Cherished: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella (11 page)

He pushed in, twisting his hips in a way that let his pelvis grind against her clitoris.

She couldn’t breathe. It was starting again. Orgasms before had been small things. They’d been pleasant when she managed one, but Will’s tongue had taken her to an entirely different level. He seemed intent on proving he could manage the same thing with his cock.

Over and over he fucked deep inside, his body working hers while he held her eyes. When she started to close them he would remind her, forcing her into an intimacy she’d never known before. Her previous lovers hadn’t cared whether she’d come or not, much less wanted to watch her while she did it.

He hit some magic spot deep inside and she couldn’t help but moan.

He grinned, the expression making him look younger, less grim than his normal serious look. “There it is. Yeah, now I’ve got you, sweetheart. Try to hold me off now.”

She wasn’t trying to do anything except breathe because he pressed in again and her body went off like a bomb. Pure pleasure sparked through her, racing through her veins and making her call out his name over and over. She tightened her legs, wanting the moment to last. She was fairly certain she left claw marks on his back, but he didn’t seem to mind. He picked up the pace, slamming into her and sending her into a second wave.

His whole body stiffened as he rode out his orgasm, finally falling on top of her.

The world seemed hazy and she was fairly certain she was drunk on lust or whatever he wanted to call it.

Affection. He’d said he needed affection. She let her arms wrap around him, holding him close. He didn’t shove off her to go to the bathroom or turn over to go to sleep. He laid his head on her chest, one hand on her breast, and they lay together for the longest time before sleep finally took her.

Chapter Six

“You did what?” Serena asked as she patted baby Tristan’s back and paced the floor. Her eyes narrowed as she looked Bridget over. “Tell me you’re joking.”

They’d traded their margarita lunches for afternoons at either Bridget’s or Chris’s place since Serena had given birth. Her son was kind of the cutest thing in the world. Well, he definitely won in the baby category. Bridget thought back to the morning before when she’d slipped out of Will’s condo before he woke up. The sheet had slipped and she’d gotten a spectacular view of his ass. It was a superlative male specimen and she’d wondered how many squats the man had to do to achieve it.

“She’s not joking.” Chris shook his head at her with a sigh. “She really ran away like a cowardly rabbit.”

Bridget put the tray of crackers and cheese she’d bought at the market out on the table with a thud. “It was not cowardly. It was a strategic withdrawal.”

“It was a massive mistake since your butt is going to feel that at some point in time.” Serena placed Tristan in the bouncy seat and strapped him in. The baby immediately started kicking his legs and batting at the toys dangling above him with a delighted glee. His mother wasn’t so amused. She turned to Bridget. “Did he give you permission to leave?”

“I don’t need permission to leave.” She was a freaking grown-up.

Serena’s head shook. “You signed a contract. I assure you there was something in there about leaving, unless Master Will is a total pushover and I hadn’t heard he was.”

Something about the way she said it got to Bridget. Serena had the perfect life. Two gorgeous men, a sweet baby boy, career to die for, and she didn’t even do her own laundry. “Well, I guess the perfect princess doesn’t know everything, does she?”

Serena’s jaw dropped and she pointed her index finger Bridget’s way. “You do not want to go there. I’ve done nothing to deserve that. You’re the one who’s taking a good thing and tossing it away.”

She was the fuck-up. Again. “Is that what I’m doing? So because I won’t bow and scrape to some Dom, I’m ruining everything.”

Serena’s finger wagged. “You stop this instant. We are not having this fight. You think about it for two seconds. You can’t sign a contract with a man and then bail on him and expect everything to be great the next day. This is what you do, Bridge. This is how things go wrong for you.”

Bridget took a step back, her anger deflating because she was pretty sure Serena was right. Younger Bridget would have told Wiser Serena to bite her ass and never talked to her again, but Older Bridget really loved her friends. “Wow, your mom finger is strong today. It’s all full of judgmental righteousness.”

Serena backed down, a flush staining her face pink. “Sorry. It comes naturally now.”

“Let the hormones flow, ladies. I think I’ll take Tristan and we’ll run away. Let’s run from all the scary estrogen, baby boy.” Chris had taken a seat by the baby as if to ward off all the bad vibes coming from the women.

What the hell was she doing? She was fighting with her best friend because she felt stupid? She had to get over this shit. “I’m sorry, Serena. I’m feeling weird about Will and I’m taking it out on you.”

“Look at Auntie Bridget. She’s pulled on her big girl panties,” Chris cooed to the baby.

She wasn’t that mature. “Dude, I can still take you out.”

Serena held up her hands. “Everyone stop and let’s figure this out. Bridget, why did you leave Will and how has he handled it?”

“Serena is skipping the good parts. No starting in the middle. I want the whole shebang. And by shebang I mean the banging. How was the good doctor in bed?” Chris asked.

Heavenly. Perfect. “Okay.”

They both stared at her.

She could feel herself blushing. “Fine. He was amazing. It was totally vanilla and it was still the best sex I’ve ever had. Are you happy now?”

“Mostly.” Serena sat down and took a sip of her iced tea. They were supposed to be talking plots and promo for their next books, but it never turned out that way. They tended to gossip about what was happening at Sanctum and about Serena’s and Chris’s sex lives. “He treated you well?”

She nodded. “He didn’t even mention my scars. He was dirty and nasty and he took care of me in a way that made me pretty much want to drop to my knees and beg him to love me. And yes, that was why I ran like a scared little girl.” She slumped into her chair, shaking her head. “It was so embarrassing. I woke up next to this god of a man and all I could think was ‘please don’t let him see me in the cold light of day.’”

“Oh, she’s so getting her ass spanked,” Chris said with wide eyes. “How did he handle it? Did he come storming over that morning? This was yesterday, right?”

Yep. A whole day and a half had passed since she’d last seen Will. “He didn’t. Come over, that is. He didn’t even knock on the door on his way to work.” She shrugged. “I guess I pissed him off or something.”

Or he’d had enough of her and he was grateful to have avoided the next morning’s scene.

She’d gone to bed the night before wondering where he was but too afraid and embarrassed to knock on his door. God, she’d screwed up again.

“So, I need a new date to my sister’s wedding,” she said with a fake smile on her face. “I’m down to strippers. Get me a good one, Chris. But not the dude who humps the pole. He scares me.”

“Oh, honey, you have to talk to Will.” Serena leaned over. “You can’t slip out of his bed and then avoid him for the rest of your life.”

Actually she could. If she left now and then paid someone to clean out her condo, she could move to another city, change her name, her hair color, and live a Will-free life with lots and lots of cats. The virtual kind. Maybe houseplants could be her thing. Unless she killed them all. Fish. They were easy, right?

“And you can’t move to another city and get some unnamed house pet,” Chris said.

Well, at least he knew her really well. One guy in the world knew the real her and loved her, and naturally it was the dude who didn’t like vaginas.

There was a thought…

“You’re not becoming a lesbian, either,” Serena said.

“If I did, I would totally be into you.” Somehow, her life wasn’t quite as heartbreaking when she shared her problems with these two.

A smile lit up Serena’s face. “Back at you. Now let’s figure out how you’re going to handle the man you are actually attracted to because he seems to be throwing a hissy fit of his own.”

Her heart dropped. “He’s not throwing a fit. That doesn’t seem like Will. He’s figured out that he’s not that interested. Now that I think about it, I guess this whole thing really was kind of a test run. I mean the contract was only for two weeks anyway. I think the sex wasn’t as good for him.”

Chris groaned. “We have got to work on your self-esteem. Can I see your contract?”

“Oh, I think I left it at his place. I was kind of in a hurry to get out. I was lucky it was early in the morning because I didn’t bother to put on my shirt. He rolled over and I ran. I think I left my undies behind, too. Very classy of me.” What had she been so afraid of? Everything. It had been too intimate, too much. She’d felt too much and not knowing how he felt made her anxious. He might have felt nothing at all.

He’d probably had hundreds of women, and she was fairly certain she wouldn’t measure up. Her sex life had been boring for a woman who wrote about crazy bondage sex with up to six guys. It had taken them a while to figure out where to put hottie number six. The first five had been easy. Pussy, ass, mouth, and two hands. But that sixth had been a challenge. About two bottles of wine in, Chris had come up with boobs. Yeah, she’d been lucky her heroine wasn’t claustrophobic.

“And he hasn’t called or texted?” Serena asked.

“Nope.” She’d gotten nothing. She’d heard his door slam at eleven a.m. the day before and nothing from him since. She wasn’t going to admit to sitting and waiting for sounds from the hallway. She definitely wasn’t going to admit that she’d spied out her peephole at every creak of the floor. All she’d gotten to see was Mrs. Hannigan wheeling her groceries in and that girl old man Mussey said was his daughter, but Bridget really knew was a hooker because of her shoes. And the fact that she looked absolutely nothing like Mr. Mussey. And the fact that she’d watched the chick counting her cash one day. Bridget was fairly certain she overcharged since the “visits” never lasted more than twenty or thirty minutes.

She was totally going to end up like Mr. Mussey, hiring call boys so she had some kind of human connection. She wouldn’t even be able to say it was her son since she was never going to get married. She would have to call him her nephew or something. How pathetic. She couldn’t even get her future hooker right.

“Did we lose her?” Chris asked.

“She’s figuring out how dire her situation is.” Serena snapped her fingers. “Come out of the pity party. Here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to write a letter of apology to your Dom for fleeing the scene of the crime. Then you’re going to make him dinner.”

“So you think I should kill him.” It would be an interesting way out of her embarrassment.

Serena huffed. “Brat. You can cook a little. You make a very nice enchilada bake. Do that and bake your chocolate chip cookies. Then you serve it to him naked.”

Chris gave the plan a thumbs-up. “All the easier for him to spank you, my dear. Because that is very likely happening.”

“It won’t save you, but it might—and I say might—put him in a better mood when he gets to the spanking part. So the sex was vanilla?” Serena asked.

There hadn’t been a particular kink to it, but something about the way Will had forced her to look into his eyes, made her talk about the sex, had been…a revelation. “It was intense. No bondage or spanking, but it was intense. It was like I couldn’t breathe without him. That sounds stupid, but for those few moments, I felt connected to him in a way I never have before.”

Serena pointed her way. “And that, my dear, is why you ran.”

Shit. She’d gotten scared and she’d run away so she wouldn’t have to face the fact that the next morning would have been a letdown. Or that he hadn’t felt the same, that it had all been one sided.

“I don’t know that it matters now.” His silence was answer enough. If he’d wanted to talk, even to yell at her, he would have shown up on her doorstep. Hell, she hadn’t even warranted a text telling her it had been nice, but see ya later, baby.

There was a knock on the door. A pounding really.

“Are you expecting someone?” Chris asked, getting to his feet. Despite his status as a big ol’ bottom, he tended to be very take-charge when his Dom wasn’t around and they were all alone. It probably had something to do with him having to watch she and Serena almost die once.

“No.” She let Chris do his thing. The building had a security guard, but it made Chris feel better to answer the door.

He stalked over and looked out the peephole. “Shit. Serena, I believe our afternoon is over. Get Tristan ready and I’ll take you home. Bridget, this one is for you.”

She stood. “Of course, it’s for me. It’s my condo.”

She threw open the door because Chris would have told her if it was someone scary.

Except he hadn’t.

Will stood in the doorway, his eyes red and his normally perfect clothes wrinkled. There was a scowl on his face and he held up her contract. “Did you bother to read this? Or did it mean so little to you that you left it behind along with your underwear. I threw those away since I amended our contract and you are no longer allowed the privilege of wearing them.”