice now devoid of emotion. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For making me feel normal again. I’m trying to get my life back.” He heard her swallow some emotion before continuing. “That helped.”

  Her confession hit him smack in the chest. He knew all about wanting one’s life back and fearing it would never happen. He should be thanking her, too. Being with her made him feel normal. His stump didn’t ache, not even a twinge.

  The absence of all pain was so rare he nearly checked to be sure it was still there. Instead, he felt the need for her tightening in his groin. She had brought him roaring back to life. Made him feel lighter. Loosening, if only for these moments, the fist of anger and ache in his belly that had been part of him since he’d woken in the field hospital in unspeakable agony.

  He felt the room shimmer, as if possessed of a second reality. The sensation, while familiar, clenched his gut. No. He wasn’t about to go there. Dear God. Not now. Not in front of her.

  He heard Sam whimper softly on the other side of the closed bedroom door.

  “Should I let her in?”

  Jori half rolled toward the edge of the bed but Law stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “No.”

  There were some things he couldn’t hide from a trained canine. But he was a master at deflecting his real emotions from the prying eyes of people. He only needed to distract her, and himself.

  He pressed her gently back onto the bed. “I changed my mind. You don’t get rid of me that easy. In fact, I’m about to close the deal a second time. You good with that?”

  She smiled despite her annoyance with his attitude, because he had begun rubbing a thumb around one of her nipples. That hand moved lower, then lower still.

  She smiled and closed her eyes.

  An hour later, as Jori was getting dressed, the sound of a cell phone playing “Bad to the Bone” drew her attention to Law’s pants. They were still in a pile on the floor where he’d stepped out of them.

  She could hear him in the shower. It was probably best to let it ring and tell him when he came out. It rang several more times before rolling over to his mailbox.

  Just as she relaxed and went back to zipping up her jeans, the musical ringtone began again. This time she ignored it. But when it began to ring a third time, she couldn’t. Maybe it was something serious, an emergency.

  Jori snagged his pants from the floor and found his phone. “Hello.”

  “Well, hi there.” The woman’s voice was as sultry as a southern summer night. “I’m looking for Law.”

  “If you mean Mister Battise, he’s unavailable.”

  “I’ll bet he is.” The woman’s chuckle made Jori blush despite the fact that the stranger on the other end didn’t know a thing about her, or what she had been doing. Unfortunately, that chuckle said she knew Law all too well, and could guess what they’d been up to.

  “Can I take a message?”

  “Just tell Law I’ve got what he wants.”

  Jori stared at the phone for a second after the woman clicked off. I’ve got what he wants. Was that a real message, or a dig at the strange woman who had possession of Law’s cell phone?

  “Why did you answer my phone?”

  Jori looked up to see Battise standing in the bathroom doorway, gloriously naked and shameless about that fact. Her gaze went briefly to his stump as he balanced quite easily on one foot while drying it. Then she couldn’t help but notice that he was already semi-hard. Was that a permanent condition with him? Her gaze slid away but not soon enough to keep her body from reacting to his impressive provocation.

  “The caller kept ringing back. I thought it might be important.”

  She held out his phone but he ignored the gesture, moving on to towel dry his hair. “Was it important?”

  “I don’t know. The caller said to tell you she has what you want.”

  She noticed that his expression never shifted from detached interest as he held out a hand fo
r the phone. When he had checked the call number he tossed it on top of his jeans on the floor.

  Jori knew she had no right to be curious, let alone ask any questions about the woman who’d sounded so smugly confident when confronted with another woman. No, she wouldn’t ask about her.

  He hopped over to the bed and sat before beginning the ritual of putting on his artificial leg. She had laid the sock and sleeve and leg out on the mattress for easier access but he didn’t say a word of thanks. Not that she’d expected any. Not really.

  Now is really not the time to find excuses to have hurt feelings, Jori.

  She frowned as she dragged a comb through her damp hair. He’d given her what they’d agreed to. He’d told her not to expect anything else. It was stupid for her to be standing here like a sulky teenager unable to hold a civil conversation. “The caller called you Law. Is Law a nickname?”

  Law smiled to himself, guessing the question she wasn’t asking. He could put her mind at rest by saying the woman who called was his sister. But he resisted. No need to change now and confuse everything.

  “Law is my first name. Well, my nickname. It’s actually Lauray.” He pronounced it Law-ray. “It’s Cajun. The Battise part is Alabama-Coushatta.”

  “Coushatta? What’s that?”

  “A Native American tribe.” He slanted a knowing glance her way as he slid on his artificial leg. “You’ve never heard of us?”

  “No. Everyone I ever met who claimed to be part Native American said they were Cherokee.”

  His lips twitched, a quick uptick of amusement. He was tempted to tell her more. But that would just be pretending they were now going to get to know each other. He needed to get the hell out. And he knew, too easily, how to shut her down.

  “How long were you inside?”

  Jori flinched. Of course. He was curious about that.

  She folded her arms across her chest and jutted out a hip. She had her own way of erecting walls. “Three years, six months, three days, nine hours, and fifteen minutes. More or less.”

  Law frowned as she gave him the math. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five or -six? That meant she’d spent the first years of her adulthood behind bars. He hurt for her just thinking about it. But he didn’t want her pain.