A New Forever (9 page)

But, after the first few swats, even though they weren't the worst she'd had by now, the tears started to flow against her will. It wasn't the spanking, it was his words.

"I know I make more money than you do. And I'm not going to apologize for it. But what I have has always been yours. Even when I was your brother-in-law, I would have given you anything you needed, but I know you would never have asked. If there's anything that April's death brought home to me, more than anything else, it's that life is to be enjoyed, and that's what the money lets me—lets us—do. It's nothing more than that, and I won't let it become a bone of contention between us when all it is, is a tool that can make our lives better. And I fully intend to enjoy every single day that we have together—whether we go out to a five-hundred dollar dinner, or eat pizza in front of the TV. I like spending time with you, and I want us to pack as much into our time together as we can."

He finished his speech—throughout which he'd been smacking her briskly and smartly—by delivering a round of very hard, distinct slaps up and down what he sometimes referred to as her "playing field".

Despite the fact that she'd gotten quite a few spankings from him over the past few months, Elodie didn't think it would ever be something she'd get used to. That was partly because of the varied positions, but also because the pain was always such a surprise. Intellectually, she thought she should be able—as an adult—to just brush it off. How badly could it hurt, really? But it was easier to say that from a distance, when she was home alone in bed instead of draped over him with his hand resting possessively on her hot, well-seared butt.

What was worse, as far as she was concerned, was that what he'd said had made a lot of sense. She hated to be wrong. And since she was going to give in to him—because she preferred to be able to sit down sometime within the next week or so—she was going to feel guilty about spending his money.

That was just the way she was made.

But it was certainly nice of him to say those things. Elodie wouldn't have thought that he would be as forthcoming about his feelings. It was nice to hear a strong, capable man speaking like that about what he'd learned from his wife's death, and Elodie was flattered that he wanted to be with her. But that didn't negate the fact that their standards of living were woefully different, and she would always feel as if she was behind the eight ball financially with him.

"So I'm not going to hear anything more from you about who's paying for what, right?" Clay kept her in place, playing with a stray curl, wrapping and unwrapping it around his index finger.

Elodie was still sniffling, but she managed to say, "Yes, all right."

To her complete surprise, he didn't help her off him so that she could straighten her clothes. Instead, he turned her towards him so that she was pressed against him, cradling her in his arms and bending down to kiss her, and it literally made her toes curl. He always used just the right pressure, and was never ever a sloppy kisser. There was nothing she hated worse—or had hated when she'd had a life—than to feel like she needed to reach for a napkin when the kiss was over. Clay was perfection in every way... although she might be slightly prejudiced.

She should have been protesting the fact that she was half naked in his arms, but no words came to her head—none at all. Her mind and vision were filled with him; every breath brought the spicy, masculine scent of him into her body, bathing her with him from the inside out.

His hand came up to cup her cheek, the same one that had so recently roasted her bottom. Impulsively, Elodie turned and kissed his palm, letting the tip of her tongue touch the very center of it. She felt him shudder, and her eyes widened. It was new and interesting to realize what kind of effect she had on him. She could feel the usual ever-present railroad spike of him pressing into her hip, and she deliberately shifted against it, peeping up at him from under her lashes to see if he noticed.

Oh, he noticed all right. She could hear his breath hiss out slowly through his teeth, as if he was sinking into a tub full of hot water. That big hand reached behind her head, cupping it, bringing her up to him as his mouth slashed across hers, his tongue delving past her lips, dipping into the sweetness of her mouth and claiming it for his own.

Elodie arched against him—her body had a mind of its own, and she wanted more of him, much, much more. That big hand began to gently trail down her neck, over her collarbone to lie over her left breast.

*****

Clay could feel the hard peak of her nipple pressing against his palm, not unlike her tongue had been minutes ago. He stayed purposely still, waiting patiently, until her eyes made their way, cautiously, to his. He wanted her to watch his eyes while he touched her breasts for the first time. Her irises were a stark, liquid green, like a newly budded leaf, damp with dew from her spanking and slightly apprehensive, but not quite afraid. That was good—he didn't want her to be afraid of him. She was so tentative around him in general, although that had gotten a lot better lately; he didn't want her to be backing away from him all the time.

Especially not from this.

He would have sworn he could feel it at least as sharply as she did—if not more so. He let his fingers contract gently, trapping that tip between all of them and squeezing very, very carefully. Clay watched as her head fell back just a little, then all the way, and a long, guttural breath left her lips.

On impulse, he bent down and covered that enticing peak with his lips, breathing, damp, hot air onto her t-shirt, ensuring that, when he drew back, it would cling to her as lovingly as he intended to be doing shortly. Clay let his hands reach down to the hem of her shirt, sliding it up slowly in unison until her holey, dingy bra was revealed.

Elodie was suddenly jerked out of her reverie and made one desperate attempt to drag her shirt out of his hands, but there was no hope for it. He'd already seen the decrepit conditions of her underwear. To have him see them in their inglorious condition made her cheeks blush brighter than his lips over her nipple had.

Clay caught her eyes again—looking up from where their hands were at a stalemate in the middle of her tummy, which he was allowing for the time being. "Move your hands, Elodie honey."

She bit her lip in indecision, but her hands remained where they were.

Clay didn't want to give her the look, this was too intimate a situation to be heavy-handed and besides, overuse would diminish its power. "Elodie," he kept his voice very low, almost hypnotic, but firm and strong, "I want you to put your hands at your sides, sweetie. Do as I say."

More bitten lip, and more fear in her eyes than he wanted to see.

But Clay didn't back down. Instead, he kept his voice at the same level as before and said, "If you don't put your hands at your sides by the time I count to five, I'm going to put you over my lap again. Do you really want another spanking?"

For emphasis, he reached under her and gently squeezed one of her still warm cheeks.

He paused before saying, "One."

Another pause.

"Two."

"Three."

His eyebrow went up as he watched her closely. Clay was surprised at how stubborn she was being, but he supposed he shouldn't have been. He didn't want to spank her again, but he would.

"Four."

Elodie was about to chew her lip off, and he had arrived at "four" in a startlingly quick time. She could still feel the burning in her bottom, which he was so kindly reminding her about, and she did not want another spanking from him.

She was trying to weigh up whether or not he was likely to cut her a break and do the "four and a quarter, four and a half, four and three quarters" thing, or just go right to the spanking.

Seconds after that question—and its inevitable answer—popped into her head, she just went ahead and did it; she let go of the shirt and slowly lowered her arms to her sides, her eyes looking anywhere but into his.

"I know how hard that was for you to do. Thank you," he whispered, nibbling at her poor worried lip, teasing her, tempting her with his taste, distracting her while his hands finished what they had started.

For all her worrying, he didn't seem to notice anything about her bra, except how to quickly rid her of it. It had a front clasp, so as soon as he had the hooks undone, he used his hand under the fabric to sweep it away, all the while touching her lightly, helping her become accustomed to his hands on intimate places on her body. When she was naked there, he didn't grab at her like a teenager. He savored her like a rare, fine wine. She was wonderful shades of cream and pink, plumper than when they had first started dating but not overly so. She fit into his palm as if she'd been made for him and him alone.

Slowly, with Elodie watching his every move avidly, he bent his head to her, nosing that impudent nipple at first, mouthing it, letting his lips slide over it with no pressure, no sucking, just touching them to her and letting her involuntary moans and caught breath fill the room.

She wanted him. It was heady, heady stuff. Elodie arched her back, and Clay opened his lips over her, letting her place herself into his mouth.

His lips claimed her nipple and suckled, his tongue flowing over her engorged peak like lava over a pasture, inciting riots in every nerve ending, especially those that led between her legs. He had just begun to touch her, and she found she couldn't squeeze her thighs together hard enough to take anything off the ache he created so effortlessly. She had to shift her legs restlessly in order to tolerate the throbbing, and that rubbed her sore bottom against his rough jeans... she was caught between a hard place and a hard place—one especially hard one that was trying to press itself into the cleft of her bottom cheeks even through his jeans.

*****

Clay was sure that his cock was going to have zipper teeth marks all up and down it, underwear be damned. He tried to shift Elodie towards him a little, then sighed in exasperation. He was too damned old to be necking on the couch when there was a king-sized bed calling to him from upstairs.

Before she could protest, she was in his arms, and he was carrying her up the winding staircase. Clay placed her on the bed with great care, but Elodie was already trying to struggle out of his arms. All he did was contract his muscles a bit, though, and she wasn't going anywhere.

Elodie was struggling in earnest. "Let me go! I can't do this here!"

Clay was confused. Where the hell did she want to do it, if not on a bed? He was already too involved to think straight. "Huh?" It was barely intelligible, he was that far gone. He moved a bit away from her—but not far—and refused to let her go.

"This bed—this bed! You and April—" She was practically hysterical.

Suddenly a light went on in his head. "No, no, no. As soon as we—as I thought we might be... getting closer, I sold that bed. This is brand new." Elodie still looked skeptical, although she'd calmed down a lot. Clay drew a cross over his left breast. "Cross my heart. I can show you the receipt; I just got it less than a month ago. I would never do that to you."

He waited to see whether she accepted his words, and she seemed to. But he didn't want to just resume the same level of intimacy again, without preamble, so he stretched out on his back and gathered her to his side, hoping this was non-threatening enough that she wouldn't want to stop what they'd been doing. He pulled up his t-shirt, took her hand and put it on his flat stomach—pretty neutral ground, considering, although his erection tented his jeans by about four inches above normal.

"Touch me, Elodie," he breathed. "I crave your touch."

*****

He couldn't have said anything more perfect to encourage her to do exactly that. Elodie felt an incredible warmth burst inside her at his words. He wanted her to touch him.

That mentholated warmth mingled with the almost painful aching in her whole body, from her tingling scalp to her curling toes. She'd never wanted anything more in her life than to touch him, to mingle with him, his hair with hers, his breath on her body in the most unlikely of places, her mouth eating him up and nibbling at the tasty undercurve of his buttocks.

For the first time in her life, Elodie indulged herself in love. Her touch was truly reverent on his skin, just the barest of contact, almost tickling but not quite, as she trailed her fingertips, then spread her fingers and used her whole hand just scarcely above his skin. Sometimes touching, sometimes not, and she learned the muscular planes of his body. His chest consisted of heavy plates of muscles punctuated by small brown nipples, and covered with a very fine sheen of tight black hair. He had a concave six pack, but Elodie had no idea how he got it or maintained it, because he didn't have time to exercise. If he wasn't working, he was with her, or asleep. He'd become a little less of a type A with her around, but she'd never seen him do any exercise other than his day to day activities of running a ranch.

She was surprised at the softness of his skin, and that her touch raised gooseflesh wherever she went. His nipples were at least as hard as his penis seemed to be, judging by the front of his jeans, and suddenly, she wanted to taste him. In a blur of rushed movement, she shed his clothes, with some assistance on his part. She couldn't wait any longer.

Deliberately catching his eye, she lowered her mouth to his cock while holding his gaze the entire time. His low, growling groan when her lips settled over him was audible bliss. Elodie loved that she could do that to him—make him respond to her on such a basic level.

She hadn't done this in a very long time, but apparently it was like learning how to ride a bike. She dragged her tongue over and over the tip of his dick, then suckled as much of him into her mouth as she could and flicked it mercilessly with her tongue, listening carefully for cues from him about his likes and dislikes. It didn't seem as if she could do anything wrong, as long as she was touching him.

Elodie didn't know what she'd done, but all of a sudden he stopped responding. She reached down and began to rub his balls gently, watching and listening for any sign that he was still enjoying what she was doing, but his whole body was stiff, as if he could barely tolerate it.

"Is there something wrong?" she whispered, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

Looking startled, Clay lifted his head from the pillow. "Wrong?"

Elodie wanted to curl up in a ball in a dark corner of her apartment. "You—I—I'm sorry if I did something you didn't like—"

"No. Dear Lord, no! I can barely keep myself from—from getting beyond the point of no return, Elodie, and we've just barely started! Do you understand?"

The sinking sense of failure left immediately.

A huge platter of a hand captured hers against his chest, and she saw him swallow hard. "I want you. All of you. Every bit of you that I can get. I find I'm very greedy when it comes to you, and your touch—heck, your presence in a room from thirty feet away—gets me hard. I've lived in a state of perpetual need for the past few months. Any touch from you... I can barely control myself. I was reciting multiplication tables in my head just to try to get a handle on things."

It was the rawest, most truthful speech she'd ever heard in her life. His eyes were wide open, and she could see into his soul.

And the only thing she saw there was herself, and his need.

His love.

Elodie felt herself being rolled onto her back, and Clay followed, quickly divesting himself of the rest of his clothes and letting them land where they would on the floor, then completing what he'd started with her downstairs when he was spanking her, sweeping her pants and panties completely off and then reaching for her top. She looked up at him shyly, then. Her lower parts had been bare around him off and on for a while, but it was new to her to be completely naked, and he'd only seen her breasts once.

*****

Clay smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, but he couldn't be sure. It felt like a grimace to him, but then he was wound tightly, his throbbing erection rearing up against her thigh, seeking the warmth and slickness between them like an orphan seeking a stable home. Her shirt came off over her head, then she settled back nervously, and he was able to drink in all of her naked glory at once.

She was gorgeous, tiny perfection in his eyes—just the perfect complement to him—small and rounded where he was big and angular. His body wanted him to cover her, plunge himself inside her and take his pleasure within her. Instead, he moved as slowly as he could, keeping his eyes locked with hers, making sure he didn't alarm her in any way as he nudged her legs open and lay gingerly between them, unable to control a blissful sigh as his errant penis settled between those puffy lips.

"Oh, God, Elodie, I want you." Clay supported his upper body on his hands above her.

She looked up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, saying in a clear, soft voice, "Then take me."

Her words flooded through his blood vessels, dilating every one he owned, until they got to his groin, making him contract painfully several times. Stunned, he looked down into her eyes and saw no hesitation there, absolutely none. He almost gave in. Almost.

Instead, he reached between her nether lips, gratified to find that his finger was instantaneously covered in her tribute, which he brought up to cover her clit, rubbing lightly, teasingly, making her arch into him and reach out to clutch the sheets, sucking air in through her tightly clenched teeth.

"Clay!" She dragged the word out throatily as she writhed and twisted as much as she could beneath him, as if her very life depended on the tip of that finger.

He had been right that time when he'd wondered about it. She did light up from within, even before the culmination. Her mewls and cries made him crazy. He was delighted to see how responsive she was—she seemed to be as uncontrollably passionate with him as he was with her.

He left her a few strokes from the top, knowing her need met his as he positioned himself just slightly inside her, then caught her eye and began to press himself deeper. She was unbelievably tight, her hot pussy grabbing onto him and fitting him like a second skin. He could barely stand the slow pace he'd set for them, but he didn't want to hurt her, and judging by just how tight she was, he was glad he hadn't just decided to take her with one hard thrust.

Instead, he drove the both of them crazy, settling himself into her by centimeters, letting his own weight set the pace as his spiked flesh seared its way deeply inside her. By the time she was fully impaled, Elodie had already begun to shift restlessly beneath him, trying to encourage him to begin the rhythm that would carry them both to ecstasy.

Clay could hold himself back no longer. He had to move! Elodie clutched at his back, arching herself to meet his every thrust, moaning as he scraped the delicate tissues within her with each snap of his hips, building her pleasure to the point where she thought she was going to pass out beneath him before hurling her off the mountaintop into the abyss of the purest paradise.

He followed a stroke or two later, crying out her barely discernable name in a voice he didn't recognize, it was so gravelly and animalistic. Clay flexed his butt several times afterwards, driving himself into her as much as he could, eking out every iota of pleasure before collapsing on top of her, burying his face into her hair where it lay on the pillow around her head, panting it into his mouth but not caring in the least as he tried to come to grips with what had happened.