“Out in Slidell.”
“Oh.” What would he think of her asking to see it? She really was curious, and not because of the value of the flowers, but because he’d grown them. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and approached the table. Picking up the food sack containing the second of the decadent gastronomic delights she’d ordered for leftovers, she chose her words carefully.
“My father used to buy my mother a single red rose on Valentine’s Day every year. I think he used to get them from the gas station on his way home from work at the shipyard. You know, the kind that came in a plastic tube?”
Trevor grinned and nodded once.
She set the bag in the refrigerator, between her leftover black beans and a carton of half-and-half. “I think my mother thought it was silly at first, but then there was one year when things were really tight and he had to choose between a gallon of gas and the flower.”
Trevor’s grin sagged a bit at the corners. He likely understood where she was going with her ramblings.
“My mother had to drive to work, so he bought the gas. She understood, naturally, but I could tell she was disappointed.”
“It had become a tradition.”
“Mm-hmm. And that sad part was Papi always got paid on the fifteenth. One more day, and he probably would have bought her a dozen.”
“She probably deserved them…and more.”
“She did. Most years, now that all us kids are gone and we’re not eating them out of house and home, he can swing it.”
“Hmm.” He looked down at his hands, rubbing the palms together over his lap.
“Trevor?”
He looked up.
“I’m not humoring you. I’m…I’m glad you’re here.”
He pushed his chair back from the table, and stood slowly, meeting her hesitant gaze.
Did he realize what she was telling him? What she was asking him?
He moved cautiously toward her, posture tense and rigid with his hands curled into loose fists at his sides.
She suspected she knew the cause of his agitation. He must have thought she’d thank him for dinner and send him away. Maybe he even expected it.
So silly. As if she wouldn’t understand pride and struggling. She still struggled, and she still looked back.
“I’m not some doll on a pedestal,” she said when his toes were an inch from her own.
He pressed a hand against the counter edge on both sides of her and gazed down at her. “I hoped you weren’t.”
“I may be a white-collar girl, Trevor, but I’ve got a blue collar heart. A college degree can’t change that. You think it’s so easy for me to turn away from how I was raised, when I was raised by such good people?”
His lips’ sudden press against hers wasn’t much more than a tickle, it was so tentative, but it was a start. “You could do better than a guy like me,” he whispered.
“What’s better mean? Wealthier?” She pressed her palms against his hard belly and traced up the edges of his plackets toward his chest. Grabbing the fabric of his shirt, she pulled him in for another kiss—a deeper kiss.
His teeth nipped and pulled at her lips hungrily, and as she delved her tongue into his mouth, he planted his hands on her ass and kneaded it with a sort of passion that hinted at a warning: the kind of warning that cautioned, If we do this tonight, it’s not going to be sweet. Back out now.
Rosalinda didn’t want sweet. She wanted loud, passionate zeal. She wanted to become unhinged and spellbound by his touch.
“No one wants to struggle,” he whispered against her ear before bending lower to her neck. He pressed his hot lips into the crease between her neck and shoulders and kissed, licked the naked skin there.
She threw her head back and gasped. Her nipples hardened into painful beads inside her lacy bra, and she ached for their release. She was certain they wouldn’t be satisfied until they were exposed for his inspection and made slick from his tongue.
Fuck, she wanted him to see her. What would he think of her? Would he eye her just as hungrily as he did now with her clothes on?
“You let me decide what my struggle will be. You’re trying to scare me off, and I don’t understand why.”
She eased her hands down to his jeans’ fastener once more, and smoothly unhooked it. Nudging the fly down, she pinned her stare on his tortured expression.
“I’ve been burned before,” he said. He sucked in some air as she worked her hands inside his underwear, grazing her fingertips over his pubes.
“And yet you brought me roses, anyway.”
“I don’t want to have regrets. I would regret not trying. Fuck.”
She had her fist around his shaft, and had begun squeezing it toward the crown.
He grabbed her wrists, stilling her.
“What do you want from me, Trevor?”
“I just want you, all of you.”
Taken aback by his honesty, she let up her torturous teasing of his cock and shifted her grip to his waistband. She hooked her fingers into his belt loops and started him walking toward the back of her little shotgun house.
“Okay, Trevor. If that’s all you want, you can have it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Trevor allowed Rosalinda to lead him through the kitchen, beyond her living room, down a short hallway and through a doorway she’d nudged open with her shoulder.
He paused there, taking in the room’s warmth. Even in the dim glow cast by the illuminating streetlamp through the heavy drapes, he could immediately tell that this was her room because it shared the same open spirit. The gold walls calmed his mounting agitation somewhat. Her queen-sized bed, bedecked with mountains of decorative pillows—each different from the last—looked comfortable and inviting.
He imagined what his boots would look like waiting at the end of that bed each morning. Then he closed his eyes, blew out a breath, and tried to get a hold of himself.
How dare he wish for such a thing? Maybe she’d want him for a night, but then what? He could hardly expect her to ask him to move in. That’s what freeloaders did, and he sure as shit wasn’t a freeloader. He’d been living on his own since he was eighteen, but still, the idea of sharing her space held an intoxicating appeal. He’d been dreaming of having her at his side for years, and didn’t think it would ever happen.
It was just a dream, and certainly she had her own. Likely there wouldn’t be room for the likes of him to bog her down. She’d get some unbeatable offer at another five-star hotel and move on, maybe in another city. She wouldn’t be content with being the night auditor forever. She could be general manager somewhere. She had the smarts, had the talent, and Ms. Gibson didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
For now, though, he’d take what he could get from her. He’d been waiting this many years, so even a night would be better than nothing.
She crooked a beckoning finger at him and sank onto the edge of the bed. He had no choice but to obey, finding himself moving toward her without thought or hesitation.
“Help me?” she whispered, and swirled her index finger around her dress’s topmost button.
“Of course.” Sliding a hand between her clamped thighs, he nudged her legs apart and sank onto his knees between them, so his face was at the level of her belly.
Her thighs clenched his ribs as he drew lazy circles around one pert nipple pressed against the front of her dress.
“You gonna torture me?”
“No, just having a little fun.” He trailed his fingers over to the sensitive dip at the base of her throat and glided downward to the first pearlescent button. He pushed it through its hole reverently, watching her face for signals he should stop.
As he worked lower, exposing her lacy pink bra and the satiny flesh beneath it, he paused to part her shirt’s edges and pressed his face against her warm, aromatic skin. She smelled of some light, sophisticated perfume that suited the undercurrent of woman beneath it—it was a delicious scent. Not cloying or ostentatious, but reserved. He hadn’t no
ticed the aroma until he got up close. It was like a secret she’d kept just for him.
He kissed farther down her naked flesh until he reached another button just over her navel. He freed it and the one beneath it, and quickly eased the sleeves down her arms.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, and swished his tongue around her bellybutton, making her laugh and lean back from him a bit.
“You’re just saying that to be nice. You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. I talk to my roses, too. They seem to like it.”
“What do you tell them?”
He nudged her dangling dress down her hips and ogled the barely-there lace in front of him. It did little to conceal her sexy wax job. She wore panties like that to work?
For fuck’s sake.
God, he wanted to work her skirt up to her hips and suck her right through her panties, to drive her wild by holding off on penetrating her, but he didn’t want her to think he was so cavalier that he’d ruin a perfectly good pair of her underwear in the heat of passion. Instead, he stood, eased her back down to the bed, and wriggled her dress off her legs.
She really was gorgeous. Her legs went on for days, and judging by her shapely, toned thighs, if he wanted to give it to her rough, she’d likely hold on tight and give as good as she was getting.
She heeled her shoes off and poised to sit up, but he rested a hand on her shoulder and kept her down.
“I tell the roses,” he said, hooking his fingers into her panty elastic and pulling the scant scrap of fabric down her hips, “that they’re beautiful, and that there’s no rush.” He let her panties fall to the floor. “That I’ll give them everything they need.”
She gasped when he grabbed her beneath the knees and yanked her ass to the end of the bed.
“And that when they open, that there’ll be no other roses that smell nearly as sweet.”
“You tell them all that? Really?”
“I do.” He grabbed his shirt at the hem and pulled it and his undershirt over his head. Just as quickly, he shucked his pants and boxers. Once he started with her, he wanted no interruptions. No more teasing.
“Do they believe you?” Her gaze lingered hungrily on his erect cock.
He grinned. She’d have to wait for that. “Of course they do, sugar. I always do ’em right.”
Sinking down to his knees again, he lifted her legs over his shoulders and lowered his face to her tantalizingly smooth sex. Allowing himself one slow, thorough lick of her slit, he slipped one finger into her pussy and teased the opening.
“You know, there’s a line in Romeo and Juliet my father had engraved on a plaque and hung in the greenhouse.”
She squirmed beneath him, and he gave her clit a little spank that made her gasp, and then settle.
“Good girl.” Swirling the tip of one thumb around her swollen nub, he continued, “Juliet says, What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“Do you think I’m sweet?” she whispered, legs trembling over his shoulders.
He plunged two fingers into her slit and massaged her until mewling noises spilled from her throat.
“I hope you’re sweet,” he answered. He slipped his fingers into his mouth and licked them clean, while she watched him, panting due to his other hand’s continuing assault on her clit.
“How do you want to come, sugar? Do you want me to lick you until you scream or should we skip the foreplay?”
“I-I…” Her lower lip quivered as he increased pressure on her button. She closed her eyes and ground out, “Fuck me. I want you to fuck me. I guess I’m not sweet.”
Chuckling, he let down her legs and slipped her farther onto the bed, turning her ninety degrees and then rolling her over.
He pulled her up onto all fours and grasped the succulent gloves of her ass, kneading them. “You’re plenty sweet, sugar, and I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Good.”
“I’ll also give you what you don’t even know you need.”
“Hmm?”
If he was reading her wrong, this could go badly, but he didn’t think he was. Not with the way she’d tried to put his nuts in a clamp earlier. She’d been pushing for a reaction, so he’d do the same.
He brought his palm down one, two, three, four, five times in quick succession across the fleshiest parts of her rump and watched her body tense, and then her shoulders relaxed against the comforter.
Eyes closed, she drew in a long breath as he slid his hand beneath her and worked her wetness up and down her slit.
Bending slightly, he kissed where he’d stung, and continued his massage. Fuck, she was even wetter now than when he’d had his fingers in her.
“Sugar?”
“Yes, Trevor?” her voice was soft, dreamy. In that headspace, she could probably come again and again, but he wasn’t sure he had the endurance tonight, not even after having shot his load into her mouth. She was fucking perfect with those curves and her trust, and he hadn’t felt so sprung in years. He had his dream girl on her knees in front of him, and he was supposed to have restraint? No way.
“What kind of fun are you into?”
She sighed and curled her toes against his knees. “I’ve been told I’m a bit of a brat. You know what that means?”
He grabbed her ass again, squeezing it. “Yeah. I’ve worked at The Beaudelaire long enough to know what it means, and also know what I am. You want to submit, but instead of doing so, you push back. You make your Dom work harder.”
“That sounds about right. What are you going to do about it?” She opened her eyes and the one side of her lips he could see quirked up daringly.
“Nothing. If you were getting what you needed, you wouldn’t be a brat. You’ve got to trust to submit, and I want to explore your limits before I get too bossy. Okay?”
Her lips parted, but she made no sound except the expulsion of a breath.
“Where do you keep your rubbers?”
“In the nightstand at the right.”
He eased off the bed and reached for the drawer. What a shame a woman like her hadn’t found her match. He’d been so hung up on the class issue, he hadn’t considered that maybe she’d been holding out for someone who could actually read her.
But, would that be enough?
Quickly, he ripped a condom out of its packet and sheathed his cock. Before she had time to move from her sexy kneel, he took his spot behind her and pressed his crown against her tight entrance. Wrapping his fist around a length of her silky hair and winding it around, he asked, “What will you tell me if it’s too much for you?”
“Thorn,” she whispered.
“Thorn. Alright.”
He pushed his cock into her tight pussy in one slow, but unceasing thrust, and gave her hair a small yank as he fully sheathed himself.
She gasped and her cunt clenched around him, already trying to milk him of his seed.
“Alright, sugar. You hold on.”
As soon as she nodded and curled her fingers into the bedspread, he started giving her what she needed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Rosalinda squeezed her eyelids shut and ground her teeth, trying and failing to tamp down the feral creature inside that sought an escape. She grunted, growled, and clawed at the covers as Trevor pounded her pussy unrelentingly.
He was neither tentative in his exertions nor wild with them. He stoked her with a skillful dominance that had her body thrumming with pleasure.
When the high got to be too much, he brought her down to Earth with a tug of her hair or smack of the ass.
God, she’d hoped for a decent fuck or at least not to be disappointed with the fantasy she’d built up in her mind, but never in her wildest dreams had she thought he’d see her for what she was. In the bedroom, she wanted to be able to give up control to her lover and know he’d push her to her limit and no further.
Her lovers who wore pleated khaki slacks and expensive business suits never got it. They jus
t fucked without trying to understand. Sometimes that was okay. Now, she wanted more.
She wanted everything.
“Trevor?” Her voice was raspy, and barely audible to her own ears.
She could hardly tell where her skin stopped and where the air began, because everything from her scalp down to her toes tingled.
“Yes?” Trevor slowed his thrusts, but now added a swirling movement at the end. He reached under her and squeezed her clit between two fingers.
She whimpered. “May I come? Please?”
“Go on, sugar, come on my cock.”
And she let go of everything—stopped trying to hold back the pleasure, stopped controlling her breathing, and just screamed and moaned and writhed until he gripped her hips and growled behind her.
He held her very still as his cock twitched in her pussy, and when they’d both come down, they collapsed onto the bed.
He rolled off her and pulled her in close against his chest, rubbing her back with his right hand.
They were quiet for several minutes that seemed to stretch on and on, and Rosalinda was afraid he’d move. Afraid he’d let go of her, but of course he would have to. He’d want to go clean up.
She worried that when he left, that’d be it. He’d wash up and put his pants and shoes back on. He’d go home, and she’d be left wondering What next?
More minutes passed, and her eyelids became very heavy. She was half in Dreamland, half out, when he whispered, “Sugar?”
This is it, she thought. The goodbye.
“Yes, Trevor?”
He grazed his fingertips down her naked side, tickling her a bit. Making her smile. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said.
“You made it happy.”
“I’m glad.”
* * *
Rosalinda didn’t know when she’d fallen asleep or at what point in the night Trevor had pulled the covers over her, but morning light filled her bedroom and she was stirred awake by his weight shifting the bed.
She opened one eye and found him sitting on the bed’s edge, bending, and likely tying his boots.
He’d spent the night. God, she wished she’d stayed awake longer, memorizing the feel of him wrapped around her. One hard come and she’d been out like a light.
As Sweet: A Den of Sin Vignette Page 3