Vice

by L. M. Pruitt

  “Careful there—keep talking like that and somebody is going to think you’re a real farmer and not just playing at being one.” I moved past him in to the bar, jumping and yelping when he smacked my ass again. Shooting him a glare over my shoulder, I said, “Keep that up and I’m going to make you kiss it.”

  “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Jeannie Jackson.” He stuffed the takeout box in my purse and slung it over one shoulder before scooping me up, Scarlett O’Hara style. “Sorry, darlin’, but I’d like to get upstairs and inside you sooner rather than later.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with the idea but you’ll forgive me for being a little nervous hanging upside down like this.” To ease some of those nerves threatening to tie my stomach in knots, I took a deep breath and focused my gaze on something more pleasant. Like the glint of the barbell in his cock in the dim hall light. “Do you always wear that?”

  “Since I don’t want to go through the trouble if having it repierced because the hole closed up... yeah.”

  “I meant that particular piece of jewelry.”

  “I can change it out but I’m not a big fan of hoops, at least on myself.” He gave my ass an absent, almost affectionate pat when we reached the landing outside of his apartment, fumbling in his pocket for the keys. “Besides, I’m under the distinct impression you’re a fan of the barbell.”

  “I am.” Which might have been the understatement of the year. I’d had more orgasms thanks to that little piece of jewelry than the last vibrator I’d owned. Not that I would ever tell him that—he already had way too much power in that particular arena. “I was just curious.”

  “If you’re already starting your Christmas shopping, I should tell you what I’d really prefer is a new keg system for the bar.” He nudged the door open with his foot, taking a few steps inside before setting me down and kicking the door shut. Dropping my purse on the floor, he started unbuttoning his shirt. “Still, I know that’s somewhat on the expensive side, so if you’d rather go with a pair of socks that light up or something, I understand. Why aren’t you naked yet?”

  “Oh, gosh, forgive me for taking a moment to get my bearings back.” I shook my hair out of my face even as I reached behind and started unzipping my dress. “Besides, you’re wearing a fair amount of clothing yourself.”

  “Yeah, but I’m working on getting mine off.” He shrugged out of his shirt, toeing off his shoes at the same time. “And I have more to remove. All you have on is the dress.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I slid my arms free of the dress and pulled it forward, holding the gaping bodice against my torso. Cocking my head, I said, “Wanna bet?”

  “Uh....” He trailed off, pausing in the middle of pulling his belt free from his pants. Sucking his lower lip between his teeth, he chewed on it for a moment before saying, “What do I get if I’m right?”

  “My ass.” I laughed when he swallowed hard. “Now. Today.”

  “And if I’m wrong?”

  “You’ll have to wait for my ass.” I smiled. “So which one is it? Am I naked under this dress or not?”

  He stared for long, long minutes, the clock in the corner ticking off the seconds in an almost ominous tone. Finally, he said, “You’re not wearing anything. I would have noticed by now. Hell, as often as I’ve had my hands on you today, I would have felt it.”

  “Oh, honey.” I sighed and shook my head, letting the dress drop to the floor. “I was really hoping you were right.”

  “So was I.” He took a step forward, nearly tripping over the hem of his pants in the process. “Jesus, Jeannie. I didn’t think it was possible you could look better with clothes on than off but fuck me if I’m not wrong.”

  “I’m going to take that as the compliment you were aiming for and not an insult.” I stepped out of the dress, leaning back against the island counter dominating his kitchen space. Crossing my legs at the ankles, I said, “So I assume you like it?”

  “It” was something I’d had my eye on for a while but I hadn’t bought because it wasn’t the type of lingerie you wore to fuck men whose names you couldn’t be bothered to remember. Then again, I’d never been a huge fan of lingerie in general, mostly because I operated under the principal that it was ridiculous to dress up only to rip the clothes off. Still, if he was going to react this way every time I wore something even a little risqué from Victoria’s Secret, I’d have to look at buying more.

  “Uh, yes.” He shoved his pants off, moving forward and caging me against the counter. “Tell me you haven’t had that all this time and you’re just not breaking it out.”

  “First, ‘all this time’ has been less than a week, so don’t act as if I’ve been holding out on you.” I laughed when he scooped me up and deposited me on the counter, pushing my knees apart and stepping between them. “Second, I bought this in Savannah. I figured you’d earned a reward of sorts and thought you’d approve of this as one.”

  “To borrow your format but flip it around some, first—yeah, I definitely approve.” He stroked his hands up my thighs, pressing his thumbs in to my hipbones, his fingers flirting with the lace and mesh edging of my camisole. “And second, ‘all this time’ might be less than a week for you but it’s been a helluva lot longer for me.”

  “Abraham.” I leaned forward, framing his face with my hands and brushing my lips over his. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

  “I should but I get you’re not ready to hear them and if I’m being honest I’m probably not all that ready to say them, either.” He eased his hands under the camisole, his fingertips grazing the curve of my breasts. “But damn if I don’t feel some sort of way every time I’m with you, Jeannie Jackson.”

  “You’re such a sweet talker, Mr. Hansom.” It was the coward’s way, I knew, to say the one thing which would have him shifting from unstable ground to something a little more solid. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I pulled him closer and said, “Take me to bed, Abraham.”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Jeannie Jackson.” He banded one arm around my torso and took a step back, supporting my ass with his other hand as he lifted me off the counter. Turning toward the sleeping area, he said, “The only reason I’m doing what you asked is because you asked so nicely.”

  “And I didn’t even say ‘please’.” I pressed a light kiss to his temple, directly over his eyebrow piercing, and another to his cheekbone. I dropped a third and a fourth on the matching dimples on either side of his mouth before finally taking his lips in a long, slow kiss which had him tightening his grip on me even as something deep inside me trembled. Drawing back, I murmured, “Please, Abraham. Take me to bed now.”

  “Jeannie.” He sighed, lowering us to the mattress, pressing his long, lean frame against mine. Planting his elbows on either side of my head, he nuzzled the curve of my neck, making a deep sound in the back of his throat which might have been satisfaction. “I couldn’t tell you ‘no’ even if I wanted to.”

  Because I was starting to get the impression I couldn’t tell him ‘no’ either, I didn’t tease him. Instead, I helped him pull the camisole off, tossing it to the floor before threading my fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly. “Would you say I was a good girl for the last couple of hours?”

  “I’d say you were an excellent girl.” He dragged his teeth down my neck, nipping at my shoulder. “I’m thinking you have a specific reward in mind.”

  “I would really enjoy it if....” I trailed off as he slid down my torso, taking one nipple in his mouth and sucking just hard enough to tie my stomach in knots. “Sorry. Lost my train of thought.”

  “No worries.” He treated my other nipple to the same attention before continuing his downward journey, pausing to flick his tongue around my belly button. “Pretty sure I know what you wanted to ask for.”

  He settled between my thighs, spreading them wide with his shoulders as he pressed a soft, almost chaste kiss to the smooth skin directly above my clit. He slid
two fingers over my cunt, spreading the wetness around before using those same two fingers to open the folds gently. His mouth was close enough that when he sighed, long and deep, the pressure of his breath brought up goosebumps on my skin. “I ever tell you how pretty your pussy is?”

  “Uh, no.” And for some reason the idea of him down there, having an opinion one way or another on the attractiveness of my most private parts was more than a little disconcerting. Raking my fingers through his hair, I said, “Abraham, not to be rude, but there are better things you could be doing with your mouth than complimenting me.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” He gave me one long lick before looking up at me, his eyes darkening. “Might want to hold on to something.”

  I snorted. “Why would I—.”

  I didn’t even get a chance to finish the question. Between one breath and the next, he drove three fingers inside my cunt, pressing them against my G-spot with almost brutal force. At the same time, he took my clit between his teeth, tapping his tongue piercing against the hard little bundle of nerves.

  I might have died. I’m almost certain I stopped breathing for a minute so I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out my heart had simply given up on me, too. It seems ridiculous to call the explosion that ripped me apart and tore me inside out something as mundane as an ‘orgasm’ but if I was being technical, that’s what it was.

  And yet... and yet.

  Before I came down all the way, before my body had a chance to even being to knit itself back together, he used those fingers and that tongue to drive me up again, wrenching a sobbing gasp from me, and I realized the first orgasm hadn’t broken me nearly as much as I thought it had. If it had, the second one wouldn’t have been as devastating. It wouldn’t have caused tears to fill my eyes and spill down my cheeks and I would have been able to breathe and I wouldn’t have considered the possibility that I needed this—needed him—for the rest of my life and not having either of those things wasn’t something I could accept. I was far gone enough I didn’t register him moving up my body until he was covering my face with butterfly kisses, murmuring soothing, nonsense words under his breath.

  “Shh, Jeannie.” He brushed my hair back from my sweat-dampened forehead, kissing my temple. “Take a deep breath. It’s all the buildup from the edging. It’s endorphins.”

  “I need—.” I broke off, biting my tongue to hold back the words. Nobody else in the world would have held me to what I said in the middle of the kind of sex people fought wars over but Abraham would. And I was aware enough to know I was dangerously close to saying the sort of things which would complicate things even worse than they already were. Swallowing hard, I whispered, “Please.”

  “I told you already—I can’t tell you ‘no’.” He reached down, grasping my thighs and hooking them around his waist, canting my hips upward and easing his cock inside me in a single slow push. Pressing his forehead to mine, he whispered, “I wish I could, because I’m almost certain you’re gonna break my heart, but I can’t. I just can’t.”

  I didn’t tell him there was a good chance he was going to break my heart, too.

  But some part of me knew it was the truth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Tell me something.”

  “Hmm?” I rolled over, draping my leg across his and cuddling against him. I’d never been a fan of post-sex cuddling and yet, here I was, wrapped around him like ivy. “What?”

  “I guess I should have been more specific.” He stroked a hand down my back, twirling a tangled lock of hair around one finger. “You went to University of Georgia on scholarship, right? Got a degree in journalism?”

  “And creative writing.” Even knowing I should get up and get dressed and have him drive me home so I could start the final push toward moving day, I was too comfortable to give the idea any serious thought. “Why?”

  “You studied literature, right? Like poems and stuff?”

  “Took a few classes.” I tilted my head back until I could see his face. “Again, why?”

  “Tell me some poetry. Or a quote. Something you remember from some classes.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Tell me something about Jeannie Jackson.”

  I could have said I didn’t remember anything. I’d been out of school long enough it would have been a believable lie. Instead, I said, “‘If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.’” I kissed his chin. “Oscar Wilde. Not poetry but literature.”

  “I don’t know. Sounded more than a little poetic to me.”

  Silence settled around us and I rested my head on his shoulder, strangely comforted by the steady beat of his heart. I was minutes away, seconds maybe, from falling asleep when he said, “I have to have dinner with my parents on Sunday.”

  “I’m sorry.” And knowing what I did now about his childhood, I was. “Do you want to come over to the house when you’re finished? Between moving and school starting I’m sure we’re all going to be running around like chickens with our heads cut off but if you want a distraction—.”

  “I want you to come with me. You and the kids.”

  “What?” If he’d told me he murdered people as a hobby and had the bodies buried in one of his fields, I would have been less shocked. I sat up, raking my hair back in to a ponytail and securing it with the ever-present hair tie I kept around my wrist. “Abraham, you can’t be serious.”

  “And yet I am.” He sat up, scooting backward until he was able to brace his back against the headboard. Drawing his knees up, he propped his chin on them, somehow managing to not look ridiculous in the child-like position. “I don’t want to go, Jeannie. I haven’t wanted anything to do with my parents for years. But you know this town. You know how people are. Hell, you heard what the pastor’s wife said last week.”

  “Yeah, she called you a ‘prodigal’, which kind of begs the question as to why she’d refer to you that way.”

  “I’m not big on religion.”

  “So why were you at church?”

  “Because I felt like talking to God.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t big on religion.”

  “You can believe in God without believing in religion. They’re not the same thing.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed. “It’s stupid but I felt I should go and tell Him or Her or Whoever ‘thank you’. Because you were back in town and you’d walked in to my bar and you’d gone to bed with me.”

  I stared at him, too stunned for words. Finally, I managed to croak out, “Abraham, I—.”

  “I know—too much.” He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and heaved the sort of sigh which sounded as if it came from his very soul. “You left Cotton Creek and left everything and everyone behind, which I can understand because this town is judgmental as fuck.” He dropped his hands to the bed, tilting his head back against the wall and staring at the ceiling. “And I stayed and never got over the girl who taught me geometry.”

  “Abraham.” I paused, torn between saying too much and not enough and honestly not even knowing which one would be worse. In the end, I simply said, “I’m trying.”

  “I know.” He reached over and palmed the nape of my neck, pulling me forward until we were nose to nose. He took my mouth in a short, harsh kiss before drawing back and saying, “Try harder, Jeannie Jackson.”

  We sat like that for a moment, a breath away from each other, before he straightened, his hand slipping down my torso to rest on my thigh. Giving me a quick squeeze, he said, “Come on. It’s already after three. I need to take you home and run back and grab a shower before opening up downstairs.”

  WE WERE QUIET on the drive back to town, the radio filling what would otherwise have been an awkward silence. I couldn’t put a finger on why I felt uncomfortable but it was there, like an itchiness under the skin I couldn’t quite scratch. When he pulled in behind my car, he cleared his throat and said, “Listen, if you don’t—.”

  “Tammy is going to insist on going to churc
h before we do anything else on Sunday. Unlike you, she’s a huge fan of religion and apparently feels as if everybody in her circle should be, too.” I unfastened my seatbelt, keeping my gaze on the floorboard as I collected my purse, slipping my shoes back on. “So you can either come with us or you can pick us up from the house afterward or—.”

  “Service starts at nine but if you’re not there by eight forty-five, you’re late.” He reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, trailing a fingertip down my jawline. “So I’ll pick you guys up at eight-thirty.”

  “Okay.” I leaned over, pressing my lips against his for the briefest of moments. Drawing back, I said, “I’ll see you Sunday.”

  “Do you want my help moving anything on Saturday?”

  “No, the movers should take care of everything.” I pushed the door open, exiting the car on legs which were shaky for some reason. Turning around, I leaned in and said, “We never did get to those strawberries.”

  “Some other time.” His smile was lazy and easy but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. Not really. “Call me tomorrow, Jeannie Jackson.”

  “I’ll think about it.” I straightened and closed the door, heading for the trailer only to stop and lean against my car, watching him pull away. No sooner had the echo of the purr of his engine faded away than another car pulled up, this one so bright and shiny and white I was almost blinded even though the sun was stuck behind a bank of clouds. When the driver side door opened and Beth Barnes Bailey popped out, looking as cool and fresh as a glass of lemonade, I bit back a sigh and forced a smile. “Hello, Beth.”

  “I know, it looks as if I’m stalking you or something but I swear I was already on my way out here and then when I saw Abraham’s car... well, I wanted to give you a little bit of privacy.” If she seemed put off by my appearance which, despite my best efforts, screamed ‘I spent the afternoon doing sexually deviant things’, it didn’t show on her face. Instead, she looked positively ecstatic to see me. Picking her way through the loose gravel which served as a parking space, she stopped a foot or so away from me, clapping her hands together and beaming. “First, I want to say the house looks amazing. It hasn’t looked so good in years.”