Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4) (61 page)

She wanted to be with me. She knew the risks, and she still wanted me.

My balls tightened. I squeezed my eyes shut, taking in another breath.

I went into the dark bedroom. Her short, choppy breathing was the only sound in the room.

Tania sat on the edge of the bed, her arms taut, her legs pressed together. An actual shiver raced over the back of my neck as I opened my dresser drawer where I kept my bandanas.

No, give her the one you used today. Let her smell you, feel you.

My hand found the twisted cotton lying on top of the dresser, and I grabbed it.

I approached her without saying a word, and I slid the bandana over her eyes. She let out a tiny gasp as I tied it behind her head.

“Butler—”

“Shh…” I ran my hands through her thick mass of dark hair. So dark, it was black, true black. My exotic queen.

She let out a soft moan, her head relaxing under my lazy strokes. I wanted to take my time with her.

Yes, it was good to be sober to drink it all in.

Drink
her
in.

My fingers tickled down her shoulders, her arms, and to her tits. She whimpered as I softly palmed them and squeezed them hard, demanding her attention. Her head shot up, her lips tensed.

My knee nudged her legs apart as I slid a thumb in her mouth, and she sucked on me, making those little sounds from the back of her throat. My cock throbbed in my jeans, my brain misfiring into that intensely happy place of
fuck yes
.

This was anticipation. This was bursting flavors. This was smooth brandy. Expensive whiskey. A gourmet fucking five star meal.

I popped my thumb out of her mouth, and she let out an incredible cry. Want. Need.

I got down on my knees and slid my hands up her thighs, my wet thumb stroked up her slit and swirling around her clit. Her head fell back once more, and she moaned.

“You’re beautiful,” I whispered against her tits, taking a tip in my mouth, grazing it with my teeth.

She flinched, and I laved her hard nipple with my tongue.

“You’re perfect, Tan.” I caressed her throat with my lips.

My hands slid down over her hips, and I pulled them forward. I leaned down and blew air over her pussy, and her pelvis arched up.

“You want me, Scarlett? You want what you know I can give you, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes—”

“I want to give it to you, baby. Everything you’ve ever wanted. Everything you need.” I pushed her back against the mattress.

She squirmed on the bed, her hands in tight little fists over her head.

I licked her pussy, toyed with her clit, my thumbs pulling her lips apart, giving me full access to every slick little inch. She was a diamond to be adored. My diamond. My black diamond. She tensed, her legs squeezing my sides.

“Easy.” I splayed a hand over the cool skin of her hip. “Open wide for me and stay that way, sweetheart.”

She did as she’d been told. Wrapping one hand around her quivering thigh, I buried my face between her legs and sucked on her smooth flesh. She moaned out loud, and that raw sound coursed through my veins. My head split open under a blaze of heat. I wanted to give to Tania. Simply give. My fingers pressed into her body, keeping her under me.

“Butler! Stop, please! I’m too sensitive.” She twisted in my hold. “It’s too much.”

“You haven’t seen too much yet. This is where it gets good, baby,” I insisted with more subtle licks and lashes. I persuaded her with harsher strokes and deeper sucks, sending her over the edge again. She chanted words and sounds, her chest heaving, her arms limp at her sides.

My dick banged against my jeans, and I got up off the bed, ripped them off, then my shirt. I grabbed a condom from my end table, suited up, and went back to her.

I kneeled on the bed, pulled her close, gripped her thighs, and, bending her legs, I spread them wide. I brought my cock to her entrance. “I’m gonna fuck that beautiful pussy that I made so wet, and you’re going to fuck me right back. You got that, Scarlett?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

I drove inside her. My hungry, desperate cock found its hungry, desperate, and very slick target.

“Butler!”

I pulled out and drove in deeper. “Oh shit, Tan…”

She stretched around me. Her body stilled and then her pelvis rose up to meet me as she let out a low moan.

I fucked Tania. I fucked through the ache and the yearning for her that I’d stashed deep inside myself all this time. I fucked the disappointments from her memories. I fucked the doubts and the pain she still fed like stray dogs, and I fucked those dogs into a corner and stared them down.

I fucked through my own strays.

For both of us.

This was an honesty that wasn’t anxious or shaded with denial or had subclauses attached to it for a later date, just in case. I didn’t shrink from it like I would a cold blast of frozen winter air on the plains. This honesty only made something inside me pliant, stronger, brighter.

Fucking her now wasn’t only about getting us both off, about forgetting or feeling better for a brief moment. With every thrust, I wanted to feel her happiness unfurl around us and keep us both high.

Planting her feet in the mattress behind my legs, she lifted herself up on her arms and quickened our pace, meeting me thrust for thrust.

Fuck yes.

I wanted to show her that she was that glorious woman she craved to be.

I wanted to show her I could be the man she saw, the man reflected back at me in her gorgeous dark chocolate eyes.

I ripped the bandana off of her. Her eyes sought mine.

My Scarlett.

I could trust her, believe in her, as she’d asked me to. It scared the fuck out of me, but I wanted this more than that fear—the fear of losing her, not living up to her, not deserving her, the fear of dying on her. Maybe I had to ride that thin line to get to the other side, to be the man a woman like her could believe in.

“What do you believe in?”
asked that voice from my past once more.

I believe in this. In us.

Yes, I could be that man. I could.

“Baby,” she rasped, her lips parted, her eyes on fire, her body fucking mine, one with mine.

I am.

“
GRACE
?”

She grinned at me, a pen in her mouth. “Tania?”

I leaned over her desk in the office of Eagle Wings. “I need new boots.”

A grin split her face. She was the one for the job. “Oh?”

“Special boots.”

“Intriguing.” She put a stack of work orders in a folder and handed the folder to Tricky, who stood waiting. “What kind of
special
exactly?”

I leaned in closer, glancing at Tricky, who ambled into the hallway, going through the folder. “Special fuck-me-now boots,” I whispered.

Her eyes widened. “Very, very intriguing. More intriguing than expected.”

I laughed.

“Western or high fashion?”

“More high fashion.”

“Then, unfortunately, Pepper’s is out,” Grace said, referring to Meager’s very own western boot store, that blessedly had survived all these years. We’d been fans since our youth, as had our parents, and their parents before them.

“Shame, but yes. Not Pepper’s. Where else?”

“A snazzy new boutique opened in Rapid last month with brands from LA. We’ll go there. It’ll cost you though.”

“Worth the investment.”

“Hmm.” She folded her hands together across her desk, her back straightening. “And tell me, Ms. Reigert, may I ask what you’re hoping to gain with this investment, specifically?”

“I need to show my appreciation for a very important contract, Mrs. LeBeau.”

“Aha!”

“And something else.”

“Yes? Yes?”

“I’d like to see Ronny, the tattoo master.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. I have an idea I’d like to run by him, see what he thinks. And then I’ll make an appointment for another time.”

A grin lit her face. “I’ll put in a call now.” Grace picked up her cell phone from her desk and tapped on the screen.

“And one more thing—”

Her hazel eyes darted up at me.

“The necklace you had made for Lock—the skeleton key? I need to see that jeweler, too.”

“Should I take the morning off from work and see if my dad can stay longer with Thunder today?”

“You assume correctly. You call your dad. I’ll go talk to your boss for you.”

Laughing, Grace put the phone to her ear. “I’m feeling an urge for champagne.”

“That’s a good urge, girlfriend. Very good urge. We get all those errands done, I’m buying.”

I’D MADE THE ROASTED CHICKENS
—three, in fact. And I’d bought the Yukon Gold potatoes and thrown in a few sweet potatoes and carrots as well. A huge mixed greens salad and freshly baked baguettes from the new bakery in town, which used local wheat, completed the meal. Under my mother’s direction, Jill had set the table with the good china, the crystal glasses, and the silver cutlery.

Rae smiled wide as she shuffled in the dining room with her cane. She’d even put on her favorite gold hoop earrings for the occasion. “Why didn’t you set out the cloth napkins, Jill?”

Jill shot me an I-told-you-so face.

“Mother,” I said, “I bought these thick formal paper napkins. They look fine. Anyway, we won’t have to worry about washing out grease stains or ironing them later.”

Rae shook her head. “Oh, Tania!”

“What? I’m trying to play up the low-key, casual aspect of this dinner. You having Jill whip out the fine china, the good crystal, and the silver forks and knives kind of cuts into that idea. Ironed monogrammed linen napkins would only throw the whole thing over the edge. I’m telling you, they wouldn’t want to use them. Work with me here, Rae.”

“Are you saying, these men would be threatened by a few squares of fabric?”

“Hardly, but that’s not my point.”

“Oh. You’re saying they don’t deserve the full extra effort, A-list guest treatment from us?”

“No. No, of course not. That’s not what I meant.”

Jill’s gaze ping-ponged between us.

“Ah. Are you saying they wouldn’t be able to appreciate china, crystal, silver, and monogrammed linen napkins?”

“No.”

Rae’s left eyebrow arched very high. The final pronouncement was to be made. “This is a special occasion. Our house has not seen such an occasion in a very long time. And I would like to welcome our guests appropriately.”