She stepped it up a notch then, caressing and cupping herself before turning her back again and easing her cords down her legs. His mouth went dry when he saw she was wearing lacy panties that were cut so high on the cheek they left very little to his imagination. She stepped out of her cords gracefully, kicking them to one side, leaving her in nothing but her bra, panties and high-heeled ankle boots.
Dipping one finger into her mouth, she trailed it slowly down her chest and belly as she strut-walked toward him. He was already reaching for her as she lifted a leg and straddled him. His hands closed over her hips as she snugged herself up nice and tight against his hard-on, then she covered his hands with her own and slowly lifted them away from her body, returning them to the sides of the chair.
“No touching,” she said in a low, husky voice.
“Are you kidding me?”
She circled her hips and he gave a small groan.
“No touching,” she repeated.
Her eyes were heavy lidded, her hair tousled around her face, her cheeks flushed. The need to touch her, to taste her was a tattoo drum in his blood, and he tightened his grip on the chair as Lily proceeded to torture him, pressing her breasts close to his face, rubbing herself against him, circling her hips against his cock. She slid off him, only to reverse her position, straddling him and pressing her gorgeous backside against him while facing front. Her hands found the back of her bra clasp, and she slipped it free. When she turned to face him again, her breasts were bare, her dark pink nipples hard and ready.
“Fuck this,” he muttered, releasing his grip on the chair and reaching for her.
She came willingly, her breath catching as he pulled her left nipple into his mouth, his hands splayed across her back to hold her in place. He pulled and bit and sucked at her, getting harder and harder as he registered the minute shivers racing through her body. Wholly focused on her, he slid a hand over her hip, down her belly and between her thighs. The lacy satin of her panties was damp and hot with need, and he rubbed her through the fabric, loving the way her thighs tightened around his hips, the way she pressed forward into his touch.
He slipped a finger beneath the elastic, sliding into slick heat.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, her voice broken, lost.
He loved that he could do this to her, that he could turn her on as much as she turned him on, but he wanted more. Wanted to make her scream and beg.
Gripping her ass, he held her close as he pushed to his feet, then turned and dropped her on the bed.
“Hey,” she protested.
He simply placed a hand in the center of her chest and pushed her back onto the mattress.
“Shut up and take what’s coming to you,” he said.
He hooked his fingers into the waist of her panties and pulled them down her legs. Then he nudged her thighs open with his knee. He knew the exact moment she realized where he was going and what he was about to do – her mouth opened, and her breathing accelerated, her hips lifting instinctively in welcome.
“I’m going to make you scream, Lily,” he promised her.
Then he set out to prove it.
*
Lily fisted her hands in Beau’s quilt cover, holding on for dear life as he went to work between her thighs. She couldn’t believe how good his hands and mouth felt, how skilled he was at discerning exactly what drove her wild. He was by turns gentle and fierce, coaxing and demanding, and when she started to move, unable to stay still, he clamped his hands to her thighs and held her in place as he tortured her some more.
Sensation spiraled tighter and tighter inside her, but somehow Beau managed to keep her hovering, not quite pushing her over the brink. She moaned and sighed, awash with pleasure, fully aware he intended to make her beg for what she wanted but refusing to capitulate just yet.
Then he slid a finger inside her and found a spot that felt so good, so intense that she couldn’t stop herself.
“Please. Yes. Please, Beau. Please.”
He opened his mouth over her sex, kissing her passionately, and all the tension that had been building inside her shattered in a voluptuous series of spasms, tightening her inner muscles and rippling through her body, the pleasure so intense it was almost painful. She couldn’t hold back the high pitched keen that rose in her throat, a purely animal sound, and she felt Beau smile against her intimate flesh as she gave him everything he’d asked for.
She collapsed back against the bed, utterly wrecked, her body hot and liquid and sated. She tried to find the energy to speak, to move, but she was too busy floating on a sea of contentment. Vaguely, she was aware of the clink of a belt buckle, the rustle of clothes being shed. Then Beau’s hands were on her, rolling her onto her belly, lifting her hips to tuck a pillow beneath them. She murmured encouragement, well aware he must be aching for release, but not sure how active a participant she was going to be after he’d pleasured her so completely.
There was the crinkle of a foil packet, then his body came over hers, the weight of him bearing her down into the mattress. She felt his breath on the back of her neck seconds before he kissed her shoulder, then her nape. One big hand smoothed up and down her side, mapping her curves possessively.
“You are so fucking beautiful, Lily. You drive me crazy. I could do this all night long.”
She could feel him, hard and urgent, against her backside, and she lifted her hips in invitation. He slid a hand between her thighs, and she widened her legs so he had better access. Then his cock, big and thick and blunt, was probing her entrance. And then he was inside her, filling her, and all her sated lethargy was burned away by a fresh rush of sensation.
“Oh, that feels so good,” she whispered.
“I know, baby.”
He stroked himself inside her, powerful and controlled, and after a few minutes, she was desperate to push back. Sensing her need, he lifted his weight enough for her to rise up onto her knees. Things got a little crazy after that, the tempo building between them until they were both panting urgently, their bodies slamming together. She hovered on the edge of climax until he gripped her hips in his hands and encouraged her to change the angle, allowing him to deepen his penetration. And that was it, she was gone, her body tightening around his as pleasure wracked her.
Her climax spurred his, and seconds later he was buried deep inside her, his lips pressed to the back of her neck as he shuddered out his release.
He let his full weight rest on her for a few seconds afterward, one of his big hands reaching up to brush her hair out of the way so he could kiss the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She smiled, her chest expanding with warmth. Beau was such a mass of contradictions – big and strong, but so gentle and tender when he chose to be. Endlessly patient. Generous. Fiercely protective. And how could she forget his over-developed sense of responsibility?
After a minute or so, he rolled away from her. She mourned the loss, but the night was still young. She knew she’d have him again before dawn.
She felt a dip as he left the bed, and she guessed he was getting rid of the condom. When he returned, she allowed him to coax her beneath the covers. Lying beside him, staring at his ceiling, she marveled they’d come so far in so short a time. Two weeks ago, Beau was hating on her because she’d talked him into participating in the auction. One week ago, she’d been dreading their ski date. And now…
She turned her head on the pillow, only to discover Beau was watching her, an unreadable expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Thanks for the dance.”
“I’m a little rusty.” She pulled the quilt higher around her shoulders. “I haven’t danced for a long time.”
The truth was she’d never danced for a lover, even though many had asked her to over the years. She’d always been very, very strict about quarantining stripping from her private life. She’d wanted to do it for Beau, though, wanted to drive him crazy and have the experience, just once, of genuinely dancing for herself, turning herself on a
s well as her partner.
“I guess that’s technically called a lap dance, right?” he asked.
She gave him a look. “Like you don’t know.”
He’d been in the Marines. She knew what those guys were like.
“I never really did the strip bar thing.”
“Not even once?”
“I had a beer in one, once. Stayed about five minutes, then left. More than long enough to know it wasn’t my scene.” He paused for a minute, his gaze unfocussed as he thought about it. “Maybe it was just me, but the women seemed angry. Not my idea of a good time.”
She smiled faintly. “Some strippers are angry. They hate men. I’ve seen women absolutely humiliate customers – spill drinks on their crotches ‘accidentally’, ruin suits, that sort of thing. It’s their way of taking some power back, I guess.”
“Did you ever do that?”
“I didn’t do it long enough to get that angry. I worked my ass off – literally – and I saved every penny I had. Then I got out.”
“Well, I appreciate you coming out of retirement tonight.”
“My pleasure. And I mean that.” She threw a glance toward the open doorway to the right of the bed. “Is the bathroom through there?”
“Help yourself.”
She slipped out of bed and walked into the en suite, conscious of Beau’s avid gaze on her body every step of the way. She liked that he liked looking at her. She liked looking at him, too. He had a beautiful body, hard in all the places she was soft, with the most delicious scattering of dark blonde hair across his pecs.
She glanced at herself briefly in the bathroom mirror, taking in her flushed cheeks and shiny eyes, then quickly took care of business. On her way back to the bed, her gaze got caught on the single photo frame on top of Beau’s chest of drawers, and she detoured to look at it.
It was a childhood happy snap of three kids fooling around in an above-ground swimming pool. She recognized Andie, her long blonde hair streaming down her back, body as skinny as a string bean. Beside her was Beau, his blue eyes bright even in the faded photograph. Based on his height, she guessed he was twelve, maybe thirteen, which meant Andie must be around nine or ten. She turned her attention to the third boy in the photograph, sadness tugging at her as she studied his face. Ben Bennett had the same eyes as his older brother, the same cockiness in his smile and the way he held his body. It must have been a devastating loss for the Bennett family when he drowned in the Yellowstone River when he was just thirteen years old.
“Come back to bed,” Beau said.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “This is a nice photo.”
“It’s a bit faded now. I was thinking of digging out the negatives, getting some fresh prints made.”
She returned her attention to Ben’s brash smile. “He looks like you.”
“Yeah. He used to tell people we were twins, even though I was half a foot taller than him most of the time.”
She walked back to the bed and slid beneath the covers.
“Do you think about him much?”
“Every day.” There was something about the way he said it that made Lily feel like she was on shaky ground.
“Sorry, we don’t have to talk about it you don’t want to.”
It had to be a bad memory for Beau, she guessed. She knew from Andie he’d been out on the river that day, along with Heath, the three of them floating down the river on inner tubes, a common summer pastime in Marietta.
“It’s okay.” Beau crossed his arms behind his head, his gaze fixed on the light fitting. “It used to be a real thing for me, a monkey on my back. But I made my peace with it a while ago.”
“It’s a terrible thing to go through,” Lily said.
A muscle flickered in his jaw, and for a moment his gaze was so distant, so remote and sad, she knew he was thinking about what had happened.
How Ben had slipped off his inner tube and gone under.
How Beau and dived and dived, trying to find his little brother in the murky water.
How the rescue divers had found Ben snarled in the branches of a submerged log.
Wanting to comfort him, she rolled onto her side and slid her hand across his body, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.
“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly.
He slipped his arm around her, pulling her closer, and she rested her head on his chest.
“Sometimes I think about what he’d be like. What he’d be doing. He was a little hell-raiser a lot of the time. He would have given mom and dad grey hair if he had the chance.”
She didn’t say anything, just waited, and after a moment he started talking again.
“I used to have this dream all the time where we’re in the car, and Dad’s dropping us off at the river, telling us he’ll be back in a couple of hours. And I keep trying to turn around and push Ben back into the car, or tell Dad to keep driving. To change what I know is going to happen. But it’s like the dream fights back, twisting and turning until we wind up in the river again, and Ben disappears, and I dive in to save him…”
Lily tightened her arm across his body, aching for him. Beau had been fifteen years old when the accident happened, but he’d relived the horror over and over again in his dreams.
“You don’t dream about him anymore?” she asked.
“Sometimes, but different dreams now. There’s one where I walk into the house and he’s just sitting at the kitchen table like he never left, and it’s so good to see him, I don’t even bother asking where he’s been all this time.” Beau’s voice was so low it was little more than a rumble, his chest vibrating beneath her ear.
“I have dreams like that about my mom. I keep meaning to look it up in a dream book to see what it’s supposed to mean.”
“That someone died and you miss them, is my guess,” he said dryly.
She lifted her head so she could see his face. “Listen to the cynic.”
“And you’re not a cynic?”
She thought about it for a moment. “I’m a selective cynic. I reserve the right to still be surprised by life when something awesome happens.”
“Hedging your bets,” he said.
“Sure. Why not?”
He was silent for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”
“Only if it’s deeply, deeply personal and revealing,” she joked.
“Why did you leave home when you were only sixteen years old?”
She wasn’t entirely surprised by the question. She’d felt his curiosity the other night when she’d sketched in the details about her bequest from Luther.
Drawing back from him a little, she thought for a moment about how much to tell him. Then she realized he had a right to know everything, since he had taken it upon himself to step between her and her violent stepbrother. It was only fair he understood what he’d landed in the middle of.
“I had to,” she said simply. “It was either stay and be raped by my stepfather, or go.”
Beau’s whole body tensed in response to her words.
“Jesus. Where was your mother?”
“She didn’t believe me when I told her what he’d tried to do.”
“You mean he actually tried to rape you?”
She could see the anger and outrage in his face and couldn’t help but feel warmed he could get so worked up on her behalf, even though what they were talking about was ancient history.
“He came into my room and tried to force himself on me, but I got lucky and smacked him in the nose.” She remembered something then. “Hey, maybe it wasn’t an accident when I clipped you the other day. Maybe I’ve got some special Ninja skill around noses.”
“Come here.”
Beau held out his arm, inviting her close again. After a moment of hesitation she wriggled closer, resting her head over his heart. His belly tensed beneath her hand as he lifted his head off the pillow, then he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” he said quie
tly.
“Yeah. So am I. It kind of sucked,” she said philosophically.
Her words squeezed a laugh out of him, and she turned her head and kissed his chest.
“I don’t want to kill your vision of yourself as a lady killer, but you give good snuggle,” she said.
“You should see my spooning technique.”
“Are we talking inside spoon or outside spoon?”
“Outside spoon. Inside spoon is for girls.”
She feigned outrage, lifting her head, trying not to laugh at his silliness. “Why? Because it’s the receiving spoon? Don’t tell me your masculinity is that fragile?”
“My masculinity is just fine, thanks for asking. I just prefer being the outside spoon.”
“I think you should give inside spoon a chance,” Lily said. “‘Roll over.”
Beau started to laugh. “No way.”
“Yeah, way.”
She pushed at him, trying to force two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle to bend to her will. He didn’t so much as budge.
“Want to try again?” he asked, still laughing at her.
It was hard to stop from laughing as she did her damnedest to move him, slipping both hands beneath him and trying to shove him over onto his side. She was about to give up when Beau moved, but instead of rolling away from her, he rolled toward her, and before she knew it she was pinned beneath him.
“Not quite what I had in mind,” she said dryly.
Then she felt the nudge of his hard cock between her thighs and smiled.
“This is what my grandmother warned me about, you know.”
“What is?” he asked.
“Spooning. It always leads to forking.”
She had a ringside seat as he lost it, the corners of his eyes creasing attractively as he flat-out belly laughed, his gaze alight with amusement.
She couldn’t hold back her own smile – didn’t want to – as she basked in his appreciation of her joke.
“Just for that, I’m going to prove your grandmother right,” he said, eyes still bright with laughter.
“Please do. In fact, I think I’m going to insist upon it.”
He leaned across to the bedside table, and she watched as he tore the top off a condom packet. He rolled to one side, easing the latex on with one practiced move. She watched the play of his hand down his own length, hugely turned on by the sight of him touching himself.
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