by Holley Trent
He started at the soles of her feet, massaging her high arches with his thumbs, increasing his touch. He knew when he hit the right reflex points, because her back bowed up from the bed, and a moan ripped from her throat.
“Oh, don’t stop doing that,” she said.
“I’ll be happy to do some more later, but I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.” He kissed each of her toes, then up the inside of her right leg to the crux of her thighs.
Her expression was anticipatory as he drew back the fabric of her panties. Her knees clamped against his shoulders, stilling him there.
He wasn’t ready for that just yet. He just wanted a quick peek, but seeing her shaved smooth made him second-guess his timetable. Letting the elastic snap back, he growled, “Now, who’s that for?” and didn’t care if there was a note of possessiveness in his tone. Whose could she be but his? If this wasn’t fate, what was?
“Me.” She nudged him with the insides of her knees, and her body language was clear—get back to work.
“You go to a lot of trouble for your upkeep. You sure you don’t have someone to impress?”
“I only worry about impressing myself.”
“Oh?” He flicked the tip of his tongue where his fingers had been at the top of her thigh and made her back arch again. She was so responsive.
Or were all women as responsive and he’d just never been tuned in enough to notice? It’d had always been about quantity. Productivity. He could hardly remember what any of those past conquests looked like—what they felt like. Didn’t matter, anyway, because they were all headed to Hell in a hand basket of his own making.
Don’t think about that now.
He eased up, concentrating his tongue’s attention on her perfect little innie while he tucked his fingers beneath her trim waist.
“That tickles,” she said, with a little giggle that made his heart flutter. He did that to her. He made her laugh, and he liked the way it felt.
“I won’t torture you.” He grinned and crawled ever closer to the headboard. His lips clamped onto one fabric-covered breast and teased out her nipple.
She gasped and grabbed a clump of his hair, yanking hard. “Are you sure about that?”
“No. Not sure at all.” Hell, he was conflicted. Yes, he wanted to ravish her. There was that, oh God, there was that. But this was probably his only chance to indulge in a luxury his brothers took for granted.
“I just want to touch you—”
“Okay. Great.” She forced herself up onto her elbows, nudging him back a bit, then sitting up the rest of the way. She kept her gaze locked on his and with a practiced flick, released the catch of her bra. She tossed the plain undergarment toward the bedside and cocked up a brow. “Touch me. If you’re feeling ambitious, touch a bunch of things at once.”
“God.”
It was as if breasts were a whole new thing—some innovative technology he hadn’t before had a chance to have hands-on experimentation with.
He straddled her and cupped them into her hands, feeling their weight and marveling at the dusky peaks of her nipples.
She cleared her throat.
Frustrating woman.
He dipped his mouth low, wrapping his lips around one nipple, then the other. Wetting them. Drawing them out for his inspection.
She cleared her throat again.
“Keep that up, and I’ll gag and bind you,” he said, letting his fingertips explore the valley between her breasts, down to her belly button. He leaned her back onto the bed and hooked his thumbs into her panty elastic.
She lifted her bottom for him to ease her underwear down. Eager, she was. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind.”
God. He knew it. He wasn’t going to last long. Thirty seconds, tops, and he could feel it in his bones. He couldn’t remember being so hard and so anticipatory, but for that matter, he’d never claimed a woman in this way before.
He yanked her panties past her hips and tossed them toward her discarded bra.
Her lips quirked up in a daring grin as his eyes focused on the birthmark on her hip that’d been previously hidden by her panty elastic.
“God.” He grabbed her waist and gave a forceful yank so she was flat on her back.
“Come on, big boy,” she cooed.
“Don’t press me, woman.”
She made a kissy-face. It was meant to be a tease, but he took that cue to ravish her mouth, explore its nooks and wrestle her tongue into submission. She moaned against his lips, tracking her fingernails down his back and urging him on.
He nipped at her, tasted her, until her left leg wrapped over his hip, opening her up to him.
She ground her wet sex against his hip, whimpering into his mouth. “Please.”
He’d said he’d give her anything, everything, so he did.
He plunged into her with one expert stab of his cock and made her scream his name with one glide in.
Clamped around him, her arms gripping his body tight and her body shuddering, she felt like heaven to him—the closest he’d ever get, anyway. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her, but like hell if he was going to let her go, shield or no shield.
“Please,” she whimpered again, and this time she sounded even more needy. More desperate.
He’d done that to her, and it wasn’t the demon part of him. Just Charles. He could hardly remember being this Charles before, but he’d give her what she asked for, or at least try.
Reaching under her other leg, he picked it up and wrapped it around his waist.
“Just tell me to stop if I get too—”
Her thighs tightened at his waist as she forced him deeper inside her. “Now!” she said, and clamped her teeth into the cords of his neck.
“As you wish.”
• • •
Marion lay on her belly, boneless and relaxed while Charles trailed a gentle fingertip up and down her naked spine. Sweaty and a bit bruised from his enthusiastic exertions, she had no real desire to move, but she had to. She needed a shower, for one thing, and second, she had a flight to catch. She’d imposed on him long enough, and it’d be awkward as it were if they ever crossed paths again. What would she say? After all, the man had bought her flowers and—
Wait.
She propped herself up onto her arms and narrowed her eyes at him.
He was lying on his side, just staring at her as if he had nothing else to do of importance. “Hmm?”
“Who were the flowers and wine really for?”
“You. Why is that so unbelievable?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t really date.” Understatement.
“Me neither. Lie back down. Touching you is meditative for me.”
She did, and he resumed his gentle caress of her back. “I need to go.”
“No, you don’t. Stay here.”
“You have to work, and I’m on vacation.”
“Maybe I have some time off I could take.”
“That’s a lot of trouble to go through for a brief affair.”
His hand stilled on her back.
She rolled over and pressed her backside to his front, forcing him to spoon her. After a moment, he draped his hand over her hip, and grazed his fingertips down her thigh instead.
“You don’t see yourself in a long-term relationship, Marion?”
“No, I don’t see myself in a long-distance relationship, which is what this would be, right? I’m transient. You’re transient.” She wriggled her ass against his semi-erect cock, hoping for a bit more action before she absolutely had to ride off into the sunset. The freezing Idaho sunset.
She sighed.
He rolled her onto her belly, pulling her hips up and leaning over her. “We could adjust our schedules.” His breath was hot at her ear, and the scruff of his beard at her jaw had her rubbing her face against him as if he were a cat she wanted desperately to be marked by.
And she did desperately want him, this perfect specimen of man, but this coupling couldn’t possibly be sust
ainable. “You hardly know me,” she said. She reached back and angled his hard shaft toward her sex, hissing at the pleasurable pain her muscles registered at his entry. It may have been a bit too soon. If she were smart, she would have waited hours, even days until trying to impale herself on him again. But evidently she wasn’t smart. She was crazed.
“All it takes to start is one spark,” he said, slowly easing almost all the way out of her, his hands draped at her waist.
She turned her head to look back, and found him admiring his work-in-progress.
With one tight clench of her muscles around him, he resumed, pushing himself back in to the hilt.
She whimpered. She loved the way he filled her, stretched her. Each stroke was like exquisite torture, hitting all the right nerves with the perfect pressure. “Right. A spark.”
His fingers found her neglected clit and he alternated between delicate circles and more deliberate flicks, taking her off guard every time she thought she’d adjusted to the sensations. She’d go mad without release. “More.”
Her hands fisted the sheets as he increased his pace, jewels slapping against her thighs with each thrust and small growls escaping his chest.
She’d probably regret it, but—“More.”
And he drove harder, pulling her hips back with each thrust forward, and hitting the very end of her. Oh, yeah, she’d be sore, and she’d like it—this reminder of their encounter.
This time, as she teetered toward the brink of oblivion, he tipped her over the edge with one firm smack on the back of her thigh that both confused and titillated her. He’d obviously had some practice at this, but she didn’t want to think about how many women he’d taken to his bed. How many conquests he’d claimed.
He slipped out of her, groaning, and she collapsed from all fours onto her belly in a fit of giggles.
“I’ve got to say, I don’t know a single man who would take that reaction the right way,” he said, voice deadpan as his weight eased off the end of the bed.
“I’m … sorry!” She giggled once more as her body betrayed her with one more tiny orgasm—an aftershock, really, spurred on by her testing her sex for integrity with a clench. The secondary orgasm wasn’t completely unheard of for her, though certainly rare. “I’ve giggled more today than I have in the past five years. I can’t help it.”
He sighed from the footboard, and the hardwood floor creaked underfoot as he walked away. “If you’re still in that position when I get out of the shower, I’m going to make you do more than just giggle,” he said, and then there was the closing of a door.
She giggled once more as she rolled over, wriggling her toes and stretching her arms and legs. She yawned. This was something a girl could get used to—the pampering and the sex. And then there was the company. She hadn’t realized how much being around a person could lift her spirits.
In the past, she’d considered taking on a driving partner—a co-owner for the rig. Someone to share expenses and keep her mind sharp during long drives. But, in the end, she decided she was too fussy and maybe a bit too misanthropic to allow someone into her space for so many hours of the day. That was the opinion of a woman who’d spent her childhood alone, for the most part, though. Sure, she knew how to share, and say “please” and “thank you”, but in the foster homes, she’d mostly kept to herself. The other kids had just seemed so different. She’d always felt like, somehow, she didn’t belong—that she was waiting on the day her parents realized their mistake in abandoning her and came to get her.
But that was just wishful thinking. No one ever came to rescue her, no matter how good she was. There were never any inquiries about her adoptability. She just moved from one home to the next whenever the courts said so. At seventeen, she had her high school diploma and no reason to stick around, so she left. No one went looking for her.
She blew out a raspberry and rolled onto her belly once more at the sound of vibrating from the floor. Peering over the edge of the bed, she watched her showering lover’s back pocket shake. His phone was in that pocket.
“Leave a message. He’ll get back to you,” she said to his pants.
She laid her cheek against the cool sheets and closed her eyes. Maybe what Charles was proposing wasn’t that unreasonable an idea. With each passing minute, the thought of seeing him again, and frequently, sounded like something she shouldn’t dismiss so easily.
His phone vibrated again and she sighed, opening her eyes. This time, she reached into his pocket and nudged out the offending device. The display read Incoming call from ‘3.’
3? Why so cryptic?
Not her business. She had picked the phone up thinking maybe it was someone from the trucking company—those numbers she’d recognize. For one of those, she’d fetch him from the shower, but obviously it wasn’t the company.
The thoughts of his body glistening with hot water and all that dark hair wet over his shoulders started the eruption of giggles again.
Oh, she was so screwed. She crossed her legs at the ankles and clamped a hand over her mouth for fear he’d hear her through the thin door.
The phone rang a third time, and still giggling, she saw that same incoming caller’s identification, and answered it. “Hello, this is Charles’s phone. He’s unavailable right now. Can I pass on a message, please?”
Silence.
“Hello?” she nudged, now propping up on her elbows.
“Yes … um …” The voice was deep, like Charles’s, but not confident-sounding, like she’d expect from a business peer. This must have been personal. “I’m sorry. He’s never had anyone else answer his phone.”
“Well, you called three times in a row, so I figured it was important. Since he’s tied up right now, I figured I’d try to help.”
“Tied up?”
Should she be candid, or was there some rule against that? She’d just answered a near-stranger’s phone. What could she possibly say that wouldn’t be too obvious? People rarely put their phones down unless they were naked or sleeping. Neither cast her in a good light. Might as well be honest.
“He’s in the shower.”
“And you are?”
“I am … a friend passing through for dinner.” There. True enough.
“Okay. Hello, friend. How long have you known Charles?”
What’s with the third degree? If I’d been his secretary, would this guy ask me that? She scraped a hand through her tousled hair and decided that, yes, he probably would.
“Our friendship is in the early stages, but we’ve become quite social in a short period.” She couldn’t suppress the snort that punctuated that ad lib.
“May I ask you something?”
“Um, sure.” She didn’t like the tone of this guy’s voice. It had a hint of smug condescension about it as if the next thing he was going to tell her was that she was one of many “friends” of Charles.
“Who’s the current host of America’s Most Wanted?”
“What?” She watched her face scrunch into a mask of confusion via the nearby cheval mirror and cringed, deciding then and there to never make that face ever again.
“Tell me.”
“I think I read that show got canceled.”
Silence again.
She rolled her eyes. “Hello?”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“What’s yours? I’m the one taking the message.”
Another pregnant pause, but this time she didn’t have to prompt him. “My name is John Tate. Charles is my brother.”
“Oh!” Now she sat back onto her feet and switched the phone to her other ear. “He told me he had a couple of brothers.”
“Really? He told you about us?”
“Why wouldn’t he? Is it a State secret?”
“No …”
A feminine voice in the background Marion could just barely make out asked, “What’s wrong with Charles? Is he in the gutter again? He was doing so well.”
Huh?
He cleared his throat
and ignored the question from the nearby woman. “Charles just tends to be very guarded with that information. Tell me, uh … I’m sorry. I don’t know what to address you as.”
“Marion. Nice to meet ya.”
“Ma-Marion?”
Something clattered on the other end, and there was no way for her to verify it, but it sounded a lot like John had dropped his phone. Moments later, he apologized into the mouthpiece. “Shit. I’m sorry. Uh … just had a vicious bout of déjà vu. Don’t hear that name very often, but it’s one that gets bandied about a lot around here.”
“Oh. Sweet. I hope she’s as cool as me.” She cringed. “Or he. Whichever.”
“She.”
“There ya go. Is there a message I can pass on?”
“Sure, but first, can you answer just one more question for me?”
“I guess so.”
Squeaking Marion recognized as the wrenching of the shower knobs preceded silence from the bathroom. Charles would be out in a moment.
“How old are you, Marion?”
“I’m legal, if that’s what you’re asking. Well, above the age of consent in Idaho.”
“Idaho?”
“Yep. Colder than a witch’s tit here. I’m flying out on the next thing smoking.”
“Not to divert from my previous question, but why is Charles in Idaho?”
“Uh … he’s your brother. Shouldn’t you know that?”
“Charles dispenses information selectively. I know he travels a lot, but … Idaho?”
“Yeah. I drive trucks long haul. That’s how we met.”
“Fascinating. So, that makes you how old?”
“Old enough to have a driver’s license.”
He blew out a long breath, and that feminine voice in the background pleaded, “Give me the phone.”
Why would he? Was she a jealous type? Did Charles and John like to share?
At that exact moment, Charles stepped out of the steamy en suite bathroom, donning only one plush white towel around his waist. His expression at seeing her there, still nude, was jubilant, but quickly gave way to something unreadable when he noticed her holding his phone against her ear.