Sex Machine: A Standalone Contemporary Romance

by Force,Marie

  “I mean it, Blake. Don’t fuck with her, or you’ll answer to me.”

  Under normal circumstances, I love that our work relationship hasn’t gotten in the way of our lifelong friendship. I like that he’ll say something like that to me even though I’m technically his boss. But these are not normal circumstances, and tonight, for whatever reason, his words don’t roll off me the way they usually do.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I will worry about it, and you should, too.”

  “I hear you, Matt, but there’s no need for threats. Honey and I are cool.”

  At least I hope we are. I’ll see to that later when I drop by to check on her. We’ll put things back on track, and that will be that. Whoever said sex has to change everything has never met me. I’m a machine. I don’t let my emotions into the equation. Ever.

  Chapter Six

  I’m a nervous wreck. I have been since that moment in Matt and Julie’s garage when Blake told me to leave my door unlocked. What could he possibly want? It couldn’t be more sex, because everyone knows he doesn’t do more than one night with any woman. Lauren was a rare exception, but that was when he was much younger. In recent years, his one-and-done philosophy has become well known around here.

  So that takes me back to the what-could-he-possibly-want question.

  I get home around eleven thirty. Blake was still at the party when I left, so I have no idea when to expect him. I go to the back door and stare at the lock for a long moment before I turn the knob to unlock it. The popping sound of the lock disengaging is louder than it has ever been, echoing through my quiet house like a shotgun blast.

  Okay, that might be a little dramatic, but everything about this situation feels dramatic to me. Not that I have a lot of experience with drama when it comes to men. They’re never much of a mystery to me, and I don’t get close enough to any of them to care about what they do.

  So why do I care so much about why Blake wants to see me tonight?

  Leaving the door unlocked, I walk—or rather limp—into my bedroom and change into a tank top and pajama pants. The bath helped with the aches and pains, but my body is still feeling the aftereffects of my crazy night with Blake. I stop short between my bedroom and the bathroom when the telltale tingling between my legs indicates that, while I might be confused about what he wants, my body knows exactly what it wants.

  “No way,” I say out loud, as if that might toughen my resolve. “No matter what he’s got on his mind, there’s no way that’s happening again. I’ll never walk again if he touches me tonight.”

  Today has reminded me all too much of what I felt like after the first time I had sex, with Randy Dade behind his father’s barn the summer before my junior year of high school. He went at me like a battering ram, and I was sore for days afterward. I had to tell my Gran that I fell while getting off my horse to explain why I couldn’t walk right. I’m not sure if she believed me, but I never had sex with Randy again, much to his dismay.

  I didn’t have sex again for two years after that traumatizing incident, and the next time wasn’t so bad. Neither was the time after that. But it was never anything special until I did it with Blake. And of course, the one time it was something other than just okay, it had to be with the one guy who will never want anything more.

  “You knew the score going into that bar last night, Honey Carmichael,” I say to myself in the mirror. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, and don’t blow up one night into something more than it was. Just. Sex.”

  This is exactly what Lauren warned me against—going all soft in the middle over a man who’d never want softness from me or any other woman. It would do me good to remember that. I’ll see what he wants tonight and send him on his way, hoping I don’t see him again for a while, until I have time to tuck our encounter into a box in my mind and put it in the past where it belongs. I can do that. I have to do that.

  A few minutes later, the latch on the back door clicks when it opens, and my heart nearly bursts from the adrenaline and excitement and… Oh for goodness sake, Honey, stop it. Stop it right now. I gather myself by taking a couple of deep breaths, and then I leave the bathroom, cut through my bedroom and enter what Gran always referred to as the “parlor,” the room she kept pristine for guests. Blake is standing in the middle of it with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face.

  His gaze goes directly to my breasts, which fill out my tank top rather well. The shirt might’ve been a mistake in hindsight, but while he checks me out, his scowl morphs into something… hungrier. That’s the only word I can think of to describe what I see in the heated look he gives me.

  “You wanted to see me?” I ask, sounding far too breathless for my liking.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  I’m about to ask him why when his hands fall from his hips and he comes to me. It takes everything I have not to back away from him, to remember this is Blake, my lifelong friend and one-time lover. I have nothing to fear from him. But as he comes closer and the hunger turns ravenous, I realize I have every reason in the world to fear him and the power I’ve given him to hurt me. “W-what did you need?”

  His hands land on my hips, and he jerks me toward him. “This.”

  I crash into his chest and squeak with surprise. I look up to ask him what the hell he’s doing, but I never get the chance because his lips come down on mine in a kiss that takes me right back to last night and the sublime pleasure I found in his arms.

  Later, I’ll have the time to process this and to wonder how I went from resolved to his tongue in my mouth in four seconds flat, but right now I’ve got all I can do to handle my body’s reaction to his touch. Fireworks. That’s the best word I can use to describe how it feels when he touches me. Tiny explosions that erupt under my skin, making my nipples tighten and my clit ache with desire.

  His arms wrap around me, making me his prisoner, not that I mind.

  No one has ever kissed me the way Blake does, and I was a fool to think one night would be enough for either of us. I want to climb on him, wrap my legs around his waist and grind myself against the hard cock that presses into my belly.

  He does that mind-reading thing again when he cups my ass and lifts me without missing a beat in the kiss. I wrap myself around him and tip my head to the right to improve the angle. His groan tells me he approves. Many minutes later, he breaks the kiss and turns his attention to my neck.

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you tonight.” He bites the tendon at the base of my neck, and I almost come from the jolt of electricity that travels directly to my clit. “I’m no good for you, Honey. You deserve so much better.”

  “You’re good for me right now.” I fist a handful of his hair and drag him into another kiss. I can’t control the need to grind my sex on his cock, and he can’t seem to control the need to grind right back. If not for his jeans and my pajamas, we’d be having actual sex rather than the simulated kind.

  “One more time,” he says in that raspy, sexy voice that will fuel my fantasies for the rest of my life after this momentous weekend. “Tell me you understand.”

  “One more time.”

  “And that’s all. Do we agree?”

  “Yes, Blake. We agree.”

  I realize we’re moving when we cross the threshold into my bedroom and he comes down on top of me on my bed, all while continuing to thrust his tongue into my mouth with increasing desperation.

  I’m right there with him, every bit as desperate for him as he is for me.

  He breaks the kiss only long enough to pull my pajama pants off and shed his T-shirt and jeans. Dear God, he’s commando under there, and his big cock is so hard, the tip is purple.

  My mouth waters, and I sit up to reach for him. “Let me,” I say when he would’ve moved out of my reach. I wrap my hand around the base of his cock and begin to stroke him as I take him into my mouth, sucking the broad head and lashing it with my tongue.

  The sound he makes is nothing short of feral,
and it sets me on fire for him. I force myself to focus on the task at hand, which is bringing him as much pleasure as he’s brought me. With that in mind, I take him as deeply into my mouth as I can, sucking and licking and stroking him until he butts up against my throat. I work through the impulse to gag, and he slips into my throat.

  “Fuck, Honey,” he growls as he pumps his hips. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

  My eyes water and tears fall down my cheeks as I concentrate on breathing through my nose while my fingers travel down to stroke his balls, which are almost as hard as his cock.

  He gasps. “Let me go, darlin’. Now.”

  Wondering if I did something wrong, I withdraw from him slowly, running my tongue up the length of his shaft before letting him pop free of my mouth. “Did I not do it right?”

  “If you did it any more right, I would’ve passed out.” His hands curve under my knees, and he tugs me to the edge of the mattress, aligning his cock against my pussy and giving a shove that makes me scream—and not in a good way. “Ah fuck, you’re sore.” He pulls back and drops to his knees by the bed, leaning in to lick my sensitive, pulsating flesh.

  I nearly weep from the sweet way he makes love to me with gentle strokes of his tongue over my clit and then down to my tender opening. I know I shouldn’t be shocked when he goes even lower, licking me in places no one had ever touched me before last night. I come in slow, easy waves, one orgasm folding into the next, my entire body caught up in the pleasure.

  The minute it finally ends, he starts all over again, keeping up the slow, gentle theme with his tongue but raising his hands to my breasts to pinch my nipples just hard enough that I feel the reaction everywhere.

  “Blake… I want…”

  “What, darlin’? What do you want?”

  “You inside me.”

  “You’re too sore.”

  “Go slow. I want it so bad.” I feel empty and needy and desperate for a man for the first time in my life. And not just any man. This man.

  Standing upright, he stares down at me, and I can only imagine how I must look with my hair wild around my head, my legs splayed open, my nipples standing on end and a desperate need pulsing through me. Apparently, he likes what he sees, because his face lifts into the half smile that makes my heart ache for the happy, carefree boy he was before life taught him the cruelest of lessons.

  I hold out my arms to him, and he comes down on top of me, aligning his cock to my opening and giving a gentle thrust. Thanks to his efforts, I’m so wet that he slides in easier than before. It burns more than hurts as my flesh stretches to accommodate him.

  “Ah, God, Honey, you’re so tight.”

  “In the past, that hasn’t been a good thing.”

  He raises his head to look down at me. “Why not?”

  “I couldn’t always, you know, get it in.” I’m on fire with mortification, but in for a penny… “And I’ve never been with anyone as big as you are.”

  “They didn’t take the time to make sure you were ready.”

  “They also didn’t turn me on the way you do.”

  “Is that so?”

  I bite my lip and nod as he continues to enter me in short little thrusts, retreating each time.

  “Ready for more?”

  “I-I think so.”

  “Nice and easy, darlin’. Nice and easy.”

  True to his word, it takes a long time for him to enter me fully, and when he finally does, we’re both sweating and breathing hard and on the verge of release.

  “Wait,” he whispers, his lips brushing up against my ear and restarting the wildfire inside me. “Slow it down.”

  “If we go any slower, it’ll be morning before we finish.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  I moan and squirm and tighten my internal muscles—everything I can think of to get things—especially him—moving. But he’s in no rush, and I swear his cock is getting bigger with every second he spends inside me.

  “You feel like heaven, Honey.” His lips skim over mine in a fleeting caress. “Feels so good. Tell me it’s good for you, too.”

  “It is. I love it.” I grasp his tight ass and sink my fingernails into his flesh, begging him for sweet relief as I push my hips against him.

  “Ah, baby, you drive a hard bargain.”

  I gasp with laughter. “I think the hard bargain is all you.”

  “Nah, darlin’, it’s all you.” He begins to move—finally—stroking in and out of me slowly and gently, being careful not to hurt me. I’ll still feel this tomorrow because of his sheer size. He’s way more than I’m used to. “Fold your hands behind my neck.”

  Uncertain of why he wants me to do that, I slide my hands around him and clasp them together.

  “Hold on tight.” With his hands under me, he picks me up and brings me down on him, his cock wedging even deeper inside me—so deep that I gasp from the sensations that spiral from the place we’re joined to everywhere else. He moves me slowly up and down, our flesh slick and our breathing rough. “So good, Honeydew melon. So fucking good.”

  “Yes,” I laugh at his latest name for me and cry out the single word, my head falling back as he takes me on a slow ride to heaven. Nothing has ever felt so good. I’m wise enough to know that nothing will ever again feel quite this good. What a profoundly depressing thought. But I told him I understood, and I do. I know what he’s capable of—and what he isn’t. This will have to be enough.

  If we only have this second bonus night, never to be repeated, I intend to enjoy every minute of it.

  It’s good with her. I feel it, and I know she does, too. There’s something to be said for doing this with someone I’ve known forever and feel safe with. I can let go with her and be myself. I don’t have to hide the agony I carry with me every second of every day. She knows. She was there. I don’t have to explain anything to her, and that’s a huge relief.

  My brain, which runs on full speed every minute that I’m awake, gives me a break when I’m with her. I have something else to think about besides regrets and remorse and relentless grief. Staying so busy I don’t have time to breathe is a coping mechanism that’s worked well for me over the years.

  But fucking Honey works better.

  She looks up at me with those bottomless eyes, and I lose myself in her.

  The guys I work with say I’m a machine because of how much I get done in an average day. I don’t ask them to do anything I’m not willing to do, too. I push myself harder than anyone, and the result is a very successful business that gets bigger every year. For all I care about success.

  The women I spend time with call me a machine in bed because of my stamina and because I’m “emotionally remote,” as one of them said. If that makes me a machine, I can live with that more easily than I could live with an emotional involvement.

  Staying removed has worked for me, and even with Honey Carmichael’s silky-soft skin wrapped around me, I’m not about to change my mind about that. But I do love the way she looks at me when I’m inside her—part awe, part confusion, part affection.

  I cling to the affection. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed it until Honey showed me what I’ve been missing by powering through life, one meaningless encounter at a time. The affection is what brought me to her tonight for one more dose of her special brand of sweetness.

  She’s so tight and wet and hot that I’m on the verge of release way too soon, so I withdraw from her, enjoying her little squeak of protest. I bend my head to take her left nipple into my mouth while pinching the right one between my fingers. Kissing my way down the front of her, I lift her legs to my shoulders and open her to my tongue.

  “Sweetest honey I’ve ever tasted.”

  Her thighs tighten around my head, and I lose myself in her. The only thing I care about is making her come harder than she ever has before. I want to leave my mark on her. I want her to remember this after it’s over. Why I want that is something I can think about later, when I’m back to be
ing alone again. Right now, I have far better things to concern myself with than returning to my empty, hyper-regimented life.

  I draw her clit into my mouth and suck hard, running my tongue back and forth over the tight little nub while pushing my fingers into her at the same time. The combination has the desired effect, and she erupts with a cry of pleasure that travels right to my hard cock. He wants in on this right fucking now.

  She’s still coming when I push into her, triggering a second orgasm on top of the first one. Her fingers dig into my ass when she pulls me deeper into her. As I pound into her, she raises her hips to meet my every stroke. We move together like longtime lovers, a thought that causes me to lose my rhythm for a second.

  Of course she notices. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, darlin’, I’m good. You?”

  “Mmm. Yes, I’m good.”

  I smile down at her. “Sweetest Bit-O-Honey I ever had.”

  She returns my smile and buries her fingers in my hair, drawing me into a kiss that’s so sweet and tender, I begin to ache on the inside for what can never be. If only I were different. If only I were capable… But I’m not, and wishing for things that can never be is a surefire path to madness.

  I know myself, and I have no doubt I’m better off maintaining the status quo than deviating from the course that has kept me sane all these years. But I’ll confess that I’m tempted to want more for the first time since Jordan died—and that scares the living hell out of me.

  “Fuck, Honey…” I start to withdraw from her. “I forgot a condom.”

  She stops me. “I’m on birth control, and I’m clean.”

  “I am, too. I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.” I pick up the pace, driving myself relentlessly and taking her with me. “God, this feels so good.”

  She comes again, and the tight clamp of her pussy on my cock finishes me off. I come hard and land on her afterward when my arms won’t hold me up any longer. I worry that I’m crushing her, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Her fingers comb through my hair in a sweet, calming caress that has me relaxing into her embrace.