by Whitley Gray
This time I did try to tug out of his grip. “I don’t want anything from you. I rescued you, remember?”
Nothing between us but the crackle of the fire and the whisper of snowflakes dancing on the roof overhead. “You’re right. You did. So you want my gratitude?”
My attempt at retreat was weak at best. “I told you, I don’t…”
He moved closer. His voice was soft and low, snaking underneath me, around me, and into me. “I told you. Everyone wants something. You want me to say thank you.” My mouth opened, but nothing came out. His eyes drifted to my lips. Every nerve ending in my body jumped to life, but it was too late. He was too close. The smell of cookies was replaced with the aroma of Cabernet, my new favorite wine. “Thank you.” Before I could protest again, his lips brushed against mine, soft yet firm and strong yet tender.
My eyes drifted shut, my entire body falling headlong into the feel of him. Falling forward into cold reality because he’d backed away. The bastard.
“You’re welcome.” The look in his eyes scared the crap out of me. I saw lust and resentment there, swirling like yin and yang. In a way, I was grateful. It inspired me to move away from him, taking the wine bottle with me. “Oh, and if you think that’s enough of a thank-you, you’ve got another thing coming. Just so you know, you will get my bill for the repairs.”
He took the bottle back. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He took a long drink with his eyes closed. “Okay, the game’s still on. My turn, I think.”
I took the bottle back. “Okay, whatever. Bring it.”
Damn that smile. I knew it meant there were evil thoughts in his twisted little brain, but I loved the look of it anyway. “I never ate pussy.”
I spewed out a laugh. “Yeah, right!”
He took the bottle back. “You’re right. I don’t even know why I said that.” He took another drink and then snapped his fingers. “Aw shit, that wasn’t what I meant to say. I meant to say I never sucked dick.”
I pointed at him. “Now that I’d believe.”
He held the bottle out to me. “And your answer?”
I looked at the bottle. My thoughts had started to swim. “Okay, wait. I forgot. Which one is it if I did or I didn’t?”
For ice-blue eyes, his gaze was white-hot. Or maybe it was the room. I glanced at the fire. Nope, burning nicely but not exactly a bonfire. Enough to make it toasty, but I was quickly going beyond that.
“You drink if you did. I drink if you didn’t.”
I held his gaze. Dared myself to not look away and to gaze into the abyss. Goddamn, his eyes were beautiful. Made me wish mine were half as pretty. The thought of that made me feel small, pathetic, and ugly. So what fucking difference did it make if I admitted it or not?
I took the bottle and drained it. “Don’t take that to mean anything.”
“Why would it mean anything?” He took the bottle and looked into it.
“Why did you ask it, then?”
“You drank all the wine.”
“There wasn’t much left.” Good thing too. Cabernet pissed me off.
He put the bottle aside. “You didn’t look too happy about that. Care to talk about it?”
I choked on my laughter. Probably because I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. “Really? About sucking dick on a guy who told me I was frigid? Yeah, Dr. Phil, let’s talk about that. Shit, there has to be more wine in this place.” I crawled to all fours, pushing myself to stand upright. I knew I should’ve eaten something. Every ounce of alcohol sloshed squarely between my ears.
“Are you sure you want that?”
I heard him walking behind me. I didn’t care. “Does it matter?” I only needed to get drunk enough to pass out on the couch and sleep like the dead until daybreak. Then I’d drop him off at the gas station next to the only supermarket in the whole damned county, and I’d go home and act like this was all a bad dream.
And I’d never be able to see another Aaron Elias movie again without wondering if my experience on a snowy night in the mountains was a dream.
“Well, we don’t have to go anywhere tonight, but…I don’t know. You look a little tipsy already.”
“Wasn’t that the point?”
“No, the point was to get you to relax. Since the first minute I saw you, you looked like you were wound up like a spring. I—”
“Ha! Why would I need to relax to talk to you? You’re flesh and blood like anybody.” I poked him in the chest to make sure. If nothing else, the resulting shock of heat that ran up my arm reminded me that I was alive.
He held my hand still and then flattened it against…holy crap he had brilliant pecs. Wonderful definition that I could feel even through the flannel shirt and the T-shirt underneath. Jesus, he could play a beautiful Paul Bunyan. I wondered what his next movie was and if he would be doing any nude scenes. I…
Shit, I was drunk. And overheated inside and out. This was dangerous. I took my hand back. He didn’t try to hold on.
“You’re right,” I said. “Maybe I should go to bed. Couch. Whatever.”
He turned, holding me still with his hands at my waist. “Don’t. Please. Grace. Talk to me.” He let me go as if he knew I wouldn’t talk to him if he were touching me. He was right, because his touch seemed to put my thoughts through a blender. But how did he know?
While his touch made me think strange things, it was his voice that I couldn’t resist. It wrapped around me like a python, so smooth that I didn’t notice when it held me too tight for me to get away. Without thinking, I went back to the fireplace, grabbed a log from the brass bucket on the hearth, and placed it on top of the glowing embers.
“What should we talk about?”
He took his same place on the floor, facing me. Not touching me. Between the wine and the softness in his voice, he didn’t have to. “Anything. I don’t care. Tell me who you are.”
I sighed, relenting and looking into the fire. “I told you. I’m a mechanic. I fix cars for a living. Bring me your Volvo next time you’re in Philly, and I’ll have it back to you in an hour.” I faced him. “Why do you drive a Volvo?” He looked at me quizzically. “I mean, you could have a Maserati. Why a plain Jane four-door?”
“It’s a rental.”
“What, is the Jag in the shop?”
“No Jag. I have a hybrid at home.”
“And you’re not home.”
He shook his head. “Not here, no.”
“Where’s that?”
His beautiful chest rose and fell with his deep exhale. “I don’t know anymore.” He shook his head. “You’re supposed to be doing the talking. Wh—”
“No, I think you need to do the talking here. Are you hiding from something? Is Gisele pregnant?”
The living room echoed with his laughter. “Hell, no! That won’t happen. Keep it under your hat, but she fixed that problem last year. She won’t give up her model figure for a baby. That’s for sure.”
The sadness on his face cut through me. “You want kids?”
He shrugged. “Maybe someday.”
“With her?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I let that thought circle the room for a while. “That’s not good.”
He shrugged again. “No, probably not.” I loved the way his shoulders moved. So smooth and so controlled, like a male dancer. I had enough wine left in me that I pictured him in dancer’s tights. My mouth went dry. I’d have gotten up for water if I didn’t know he’d follow me.
“You’re breaking up with her?”
Again, the shoulders. If he did that again, I was going to reach out, touch them, massage them, and soothe his weary muscles under my hands. I had good hands. Hundreds of working transmissions couldn’t be wrong.
“Probably,” he finally said, digging his phone from his pocket. “How’s the reception up here?”
“Lousy. Worse in bad weather. Why?”
He sighed. “No time like the present.” His eyes scanned the screen, and his expression chi
lled. “I have a text.”
When he didn’t elaborate right away, I said, “From her?” He nodded. “What’s it say?”
His fingers moved around the screen, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He held the phone out to me. Filling the screen was, indeed, Gisele Everett in all her naked glory, bent over in front of a similarly naked lineman for a Texas football team. When it sank in exactly what I was seeing, my wine buzz was gone.
“Wow. That’s one hell of a selfie.”
“You think?” He cocked his arm back and hurled the phone against the wall. It exploded in a shower of circuits and plastic. “Fuck her. Fuck her, and fuck him. Fuck them all,” he growled.
I knew in the morning I’d be concerned about the dent in the living room wall, but at the moment I had a bigger problem in the fact that Aaron looked homicidal. If Gisele knew what was good for her, she’d flee the country. My car keys were in my coat pocket, and Aaron’s car was out of commission. I could only hope he didn’t know how to drive stick, or I’d be stuck in this house until someone could come rescue me.
“Kiss me.” Did I say that?
The look on his face reflected the thoughts jumbled in my own head. “What?”
I shrugged. “Well, you look pissed, and I figure the opposite of that is something good, and kissing is good, right? I mean, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Just put your mind somewhere else. Don’t think about it. Do something you like better, and since we’re out of wine…?”
He shook his head. “That makes no sense.”
I rolled my eyes, climbing to my feet. “Look, I don’t know jack about philosophy or psychology, okay? I went to tech school and got an associate degree. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my nose in books, but I do know something about common sense. You want the car to move, you press the gas. To make it stop, you press the brake. Don’t press the gas to stop the car.”
He stood. “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know! I just don’t need you breaking anything else! And I figured it’d be hard to be around you if you’re pissed like that. I’m not going to get any sleep this way. Call it self-preservation, but I thought I’d throw myself on the altar if it meant I didn’t have to worry about you going ballistic, taking my car, and ditching me here.”
“Oh, so you’re sacrificing yourself for me? How noble. What the fuck? I’ll take it.” And before I knew what was happening, he yanked me into his arms and crushed his mouth against mine.
The first thing that registered was pain. The next was pleasure. He had a talented mouth, not even bothering with seduction but going right for my throat—literally. I resisted for a moment before I accepted that I’d made the offer, and he had taken me up on it.
Good God, what had I done?
I couldn’t register everything he did to me. His hands were on my breasts and then only one while the other fought the clasp of my jeans. His tongue sought the depths of my mouth, his whole body pressed against me. Though I’d been the one to make the offer, this wasn’t a seduction. It was an onslaught. I couldn’t fight him off, and it scared me as much as it excited me.
Luckily—or maybe unfortunately—his fingers were so skilled, the buttons of my shirt practically popped open of their own volition. Before I knew it, cool air drifted across my bare skin. A moment later I was all kinds of hot again as his mouth shifted its onslaught to my breasts, sucking hard until I cried out.
Was I really doing this? Was I really half-naked in my parents’ living room, being molested by Aaron Elias? I smiled, not sure how I knew his name when I couldn’t remember my own.
“Keep doing that,” he growled, his lips teasing my nipple with every syllable.
“What?” I rasped, pretty sure I’d forgotten how to breathe. Unless it involved holding on to him for dear life, every other reflex was unnecessary.
“Smile. I like that. I want to know you want it.”
“Yes.” I ground my hips against his, the heat between my legs almost more than I could bear. My head fell back, and he took the hint, nipping at my throat. The pain felt so good. My knees weakened, and I dug my nails into his shirt.
His shirt. It had to go. Now.
I fought with the buttons. It was his turn to smile when he let me go and made quick work of the flannel, tossing it aside before shucking out of the T-shirt too.
My mouth went dry. Yep, that was the same bare chest I’d seen on TV and in movies, over and over. In my dreams once a month or so, when the hormones all kicked in just right. He had enough hair to make it interesting, but so much sculpted skin and sinew that my fingers just couldn’t seem to get enough of touching him.
“You like?” The look in his eyes was still angry, but at the moment, I didn’t care. I nodded. “Wait. There’s more.” With that he undid his pants.
In an instant, I panicked. He was hard as stone and frighteningly big. Like, thick big. Long. Maybe too long. No way could I fit all that without getting hurt.
I smiled. And wouldn’t that be fun.
“Hungry?”
I nodded.
His hands on my shoulders pushed me down to my knees. “Take it.”
I only hesitated for a moment. He glistened at the tip. The rising desire in me craved the taste of him. I touched my tongue to it and closed my eyes, bracing myself for rejection. He moaned quietly. I took that to mean good things, so I licked the slit at the head, bottom to top. He shivered.
“Jesus, Grace. Please.”
He was begging. Something about the sound and the knowledge of it filled me with heady, drunken power. I wrapped my hands around his thighs like tree trunks, slid my fingers up the backs and insides of his legs all the way up to his ass, and pulled him into my mouth.
“Goddamn.” His leg muscles quivered under my grip. I loved it. I wanted more, even as I took him deep into my throat. He felt so good that suddenly I was greedy. My hands wandered his body. He shuddered when I touched that spot behind his balls. I understood the meaning of the phrase “drunk with power.” I took him in and out of my mouth, feeling the slide of his hot flesh and circling him with my tongue, sucking as hard as I could without hurting him.
Or maybe he’d like it. I took a deep pull like I was trying to suck a golf ball through a garden hose. His hands gripped my head, and through the rush of blood in my ears, I heard him cry out something that sounded like my name. He shuddered hard. I might’ve mistaken it for a seizure, but then he pulled back, groaning.
“What’s wrong?” My mouth hurt from the sucking and the size of him, and my heart hurt for thinking I’d done something he didn’t like. My ex, Jeremy, had said I sucked at giving head, and he didn’t mean it in a positive way. He always stopped me when I tried. In all the movies I’d seen, I thought I had done what they did, so—
“Nothing, baby.” He drew a few steadying breaths. “Nothing. I just…I don’t want to finish like that.”
“No?” That still sounded like I’d made a mistake. Dammit, I couldn’t get anything right, could I?
He dropped to his knees. His hand slid inside my jeans, and his fingers teased my wet folds. In an instant, I saw stars. My body crumpled against his. His lips brushed my ear.
“If you kept sucking me that way, I was going to come in your mouth. I wanted to save it.”
“Save it?”
His stubble rasped my cheek. “First, I’m going to make you come.”
I smiled, breathless, halfway there at the sound of his voice, the rough brush of his body against mine. “You may have succeeded.”
“You thought that was an orgasm?” He suckled at my throat. Then he bit me. I startled and then relaxed into the pain. “Oh no, baby. Not a chance. Not even close.”
“It wasn’t?” Really, it wasn’t? The tremors shook me to the core. The heat and the shock and the sparks behind my eyes; that wasn’t it? It felt good but…there was more?
His hands filled with my ass, his fingers sliding into me. “Trust me. I’m going to show you.”
It sca
red me, his words. Trust him? I’d only just met him. Well, in person. I’d known of him for years. But he didn’t know me. How could he know…?
The slide of his fingers deep into my body, curving, reaching, touching…oh yeah, he knew exactly where to touch me. My whole body pulsed with fire, light, and waves. I eased into his arms, giving myself up to his control.
His fingers danced down my bare legs as he pulled my jeans down, taking my panties with them. I was grateful for the dark because unlike Gisele, I usually wore something more cotton than lace. He didn’t give me time to think too deeply on it, though, because he spread my legs apart.
I panted, ready and waiting to feel him fill me. When he didn’t move, I opened my eyes. He sat there on the floor, facing me and staring at the space between my thighs. I wanted to squirm, to move away and avoid the scrutiny. Okay, so it’d been a while since my last shave, but he didn’t have to stare.
“You’re beautiful.”
I covered my bare breasts with my hands. “What?” Surely he was full of shit. No man in his right mind would look at naked me and say that. And it wasn’t like he had to lie to get me to let him fuck me. I was right there, spread out on the floor for him like a big, fat buffet. All he had to do was take it. I was willing. Just do it and get it over with, for crying out loud.
He shook his head. He was so still and calm, like he was studying something hanging on a wall. A portrait. A work of art.
“Amazing.” Still shaking his head, he lowered himself down on his elbows. I felt his thumbs pull my lips apart, baring me even more to his gaze. The heat was more than I could bear, and I closed my eyes, pressing my arm over my eye sockets, waiting, and willing him to stop torturing me.
But then his tongue touched my clit, and my whole world exploded. “Easy, baby,” he murmured, his fingers kneading my thighs, gentling and calming. “God, you taste as good as you look. I could eat you all day.” He licked me again. I writhed in blissful agony. “Relax. The sooner you relax, the better it’ll feel.”
“Better?” My nails clawed at the carpet around me. I cursed my parents for tearing up the shag rug the house had come with. I needed something to hold on to. Then I realized I was doing it wrong, and I raked my fingers into his hair instead, pulling him closer and deeper.