by Thalia Eames
Jules nodded, involuntarily stroking his waist. He looked down at her hands and back to her. Slowly, he shook his head and nodded to her hands. Jules jerked them back and knotted them in the front of her blouse.
“You need to be sure,” Daz said, “because I’m not seeing things the same way as when we talked in the tree. I don’t want to walk away when you’re the only person who makes me feel.” He closed his eyes. “And I’m desperate to feel, Blue, I want it bad. Even if it’s temporary.”
She gripped his apron and yanked it to pull him closer. He resisted. “Let go.” There’d be no arguing with him about it.
She obeyed him. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she keep her hands off Dashiell Warren?
“Right now, I want to lift you, spread your legs, and fuck you on this counter,” he murmured in a husk so sexy it drenched her panties. Then he jerked his head toward the front of the store. “While my fans watch.”
Daz leaned in when Jules’s pupils dilated, the pulse quickening at her throat. He sniffed her neck, orange blossoms and arousal turning her scent into an olfactory aphrodisiac. She’d been excited since he’d walked down the aisle but she’d spiked hard when he said “while my fans watch”. Could he have discovered a secret?
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Blue? For us to have an audience?”
Her breath stuttered and she started to shake her head but ended up nodding. “Not like that,” she said.
Daz caged her in. He locked his arms on either side of her, against the display counter but made sure no part of them touched. He thought about what she’d said. “You don’t want them to watch but if there was a risk of them catching us you’d like it?”
She nodded slowly, her tongue moistening her lips.
Daz had wondered why a woman like her would want a man like him, despite the push and pull of her repulsion and attraction to bad boys. He’d puzzled why she kept touching him when she clearly wanted something else. Blue looked out for people, rescued them, and she’d healed from the hurt of her ex-boyfriend’s betrayal. So why him?
Understanding snapped into place as the scent of her arousal rose and the artery in her neck pulsed erratically. His Blue wanted to play with somebody broken because she couldn’t resist danger boys. But like any kid on the playground it couldn’t last forever. Eventually you left your playmates and went home. All right. Daz exhaled a warm breath across the curve of her ear. He didn’t deserve her but he could be that for her.
After all, he wasn’t worth saving the way Mariel Grace and her two kids were. He didn’t deserve someone to look out for him the way Jules looked out for Gran when Lennox went out of town. Plainly put, he wasn’t good enough.
“I think I’m finally beginning to understand you, Blue.” He studied her. “You’re into danger boys because you’re our perfect counterpart, aren’t you?” He tightened his grip on the counter on either side of her. “The thrills and the taboos turn you on. That’s why you want to stay away but keep pulling me close. You’re not just afraid of me, you’re afraid of yourself. I’m a project you can’t finish. Aren’t I, Blue?”
Wrong.
So very wrong. Jules wanted to correct him, to tell him how backward he had it. But her lungs had locked up and the chance of having him in her arms and in her bed silenced her.
Later, after she’d loved him well and truly, she’d tell him the truth about his amazingness. For today, the misunderstanding between them worked for her. They couldn’t have the long-term anyway. He was too special. Dashiell Warren sparkled too brightly. He stood out as a star, in the MMA ring, on YouTube, even in a small-town hardware store. The spotlight perpetually found him. But she needed to be behind the scenes, to be the girl in the background. That wasn’t good enough for Daz. He deserved someone who’d shine with him. And Jules could never do that. Yet she wanted him, so she’d be selfish for once and take him. She wished she was strong enough to stand at his side—with the spotlight on, but Jules needed the darkness and Daz deserved the light.
Then he said the thing that justified her silence and made her absolutely sure she’d made the right choice.
“You can’t fix me, Blue, but you can fuck me. Your choice.”
She chose yes. 1.Yes, she could fix him. 2. Hell yeah, she’d hop on and ride him good.
Chapter Twelve
Jules jumped when Pa called for them. The wicked smile Daz gave her took her knees out and she nearly dropped to the floor. Fully aware of his power, Daz kept her imprisoned between his gorgeously sculpted arms while Pa spoke.
“If you and Juliana are done smoking up the store, Chaplin is ready,” Pa said, smirking. He stood there, refusing to give Jules a moment to collect herself. She stuck out her tongue at the old guy. He stuck his out right back and left them.
Up front, Pa had pushed Chaplin’s chair closer to the door and laid a light plaid blanket across his legs. Jules guessed to fight off the chill in the spring night air.
Daz pulled out his Powershot camera. Pointing the lens at Chaplin, he began vlogging in one seamless motion. Jules stayed behind him, wanting nothing to do with that business.
Pa waved at the camera. “Hiya, Dazzlers. Chaplin’s excited to get back to work on Operation Clock Tower.” Chaplin rolled his neck a few times in agreement.
Operation Clock Tower sounded like Daz had gotten himself into something. Or maybe he’d gotten a Delorean and was headed back to the future. Jules remembered Cash’s strong warning about Daz setting off a fun apocalypse aka the fupocalypse and she decided she’d better hang out with Daz and Chaplin tonight.
Daz grabbed a box off the counter and stepped into frame, leaning down to share space with Chaplin. “My man here and I sent out for the part we needed and the dealer overnighted it to us,” Daz said. He shook the box. “Ten years on the clock and Chaplin is ready to finish the job.”
Seeming happy with what he’d recorded, Daz turned off the camera and gave Chaplin a fist bump. Then he mounted the camera on what looked like a homemade rig on the right arm of Chaplin’s chair and glanced over at Jules. “You coming?”
She nodded and shadowed the two men out of the door while Pa Bailey held it open for them.
Unsurprisingly, Daz pushed Chaplin’s chair in the direction of the Dumbarton Library Clock Tower. Jules walked beside them but stayed out of camera range just in case.
Daz shot her some side eye. “I asked you to come with us so I can answer your questions before Chaplin and I head up.”
“I can’t go?” Jules didn’t expect the rush of hurt feelings his words caused.
Daz and Chaplin kept rolling. “I’m helping Chaplin finish a project he started ten years ago and he doesn’t seem to like it when we have company. On top of that, we’re vlogging the process, so…” He shrugged, knowing he’d given her the reason she needed to let them have their boy time.
Jules pursed her lips but accepted the minor rejection. “Can you tell me what the project is? Ya’ know, because I’m nosy.”
“How do you feel about that, Chap? Can we tell her?”
Chaplin rolled his neck in a yes and Daz smiled. “Before he fell, Chaplin planned to fix the clock tower as a declaration of love. When his dad told me about it I mentioned I thought I could fix it and Chaplin got excited. We got permission from the historical society as well as from Louise Dumbarton.” Daz shrugged. “And there it is.”
The chair stopped and both Dashiell and Chaplin seemed to stare at her. Jules rubbed her forehead to erase the bright red reject she imagined they’d stamped there. “Fine,” she said, smirking but trying to hide it. “I hate boys anyway.” Giving them her biggest best flounce, she turned for home.
Something occurred to her a few feet away. The clock tower had a beautiful wrought iron spiral staircase leading up from the library floor but no other way to get to the clock.
“Hey,” she called, stopping the tw
o men. “How do you get Chaplin into the tower? There’s no elevator.”
With a patient exhale, that drifted to the edge of impatience, Daz answered her, “No. There isn’t.”
“So, you carry him? Is he like me? Can touch him?” She scanned Daz and realized he’d put on his gloves at some point.
He smoothed a hand over his beard. “Blue, Chaplin and I are leaving now. Tomorrow, after work, I need to go buy clothes and there’s a movie I’ve been meaning to see. I want you with me.” He paused to lean one arm on the chair’s grip. “Is that something you’d be interested in?”
“Yes,” she said. No hesitation.
“Then I’ll text you where to meet me.”
“Good night, Dashiell,” she said, swallowing a big ole ridiculous grin.
He didn’t look back but his words reached her. “G’night, baby Blue.”
When Jules walked into the men’s store where Garrett and Cash bought their clothes the next night, the clerks were in deep conversation with Daz. Primarily one guy who “couldn’t stop laughing at that one vlog Daz posted that one time”.
Amazing. Jules had decided not to watch the DazDaze (Dillon knew way too much about Dashiell) YouTube Channel for…so many reasons—all the reasons in the world. But as she saw more of the reactions Daz received, her curiosity swelled.
Of course, her mind blanked when he turned his gunmetal gray gaze on her and the energy between them ramped up. He’d let his hair go wild, the honey-gold tips drawing attention to the coppery bronze glow of his perfect skin. Men and their lush eyelashes, and flawless skin, not to mention how they lost weight so fast. It’s like they were created to torment women. Jules could strangle them, especially Dashiell, who was too gorgeous for proper words. And when he smiled, white teeth and deliciously full lower lip, the man made her world stutter.
“Hey,” he said. “You all right?”
Goddamn. He’d done it again, turned the “all” into an ahh. It made her pulse points light up with heat.
“Why are you so hot?” Jules asked Daz as she walked up to stand in front of him. Yeah, she kind of crowded the personal shopper dude out of the way. He’d deal.
“These are questions a man can’t answer and maintain his dignity.” Daz shook his head. “Aaron here has pulled a few looks for me. I’m going to go try them on.” He stroked a finger down the blue streak in her hair, then slipped his fingers into the waves and shook them out. The polar opposite of the people who tried to tame her hair by tucking it behind her ears, Daz appreciated the wild sides of her. And she adored him for it.
He inclined his head. “Tell me what you think of the clothes?”
Her teeth scraped her lip when she smiled. “But of course. When have I ever held my tongue?”
He smiled then turned with shifter grace and headed to the dressing rooms, but the intensity he’d held in his gaze before he left lingered.
Aaron, the personal shopper dude, emitted an ugh. “Guys like him are why guys like me spend so much money on clothes and cologne.” He and Jules shared a moment before he asked, “Tea, coffee, water, wine, truffle nuts?”
She’d barely requested wine when Daz came out. Her mouth went dry. She gave him a thumbs up to the cuffed white boating trousers and graphic tee. He went in, came out, and hit her in the head with another ensemble. Repeat. Remix. Repeat. Mind fully blown. Jules and Lennox worshipped at the throne of street fashion blogs, menswear especially. Daz could take the daily spotlight of any of them. He wore fashion well. His fighter’s torso, lover’s ass, and killer legs invited clothes to love all over him, and the clothes obliged.
On a final strut from the dressing rooms, Daz struck a catalogue pose with his hands in his pockets and his attention on something non-existent to his right. Jules laughed.
“Too much?” he asked. Then he crooked a finger at her and beckoned. What could she do? She followed him back into the dressing room. Inside she found a red leather cube to sit on, which gave her a great view of Daz as he stripped down to his navy pinstriped underwear. Still Jules held on to her composure until he locked the door and stalked her down.
The look of sexual conquest he wore made her core flood with wet want. He stopped inches from her face. If she wanted to, it would only take a slight lean forward to rub her face against the impressive bulge in front of her. Instead she tracked the intersecting lines of the blue-black tattoo decorating his dark skin. The inked star chart led her gaze up his left arm, over his shoulder, and down across his left pec. Rocket Man, she remembered naming him that when they’d first met. She’d also called him a star. His tattoo seemed to echo the sentiment and she got lost in the way the ink constellations accentuated his pure masculine beauty.
A growling purr vibrated in his chest and she looked up to meet his eyes. “You know what’s about to go down here. Don’t you, Blue?”
The tip of her tongue moistened her top lip. Jules could imagine them doing all sorts of lascivious, dirty, downright nasty, in some instances physically impossible things in that dressing room. Things that would make one of the clerks call Sheriff Stan in to arrest them for public indecency. Jules had no words to answer without revealing her filthy mind so she shook her head. Clueless as to what he planned for her, anticipation gave her the shakes.
“Blue.” Daz faked hurt with furrowed brows. He kneeled in front of her; the knuckles of his index fingers traveled up the backside of her calves until he reached behind her knees. There he flicked his hands out and slipped them beneath her legs. With a sharp tug, he pulled her forward, until her butt hung halfway off the leather cube. She gasped and he grinned.
His strong hands whipped her panties off in one swift move. He tucked the coral lace into the waistband of his underwear, and kept her legs held straight up, so her skirt floated down against her belly.
Heightened anticipation made her whimper. Then his warm breath whispered across her labia and the sensation tilted her world. She grabbed the wall on one side, the stainless steel mirror frame on the other. Daz’s single-handed grip closed around her ankles, holding her legs in place. The roundness of her thighs blocked his face from view, which made the torture of his foreplay that much more titillating.
“Dashiell,” she begged.
“Shh,” he said, the sound caressing her folds. “I’m busy.” He went still. “I like this position.” His face slid pleasure across her right butt cheek then rolled to kiss her there. “I think in gymnastics they call it a pike.”
He placed a second kiss directly on her arousal-swollen lips, then lifted to slay her with tiny feather licks over and around her clit. She made a noise he liked because he chuckled. The vibrations shot straight through her belly and more liquid need met his next kiss.
“A pike is also a weapon used to spear things. Did you know that, Blue?” Daz didn’t give her the chance to answer. He jerked her legs higher and plunged his tongue into her chasm. Jules bucked hard, giving him deeper access. Daz took advantage. His tongue licked in and out, circling her entrance and slipping back inside for several amazingly torturous minutes. Then he wrapped those perfect lips around her clit and sucked.
“Oh, shit, Dashiell. Shit.”
Aaron’s voice came through the door. “You guys okay in there?”
“She’s fuckin’ great,” Daz growled. Aaron must’ve gotten the message because he quieted and Daz went back to work.
The man used his lips, tongue and the slightest edge of teeth as he sucked her into sweet oblivion. When the first tremor of orgasm radiated from her belly and into her nerve endings in a power line of sensation, he slipped his tongue back into her and flickered it inside her until she released fully against his mouth.
Daz finished her, leaving her wasted on the red leather cube. Both her body and mind quivered in his wake. And she loved every bit of it.
Lowering her legs, he reached over for his pants and pulled a packet of travel
tissue out. He wiped her clean first then bent to put her panties on. Such a sweet bad boy. Smiling as he lowered her skirt into place, he handed her a second tissue. She used it to wipe his mouth, but not before she caught him by the nape and pulled him in for a sizzling kiss. Jules took his mouth the same way he’d taken her core, with total possession. She wanted him marked with her scent. Completely claimed.
They had thirty minutes before the movie started, so they paid for his clothes, and rushed to the theater. She missed the name of the movie due to the daze he’d put her under, but when she read the marquee at the entrance to screen number five she raised an eyebrow. “The ratings on this thing are terrible,” she said. “We’ll be lucky if there are more than two people in there with us.”
He tilted his head back and regarded her. “I figured that,” he said, a quirk lifting the corner of his lips. “I thought we’d ease you into it.” That said, he went inside.
“Ease me into what?” she asked, chasing behind him.
They took seats in the middle of the last row on the left. Jules had called the lack of interest in the movie correctly. There were five people at the most inside the theater. Another couple sat roughly seven rows down from her and Daz.
The lights lowered, signaling the start of the never-ending barrage of trailers. Jules slipped her hand between Daz’s thighs and rubbed. He cupped one side of her face and nuzzled the opposite ear.
“You taste so good, you know that, Blue? You’re going to be on my tongue all night.” He kissed her, nipping her bottom lip, teasing the corner of her mouth with his tongue. She melted into him, her fingers stroking up to cup the bulge between his legs. Another growling purr emanated from him as he said, “You’ve got the right idea.”
Releasing her he sat back in his chair. His gaze caressed her lips, lowered to his cock, then lowered further to the floor. When he spoke his words were tinged with a huskiness she’d come to recognize as his sex voice. “I want you on your knees.”