“Grab my balls,” I growled out and without hesitation she quickly reached between my legs, using her nails to scrape my sack as she cupped my balls. With a shout, I came. Letting go of her ponytail, I held on to her shoulders, my hips pushing upwards with each wave of release. I forced my eyes open, watching her throat move as she swallowed my seed, a sight I’d never forget. A few seconds later I slid out of her mouth and before she had a chance to sit back on her knees, I was pulling her onto me, wanting the contact.
“I didn’t expect that,” I mumbled into her neck, loving how soft and petite she felt in my arms. The last time we’d been together, she’d bolted before I had a chance to hold her. This time, I had her in my bed all night. Rolling us over, I tucked myself around her. The scent of her hair and the chocolate we’d eaten drafting around me. This was exactly how I’d imagined in. Closing my eyes, I flexed my fingers on her hips, as if I needed to check that she was real. After all, she was the girl of my dreams.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlie
I looked up and gasped in surprise to see Ford standing in the doorframe. Wearing nothing but his running shorts, his skin glistening with sweat, it was hard to ignore my body’s response to him. Last night, he’d fallen asleep and even though I hadn’t expected anything to happen after the blowjob, to say I was frustrated was an understatement. He could probably blow on my clit and I’d go off.
“Didn’t mean to surprise you.” He walked over and stood next to me, his head bent as he looked at my makeup, now covering most of the bathroom counter. I shifted uncomfortably, acutely aware about my small makeup obsession. Some girls buy themselves expensive lingerie to help give them a boost or sexy shoes, well for me, it was makeup. Looking down at the dozens and dozens of bottles, pencils, brushes, creams, powders, and sprays, I prayed Ford’s limited experience with women meant he might think this was totally normal.
Even though it wasn’t.
“You have a lot of makeup.”
“Hmm,” was my meaningless response, one I hoped would end the conversation.
“I mean, I don’t even understand what have this stuff is.” Picking up a tiny tube of primer, he squinted. “Eye primer. Primer? Like paint primer?”
I tutted as I grabbed it out of his hand.
“It’s what you put on your eyelids, like you’re priming them.”
“For what? Their first coat of shellac?”
“Very funny. No, for eye makeup.”
“Right, so you put it on before you put on eye shadow.”
“Yeah, but not just eye shadow. I mean it depends on what you’re planning on doing. Like are you wearing powder or cream? Or are you going to have kohl eyeliner or liquid? And then it depends on what your plan for the day is—are you prepping for work? For a date? For the gym? How long does the makeup need to look good?”
“You wear this crap to workout?” he asked incredulously.
“Well, sometimes. I mean, you don’t know who’s going to see you. Obviously.”
“I don’t get it.”
I sighed. “Okay, let’s put it this way. Every morning I get to decide who I want to be. Last night I went for sophisticated and sexy because I wanted to look hot but figured you were taking me to an upscale place, which by the way was awesome, but I didn’t want to look too dramatic. So I went with a nude gold pallet that complemented my eyes and skin tone. Today, well, today considering my outfit, I’m going for a more fun, peppy look. I’ve already primed my eyes and face—”
“—your face? What’s wrong with your face?”
“Nothing really, but my skin tone can be made smoother, my pores less visible, making a better base for highlighting.”
Picking up a berry lip gloss, I pulled out the wand and swiped it across my lips.
“Every woman has a routine—once the base is done, I do my lips, making them look plumber and shinier. Then I go for my eyes,” I explained as I picked up a light brown eye liner, “this subtle color gives me a natural look but makes my eyes pop at the same time.”
Ford watched me as I delicately and expertly applied it in the mirror. “Then some mascara, but not too much because you don’t want to go crazy with mascara in the middle of the day, just enough to give my eyes a nice frame.” A few swipes and I was done with my eyes. “Finally, I check up on my contouring, add a bit of bronzer here and there to bring out my bone structure.” The brush flitted across my face without me barely having to look in the mirror. “And voila, today I look like this. Tomorrow I can be a totally different girl.”
The look on Ford’s face was grim.
“Why do you want to be a different girl? What’s wrong with Charlie?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I just—” I didn’t know what I meant. Makeup was fun, a way I could control how the world saw me. Why was that so wrong?
“—just what? Make yourself up to be whatever you think people want to see? What some guy wants to see?” He riffled through the bottles, ignoring the fact I hadn’t responded to him.
I couldn’t.
Not when my heart was in my throat.
Some guy? Was that true? Why did it always come back to my past with him?
There was a part of me that knew he was right but I hated him for saying it out loud.
“Ha!” he exclaimed. Holding a bottle of makeup remover, he poured some onto a cotton pad and turned to face me. “Let’s start with the lips, shall we? I want to see the natural shape, the lovely dip in the bow at the top, the curve of your bottom lip makes me want to bite it, especially when you lick it subconsciously when you’re nervous. As for the color, this berry stuff hides the natural strawberry hue. I want to be able to see how it darkens when I’ve kissed you.” He wiped the pad around my mouth a few times before getting a new one.
“Now for the eyes. You don’t need to make them pop, whatever the fuck that even means, because they are already gorgeous. I like looking at you and seeing the light brown flecks I swear look like gold dust sprinkled across your iris. Your dark eyelashes don’t need to be any darker because the natural dark brown complements your eye color.”
Finally, he pulled a cleansing wipe out of a pack and swiped it across my cheeks. “As for the contouring and highlighting, lowlighting, whatever the hell it’s called is just ridiculous. You have the most beautiful bone structure. It’s like something out of a classic painting. Giving it false curves and angles detracts from the perfection already there. And then there’s your skin tone—I like these little freckles sprinkled across your nose and the ones near your hairline. All that disappears when you cover yourself in this shit. So no, I don’t care you can be a different girl every day of the week. I want you to wake up every morning and just be happy with who you are. Because, fucking hell, Charlie, I couldn’t ask for anyone else.” Turning me around to face the mirror, he lifted my chin up until I was forced to stare at my reflection.
A kiss brushed against my shoulder and I startled, lost in thought.
“Can’t deny she’s pretty gorgeous.” I met his gaze in the mirror and he gave me one of his wide smiles, he looked like an adorably hot dork. “I’m going to grab a quick shower and then we can pack a picnic for that hike. Weather’s pretty cool today so put on some extra layers.”
He turned on the shower and then pulled off his shoes and socks while the water heated up, finally yanking down his shorts and stepping under the spray, without even a glance at me.
Casual as hell.
As if he hadn’t just given me my own little personal strip show. One I greatly appreciated.
Under the pretense of tidying up my makeup and clearing up some space on the counter, I continued to check him out in the shower, wondering what else he did besides running to keep his body in shape. The thing I loved about Ford was he was full of surprises. One minute he made you think he was this geeky, quiet guy and the next minute a red-blooded alpha male was standing in front of you demanding a blowjob in a way no woman could actually deny.
H
is body was the same way. For years, I’d watched him, wearing his polo shirt, sometimes a dress shirt if he was going to a meeting with suppliers I knew by the width of his shoulders he wasn’t a couch potato, but nothing could have prepared me for the six-pack he was sporting, or the way his cute butt looked out of his khakis.
Wait, did I just say loved?
I didn’t love Ford. I cared about him a lot. But this wasn’t about love. Actually you couldn’t get any further from love if you tried. How could I possibly even envisage loving a man who had paid for my presence for a weekend? And the problem worked the same way if I reversed it. There was no way Ford would ever fall for the kind of woman who could so easily be bought. Fair enough, the amount he was giving me was life-changing but for me. Life changing for someone like me.
And that was all the difference.
I grew up in a trailer, eating margarine sandwiches and wearing hand-me-down clothes, not getting invited to prom and let’s face it, even if I had been invited, managing to get a suitable dress, one that didn’t scream trailer-trash princess, would have been impossible.
I doubt Ford had any idea how far I thought I’d come from that old dusty trailer park.
Until Friday night.
Until just a few short hours ago when it was highlighted to me you take the girl out of the trailer park, but she’s still going to get up and perform if you dangle a bit of cash in front of her. Okay, so that wasn’t an actually expression, but it fit me.
The steam fogged up the shower stall and I turned to look at myself in the mirror. With all the will in the world, I tidied up my makeup and didn’t reapply everything Ford had so dismissively wiped off. I was supposed to pretend to be his girlfriend this weekend, right? Well, if this is the look he wanted on me, then this was what he was getting. No matter how uncomfortable it made me.
Chapter Fifteen
Ford
I was impressed. There was no two ways about it. We’d been hiking for an hour and despite Charlie’s initial complaint that the humidity was ruining her hair, she’d made an effort to throw herself into the whole endeavor. The first night I’d brought her to my house, she’d clearly been taken with the woods. Peaceful, she’d called it. And I wanted this weekend to be more about just figuring out how to get Charlie naked without making her feel cheap.
A picnic in my favorite meadow was the perfect place to start. We had less than a mile to go and I was enjoying the sound of her heavy breathing and the occasional moments when she leaned on my arm to steady herself. We didn’t talk, just focused on walking, occasionally pointing out trees or birds that caught our eye.
Arriving at the clearing, I laid out the picnic I’d packed earlier in my backpack. With sandwiches, drinks, and some fruit laid out, I watched as Charlie lay down on the blanket and tried to catch her breath.
“I need to start working out more. I shouldn’t be this out of breath.”
“It’s good for you. And you’re in great shape. You’re just not used to hiking.”
She didn’t answer, just closed her eyes and breathed in and out.
“Hungry?” I asked after a few minutes. Her eyes popped open and she gave me one of her gorgeous smiles.
“Sure.”
We ate in silence. But again, it wasn’t awkward. The early spring sun wasn’t so hot we couldn’t enjoy sitting in the open meadow without worrying about burning. A gentle breeze rustled through the trees and over the long grasses surrounding us.
“I never do stuff like this,” she said, putting her half-finished sandwich back away.
“Like what?”
“This,” she waved around her. “I mean, it’s humbling. Being out in nature like this. I know we didn’t hike a mountain or jump a waterfall, but this place, the sun, the sounds—it’s perfect. It’s hard to obsess about everything going in my life when I’m here.”
Humbling was an odd choice of words and I didn’t hesitate to point that out.
“Don’t you feel humble here? It reminds me I can’t control everything. I can’t just apply my little life rules and then get upset when they don’t work. Life is bigger than all that, it’s bigger than me. I need to be happy with that. I have to be, because there’s no other option. Life goes on, no matter what. God, I sound like a fortune cookie.” She chuckled.
“Sometimes we just need a bit of perspective. Tell me your life rules. The ones that haven’t been working for you.” This was the second time she’d mentioned them.
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Charlie, I confessed to having slept with only two women before you and I’m thirty. I’ve got embarrassing covered for a while. Come on, tell me.”
“Okay. But no laughing.” She started talking, laying out her three totally messed up beyond belief rules of life. Objectively, I could imagine how she came to them, without her telling me too much. But fuck objectively. It broke my heart to think Charlie’s view of the world was so skewed these rules even made sense to her.
“Got to say, not really surprised those rules haven’t been working out for you.”
“Well, the thing is, they don’t really work out for me, but for other people, usually men, really well. And I’m not going to pretend there weren’t times where my implementation of the rules didn’t get me noticed. Case in point—rule number three, leave when you’re not wanted. That’s been pretty handy for instigating the chase, as I like to call it. Too many women are clingy, trying to get attention during the football game, whining if their man wants to hang out with his friends—that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, but when it comes to the real thing, does stuff matter?”
She shrugged and looked out over the field. “Don’t you have little rules you live by, even they aren’t always the best ones, rationally?”
“Sure. My main rule is ‘do the opposite of whatever my dad would do’.”
“I can’t imagine what it must be like, having the specter of family judgment hanging over me.”
“It’s not that bad,” I tried to joke it off, realizing I was sounding like the spoilt rich heir I was trying to avoid, “but it never feels good to disappoint someone you care about.”
Wincing slightly, Charlie shifted until her legs were straight out in front of her again.
“Your feet hurting?”
“A bit, sore more than painful.”
Without asking, I moved and adjusted her feet on my lap before pulling off her shoes and socks.
“Ew, my feet are sweaty.”
“Don’t be squeamish, Charlie,” I mumbled as I dug my thumb into her arches. My cock instantly hardened as she moaned my name.
“God, that feels good. Forget what I said. Never stop touching my sweaty feet.”
Working through her toes before heading onto her ankles, I watched her lay back, her arms folded under her head, as she watched me. For a few minutes I focused on working on her muscles in her calves but before long my hands roamed over her knees and onto her thighs. A sheen of sweat erupted on her skin and I spread her legs apart, squeezing her creamy thighs, loving how soft she felt.
Without asking I unbuttoned her shorts and pulled them down, taking her panties with them.
“Ford, I’m…”
“—really sweaty down here too, right?” Bending over I pushed my face into her sex. She was sweaty and wet. And it was fucking fantastic. “I want it all, Charlie. Everything about you tastes fantastic.” I licked the crevice of her upper thigh, sending a shudder through her body. “Wet, sweaty, juicy, I want to taste all of it and you’re going to let me.”
“That’s… Oh God, that’s really nice.” She gasped as I latched on to her clit and sucked hard. This was new to me but it so far letting instinct guide me was working for her. Lowering down onto my stomach, so I had free use of my hands, I pushed a finger slowly inside her as I alternated between sucking her clit and flicking it with my tongue. Her moans made me even harder, if that was possible, but it was when her hands came down and grabbed my hair, I knew I was danger
ously close to losing it. Switching tactics, I pushed a second finger inside her and moved them in and out. Her hips thrust upwards and I loved she didn’t hesitate to get what she needed. Testing my luck, I pushed in a third.
“Ford…” she practically shrieked my name as she came, her grip on my hair painfully tight, as if she thought I might dare to even stop working her through her orgasm. Finally, when she stopped pulsing and her fingers loosened, I sat up and looked at her. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, not a care in the world, with her legs still spread apart. She opened her eyes slowly and gave me a smile. I didn’t smile back, I couldn’t, my brain was having a cortical meltdown between the need to come and the insane satisfaction I felt at seeing Charlie so sated. Her gazed lowered to my waistband before flitting back up to my face. There was no way she couldn’t tell I was about to pop.
“You lead, Ford, whatever you want,” she said, making no move to touch me or put herself back together. Laying there in front of me, just waiting for me to take what I wanted from her. It was so simple. And what I wanted was simple.
Sitting up on my knees, I unbuttoned my khakis and yanked them down around my hips. Grabbing my throbbing cock, I used the pre-cum beading at the top to lube my hand and started working it up and down.
“I want this. I want you to look at how hard you’ve made me.” She reached a hand up, misunderstanding what I wanted. “No, you don’t get to touch. If you want to touch, you can get your tits out or show me how wet I made you.” She was naked from the waist down but I didn’t care. Just looking at her glistening folds, wet from my mouth and her orgasm, was enough. She propped her knees up and slid her fingers down between her legs, pulling her folds apart gently and I groaned.
“Fuck, that’s good. Who made you like that, Charlie?” I growled as I increased the speed of my hand.
“You did.”
“Say my name, Charlie. Tell me who made you so wet and hot you’re practically dripping.”
“Ford. You did, Ford.”
Into the Woods (Lust in the Woods Book 2) Page 8