by A. Gorman
As the song began to end, he danced me toward the small hallway that led to the rooms. I didn’t resist at all, just continued to let him kiss me. In a move that surprised me, he picked me up and carried me the rest of the way to my room. He broke the kiss and then stared into my eyes.
I was panting, my chest heaving up and down in anticipation. The door was already open, so once inside, he set me gently on the bed and I watched in lustful fascination as he grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt and lifted it over his head.
Oh, my God. His chest looked as hard as it had felt against me earlier. A small spread of dark hair covered it, but it was sparse enough that I could see every muscle and ripple. His pecs were solid, and I could make out the ridges and bumps of his abs. They disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. When I looked up into his eyes, it was his turn to smile in amusement.
“Like what you see, Blondie?” he asked, using my earlier words against me.
I nodded, my lip between my teeth.
He grinned, yanking one side of his leather belt to the side and releasing the buckle’s latch. Once it was free, he pulled it with force, freeing the belt from the confines of its denim loops. My eyes widened when I realized he wasn’t going to just drop it to the ground.
With it still gripped in his hand, he placed a knee on the bed and gazed at me. With his free hand, he reached up and freed the button on my jean shorts. It came open with a pop, then he slid the zipper down. Keeping eye contact, he put the belt around his neck like a pet snake and used both hands to yank my shorts down. He tossed them over his shoulder, where they hit the floor.
“Fuck,” he said, eyeing my white lace panties.
I grinned, wondering what he would say when he saw the bra I wore, since it matched the underwear. I saved him the trouble and pulled off my white tee, tossing it on top of the growing pile on the floor.
His eyes trailed up my body, and as if his hands had minds of their own, he reached up and used his finger to trace the outline of my breasts, which were straining against my bra. When his thick digit wandered into the valley between them, he smiled in satisfaction when he saw the clasp was in the front. With two fingers, he flicked the plastic apart and the bra popped open, freeing me with a bounce.
His mouth came down on my neck as I shrugged out of the bra, which also found its way to the floor – I think. I couldn’t be sure. Whatever he was doing with his warm mouth had me deliciously distracted.
With his huge body pressing down on me, I wrapped both bare legs around his waist. His mouth reached mine and with a hard, desperate kiss, he lingered there for a few seconds, then pulled back, staring into my eyes. The look in his was wicked. Desperate. Aroused. Determined. Admiring.
I grinned a little and wiped my wet lips with my index finger. “What are you looking at, Cowboy?”
His passionate blue gaze flicked back and forth between mine, but I refused to give up and look away. Finally, after a long, thick silence, he said, “I’m gonna need to spank you now.”
There was no way from keeping my eyes from widening in surprise. I couldn’t even process what he’d said before his body lifted off of mine. Kneeling on the bed, he grabbed both ankles and flipped me over like a pancake. I landed on my stomach, giggling because I just couldn’t help it. I tried to recover by pushing up on my knees, but no sooner had I done that when I heard a chuckle from behind me. He reached up and slid my panties off, throwing them over his shoulder.
With the flats of my palms on the bed, I peered around to my protector to see him up on his knees, pulling the belt from around his neck, a frighteningly wicked grin on his face as he slowly ran the belt over the palm of his meaty hand. I swallowed hard.
“Um, what are you going to do with that?”
He chuckled and folded it loosely in half. Without a word, he gently smacked it against my bare ass cheek.
OOH.
I thought that would hurt. I grunted and smiled, and thinking about a book I’d just read, I decided to have some fun. “Is that all you got, Master Duke?”
One dark eyebrow reached his hairline and he stroked the belt again. His jaw pulsed as he stared at me. “No.”
Releasing the belt from its folded position, he reared it back, his hand in the air, and I got a little scared. I stiffened in anticipation for the whack. His eyes drilled into mine, seemingly asking for permission, and I chewed my lip and nodded slightly.
He unleashed the belt onto the other butt-cheek and while it stung a little, I was incredibly turned on. I’d never experienced anything like this before. Admittedly, when I’d read about this sort of thing in books, I didn’t think I could get into something like that, but it had intrigued me nonetheless. And even though Duke came off as a hard-ass, I thought for sure he’d be a big teddy bear in the bedroom.
Yes, I’d thought about what kind of animal he’d be in the bedroom, and Duke the Dom wasn’t the one that came to mind.
His warm hand massaged my bottom where he’d whacked it, and it felt so good, I groaned. He slowly slid his hand to the center, and I squealed when one hot finger pressed hard against me, then ran the length of my slit, his finger sliding easily over the wetness. My eyes opened when he pulled away. Still on all-fours, I turned around to see him put his finger to his mouth, but then he suddenly froze.
Eyes widening, he looked at his finger, then at me. Using his hands, he pushed my ass down, flattening me on the bed, then he flipped me back over. “Wait… aren’t you on your, on your, your monthly… thing?”
His face was already red with arousal, but I chuckled when it almost turned purple.
“No,” I breathed, trying not to dissolve into a fit of giggles.
“But you said you needed more… stuff… today…”
At the risk of ruining the mood, I quickly fibbed. “I was mistaken. It’s gone. Been gone, false alarm.”
He grinned again and nodded – in relief, I’m sure – and straightened up to his knees. Pulling open the button to his jeans, he ran the zipper down and before he could lower the denim over his hips, I sat up quickly and used both hands to lower them. I saved us both the trouble by taking his navy blue boxer briefs along with them. When he sprung free in my face, I gasped. Yanking the pants down to his knees, I put both hands on his rock-hard thighs and smoothed my palms up them, avoiding his scar, until I reached his hips. Wrapping my mouth around his impressive length almost came naturally. He filled me all the way up and the way he groaned in the back of his throat turned me on. His hand threaded into my hair and he gently grabbed at the scalp while his other hand rested on my shoulder. I was relieved that he didn’t try to control my head, because really – no woman likes that.
I pulled off, licked the stickiness from the tip, then went back down, my lips gripping with as much suction as I could manage. Moving my right hand to the base, I used it to follow my mouth to the tip and back down again.
“Fuck, woman. You need to stop.”
And I did. I halted immediately and looked up, blinking at him in question.
“Shit. Don’t look at me like that with my cock still in your beautiful mouth.”
I pulled off of him, satisfied at the look of lust which hooded his eyes. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He yanked a condom from it, and then tossed his wallet and pants onto the floor after wiggling the rest of the way out of them.
He used one hand to lay me back, my head on the pillow. I watched with my breath held as he swooped down onto me, his hardness pressing into my thigh. His lips found my neck and he kissed up to my jaw, across my cheek, then they found my mouth. I gripped his hair as our tongues got to know each other again. I gasped into his mouth as his fingers reached down and touched me. He slid them up and down, finally shoving two into me and moving them slowly in and out.
He continued to kiss me, but I could barely breathe.
His fingers didn’t stop. In fact, they moved faster until I was breathing so hard I thought I might pass out. Pulling his fingers
out, he pressed down hard on my sensitive center. I pulled out of the kiss to scream as the first wave of pleasure hit me. Stars exploded behind my closed lids, my hips bucking as his fingers worked fast, pushing on me, pushing in me, then out again, my walls clamping around them.
“Damn, girl,” he breathed into my ear, but I barely heard it.
I opened my eyes slightly to see him rolling the condom on. Then suddenly the weight of his body was between my thighs. I felt myself being stretched like never before as his hips met mine and he slid all the way home.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed again in my ear.
He began to move. I began to move. I met him thrust for thrust, our hips meeting then pulling apart, then back together again. Duke used one hand to push my left knee to the side as far as it would go as he plunged into me. I began to pant harder when I felt myself building again.
His body was doing things to mine I had never experienced. This definitely wasn’t my first time, but it was the first time I’d felt something so simultaneously intimate and animalistic.
Duke’s mouth found mine again, and in a gesture that surprised me, he reached down and threaded his fingers through mine, bringing them both up next to my head as he continued to move in and out of me, moaning and breathing with each and every push, increasing in speed. Soon, I was clenching around him again, the explosion hitting me sooner and harder than I anticipated. I yelled again, gripping his hair. “Duke! Oh, God, please…”
“Yeah, baby,” he whispered in my ear, “release it all on me, sweetheart.”
I was still riding my wave when his whole body went hard and still. His cock pulsed almost violently while I still clenched him, freeing all his tension and anger into me. He growled and groaned between breaths, finally relaxing his head into the crook of my neck.
We lay like that for a few minutes, my fingertips running up and down his back, his hand still holding mine next to my head.
Finally, he rolled off of me and got up and left the room without a word.
Chapter 19
Duke
Walking as quickly as I could to the bathroom, I flung open the door and closed it behind me. I discarded the condom into the toilet and flushed it, knowing I probably shouldn’t do that, but not giving a crap about that at the moment.
I braced both arms on either side of the porcelain sink and stared at my reflection. My dark hair was sticking up in the front near my forehead, and some in the back where her hands had been pulling, raking, clenching. My cheeks were beet-red, and my eyes bloodshot. I was still trying to catch my breath.
“What in the hell are you doing, man?” I growled to my reflection.
If I looked closely, I could see him grinning back in conquest. I smacked the palm of my hand on the sink and raked a hand over my chin, shaking my head at myself.
As I slowly came down from my lusty high, my mind began to clear a little. Having sex with Rayanne was wrong on so many levels. I could lose my job. I could compromise her safety if I was distracted. I could break her heart.
Or she could break mine.
Nah, not gonna happen. There wasn’t much left behind the wall of muscle on my chest to break.
I used the toilet then took a deep breath before opening the door and walking back into her room. Cautiously peeking my head in, I saw her lying curled up on her side, the covers pulled up over her chest. I stared at the blonde hair splayed over the pillow and stood silently watching her for a few minutes. She didn’t move or stir, and I gazed at the steady breathing of her chest and back. I was now faced with a decision: Crawl in with her, or go back to my room – where I belonged? Her warm body looked so inviting, but this whole thing was just wrong. The situation – what we’d just done – should not have happened. But who was I fooling? It’s not as if it just happened, is it? We’d been flirting since the day we met. Well maybe not the first day, but she’d been putting out vibes, and shit, I probably was too. How anyone could not want her would be beyond me. I was still shocked she wasn’t married, or at least had a boyfriend. Well, I guess she could have one, but she never mentioned anyone.
Knowing what the right decision was, I carefully crept in, gathered my clothes, and left her room, flipping off the light and closing the door with a quiet click.
Once back in my room, I threw on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt and crawled into the cold bed and stared out the window. I should be sleepy after that, but my mind wouldn’t shut off, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be getting much rest tonight.
I woke to the smell of coffee and regret. Or was it guilt? Was there a difference? I wasn’t sure, and was tired of analyzing it. It was time to man the fuck up and go out to the kitchen and face the music. I slipped on my track pants and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I always had to brush my teeth right when I got up.
As I wandered into the kitchen, she sat at the dining table, sitting sideways in the wooden chair and sipping coffee. She seemed to be staring at nothing. She briefly looked up at me when I walked in, our eyes locking for the briefest of seconds until she looked away again. I was trying to think of how to interact with her. What I wanted to do and what I probably should do were two different things. I tried to think of how I’d handle this situation if she were one of my randoms, like Tish, but quickly got rid of that idea. She wasn’t some random piece of ass and never would be. I had slept with her because I wanted to, because I needed to, because I couldn’t help it, even though my brain knew better. It had just come naturally, I realized, but now I didn’t quite know what to do with that.
Still, it had been something more than just lust but I was too tired to continue to try to analyze it. I splashed some coffee into a mug and sat at the table.
“Good morning,” I said, making cautious contact.
She lifted eyes to me and I could swear I saw something in them. Sadness? Fear? Anxiety? Before I could ask her what was going through her head, she said, “Duke, I think someone was looking in the window this morning.”
I followed her gaze to the front window in the living room, where last night we had been slowly seducing each other with a dance before moving to her room. I had stupidly forgotten to close the blinds on them last night. I swore.
“What?” I finally said. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, seemingly frozen. “Yes. A man, I think. I’m scared.”
“When?” I asked.
“Just a minute or two ago. I was about to go get you but I heard you get up and didn’t want to start screaming.”
“Well you should have!” I said, getting angry – which was probably more like fear. I set my coffee down and it splashed onto the tabletop but I didn’t care. I got up and darted to my room to get my gun and shoved my feet into my sneakers. Flinging open the front door, my gun was out straight in front of me. I looked around, keeping my back up against the wall of the rickety porch and swung the weapon from left to right, wherever my eyes darted. My elbows were locked, my heart pounding. I slowly made my way around the house, checking every corner. I didn’t see anyone, so I ran around the back and checked the entrance to the copse of trees that led to the forest that sprawled out behind the cabin.
Nothing. Silence. The only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat in my ears. I went back around to the front to see if there were any footprints under the window, and then cursed when I saw a small bush there. No way to see any prints. There weren’t any leading to the porch or out to the dirt road. I walked out there, past the car, and did not see any tire tracks except ours.
Frustrated, but not letting my guard down, I went back into the house, locked the doors, then checked all the windows before closing the blinds on them all. Had I become careless? Had someone found us, or was Rayanne just seeing things? I saw her still frozen to her chair in the kitchen and quickly darted into my room to get the cell phone.
It was almost dead. I hadn’t charged it in days because I never used it and didn’t even think about it.
I shot off a quick text to Jac
k-N-Jill: Check the vic’s phone for any recent threats. Get back to me asap.
I went in search of the charger when the phone chimed back quickly.
10-4.
Fuck… I think the charger was in the car.
Rayanne was staring at me with wide, fearful eyes and I went over to her and crouched down to her level. I looked her in the eye and said, “There’s nobody out there. I looked everywhere. You’re sure you saw someone?” I said it as nicely as I could. For me, anyway.
She nodded and took her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yes, I swear. I’m scared, Duke.”
I pulled her to stand and wrapped my arms around her, the gun still in my right hand. This was the first comforting gesture I’d given her. There had been many times where I thought maybe I should offer her some sort of physical comfort, but kept telling myself that would be crossing a line. But after what we did last night, I was pretty sure those lines were seriously blurred now. And besides that – fuck the lines.
She sobbed softly into my chest and I said into her hair, “I need to find the charger to this thing so I can call headquarters. You stay put.”
Pulling back, she nodded again and wiped her eyes. “Please be careful.”
Without another word, I turned around and limped to the door, snatching the car keys from a small table. I walked outside, down the porch steps, and disarmed the car, keeping my gun up at the ready the whole time. I darted my eyes everywhere, keeping quiet to try to hear anything, but there was just nothing.
Opening the trunk, I rummaged through the small backpack of emergency supplies the bureau had given me and found the small black charger. I slammed the trunk down and turned around, thrusting the gun back into the air. It was still as quiet as a church out here.
I sprinted back inside and closed the door, locking it behind me. I found an outlet in the kitchen and plugged the phone in and set it on the counter. I sat at the table again with her and said, “Look, I don’t know what you saw, but there’s nothing –”