by Dahlia West
He lifted her head, wiped her tears instead, and kissed her lightly on the lips, for lack of anything better to do. He hated that he’d scared her.
He held her close to him and listened to the fire crackle. It might be a lie, all of it, but it was his lie.
Chapter Forty-Seven
‡
Winter melted into spring and thankfully they had no more dangerous weather to contend with. Though mud seemed to be everywhere, which led Jack and Erin to where they were now: in the shower, together.
Erin wasn’t sure she’d ever quite get over seeing Jack fully naked. It was hard enough to keep her hands off him when they were working in such close proximity every day. The best part of her day was getting to touch him at the end, feel his sinewy muscles that had hardened over the last few months.
He stood in front of her now, facing the shower head, and Erin washed his back, fingers trailing over the ink there. She’d never seen tattoos like Jack’s, ones that covered his entire back. It must have hurt like hell. She smiled to herself as she wondered if that was precisely the reason he’d done it. So he could prove to himself he could take it. Knowing Jack, it wouldn’t surprise her.
There were stars, and a pyramid, and a huge skull in the center. Erin had the feeling of looking at hieroglyphics, a secret language spread out in front of her that she couldn’t possibly understand or decipher. “What are these?” she asked him, tracing her fingertip around the skull.
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Just ink.”
It was a lie and she knew it, but she didn’t push for more information. There were certain things about Jack that she figured she would just never know, never fully understand. And that was okay, she’d decided, as long as she got him now.
She slid her hands around him and trailed her fingertips over his half-hard shaft.
Jack growled and Erin could feel the rumble against her cheek as she pressed her face against him.
“Just being thorough,” she teased.
“Better finish what you started,” he told her.
“Okay, sure,” she said in a bright voice, abandoning that thick, hard part of him and reaching past his shoulder. “Now do you want the loofah or the—?”
Jack spun and Erin’s breath caught in her throat. He lifted her up and pressed her back to the wall of the shower.
A spike of delicious excitement thundered through her.
Jack held her under her ass with one hand as his fingers parted her with the other, rubbing and pinching and squeezing in turns.
Erin tried to pretend she was stoic, uninterested. It was a losing game, especially when he deemed her wet enough to take him in and he pushed his cock past her tight entrance. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t want it just as much as he did. There were few things in life she enjoyed more than this.
“Squeeze it,” he demanded as he held her against the wall.
Erin dutifully clenched, trying to coax his seed from him.
“Better get it out, Erin,” he warned, nipping her shoulder. “Better finish me off before our shower’s done. Otherwise I’ll carry you to the bed, and you’ll have to sleep with my load inside you, dripping between your thighs.”
She shivered and closed her eyes, gripping him tightly with every part of her body that was touching his.
Jack chuckled. “Such a dilemma,” he said quietly, skimming his hand over her breasts. “Do you want to be clean? Or filthy?”
Jack’s version of clean sent waves of shudders through Erin’s body. He’d use his hands, soap her up, wash every inch of her. On the other hand…filthy had its own particular naughtiness to it.
In the end, her need for orgasms, the kind only Jack had ever given her, won out. She squeezed her thighs around his waist and leaned back against the shower wall. “Clean,” she rasped. “I want to be clean.”
Jack grinned at her. “You want both,” he countered. “But clean it is.”
He gripped her hips and pinned her against the wall as he slowly withdrew from her, just a few inches, before thrusting back inside.
Erin tightened around him and a slight groan escaped from his lips. She liked it when he was close to letting go of that tightly held control.
Jack fucked her thoroughly with his long, thick shaft spreading her wide. Every muscle in his body danced under the spray of water as he pistoned inside her.
Her orgasm came hard and her fingers dug into his biceps as she cried out, belly spasming, back arching so that her nipples rasped along his chest.
She could feel Jack’s shaft throbbing inside her, too, filling her up, pumping thick jets of warm cum in her pussy.
He waited, let her come down off her high, before he gently put her feet down on the shower floor.
Erin could barely stand, weak in the knees as she was, and he held her with one arm braced behind her back as carefully lathered up his fingers and pushed them inside her.
She gasped as he thumbed her sensitive clit. “Oh, God!” she called out, raw between her legs from his fucking, from her need that hadn’t fully gone away.
He rubbed her gently, lips hovering over hers, tongue dancing on her lower lip.
In minutes Erin was throbbing again, humping his hand, ready for another wave of ecstasy.
“My greedy, greedy girl,” Jack whispered into her mouth as he squeezed her clit gently. “Go ahead,” he encouraged as she fought to get his fingers deep inside her. “Get all nice and clean.” He dragged his mouth to her ear and dipped his tongue into it, slow and steady, the way he was fingering her below.
“I’m going cum in that pussy anyway,” he growled. “Tonight. Get my greedy girl all filthy, just the way she likes it. Mark my fucking territory.”
Erin finished again, made hot by his promises, which he always kept.
Jack shut off the water, lifted her out onto the thick bathmat, and towel dried her slowly as she leaned against him, exhausted. “Don’t fall asleep,” he warned. “I’m hungry.”
Erin laughed as she pulled on her bathrobe. “Ain’t that the truth,” she teased. She headed downstairs and started on dinner.
A while later, Jack wandered in, dipped his finger in the sauce, and licked it with a ravenous smile on his face. He was always hungry for something, it seemed.
“Can you get us some eggs?” Erin asked over her shoulder. When Jack didn’t answer her, she glanced back. He was glaring at her. She smirked at him. “You do know what huevos means, don’t you?”
“Balls,” he growled.
Erin laughed. “Eggs. It means eggs.”
“It means balls. We’re going to have chicken balls for dinner…if I can catch that bastard.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
‡
“All right,” Jack said from the cover of the side of the house. “Here’s the plan.”
Duke whined.
Jack glared at him. “You haven’t even heard it yet. Anyway, you go around that way, toward the driveway. You’ll circle around and flank him. Then, while he’s distracted, I’ll move in.”
Duke whimpered low in his throat. He clearly didn’t think much of being used as bait.
Jack sighed. “You don’t have thumbs,” he reminded the dog. “So, how can I be the bait?”
Duke, apparently, had no argument for this.
“Okay,” said Jack, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s do this. Remember, Duke, only the strong survive.”
Duke was not particularly motivated by this pep talk.
Jack motioned for him to set out on a course down the side of the house, toward the driveway.
Duke gave him one last unhappy look and slunk away. When he reached the tree at the center of the drive, he looked back, and Jack gave another signal to move right, farther away from the line of the house.
Jack chuckled with barely contained glee that all his time spent teaching Duke hand signals was paying off.
Julio was lying down in the side yard, underneath his own tree. As Duke slowly approached, Julio’s beady little c
hicken eyes turned on him. Duke paused and looked to Jack for instructions, or maybe for a reprieve. But Jack wouldn’t give him one. They’d come too far. They’d trained too hard. This was their moment, damn it!
Jack pointed at Julio and Duke hesitated only for a moment before taking a step forward.
Julio stood up and strutted around the tree, circling out farther and farther, eyeing the dog.
Jack hunkered low and stepped out of his cover. He half-jogged toward the coop. The ladies stirred and he willed them to stay quiet long enough for him to get the job done. He snatched up the basket sitting next to the coop fence.
Just then, Julio squawked loudly. It was an angry sound and Jack knew this was it. Do or die.
Duke snarled and sank low, crouched, ready to spring, but it was sort of half-assed posturing and the minute Julio lunged for him, the dog yelped and spun away.
Jack watched, heart sinking, as Duke tucked his tail between his legs and sped for the front porch, howling even though Julio had never gotten near him.
“Damn it!” Jack hissed softly.
With his preternatural chicken hearing, Julio turned and set his feral fowl gaze on Jack.
“Shit,” Jack grunted. He glanced back, but it was too far. Way too far to run back to the house. His palms started to sweat. He was in enemy territory, his retreat cut off.
With an ear-splitting screech, Julio rushed at him. Covering the distance between them like a rocket rooster.
Jack sucked in a breath and let loose a warrior’s cry of his own. When that didn’t even slow Julio down, Jack bolted. It was six feet to the door of the coop and Julio was about thirty feet away.
Jack sprinted up the length of the coop, turned the corner and leaped for the door. His free hand snatched at the horseshoe latch, rattling it loudly. The ladies protested at having their nap interrupted.
Jack had pulled the door too far and the drag on the metal half-hoop kept it from opening all the way. He kicked the door back in with his boot, glancing over his shoulder.
Ten feet.
“Don’t look at the chicken,” he muttered to himself. “Work the lock.”
This time, he managed to flip the horseshoe up and jump inside the wired cage. He dropped the basket at his feet and slammed the door shut. It rattled loudly and Jack let out a triumphant yell.
Julio was forced to stop short else he would slam into the chain-link door.
Jack grinned at him maniacally, aware in some part of his civilized brain that he may have finally lost his mind. “Cock-a-doodle-doo, motherfucker!” he shouted.
Julio glared at him, but only for a moment. His little chicken beak pecked at the air for a few seconds. Then he shook himself off and began strutting around outside in the grass.
Jack frowned. He really felt that he deserved an actual surrender on Julio’s part. “You’re beat, you little bastard! I made it!”
Julio strutted.
Jack’s frown deepened. “Well, fuck the dog. Who cares about the dog? He’s weak! He’s too green! I did it! I beat you!”
Julio strutted.
Now Jack was really irritated. “Well, I don’t know what you’re so goddamn smug about, asshole. You’re out there and I’m in here! That’s right! You’re out there and I’m…oh, goddammit!”
Chapter Forty-Nine
‡
Duke parked himself outside the screen door and whined loudly. Erin looked up from the chopping board. “What is it, Lassie? Is Timmy down the well?”
The dog whined again and she turned fully to look at him. “Geez,” she mused. “It’s that bad?” She wiped her hands on the dishtowel and swung open the side door. As she neared the coop, she spotted Julio in his favorite spot under the tree.
And Jack sitting in the coop, looking murderous.
As she approached, she felt a giggle rise up in her throat.
“Don’t,” Jack warned, but it was too late.
Erin could barely contain her laughter. “You know,” she told Jack, “I used to twirl a baton in the 4-H Fair. I had a feather boa, too. I bet it’s still in the attic somewhere. Want me to get it for you?”
Jack glared at her.
“You’d fit right in.”
“I’d strangle your chicken with it. Then I’d eat him,” Jack growled.
Erin opened the coop door and moved to the side for Jack to step out.
Julio came forward again, but Erin stopped him with a hand. “No,” she told the rooster. “Shoo.” Julio glared at her for a second, then looked at Jack. Apparently, there was some serious bad blood between these two. “Go on,” Erin demanded and pushed her boot at him.
Reluctantly, Julio strutted away, clucking to himself.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Jack?” she said, closing the gate behind him and locking it. “He’s a rooster. He’s just doing his job.”
“He’s dinner,” Jack argued as he stalked past Julio’s tree and toward the house.
Erin sighed and shook her head.
As they passed the tree, she heard Jack whisper, “Chicken.”
Julio crowed at him and flapped his wings indignantly.
Erin rolled her eyes. “I once saw a man get a chunk taken out of his shoulder by a stallion,” she declared. “We get some wolves out here, too. And once in a blue moon a bear comes along. But I’ve never seen a man brought down by a rooster before.”
They entered the kitchen through the side door and Erin turned to face him. “This one time—” she began but stopped. The look Jack was giving her was intense, almost deadly. If Erin didn’t know exactly what the man could do with his hands, she’d almost swear he was about to wrap them around her throat.
She sucked in a sharp breath, not because she was afraid, but because he looked so damn sexy. Jack might restrain himself when it came to Julio (and Erin had no doubt that it was for her sake alone that he did) but there was no question that this man was lethal.
When he opened his mouth, his voice rumbled low in his chest. “Guess you need to learn a woman’s place.”
If he expected to get a rise out of her, he certainly got it. Though the minute Erin’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, she regretted it. Judging by the bemused look on his face, pissing her off had been exactly what he’d intended. She clamped down on the tirade that was about to come hurtling off her tongue and decided to play along, instead.
She spread her arms, indicating the room. “In the kitchen, I suppose,” she told him evenly. She felt proud of herself for holding her temper so well.
Rather than agreeing, Jack merely shrugged. “A woman’s place is on her knees. Don’t much care what room she’s in,” he informed her.
Erin pursed her lips, biting back a torrent of obscenities. Jack’s eye had that mischievous twinkle again. She took a deep breath, in through her nose, and let it out. “On her knees,” she repeated quietly.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Better get down there and show some respect to the man of the house.”
His tone and the look in his eyes did all manner of bad things to Erin’s belly…and lower places. She fought to keep from squeezing her thighs together.
“Don’t much care for women’s lip,” he told her.
Erin swallowed hard. “I think it’s lib,” she replied. “Not lip.”
“Is that so?” he asked, clearly amused. He reached for his zipper and slowly tugged it down. “Might be,” he decided. “Now open yours.”
Erin very clearly recalled how in this very room he’d spread her out on the table beside them and feasted on her pussy like a desperate, starving man. She didn’t see the harm in returning the favor now. She toed off her boots, stepped forward, and lowered herself to the linoleum.
Jack freed his cock, which sprang out, already at attention, just inches from her face. His smell was earthy, musky, so very, very male. Erin breathed in his scent as she licked her lips. She wasn’t sure she needed a man of the house. But, God, she wanted one.
She leaned forward and rea
ched for him, but he lightly slapped her hand away.
“Only your mouth,” he ordered. “Hands behind your back.”
Erin frowned, having never given head that way before, but after a moment’s hesitation, she clasped her hands behind her back. Right after she did so, she realized that it thrust her breasts out and that Jack could see straight down into her shirt.
Clever bastard, she thought and parted her lips.
She made a good show of it, if she did say so herself. She slid the tip of her tongue along the bottom of his shaft, from base to tip. If he liked it, she couldn’t tell.
Jack would be hell at poker.
She paused at the swollen little V just under the tip and swirled it lasciviously, just the way he liked it. If her Sunday school teacher could see her now, Erin knew she’d surely be condemned to the depths of Hell. But Jack, quite possibly being the devil incarnate, would be right there with her, and she’d still be on her knees, she suspected.
She still couldn’t get a reaction out of him, which irritated her. She opened her mouth, ever so slightly, and placed an open-mouthed kiss on the head. Then she slowly took him between her lips, inch by inch, until he was nestled at the back of her mouth. He was too big to take in all the way yet, but she was getting there.
She gazed up at him, watching him watching her intently. She loved that the most, the connection they now shared when he looked at her. His cock gave a jerk in her mouth and she made a small, triumphant noise in her throat. He was about to come, unable to stop himself.
She’d won.
Suddenly, though, Jack grabbed her by the shoulders and drew her to her feet. Before she knew it, she was spinning, turning, held tight by his hands, until she found her thighs pressed up against the kitchen table.
His fingers tugged at the button of her waistband and her zipper ripped open. Suddenly, her jeans and panties were around her knees and Erin felt one large palm on her back. He pushed until she found herself bent over in front of him, bare ass in the air. She gasped.