by M. Q. Barber
A cheat stayed a cheat. He’d use his paralegal the way he’d used her, taking until she had nothing left to give. A sliver of pity slipped under her skin for the woman who’d taken him off her hands. “I hope you’re billing him for the extracurriculars.”
Jennifer shot her a look beneath lowered, thin-plucked brows. “You’ve got more moxie than I thought you did.”
More than she’d thought she had, too. No. She’d had courage once. Before she’d let David smother her under the weight of his bullying disapproval. No woman deserved that slow death. “You could do better than him.”
The envious gaze scouring Rob from buzz cut to shoe leather projected the other woman’s assessment. You already have, her look said.
“Better?” David led with his chin, his grand, sweeping headshake an elaborate performance with a toothy veneer. Blasphemy to suggest the world didn’t start and stop spinning on his say-so. No one bested David—not law clerks correcting his exaggerations at parties or waiters who served him meat a hair too pink and not her, never her, because the world would wink out of existence first. “You’ve slandered me in public, Els. You do realize what you’re going to lose?”
The right to stand in this fancy-schmancy restaurant much longer, for one, given the wait staffer hustling into the back and probably fetching the manager. Might as well finish strong before they tossed her on her ass.
“You can have the damned house, David. And the penalty payment.” She’d find the money somewhere. Sell the car. Garnish her paycheck. Borrow from her folks. “I know what I’m gaining—my self-respect.”
He’d made her complicit in his affair. She’d handed him the power to manipulate her, signing his divorce agreement with its penalty clauses and demands for silence.
“My integrity’s worth a lot more to me than upholding your bullshit reputation.” Scraping off the snake oil clinging to her from his frauds left her cleaner. Lighter. She’d rent a motel room by the week before she let him control her again. “You’re a liar and a cheat, and you can’t buy my silence anymore.”
“You goddamned bitch.” An ugly scarlet flush painted his face. He clashed horribly with his wine-dark shirt. The lights added a spotty sheen—sweat.
She’d made him sweat.
“You say one word, and I’ll make sure every person in this town knows you’re a lying bitch.”
She waited for the apologetic urge to swamp her. The cowering agreement as a powerful monster sapped her strength. Not this time. She deserved so much better than an emotionally stunted man with the temperament of a cranky child.
“You’ll lose the house.” He yanked his shirt cuffs. “Your job.” He’d done his best with her, he’d tell the concern vultures, but she just hadn’t been good wife material. “You won’t find another, not here.”
Opportunistic wealth-chaser. She’d thought him ambitious in school. A hard worker. But the work had never mattered to him. Ostentatious appearances and monetary rewards would do fine.
“You’ll lose, too.” She’d see his persecution ended in mutually assured destruction, if their fight came to that. “The difference is I won’t care.”
David reached for her.
Rob growled. “You want to walk away.”
“You think this bar-hopper is better than me, Els?” David’s bite slipped off her tougher skin. His gummy grasping projected as much menace as an infant coating a teething ring in drool. “The minute you take your clothes off, he’ll picture someone with bigger assets and better technique. When you fail to satisfy, he’ll find another.”
Pathetic. Rob witnessing the depression and failure of her marriage didn’t shame her. He’d seen her weakness at the house when she’d thrown him out, and he’d listened to the truth. Now he’d see her strong. Confident. Ready to commit to a relationship with him, not holding pieces of herself back.
“No, Rob is a gentleman. Him, I can trust. You…” So many things to say. Not one mattered. David didn’t matter. “I’d trust a copperhead not to bite me before I’d trust a word out of your mouth again.”
The suit-and-tie employee entering the dining room wore the officious look of a man about to tell them to take the mess outside.
Rob had paid the check while she’d been luxuriating in chocolate dessert heaven. If she’d eaten faster, she’d have avoided David’s petty baiting altogether. But then she’d have missed this freedom. “Rob, I’m ready to go when you are.” Not an escape but a promise. “We have better places to be.”
* * * *
She danced in the parking lot. God love her, under a full moon and twinkling stars and fancy lamppost streetlights, his Nora twirled with abandon. Beautiful. Giddy and laughing.
He popped the locks on the truck without tearing his gaze from her. Independent and free like a wild mare, and her smile. Christ, her smile. So wide her cheeks had to be aching. Stuffing him with the urge to kiss her, to press her against the truck and devour her.
Her dress fluttered as she changed directions and dashed into his arms. Sweeping a woman off her feet had never seemed so natural. Her soft contours settled in all the right places as he raised her up and tipped his head back. “Feeling good, honey girl?”
“Light as a cloud.” She looked it, too, a gorgeous blue sky denying the night its darkness. “Like everything was in shadows.” She scrunched up her nose. “Heavy. Oppressive.” Lowering her forehead to his, she sighed. “And now the shadow’s gone, and I feel your warmth like the sun heating my skin and making my heart race, but more than that.”
“Love,” he whispered, and almost dropped her. Sonuvabitch, he’d thrown everything on the table now.
She squeezed him tight, curling her arms around his shoulders and pressing her breasts flat to his chest. “Love.”
Their lips touched. Impossible to say who’d moved first. Did it matter? If they moved as one for the rest of their lives, he’d be damned happy.
She made his dress pants tighter by the second, and no way she didn’t feel him, not with her body flush against him and her feet dangling.
“Those better places you wanna be,” he murmured between kisses. “Where to, Nora?”
The night gleamed with possibility. She’d gone toe to toe with the pathetic jackhole haunting her and laid him out by TKO. Satisfying as punching the shit out of that sack himself would’ve been, watching Nora hold her own and come out on top, confident and determined, took the prize. A victory on points and one on power both went in the win column.
“Take me home.” She pulled back and gazed at him with wide, dark eyes, the blue-gray rings around her pupils rolling in like a summer storm. Her shining lips begged for more kisses to muss their deep gloss. “Your home.”
His legs moved, carrying her around the truck to the passenger door before his brain relayed the signal. Nora. In his house. Under his protection.
“Anything you want.”
He peeled one hand from the slope of her hip and clutched her tighter with the other. Hell if he’d put her down just to open a damned door. Driving, though, that’d be harder. Not as hard as him, banging at his zipped fly.
“Anytime you want.”
Cool night air slipped between them as he lifted her to the seat and she swung her legs inside. He stole another kiss and ached to touch soft skin instead of flowing silk when he pulled the seatbelt across her stomach.
“Anywhere you want.”
“I want our first time to be in your bed,” she whispered, urgent and fierce. She clutched his jacket, her fingers curling around the lapel, and tugged him in close. “I want to make love with you until the sun comes up.”
First time together. The chance to bury himself inside her heat and show her how right lovemaking could be, what she’d been missing all those years. To be the best lover she’d ever had. To be the only one she’d want from now to the grave. “Same thing I want, honey girl.”
He forced himself to close the door on her smile and hustle around the truck instead of dropping to his knees and sp
reading hers. Drink up the sweet scent and taste of her while she squirmed in his bench seat and her moans and squeals drowned out the hum of highway traffic behind them. Her damned ex’d be on the phone in two shakes getting the cops out here to cite him for public lewdness. Seen enough through the restaurant windows, likely.
Starting the car, he shook off growling pride. Nora wasn’t some trophy, some frat-boy mascot he’d swiped for a prank. Claiming her didn’t mean putting her beauty on display for her ex-husband and rubbing his nose in it. That fucker got within ten paces of rubbing anything on Nora from now on and he’d be regretting his stupidity.
He drove past the strip of big-box stores with their eye-piercing lights and sanitized, one-size-fits-all design. No challenge to ’em. No love in ’em. Not like his old farmhouse, the one waiting for Nora to help him make a home. Starting tonight.
Office supply store to the left. He’d stowed his gear and put fresh sheets on the bed before picking her up. High hopes. Drugstore to the right. Preparation never hurt a soul.
Nora swiveled toward the window, her curls bouncing. Swinging back, she blurted, “You have condoms, right?”
Same wavelength, same eagerness, a touch more panic on her part. Christ, he loved she’d had the courage and the sense to ask. “If I didn’t, we’d be in the drugstore parking lot right now, that’s for damned sure.”
Giggles greeted his vow. “I don’t think that lot’s as secluded as the drive-in.”
Groaning, he let memory flood in. The boldness she’d wielded only in flashes then ruled her now. No holding back. She’d won the battle. Hadn’t needed him, but wanted him. So strong on her own, and she’d entrusted herself to him.
Traffic thinned out to nothing, his headlights the lone illumination on the asphalt. Passed his near neighbors’ place, the spotter hitting the gravel where their teen had best be getting his clunker back before midnight. Kid wouldn’t be bringing his girl home. Sixteen or thirty-six, didn’t make a spit of difference: dropping the girl off made for a long, lonely drive after.
But tonight he had Nora beside him as he pulled onto the crushed stone drive a half-mile farther on. Had her unashamed curiosity, the way she leaned forward with her hand on the dash and gazed out the windshield.
The tilt of her head exposed the graceful curve of her neck, skin crying for his hard kisses. Would she be pissed if he marked her so often she needed sleeveless turtlenecks for the rest of the summer?
He cut the rumbling engine, and the rolling beat from the radio died alongside the wide front porch. The clicks of seatbelts unfastening snapped like a double-barreled shotgun.
He opened his door. The chorus of crickets chirping from the fields proved he wasn’t the only male engaged in mating rituals tonight. Giving in to impulse, he brushed his knuckles down her bare arm and savored her shiver. “Wait here.”
Long strides brought him ’round to her door.
She reached for him soon as he’d pushed the metal aside. Twined her arms around his neck and slipped into his cradling hands without a prompt. Her dress scurried up her legs when she squeezed his hips between her thighs. Christ, yes, she held on with a tight grip promising to destroy him.
He shoved the door closed and carried her up the porch steps double-time. Pressing her to the butter-yellow siding, he snagged the screen door and jammed his foot in to hold the gap.
She rocked her hips, panties sliding at his waist.
Jesus. Not tonight, but some night soon, they’d finish quick and clothed on the porch, his pants open and her panties pushed aside. His wild, hungry Nora.
“Almost there.” He turned the knob and gave the solid red oak a push. “Last door.”
“Good.” She teased her fingers inside his collar. “I don’t want any doors holding us back.”
“Me neither, Nora.” Stepping over the sill with her in his arms cemented his cock and swelled his heart. “No obstacles in our path.”
Not doors, not fears, and not fabric.
Fusing their lips, she tugged at his tongue and dug her fingers into his shoulders. Her desire battered him with urgency, made his blind shuffling toward the stairs too slow and his bedroom too far.
He backed her to the wall at the foot of the stairs and released his grip.
She clutched at him as she started sliding. “Wha—”
“A brief stop, honey girl, I promise. Can’t wait.” He rubbed her bare thighs, her skin warm and soft under his hands with her dress bunched between their bodies. “Let go for a minute.”
With him holding her dress at her waist, she snaked her feet to the floor.
He dropped to his knees the second she’d steadied herself. “Wanted to do this earlier, but I didn’t figure you’d appreciate it much with an audience.” He hitched his fingers under the sides of her panties. Paler blue than her dress. Lacey patterns over sleek silk. “And some things a man’s gotta keep for himself.”
He peeled the covering away, down her legs, and inhaled pure, honeyed desire.
“The way you taste, how you squirm and call out with my tongue inside you?” Spreading her lips with his thumbs revealed blushing flesh wet and waiting. His new home. “That ain’t something I’m willing to share with anyone.”
He swept her curls aside and dropped a tender kiss on her clit. Her whimper stiffened his cock, jerked him as if strings tied them together.
“Just like that,” he whispered. “Make music for me, Nora.”
* * * *
He devoured her the way she’d inhaled dessert, with deep appreciation and a greedy mouth. Felt but not seen. He blocked her view, his head almost still, his hair bristle-brush short and his knuckles clenched around the folds of her dress. But hidden below, his tongue worked wonders.
Thoughts flitted faster than a filmstrip flapping around and around. Never a movie day like this one. Interactive. Stroking and driving. Curling her toes in shoes too tight for the motion. Lifting her heels.
Pressure behind her knee, and she slammed her hands against the wall to keep her balance.
Rob draped her leg over his shoulder. Her dress tumbled down, a blue waterfall rolling across the solid man beneath.
He squeezed her thighs.
She sucked in a surprised breath.
The tugging rhythm between her legs stopped.
“All right, honey girl?” Her dress rippled, and Rob’s short hair tickled her belly. “Something I do you don’t like, you go on and tell me.”
“Mmmph.” She rolled her neck. Nope. All good. Adding up to a sizeable balance. Ready for a payout.
“Nora?” Lumpy movement under her dress.
“No, don’t stop.” She dropped her hands, scrambling for the back of his head. “Don’t—dangit, sorry, I forgot you can’t see me shaking my head any more than I can see what you’re doing that feels so good.” The silk shrouding his neck and shoulders slipped through her grasp. “Please keep going.”
The breath from his laughter woke shivers in her blood.
“So good, huh?” He nestled closer, his cheek smooth and soft against her inner thigh. “Must be because I’m eating such a delicious meal. Gonna need seconds later.”
“You can—” Oh God, whatever he’d done, let him do it again. “You can have all the servings you want, Rob.”
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Midnight snack. Afternoon munchies. Mealtimes she’d invent the second her brain started working.
Tension stole up her spine, shoved her shoulders hard to the wall, and tipped her head back. Need choked her, tight and burning, with a welcome invasion, Rob’s tongue thick and thrusting while he rubbed her clit with heavy fingers.
So wrong to believe her body incapable of finding pleasure this way. Wasted years. She clung to the edge with a desperate grip. Too quick for this to be over, not ready, not—
Agonizing bliss seared her, a rush of heat and tremors swallowing her whole.
Long, slow strokes along her thigh shook her loose. Her arms hung slack at her sides, her fingers tinglin
g.
Rob held her dress bunched at her belly in one firm, splayed hand as he rubbed her in slow circles.
“You’re so beautiful, Nora.” His hushed tones belonged in a church pew. Maybe he basked in the same awe kneeling here, at the foot of his staircase. A cocky smile crawled across his face. “And you wail like a five-alarm fire.”
“I do not.” She wasn’t a screamer. She’d never moaned and screamed in the bedroom. “Nobody does. They make that up for porn. Like women who wax everything.”
“Nuh-uh.” The kiss he planted made her squirm. “Nope.” Another kiss, this one on her thigh. “Honest-to-God truth in your case.” He squinted up at her. “So, you’re a big porn-watcher, are you?”
“No.” David trying to push the videos on her as educational hadn’t made them appealing. “Girls talk.” Chelsea and the girls at work did sometimes, anyway. “Men like that, don’t they?”
“What, girls talking or watching porn?”
“No, waxing.” She’d meant to ask last week. Now he’d buried his face between her legs twice, and he hadn’t said a word about her grooming habits. “Would you want me to?”
He slid his cheek along her thigh. “You feel plenty smooth to me.”
“Not all over.” A twinge of inadequacy fluttered in her belly.
He raised an eyebrow. “You asking what I like, Nora?”
“I guess so.” Guess? What was that bullshit?
Rob waited on his knees in front of her. The man who loved her confidence and her honesty.
“I mean, yes. I’m asking. I want to know what you like and don’t like.” Not limited to that, either. “And I want to learn what turns me on. I want you to help me figure it out.”
“Tall order.” He gazed at her with eyes deep and true, their every flicker an invitation and a promise. “I tell you what, though. I’m damned good at following orders and not half-bad at taking command.”
Dipping his shoulder, he lowered her leg to the floor. “I like a woman comfortable with how she looks, however she chooses to display herself. There ain’t a thing wrong with the way you look tonight.”