by Tessa Bailey
Surprise gave way to lust right before his eyes, though, like a cloud passing over the sun. And she obeyed orders, his Rita. Fuck, did she ever obey. That raspy hum in the back of her throat was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, but the suction from her mouth? A fucking revelation. Jasper’s heels dug into the wooden floor, his fingers beginning to ache from being curled so tightly in her hair. If there was a dose of wrongness to having Rita service him from her knees in his place of business, that only served to harden him more at this point. He was gone. Gone for that pouty, torturous little mouth of hers.
“Keep your hands busy,” Jasper half shouted straight up at the ceiling. “Jerk me off. I can’t stand the fucking ache anymore.” His thigh muscles were shaking, straining, loosening, tightening, the agony only increasing when Rita fisted his base and stroked in quick, up-and-down motions. “I’ve wanted that mouth. Wanted to slide inside and feel your tongue along the underside and it’s better, so much goddamn better than I thought. If you love it, purr for me, let me feel…fuck, Rita.”
Jasper’s lower back was starting to twist, telegraphing the point of no return. A decision needed to be made soon, or he would bathe that purring throat with his seed. Rita showed no signs of slowing, though, her hair tangling on his thighs as she lowered her mouth, again, again, again.
“Rita, stop. Stop and talk to me.” He wound Rita’s hair around his fists and drew her away, groaning curses at the loss. And, Jesus, her lust-dazed expression, those puffy, parted lips, almost had him thrusting back into her mouth to finish himself off, but he resisted, beating himself off with tight, slow strokes instead. “Better climb up here now if you want to fuck. Another minute in that mouth and I’ll be begging you to swallow for me.”
With Jasper’s words hanging in the air, Rita rose to her feet, both sets of their hands attacking the zipper of her shorts, knocking into one another. The imminent reality of fucking Rita made him frantic, had him ripping the green shirt over her head, tugging her bra low, then racing back down to assist with her shorts.
“God, Rita. Your tits.” He leaned forward to suck one attention-seeking bud into his mouth, pulling back to flick his tongue against it. “You want something done to those pretty babies while I’m giving you this cock, I want to hear about it. Understand? If you want them sucked or smacked or spat on, you speak up.” He palmed her breasts, holding the nipples in place so he could rake his tongue from one peak, over to the next. “I’m going to lose my mind when I’m sunk between your legs, but don’t let me forget about these.”
Slipping into this old skin should have been smoother, but for once, the currents of desire weren’t simply below his belt. They were moving in pulsing waves through his chest, through the pounding organ that seemed to be typing Rita’s name in Morse code. No, there was nothing smooth about diving off a cliff with only a slim chance of survival, but the fall—Jesus, the fall would blow his mind, wouldn’t it?
Jasper pushed Rita’s shorts down her legs, his mouth racing across her stomach, attacking her hips, inhaling, inhaling. Memorizing every whimper, every scrape of his teeth that made her body writhe. He sensed her continually renewed surprise every time he found a new erogenous zone. Deep in her belly button, in the crease between her thigh and pussy. And it stoned him, turned him into a fuck-drunk fiend. Goddamn, how would she react when his dick was finally sliding in and out? Would she expect it to be so good? Or would her lips part in amazement, the way they were doing now? Again and again. Because, hell, if she kept up that innocent shock when they got to the main event, he’d have to close his eyes to prevent coming after one pump.
“I’m getting the feeling”—Jasper jerked Rita’s panties down to midthigh before trailing his fingers up the inside of her right leg, toward her pussy—“that you haven’t been properly seen to, beautiful. We’re going to change that.”
“How?” she breathed, sounding anxious.
Jasper stood, bringing their faces close together so he could watch Rita’s eyes. Then he pushed his middle finger into her damp pussy, moaning at the way she flexed around him, the way her gaze went blind. “You let me worry about how. You just worry about taking my cock into this tight little sweetheart. How does that sound?”
If he hadn’t been so focused on Rita’s reactions, her eyes, he might have missed the battle playing out. Being the shot-caller in bed came naturally to him; it wasn’t something he had to think about. But with him and Rita on such shaky footing, maybe he should have. Before he could kiss her back onto his side, Rita evaded his mouth, sucking in a gulping breath. She shook her hips, sending the panties gliding down her legs to the floor, before turning around, presenting her upturned backside, and planting both hands on the desk. “I want you like this,” she husked over her shoulder.
“Do you.” Those currents traveling through Jasper’s chest hit a speed bump, lancing him with something akin to pain. Over the last couple days, he’d imagined fucking Rita a multitude of ways, but she’d always been facing him. Their mouths had always been fastened together whether he had her up against the wall or tangled up in the sheets of his bed. This was how she planned to slay him, then.
Keeping it—impersonal.
Unfortunately, being aware of her plan did nothing to lessen the rigidity of his cock or make him any less out-of-his-mind starved for her. Not when her back was arched just enough to give him perfect access to that sweet, pink pussy, from which the dew still slicked his middle finger. Already he was fisting his distended flesh, preparing to smack it against her backside, just a few times, before sinking in up to his aching balls. Lord, she was squirming for it, too. Wanted it down and dirty—and he wanted to satisfy that need. There might have even been a sick part of Jasper that wanted Rita to have a hard time keeping up with his bruising pace, wanted her to wish she’d opted to make love with him in his bed instead of bending over his desk and taking it while his balls slapped the front drawer.
All these thoughts passed in a matter of seconds, but it was long enough for Rita to turn her head and send him a self-conscious—albeit breathless—glance. “Jasper…”
He yanked open the side drawer of his desk, pushing papers aside until he found a condom, rolling it to the root of his dick in seconds. “You keep on saying my name like that while you spread your legs, beautiful.” He put a palm flat on Rita’s back, pushing her face down on the desk. “Welcome to show-and-tell. You’re going to slide those sexy legs apart and show me where I’ll have the privilege of putting this hungry cock. And I’ll tell you to spread them wider.”
Rita’s back started to rise and fall in rapid shudders beneath his hand, but she followed his instructions, feet shuffling wider on the wooden floor. Jasper’s own breathing grew erratic, sweat dampening his forehead. He whipped off his T-shirt, resentful of even the split second when his shirt blocked Rita from his view.
“I’m going to finger you. Want to make sure you’re a wet girl for me,” Jasper rasped, acting out his words with a sharp curse. “Dripping, ain’t you? And that’s real good, because the next thing you’ll feel is my fuck. The only thing you ever need to feel.” He smacked his flesh against the underside of her cheeks. “Hang on to the edge.”
Rita’s hands scrambled for purchase a second before Jasper pushed his dick inside her hot recess, inch by painstaking inch, guiding his girth with a hand. His uneven bellow was unrecognizable, colliding with Rita’s muffled scream in the still office. He was forced to rear back and slam forward to stretch her for those final couple inches, lifting Rita’s feet off the ground with the force of it. “Oh…holy shit,” she cried out. “Oh my God. Oh my fucking—”
“My name isn’t hard to remember, Rita. Use it.”
“Jasper. Jasper. Don’t move…okay, move. Move.”
As if an apocalypse could convince him to pull out now. She was so tight he could feel the sensation in his throat. Wrong. He’d been wrong. There was nothing down and dirty about this. The act, his words, might tell one tale, but his head and soul h
eard another. Jasper fell forward and planted a kiss in the center of Rita’s spine, trailing his mouth up to her neck for a rough love bite. And then there was nothing but sweaty fucking. He slid his arms beneath Rita’s shoulders, curling them around her for leverage. To prevent her from moving, escaping his pounding hips. The desk groaned, protesting the animalistic mating taking place on its surface, but Jasper registered the sound with only dim recognition, because there was only Rita and the perfect, pliant, welcome of her body.
“Fuck, I would love to see myself pumping into you from behind. Love to see you on tiptoes taking it like the devil intended.” He released one of Rita’s shoulders in favor of fisting her hair. “I’m dripping sweat onto your ass, beautiful. Watching it roll down between those jiggling cheeks. What do you think of that?”
“I like it,” she heaved out, pressing her ass up against his belly even higher. “More. I want it.”
Jasper jerked her head to the side, sliding bared teeth over her exposed shoulder, up the column of her neck. “How are your tits? Do they need anything from me? I could flip you over and suck them for a while.”
“No,” she screamed. “Don’t…please. Don’t stop.”
“Who said anything about stopping?” His drives became wild, relentless, the sound of his balls hitting wood and wet flesh, picking up rhythm. “I’d just throw one of these legs over, spin you right around on that cock you’re enjoying so much.” His teeth snagged her earlobe and pulled. “Flexible as fuck, aren’t you? I know what kind of body I’ve got beneath me. I know what you can take, so don’t question me.”
His hand twisted the strands of her hair until she agreed. “Okay. I won’t.”
Jasper’s eyelids drooped, his lower back muscles going tight. On top of Rita having the wettest, most constricting pussy he could have dreamed up, hearing her submit had pushed him too far. It was only a matter of a minute before his come filled the condom and yeah—fuck, yeah—there was a beast raging inside him to lose the latex and ride out his orgasm bareback. An impulse he’d never experienced in his lifetime. It took an actual, concerted effort to check the urge. “Rita, Rita, Rita. You’re strangling the fuck out of me.” He let go of her hair in favor of throwing one of her knees onto the desk, finding an angle that would drive her over the edge. And then he used the same hand to grip her throat, with only the barest hint of mercy. “Forget the air, Rita. You only need me to breathe.”
She splintered apart around him, screaming into the desk surface, her pussy twisting like a vise around his dick. Turning him into a pounding wild man, his hips jerking forward without a single command from his brain. He never released his hold on her throat, knowing instinctively her orgasm would reach another level if he kept up the pressure. Pressure. Everything. Zigzagging up and down his spine, filling his balls until he was speaking unintelligible words into the space above her violently shaking body.
“Ahhh, Christ, beautiful. Keep your ass up for me, take my come.” He fell forward onto her back, sliding in their mutual perspiration, his hips moving as if detached from his body. Pistoning. Humping in broken patterns, like he’d never been inside a woman before. Like he only knew the pleasure of driving his dick home and couldn’t stop indulging. Indulging. “Push up on your toes and spread. Wider. Wide enough to question your morals later when you look in the mirror.” An involuntary snarl left him. “You’re going to take all of it. You and this gorgeous cunt.”
He watched through hazy vision as her knuckles turned white on the desk’s edge, felt her bottom lift against his belly—and lost his grip on reality. The room faded to black around him, or he might have lost consciousness, his body draining of tension, pleasure wrapping around his gut like slowly fading fog. It wasn’t the two years of abstaining making his reaction so fierce, so all consuming. Rita. It was Rita. It was so obvious in the way his heart tried to rip through his chest, the way he gathered her up like a greedy man, coveting, holding on to a life raft in a storm.
“Rita, oh God. Rita.” They deflated onto the desk, every inch of their bodies molded together in an arch to accommodate the bent-over position. Jasper burrowed his face into the curve of her neck, positive he would never breathe normally again. Or eat or sleep or talk normally. Ever again. An intense urgency still existed inside him, despite his body’s utterly sated state. It had something to do with her choppy breathing, his weight pressing her down. Was she comfortable? Had he been too rough? What happened now? She probably needed something from him, and he had no experience making a woman feel cared for after sex. They usually just took care of themselves, but he couldn’t allow that to be the case with Rita. God, he was desperate for the chance to care for her.
Jasper opened his mouth to speak, but stopped when he noticed her knuckles were still white where they gripped the desk. Which led to a whole slew of noticing. Tension crept back into her body beneath him, her breath slowing and eventually stopping altogether. Distance yawned between them, two sides of fertile earth cracking apart with the force of an earthquake. It was like watching his own personal nightmare play out on a movie screen.
“Rita,” he tried, hoarsely. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Her fingers straightened, flexed, her flattened palms sliding back toward her sides. “What could be wrong?” The sound of her clearing her throat was gentle, guarded. “That was…wow. The best I’ve ever had.”
A hardball hit him square in the stomach. “Good to know.”
“Yeah.” Rita pushed upward, forcing Jasper to lift off of her, easing from the heat of her body and stepping back to watch her with caution.
She was a goddamn sight, flushed from their rigorous session, the fading sheen of sweat making her fresh and dewy. But all Jasper could see was the way her hand lifted, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. The polite, impersonal, How-soon-can-I-leave smile she cast in his direction. And he might have just slipped right into uncharted territory in Pissed-Off Land. The shame, the anger, the denial over acting the available stud—it accumulated, starting in his fingertips, encompassing his entire being in a matter of seconds. Zero to one hundred and fifty.
Best she’d ever had. Nothing about him as a man. Only his skill. Worse, Rita might have initiated the impersonal romp, but instead of correcting the balance between them, he’d followed through and proven himself the good fuck with no strings attached everyone knew him to be. Maybe they’d been right all along.
“Go,” he managed to say, pushing the single syllable through stiff lips, replacing his cock inside his jeans with brisk movements.
Rita paused in the act of buttoning her shorts. “What?”
“Go.” Self-preservation was a powerful thing, it turned out. More powerful than the voice shouting at him to hold her, to not allow her to leave. Because that was exactly what Rita was preparing to do. Fuck him and run. Just like the rest of them, only this time he wouldn’t remain standing so easily. He could not—would not—beg and watch her leave anyway. It would kill him. So he would do the opposite. Maybe it would be the difference between folding and staying upright. “Go on. You got what was coming to you. Sorry I made you wait a couple days.” Making sure to look her square in the eye so she could see how she’d fucking wrecked him, Jasper strode to the door and threw it open. “Get out.”
Rita flinched like she’d been slapped, but somehow Jasper still sensed a lack of surprise over his reaction as she hurried through fixing her askew bra, tugging the shirt over her head. When her arm went through the head hole and she was forced to try again, a sob wrenched from her mouth, fingers tangling in their haste to correct the garment. Without thinking, Jasper lunged toward Rita a giant step, reaching out to assist her, but she was already past him.
“I didn’t…this wasn’t me. Or-or you,” Rita said at the door, turning slightly, fist pressed to her mouth. “Someday someone will stay afterward. I promise.”
Jasper swore he could hear every single footstep she took from his bar to the motel. Counted them off like they were the remaining sec
onds of a game where his life was at stake. And when the buzzer went off, he’d lost.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rita was well acquainted with walks of shame. And she didn’t consider taking public transportation home from a man’s house—in last night’s clothes—shameful. No, this half-jog down the dusty main drag through Hurley was the epitome of shame. Passersby slowed in their cars¸ some even rolling down their windows to inquire if she needed assistance, to which she could only manage a tight head shake. With each step, her feet slid up and back on the soles of her boots, almost as if she’d shrunk with the overpowering self-disgust. Up ahead, the car-repair garage grew larger, and that’s where she headed, desperate for the Suburban to be ready so they could get the hell out of Dodge.
I am pond scum.
Jasper’s hoarse command for her to leave replayed over and over, making her trip on the sidewalk. God. What had she done? Maybe if the cooking demonstration hadn’t been so damn long, if she’d just found a way to stop the smoke and memories from crowding out logic, she wouldn’t have behaved like such a fantastic tool. But the simple act of cooking again had been too big a reminder of everything she’d left behind. Everything had been too big, too encroaching, and eventually the need to sever ties with the whole situation—including Jasper—had taken hold. How dare he foist the past on her when he didn’t understand it? No one did. With that sentiment ringing in her mind, she’d used the only weapon she had against him. Sex. Leaving. Treating their assignation in the office like any other depersonalized, no-strings encounter.
Sex with Jasper had been the furthest thing from depersonalized, though, hadn’t it? More like life-altering. Jasper talked a big game, and backed it up with something even better. Jasper Ellis was the god of sex. And—and—he was way, way fucking more than that. He was everything underneath the sex. An understanding, funny, caring, insightful man who’d only been attempting to break through to her.