Before she realized it, Corey had her bra off and he tossed it over the arm of the sofa. She laughed at his dexterity before he took her lips again and squeezed her nicely rounded, large nippled breasts. His long fingers kneaded hard and she moaned against him.
“Oh, hell, Corey.” He nibbled on her neck and placed urgent, open-mouth kisses down her throat. “It feels so good to have your touch back.”
His hands slipped down her unbuttoned pants and he slid the black flares, along with wispy underwear, off her legs. “I missed you so much,” he murmured around her hardened nipple.
She bit her lip as he splayed the top of her labia, exposing her swelling clitoris. Grinning at her wickedly, Corey licked his fingers and then he rubbed the wet tips over her sensitive bit of flesh. Bekka arched her back, smiling as familiar sensations of intense pleasure flooded her.
“Like that, sweetheart?” he whispered. “You used to love it.”
“Sssssonnnnofaaa…” she managed through gritted teeth as Corey bent his head and ran the tip of his tongue over her clit. The man had many talents, and eating pussy with incredible skill was one of them.
“Remember how hard I could make you come, Bekka?” He rested his head against her inner thigh and slid two fingers inside her, curling them forward so he could massage her g-spot. “Just with my hands and my mouth.” He kissed her dark, trimmed mound. “I didn’t even have to fuck you to satisfy you, did I, sweetheart?”
Corey descended on her sex once more, pulling back the hood of her large clitoris and taking the throbbing nub in his mouth completely. He nibbled and sucked, running his tongue back and forth over the bundle of tender nerves just beneath skin. Bekka bucked her hips against his face and grabbed at the couch cushions. Her orgasm was not far off.
“Christ, Corey,” she whispered, as her climax burst and release washed over her in a warm, satisfying wave. “That’s one amazing mouth you have on you.”
He sat up and took her hands, urging her up beside him. His eyes were so bright they shone with an eerie, electric glow. He stared intently at her. “Are you still on the pill, babe?”
She took a moment to answer, still lost in the fog of a powerful orgasm. “What was that?”
“Are you still on the birth control pill?”
Bekka had been on the contraceptive for most of her life. Since her early teens, she’d had terribly painful, and frequently irregular, menstrual cycles. The only thing that took away her suffering, and kept her regular, was the pill.
She nodded, and her gaze fell to his straining erection, thick and long, slapping against the bottom of his stomach.
Corey took her face in his hands and kissed her roughly, passionately, once more. Bekka moaned as she wrapped her hand around his stiff shaft.
“I want you so bad.” His voice came out almost like a strangled cry, and Bekka felt her heart lurch at the sadness she heard in his plea—the endless months of loneliness.
“I never wanted to leave you,” she told him quietly as he guided her to the floor. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Corey.”
Lying down, Corey positioned her so Bekka was straddling him. “It nearly killed me when you walked out that door, darling.” He rubbed the head of his cock against her clit and up and down her slick folds, but he wouldn’t let her slip him in yet.
Goddamn tease. “Corey,” she warned, and he let her slide his penis into her wet pussy.
“Christ, you are so tight, baby.” He moaned as she rocked against him, grinding hard on his root. “So hot…”
He reached down as she rode him and Corey found her clit with his fingers once more. While Bekka ground hard against him, Corey played with the now tender nub of flesh. She felt her pleasure threshold spike and then tip over the edge. Corey rubbed faster and faster, and soon Bekka climaxed.
She bent over him, bucking against his chest as the orgasm zigzagged through her body. Sensations fired across her flesh and in her brain, like firecrackers popping. She raked her nails down his chest and he grunted then sighed. His hips bucked once, twice, three times upwards. Hard, final thrusts. He pulled out of her and took her lips again.
Pushing him back to catch her breath, Bekka laughed, running shaky fingers through her hair. “How did we get from you using the phone to this?” She knew exactly how. Corey Varkov was a charmer, and she certainly hadn’t resisted his obvious ruse to get into her apartment.
He faked a shrug. “Haven’t got the slightest idea.”
She rolled off of him. “Bullshit, Corey. You probably planned this all day, waiting for the right moment to pounce.”
He propped himself up on one elbow and feigned hurt. “Your distrust wounds me, honey.”
Bekka slid on her shirt and rolled her eyes at him, smiling. “I know you too well for you to get away with playing innocent.”
He stood, pulling his own shirt on and buttoning the last three buttons. He shimmied back into his shorts and jeans. “Actually, I did come here with a different intention.”
She slid into her panties and wrapped a thick blanket from the back of the couch around her waist. “Ohh, and what was that?” She grinned sideways, expecting some smart ass remark to make her laugh.
He sat down beside her, looking serious, and coiled a hand around the back of her neck, stroking her lightly. “I came here to talk about…us.” He looked up at her, and she thought his deep blue gaze just might swallow her. “To see if there was any chance of you and me…” He looked away and tapped his knee with a nervous rhythm. “A chance for us to get back together?”
***
Chapter 3
Bekka sat stunned, staring into those twinkling, blue depths of his. Damn him. She looked away. Why did he have to have such intense eyes?
She stood up, hugging the blanket tighter to her waist, running a hand through her tousled locks. “Getting back together?” she repeated.
Corey’s face tensed as he stood and walked toward her. “Bekka, I’ll lay it on the line for you.” He encircled her slender arms with his big hands. “I moved Black Magick Tattoo to Moncton for a reason. And it was more than just good business sense. I know, living with mom, it was just killing our relationship. We had no time for ourselves. For what we wanted.” His glance locked with hers and he grinned impishly. Thoughts of some of their world travel, adventurous plans from the past flashed through her mind.
“True.” Nodding, she moved away from him, to the picture window overlooking Main Street.
Corey’s hand closed around her bicep and he turned her back to face him. His expression was pinched, concerned. “What, Bekka?” He swallowed hard. “Please don’t tell me you have someone else.” Corey lowered his head. “I just don’t think I could take that.”
Bekka lifted his chin and smiled at him. “There is no one else.” She sighed and paused, collecting her thoughts. “It’s not that, sweetheart. It’s just…wow, what a day.”
Backing away from her a step, Corey crossed his arms over his chest. His jaw worked back and forth. Oh great, Bekka slumped to sit on the wide ledge of her picture window. Here it comes. The old pride. He didn’t get what he wanted at the snap of a finger.
“What do you mean?” His voice was low, and there was an edge to it that spoke of growing uncertainty, fear, and impending anger.
“I mean, this is a lot to process in one day.” She stared him down. One thing Bekka had learned in her three years spent married to Corey: if you wanted to intimidate this mountain of a man, stare him down with the most cold, impassive glare you could manage. It wasn’t easy, but over time she’d come to perfect her bluff.
He backed off and grinned, running a hand down her arm. “Yes, guess you are right. You’re going to need some time to get use to me being around again.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not just that, Corey.” Bekka ran a tender hand down his stubbled cheek. “I need to be sure it really is going to be just you and me before I move back in with you. Don’t get me wrong, I love your step-mom, but if I a
m in a relationship with you, I want that relationship to be you and me, not you, me, and Juanita.”
“Here we go again,” he snapped, pushing her hand away and stalking back to the couch.
Bekka stood shocked for a moment. How the hell had what she said pissed him off so much?
“Corey.” She sat down beside him, but he refused to look at her. “I’m not saying I never want to see your step-mom again. I’m just saying I don’t want to live with her again.”
Corey clenched his jaw. He sat with his legs apart, perched on the edge of the sofa. His hands dangled, entwined, between his knees. His head bowed once more. “You always thought of me as a momma’s boy posing as a tough guy, didn’t you?”
As he looked up, she moved away from his face, looking confused. “What? No.” She shook her head emphatically. “Of course not.
He laughed bitterly, and when he looked up at her again, Bekka thought she saw tears burning in those blue depths. “Yeah.” Corey shook his head. “Right. Just like the others told me, and they left me too. I never thought you would though.” He stared hard at her; his lips set in a tight, thin line. “Not you. You were always so understanding, so caring. You seemed to get me, and get why I felt so obligated to Juanita.” His gaze dropped from hers and Corey picked at a stray thread on his shirt. “Then one day you just dropped the bomb on me. Took a long time to deal with that. Longer than the others.”
“Look, Corey.” Bekka rubbed his back. Damn, she didn’t want to hurt him, and she didn’t want to ruin their chances of re-kindling something, but she also didn’t want to rush into anything with both feet first. “I hated like hell leaving you that day, and if you ever really knew me you know that is true. But a person has their limits, hon, and I had reached mine.”
“I know.” He squeezed her hand, looked up, and managed a weak smile. “Juanita still blames herself for our breakup. But I blame myself, always have.” His gaze trailed away from her, and Corey’s eyes glazed over with inner consideration. “I could see you were hurting, could see the situation was suffocating you, and you just kept putting on a brave, strong face for me. I should’ve sat you down and made you talk, babe. I should’ve found a way to make things better for us until we were on our feet.”
Bekka ran her hand up his arm and smiled at Corey. “No one is to blame. I should’ve opened my mouth more when you and I were together. I should’ve told you what I was feeling, rather than keeping you in the dark all the time. I’m sorry.”
Corey covered her hand with his big, warm palm. He scratched absently at his trimmed beard and gave a sheepish look. “Can I let you in on a little secret, darling?”
Bekka leaned her hand in her chin and grinned curiously. “What’s that?”
Slowly, Corey wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her closer. “Has Juanita been coming to visit you, popping in to the shop every now and again, say—oh I don’t know—off and on for about six months now?”
Bekka raised an eyebrow as he gave her a sideways, dimpled smirk. “Yes, she has. In fact, the first time she walked in I nearly choked on the cola I was drinking. It was great to see her, but I was surprised. We got to chatting. She stayed about a half an hour that first time. Business was slow that day. She’s been in a couple times since.” Bekka tapped her trimmed fingers nails against her chin and gave Corey a scrutinizing, mock glare.
He batted his eyelashes at her and bit his lip. Bekka could see the bastard was on the verge of laughing. She was between wanting to slap him and wanting to smirk along with him.
“I kind of asked her to do that,” he confessed, mimicking the sheepish voice of an embarrassed child, trying to be cute. “She’s been keeping tabs on you for me. Juanita was the one that hunted the address and phone number of your shop down for me. I was too afraid to do it. I asked her to go see you first. To ask you some questions.” Corey stood and paced in front of the coffee table.
Bekka shook her head, smiling from a mixture of annoyance and secret joy. He’d asked his step-mom to spy on her. She looked up at him. “Why were you too afraid?”
He stopped and looked at her as he jammed his hands far in the pockets of his snug, worn jeans. “Afraid you might be with someone else by now. Afraid you wouldn’t be interested in seeing me. But when Juanita told me how nice you were to her, and that you had asked about me, and found out that you were still single—”
“Whoa. Whoa.” Bekka stood, poking a finger in Corey’s face as she grinned then scowled at him. “You asked me if I was still single earlier tonight, but you already knew.”
His face broke into a huge grin and his eyes glinted like a little boy’s. “I know.” He shrugged. “I was just double-checking.”
***
Bekka stood in front of him, chuckling while she still held the blanket in place around her. “You sonofabitch.” She shook her head. “And how dumb am I? I did wonder when Juanita showed up this summer, but she only lives forty-five minutes from me. I just figured she’d stumbled on the shop on one of her trips to Moncton.”
Corey let out a big sigh and looked away from her. He was chewing on his lip, and she could tell, he was trying not to grin at his little ruse just revealed.
“Well.” She sat on the couch, tired of holding the blanket in place and tired of standing. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve used your mother to get to me.”
He came around the side of the couch quickly and stood over her. In the dim light filtering through the open curtains, from the glaring streetlight outside, his profile caught in an inky silhouette. Corey looked unsure, on the verge of anger again, and the right side of his mouth twitched slightly. “What do you mean?”
Fed up with this rollercoaster of emotions, and crammed in to one night to boot, Bekka dropped her fleece throw and then stood with her arms over her chest, glancing toward the clock.
“Look, Corey.” She rubbed her eyes and sighed. “I’ve been up since before seven and it’s already three-thirty now. I’ve got to get some sleep. Can we put the fighting on pause for tonight?”
“Whatever.” Corey grabbed his leather coat off the back of the couch, jerked his arms into it, and made his way to the door without looking back or saying goodbye to her. The wooden frame echoed from the force of him slamming the battered wood.
“Damn man.” Bekka rubbed the bridge of her nose. It was aching with the subtle threat of a headache. “And they say us women are bad for pulling fits and playing mind games.” She shook her head and shuffled to the kitchen in search of aspirin.
***
Chapter 4
She hadn’t seen him in three days. As Bekka stared out at the grey, drizzling early spring weather, part of her was glad of Corey’s absence, and part of her wanted desperately to see him again. He’d always had this damn effect on her. Pulling her emotions back and forth, making her feel like a little girl inside—frustrated often, but aroused at the same time. Bastard.
What’s stopping you from taking a walk over to his tattoo shop? A impulsive, impish voice in her head spoke up.
I don’t want to go over there, she convinced herself, or tried to. Bekka rang up a large tome of Edgar Allan Poe: Collected Tales for a customer, bid them goodbye, and glanced at the big cuckoo clock above the entrance.
Four o’ clock. Time to close up for her dinner break. She went into the small, back cloak room to retrieve her wallet and a light jacket. Bekka strode out the glass front door, locking then checking it as she tucked her key chain in the pocket of her coat.
She glanced over at Corey’s shop. Low music drifted from the tattoo parlor and lights glowed warmly within. Should I? She shook her head and made for the back of her store, to the stairs that led to her apartment.
Just then, two young, giggling women stepped out of the shop. One stopped, and the other tugged at the back of her jeans, tittering “Let me see again,” as she moved a bandage placed just above the other girl’s waistline. “That is so cool,” the ginger-haired friend exclaimed. “I am definitely getti
ng one next payday. Hey, and it’s worth it to come back for that tattoo artist, huh?”
The smaller blonde smiled at her and raised her eyebrows. “Definitely. Damn, was he hot or what?”
The redhead nodded in emphatic agreement and the two walked off down the sidewalk, then trotted across the street to a nearby gas-station.
Bekka looked at the shop and narrowed her eyes. She felt a pang of something she didn’t like hit her straight in the chest. A dull ache that made her angry at herself. Jealousy.
There was no mistaking Corey was a handsome man, in that wild, bad-boy rugged sense that made many women swoon. He had a quiet charm that was also mischievous, and Bekka had seen him use it in the past. She’d been on the receiving end of that melting charisma as well, many times.
“I’m going in,” she muttered, keeping a hand on her wallet as she tucked it into the pocket of her coat. Head down, long, black curls catching in the March breeze, she walked the dozen or so steps to Corey’s parlor.
***
The distinct sound of Motorhead made her grin as Bekka opened the shop door. Jamie, a young guy from Rexton who idolized Corey, rose from the couch in the waiting area of the tattoo parlor.
“Bekka?” He came forward, big blue eyes sparkling as he smiled. “Hey, girl! How the hell are you doing these days?”
Bekka grinned at Jamie and shook his outstretched hand. “Pretty good, sweetie.” She smacked him on the shoulder. “What are you doing all the way out here? Are you working for Corey now?”
Growing up in Alberta, she had spent her summers surrounded by tough, farmboy cousins when her and her father went to visit family. Bekka spent most of her life proving she could stand up to just about any man. That had toughened her, and she didn’t feel too comfortable in frilly outfits or at fancy dinner parties. Not that she knocked those ladies who did—to each their own—but Bekka felt more at home throwing wood than she did cooking a four course dinner. It was just the way life had taught her to be, and she was comfortable with it. Being raised without a mother, all she’d ever really known was male companionship growing up—her father, her uncles, her cousins—only her aunts and some female cousins had provided her with any female camaraderie.
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