by Sasha Gold
Snaring my wrists, he pins them to the bed and stares down at me. “You want to know what happened last night?”
His voice is a soft caress, a rumble deep in his chest that travels like molten need across every sense and makes me shudder. I hate him. I want him. Lord help me, for all I know maybe I’ve already tasted every sin he has to offer. He strokes his thumb across the tender skin of my wrist.
“I’ll tell you, Bailey. You were asking me for things. Don’t you remember?”
I want to insult him, hurl a denial at him, but in a sudden and horrifying flash I remember crawling on top of him at some point in the night and telling him how good he smelled. I said something about wanting to climb Mount McKinley. I wriggled around like a cat in heat pressing my slick core against his cock, teasing him to the best of my abilities. Which are pretty bad. Okay, I admit that.
My memories get more cringe worthy. I recall him forcibly removing me, shifting me to the bed beside him. He did that. It happened. All of it. Dear God. I seem to remember him saying I smelled good too. And then he told me to shut up already and go the fuck to sleep.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t do stuff like that. Ask for things.”
His smile widens. That damn smile. I still want to smack it clear off his face. I’ve never wanted to strike another person before in my entire life, not until meeting Nicholas McKinley.
“Maybe not normally, but you did last night, from me. You asked for all sorts of things. And all I did was to keep an eye on you, to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.”
It occurs to me that I should say something to him. Tell him thank you, maybe, if everything he’s saying is true, but he’s also sitting on me and pinning my arms down so it seems a little odd to express gratitude right at this moment. Even if your captor is looking down at you with a gaze that’s sexy as sin. He’s waiting. His grey-blue eyes studying me.
The only sound is the rain pouring off the roof and distantly I hear thunder roll across the countryside, a boom of sound that grows louder, deeper and then falls away.
“That was…thoughtful. Thank you.” I draw a deep breath. His weight pressing me down is playing havoc with my thoughts. I’m aware of a wicked restlessness shimmering across my skin. My breasts ache and I want to arch my back and beg for his touch but I set my bad ideas aside, tamp down my slutty whims and forge on. “At what point did you decide to cuff me? Not to appear ungrateful but I did sort of wonder.”
“You kept sitting up in bed and talking about wanting to go somewhere. My sister told me you might get confused and wander away. It’s been raining all night. It’s flooding everywhere and we probably won’t even be able to get out in the truck. I made sure you would stay put, tucked right beside me where I could watch over you.”
“Oh. Okay.” I say, sounding like a genius.
He lowers his head and nuzzles my neck. His short beard abrades my jaw. I close my eyes and relish how it feels. His warm breath makes me shiver.
“I think I know just what you want,” he says.
“Yes…”
“And it’s the exact same thing I want.”
I close my eyes. “Yes.”
“I think you want coffee. And I think you want pancakes.” And with that he nips my neck. Not hard, but not gently either. He releases my wrists, gets up and goes to the door. “You can have the first shower, and when you get out I’ll feed you.”
I nod because I have no response even if I trusted myself to say something half-way intelligible.
He leaves and I’m alone in his bed, confused and aroused. I listen to the clatter of pans in the kitchen and wish he’d forget about breakfast and linger in bed with me for a little longer.
Chapter Seven
Nick
After a long shower Bailey emerges from my room, dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt. Her hair is tousled, wet and drying in little ringlets. She comes in without looking at me, eyes fixed on her phone, and she sits down on the barstool. She’s engrossed in something, and all I want to do is look at her. Soon I smell burning… my pancakes are getting scorched.
The silence between us is awkward. She glances at me every so often and I know she’s embarrassed about last night. Me? I’m just glad she’s okay. When she jumped my ass in bed, I had to sort of admire her nerve. When I was in prison, hardened criminals kept their distance and I sort of like that she thought she could take me. The way she looks at me makes me want to torment her a little.
I flip a pancake. “How ‘bout you and me just cut to the chase and get married. We can crank out a few kids and fight over what to name them.”
I’m pulling her leg of course, but I have to say I sure enjoyed having her in my bed. Seeing her dressed in yoga pants, a soft t-shirt and sitting in my kitchen does something to me, too. Who gives a shit what her last name is? She’s unlike any girl I’ve ever met.
She looks up from her phone, blinks a few times and shakes her head. “I can’t have kids.”
“Why’s that?”
“I had some health issues when I was in high school.”
“Like what?”
“Like Endometriosis.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means bad stuff and no kids.”
I throw a few pancakes on a plate and set it in front of her. “Okay. We’ll adopt.”
She takes a pancake, rolls her eyes and turns away, heading to the front door of my house. After she steps outside, I hear her talking. Maybe she thinks she’s being discreet by going to my porch, but I hear everything she says.
“No… I’m fine, just staying with a friend. You okay? I didn’t really say bye because you were on the dance floor.”
I pour more batter on the griddle.
“I’m moving out of Susanna’s place,” she says.
“Damn right,” I mutter. Hopefully this girlfriend has a little more sense than the other one.
“It’s really pretty here,” she tells her friend. “It’s out in the middle of nowhere, but nice. Lots of big trees. A few barns.”
I’m glad she likes my place. It is pretty and I like that it’s in the middle of nowhere.
“No, it’s cool. He’s nice, actually.”
Nice? I don’t get that too often.
“Now who’s being the worry wort. There’s no sparring going on. At all. Yes, I know. He’s a black belt.”
I drink my coffee. I have no idea what the fuck she’s talking about and I should stop eavesdropping. Women’s conversations are confusing enough when you can hear both sides.
A few minutes later she comes back in, shaking her head. “The sky is so dark. I think we’re about to get another downpour.”
Almost before she’s finished speaking, a rumble of thunder shakes the house.
She sits on the chair. “I think you’re stuck with me.”
“Looks that way.”
My attention is drawn to her sweet mouth and her full lips. Zero to filthy in two seconds, that’s what she does to me. I imagine biting her neck, running my tongue to her mouth and kissing her hard. A dirty kiss, one that makes her wild with need. She’s looking at me too, but I have no idea what she’s thinking and fuck if she doesn’t make me burn the next batch of pancakes too.
I’m sure she knows just what she’s doing to me. I wonder if she’s feeling it too. I ignore her, trying to focus on breakfast.
When I toss the next decent pancake on her plate she’s got a smile on her face. There’s a magazine open on the counter and she’s leafing through the pages. It’s a sports magazine, sort of… this issue, though, is the one with swimsuit models. Growling, I turn away and run water into the sink.
“That’s not mine,” I say over my shoulder.
“Oh, of course not.”
The smile’s gotten a tad wider by the time I fill the sink and cross back to where she’s sitting.
“It belongs to a buddy of mine.”
Mentally I curse the guys who were here last Sunday to watch the game. I don�
��t know who left it but I have a bad feeling Bailey will gleefully ride my ass about the magazine. I outgrew skin magazines a long time ago and I might have looked at this one once, okay maybe twice, but mostly I’m not one to look at that sort of stuff.
“Your buddy sure likes swimsuits.” She pauses at the centerfold, a blonde on her knees in the sand wearing nothing more than a bikini bottom and a wet t-shirt. Giving me a sweet smile Bailey points to the tiny scrap of material, the barest excuse for a bikini bottom. “I love this one.”
I ignore her. Jesus, she’s a pain in the ass. This is the thanks I get for going way the fuck out of my way to help her. I pour extra syrup on my pancakes and take a few bites in between putting away the mess I made. Flour. Sugar. All the crap I dragged out to make Miss Underage some breakfast. For what? To have her insinuate I’m some perv with a porn stash.
“I don’t see anywhere in this magazine where I can order one of these suits,” she says. Her voice is sing-song, a deliberate attempt to provoke me. “Maybe I’ll check online because I sure do like this turquoise one. Everyone says I look good in blue.”
I glance at the picture she’s looking at. A woman faces away from the camera wearing a light blue thong and leaning against a surf board. She’s long and lean and the wind blows her hair away from her bare back.
“It’s hard to find just the right suit for, you know, surfing,” she muses, flicking to the next page.
I shove the flour in the cupboard with a little too much force and the paper bag rips. Flour spills out in a little heap. I slam the cupboard door. “Wear something like that in public and I’ll toss you over my knee and redden your ass with my hand.”
She scoffs. “Yeah, I’ll just bet you’re into all that. I’ve never been spanked in my life. Oh, here’s a red bikini. I wonder if I have to order the tops separate because none of the girls have tops, I’m noticing.”
I snatch the magazine and toss it across the kitchen. It sails through the air and lands in the trash. I turn back to Bailey. “Your daddy should have swatted your ass a time or two. You’d have better sense, and better manners.”
The smirk on her lips fades. I’ve hit a nerve which was not my intention. It dawns on me that her father was David Voss’s brother. I knew that of course, but the fact hasn’t exactly been on the forefront of my mind.
“My dad died before I was born,” she says. “My mom raised me by herself.”
I try to picture the man, but all I can think of is David’s face. The last time I saw him I was driving my fist into his face. Witnesses told the judge I was telling him how I was going to kill him. Slowly. And that I’d kill every member of his family. I shake the memory away.
“How’d your dad die?”
“In Afghanistan. He was a medic.”
She takes a deep sigh and gets off the barstool. I should say something but can’t think of anything. Her dad served in the armed forces which makes me think he was a lot different than David. And the guy was a medic. I wonder if that’s why she decided to become a nurse, to carry on in his footsteps.
She finishes her pancakes and takes her plate to the sink.
“Leave it. I’ll wash up.”
“I feel like I want to crawl back into bed.”
“Go on. Sleep a little. I probably can’t take you home for a day or two. The roads are flooded and more rain is on the way.”
“Thank you for breakfast, Nick. I’m sorry for the trouble.”
She slips out of the kitchen and I hear her footsteps go down the hallway.
“It’s no trouble,” I say softly.
Chapter Eight
Bailey
I’m not sure how long I’ve slept because the sky is the same steel grey it was when I fell asleep. I roll over in the bed, catching a delicious whiff of Nick that floats up from the bedding. I might need to steal something from him. A pillow. A shirt. Anything to remind me of his scent.
It’s hard to know what to think about him. One minute he’s looking at me like he’s mad, like, really mad, and the next minute he’s a teddy bear.
My phone says it’s four o’clock. I have a message from my mom, hoping I’m having a nice weekend. She’d freak if she knew I was lying in some guy’s bed, a guy I barely know. My mom’s too busy for men. That’s what she tells me. She’s never dated. I think her heart broke when Dad died.
Instead, she throws herself into cat rescue and fostering. One time she had so many cats she got a citation. My mom refuses to give men her number but she’ll spend half the night coaxing a kitten from a storm drain.
I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want me dating either. Just wait, she likes to tell me. You have your whole life, but the unspoken message is, don’t get pregnant on accident, like I did.
A crack of lightning lights the bedroom and it’s followed by a boom of thunder that I can actually feel in my sternum. I yelp. “Holy crap.”
A voice behind me scares me again. “You slept all day,” Nick says. “It’s almost suppertime.”
The scowl is back and I feel awful that he’s stuck with me until the rain stops. I want to tell him that I’d leave if I could. I need to get home and try to get my car fixed and do a hundred errands. This morning, I told Sydney I’m moving out of Susanna’s house. She told me I should move in with her even though it’s just a little one-bedroom. I shudder at the memory of Susanna being with two guys at once, screaming out her pleasure like a porn star. I thought I knew her, but I don’t, and I can’t live with someone like that.
I have so much I need to do and I’m sure he’d rather be doing anything other playing host.
“I’m sorry I slept all day. I always need a day of sleep when I have time off. Working three, twelve-hour shifts at the hospital really takes the wind out of my sails. I’m always exhausted.” Plus, I’m babbling.
He squints like he’s trying to understand what I’m saying but it’s a lot of trouble.
I hop out of bed and hurry to the bathroom where my bag is. “Better get some actual clothes on. Can’t be a lady of leisure.”
Slamming the door behind me I stare at the lock. If I lock the door, he’ll hear and it will make me look paranoid all over again. For a minute or two, I stand there like an indecisive dork until I finally just lock the damn thing.
I put on a sweater and a skirt, a short mid-thigh one like last night because I think he liked it. It’s soft, made of cashmere, something Sydney got me. With the rain the air feels pretty cold, and the chill settles deep inside, but this sweater feels warm and comforting. I finish dressing and find him sitting in the den. A fire crackles in the fireplace and I draw close to warm my hands.
“Isn’t this romantic,” I tease. “I bet your girlfriends love your man cave and having a fire going on cold evenings.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I turn to look at him.
“I don’t have girlfriends, Bailey.”
“Oh come on. No future Mrs. McKinley? No small, baby mountains?”
He shakes his head. “Definitely not.”
“Okay.” I turn back to the fireplace and leave the ogre to stew in his own grumpiness. No girlfriends. Fine. Not a huge surprise. I mean he’s big and bad and gorgeous but he’s not exactly Mr. Congeniality. The man never smiles, well, maybe once or twice, I recall. He does have nice white teeth and I noticed them when he did smile or bare his teeth, whatever the expression was.
“Did you know your uncle?” he asks.
I rub my hands together and relish the heat that’s traveling the length of my arms. “You mean my Uncle David?”
“That’s right.”
“Ugh, no. My mother never said anything good about the guy. She said if she ever saw him again she’d shoot him. And she doesn’t believe in guns. So, I always figured he was a bad apple.”
“A bad apple. A rotten apple.”
“Maybe that’s why he took his own life.” I shrug. “I don’t know much about my Dad’s side of the family. But my mother gets depressed when a potted plant dies. Mom is
a flower child, literally. So I was pretty surprised when he died and all she had to say was, Good riddance.”
Staring at the flames, I feel my body relax. I’m mesmerized.
I turn around to face him. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Want to watch a movie or play a game?”
He’s drinking a beer, sprawled across his couch, his immense build taking up more than his share. I sit beside him and tug the bottle from his hand.
A flare of emotion flickers behind his eyes. I shouldn’t provoke him but I want to so badly. I drain the last few sips of beer and hand it back to him. “Want to play spin the bottle?”
Leaning forward, he sets the bottle on its side in the middle of the coffee table and spins it. I draw a sharp breath because I didn’t actually expect him to do that. I’ve never even played this game and I sure wouldn’t have thrown that out there if I’d imagined he’d actually take me up on it. The bottle twirls and spins and with each rotation slows, finally stopping, pointing at me.
He smiles. I wait.
“What do you suppose,” he drawls, “would happen…” he brushes his thumb across my lips, “if we kissed?”
Chapter Nine
Nick
While I’ve never asked a girl that question before, I would have expected a couple of possible answers. Maybe she’d act coy and like she didn’t really want to kiss. Or she could come back with something flirty. Knowing Bailey, I sort of expected the first scenario.
What I didn’t expect was for her to pounce on me, like a puma in mating season.
She throws herself at me so hard my head smacks the back of the wall and I’m not sure if the stars that spin in my field of vision are from a concussion or how fucking amazing it is to kiss Bailey Voss. Her mouth is soft, lips pressed together. After I lean back on the couch, taking her down with me, I stroke her lips with my tongue. She moans and the sound goes all the way down my spine straight to my cock. I stroke her again but her mouth is like a steel vault.
Even though she’s lying on top of me, wriggling and squirming, she thinks I’ll let her get away with a closed mouth kiss. That’s not happening. I growl a warning and she parts her lips immediately. Sliding my tongue between her lips turns my growl into a groan of pleasure.