by M. S. Force
I snap out of the fog to realize I’ve been staring at him while he waits for me to answer him. “What was the question again?”
“Did you run out of other guys to fuck? Is it down to me?”
I hold back a wince at his judgmental tone. I’m not proud of the number of men I’ve test driven, seeking the hoopla. “What do you care?”
“I don’t.” It’s a well-known fact that Blake Dempsey doesn’t care much about anything other than his family, his business, the people who work for him and a few select friends. He shrugs as he drains the beer bottle and puts it on the bar next to a ten-dollar bill. “It’s your business, not mine.”
When he stands to his full six-foot three-inch height and looks down at me, I nearly swallow my tongue. My nipples stretch against the confines of my bra and tank top, as if they’re reaching for him. I hold my breath waiting to see what he will do.
He brings his head down close to my ear. “Follow me home.” His tone is gruff and sexy and authoritative.
I shiver as my heated core weeps in anticipation. My eyes travel from broad shoulders to lean hips and below where the outline of that legendary cock has me licking my lips once again. Soft faded denim hugs him in all the right places, and it’s all I can do to refrain from reaching for the button and giving it a tug to get things started.
My mouth waters as I pictured his big cock springing free of his clothes, ripe for my mouth, my pussy and anywhere else he chooses to put it.
“Honey?”
Once again I shake off the sexual stupor and force myself to meet his gaze. If thinking about sex with him gets me this hot, I can’t imagine what the actual deed might entail.
“Are you coming?”
Even though Lauren had assured me he wouldn’t say no, I’m still insecure enough to be surprised that he accepted my offer. Oh my God, I’m really going to have sex with Blake Dempsey. Resting a hand on his sculpted chest, I say, “Oh yeah, I’ll be coming, and so will you, big boy.” The cocky statement, exactly what he expects from me, covers the quaking going on inside.
A throbbing pulse in his chiseled jaw is the only sign of emotion in his otherwise blank expression as he takes me by the hand and heads for the door.
Mindless of the prying eyes of the other customers, I scramble to keep up with his long-legged stride.
“Where’s your car?” he asks when we’re outside in the fading sunlight.
Heat from the long summer day rolls off the blacktop in scorching waves, but I shiver from the almost predatory way he looks at me. “There.” I point to my tiny silver car with the decal on the side hawking my photo studio.
“I’ll wait for you.” He drops my hand and stalks to his big black truck with his own company emblem on the side. His long strides eat up the pavement. I watch him go, fascinated, by the way his jeans hug his muscular ass. I can’t wait to see if his ass looks as good naked as it does in denim. Who am I kidding? It’ll look even better.
I order my quivering legs to move. They finally get the message, and I rush to my car, managing to drop my keys in the dusty dirt parking lot. I bend to get them and am scorched by awareness. As I stand up, I venture a glance at his truck and find him watching me intently, his entire focus on my ass. The quaking begins anew as I get into the car and fumble some more with the keys before managing to get the car started. At this rate, I’ll need an insane asylum before I ever get what I want from Blake.
His truck leaves a cloud of dust in its wake as he pulls out of the parking lot onto Highway 90, heading out of downtown Marfa, Texas. The sun is a ball of fire in the sky as I follow him at a safe distance. The last thing I need is to smash into his back end because I’m such a nervous fool. It’s not like I’ve never come on to a guy before. I have. Too many times, but this guy has always been so remote and off-limits that it took all my courage to walk into that bar and say the line that Lauren and I rehearsed until I got it just right. My hands are trembling and sweaty as I reach for my phone.
“What’d he say?” Lauren asks when she picks up on the first ring.
“I’m following him home.”
“To his house?”
“Yes.”
“This is huge! He never takes women to his place.” Lauren lets out a shrill squeal. “I’m so jealous!”
Instantly alarmed, I swerve before I right the car. “You said you didn’t care!” I can’t lose Lauren, the closest thing to family I have left. “I’ll call it off right now if you don’t want me to go with him.”
“I’m not jealous about him. I’m jealous that you get to be with The Cock.”
I swallow hard. “It can’t be that different from all the others.”
Lauren’s dirty chuckle comes through the phone. “Oh, Honey. . . You have no idea what you’re in for. Tomorrow, when you’re walking bow-legged, remember I told you so.”
A bead of sweat slides down my backbone. Propping the phone between my ear and shoulder, I turn the AC on high and follow the black truck as it hangs a left onto Antelope Hills Road. “You always did exaggerate, Lo.”
Lauren snorts with laughter. “You’ll know soon enough that I’m not exaggerating. Call me in the morning. I want every, single detail. In fact, if you could take notes, that’d be great.”
“Shut up.”
“Honey. . .”
The unusual seriousness in Lauren’s voice has me immediately on guard. “What?”
“Ever since your Gran died, you’ve been looking for a place to call home again. It’s not going to be with him. No matter what happens, don’t forget that. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
Blake’s story is well known around town. He blames himself for the car accident our senior year of high school that had claimed the life of his girlfriend, Jordan Pullman, who’d also been a friend of mine and Lauren’s. The loss of Jordan had rocked our entire class, but no one more so than Blake. Even after the police ruled that the accident was the fault of the other driver, Blake continued to blame himself. He’d kept his distance from people—especially women—ever since, throwing his considerable energy into his business. Occasionally, he took a lover, but he never kept her for long.
My story is equally well known. Abandoned at the church when I was days old, Nora Carmichael, who’d never married, took me in and raised me as her own. Because Nora was in her early sixties when I came to live with her, I always called her “Gran.” She died ten years ago when I was only twenty, leaving me to fend for myself in an unforgiving world. I’ve done okay, all things considered, but it’s been a struggle.
“Call me in the morning?” Lauren says.
“I will.”
“Remember: Only sex.”
“I gotcha.”
“Did you use the ‘I want you to fuck me’ line?” Lauren asks. We’d debated a number of ice-breaking lines and had settled on the most direct of the many choices.
“Sure did.”
“I need to try that one on Garrett.”
Poor Lauren has been lusting for years after Garrett McKinley, accountant to Blake’s company and most of the other businesses in town. “What’s stopping you?”
“Um, only the fact that he thinks I’m a brainless floozy.”
“You’re neither brainless nor a floozy. Look at what a booming business you’ve made of the flower shop. How can he think you’re brainless?”
“Maybe because I act that way any time he’s in the same zip code as me?”
“I still say you should hire him to do your books. Then he’ll find out how full of brains you really are.”
“Not happening. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.”
I watch Blake pull into a driveway a block in front of me. The door on a two-car garage goes up and Blake pulls in. “I gotta go. We’re at his house.”
“Just sex,” Lauren says one more time.
“I heard you the first ten times. Bye, Lo.” Ending the call, I repeat Lauren’s refrain. “Just sex.” The last place in the world I’m going
to find my home is in the arms of the most remote man I know. Determined to take this one night, and only this one night, with him and “The Cock”—a thought that makes me giggle nervously—I follow Blake’s hand signal to pull into the empty half of the two-car garage.
By the time I make it out of my car and into the laundry room that adjoins the garage, he’s removed his work boots and stripped down to boxer briefs that hug his tight ass.
I stare at the muscles on his back that taper down to that most excellent butt—and wonder if we’re going to get busy right here. I clear my throat to remind him I’m here.
He seems in no particular rush as he tosses his clothes into a front-loading washer, adds detergent and starts the cycle. Then, as if I’m not there, he goes into the kitchen.
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to follow him, but I do it anyway.
He hands me a piece of paper. “Tell them to send my usual and get whatever you want.”
I somehow manage to tear my gaze from the most lickable male chest and ripped abs I’ve ever seen to glance at the red and green print on the paper. I recognize the logo of Pizza Foundation. “They don’t deliver.”
“They do for me. I pay extra.”
“I’m not hungry.”
He shoots me a meaningful look. “I worked all day, and if I’m going to be expected to work all night, too, I need fuel—and so do you.”
A burst of heat creeps from my chest to my face as the implications of his statement settle on me. All night. Whoa.
“Make the call. I’m going to grab a shower. There’re drinks in the fridge. Help yourself.”
For a long moment after he leaves the room, I stand motionless in the middle of a nicer-than-expected kitchen. What the hell am I doing here? Did I really go to the bar Blake Dempsey frequents and ask him to fuck me? “You’ve lost what’s left of your mind.”
I could cut my losses and leave while he’s in the shower. Sure, the few times a year that I run into Blake at the grocery store or post office or at the home of a mutual friend would be awkward from now on, but I can live with that if it means saving some face.
My cell phone chimes with a new text message that jostles me out of my temporary paralysis. Digging into my purse, I pull out my phone. From Lauren: No matter what, don’t chicken out. You’ll be sorry forever if you do. Trust me on that!
As always, Lauren’s timing is impeccable. Sucking in a deep breath and releasing it, I call in the pizza order and then take a beer from the fridge. If there’s ever been a time for liquid courage, this is surely it.
SEX MACHINE, coming September 26, 2016.
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About the Author
Marie Force is the New York Times bestselling author of 50 contemporary romance novels, including the Gansett Island Series, which has sold more than 2.3 million books, and the Fatal Series from Harlequin Books, which has sold more than 1.2 million books. In addition, she is the author of the Green Mountain Series as well as the new erotic romance Quantum Series, written under the slightly modified name of M.S. Force. All together, her books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide!
Her goals in life are simple—to finish raising two happy, healthy, productive young adults, to keep writing books for as long as she possibly can and to never be on a flight that makes the news.
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