Cherished (35 page)

“Not a restaurant in a big sense. Just dinner three nights a
week. What I really want is your kitchen. And you’re right, Daze, it’s the perfect size. I’ve cooked in there many times as it happens. If we shared staffing where we could, we could both save some significant money while helping each other’s businesses out at the same time.”

“Right now you both use as many locally made ingredients as you can in your food. I think you’d be better off combining your work with others in the community. If you get your fruit and vegetables locally, you can note it in the menu for some break in price? I don’t know if that’s doable, it just came to me as I was working at the gallery yesterday. Oh and by the way, I just thought I’d let you know my piece got chosen for art walk.”

There was much celebrating, so much so that Adrian came out to see what was going on and joined the celebration.

“Why didn’t you say sooner?” Mary took her hands and squeezed them.

“I only found out right before I left to come over here. Then we were talking about other stuff. I just waited my turn. Everyone is having a great day.”

Which was true. Plans for Adrian and Gillian’s wedding continued apace. She’d shown them three possible ring designs and they’d loved the second one so much Adrian had called a jeweler right then to make an appointment to have the rings made.

Mary had landed a big catering job and she and Jules had decided to share the building Tart was in. A lot of great news for the people she loved most. And now she was going to see Levi for the first time in ten long days.

“I can’t wait!” Jules raised her mug of chocolate and everyone followed suit. “To Delicious.”

“Delicious!” everyone echoed.

She stopped at her place and grabbed a change of clothing and her toiletries bag. She liked his house well enough. Loved the view most certainly. But it was so neat and serene. It made her want to
muss things up. His bed though was very nice, especially with him in it.

She did two quick braids and touched up her lipstick before leaving. He liked things that way. With that in mind she also changed into a skirt she knew he’d like as well.

And then she went to him.

She went to him, all the while knowing how much she’d come to need him in the last weeks. Knowing she wasn’t being mysterious at all, about her need for him. She couldn’t have even if she’d tried.

When he opened his door it was while holding the sculpture she’d donated to the auction.

“I thought today was the auction.” She came in and kissed him before taking off her coat and hanging it in the hall closet and dropping her bag nearby.

“It was. I bought it. I’ve been planning to buy it since the first moment I saw it. I put a stack of your cards on the table where it sat for the bidding and every single one is gone.”

Warmed, she smiled. “Really? Thank you. You didn’t have to buy it. Unless, oh god, were you the only bidder? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

Smiling, he put the piece down on a nearby shelf. “I’d planned to put it in my bedroom and I still might. But I’m trying it out here too. I think it’s going to look pretty there in the morning.” She walked to the spot and liked her barbed rose there just fine.

“That was my very first thought when I saw it at your studio. I had to have it.”

She liked him just then, far, far more than was wise. There was nothing else she could do but like him far, far too much than was wise.

It filled her with joy to be there with him. To stand and look at her artwork right there, in his home. It felt staggeringly intimate and she had to swallow back a knot of emotion.

He pulled her to him and she went, sucking in a breath when they touched and all she could see or feel was him. Greed rose up from her gut. Greed to have him and not share. To be the only one in this part of his life.

“I’m wildly flattered.”

“Part of your allure is how talented you are. Part of my reasoning was purely business, I can’t lie. You’re going to have a healthy career ahead of you. Snapping up a piece I love is wonderful. Snapping up a piece I love that will be worth ten to fifteen times more than what I pay for it now makes it even better.”

She drew a shuddering breath as he dipped his head to breathe in at the place where her neck met her shoulder. His teeth abraded the tender skin there.

One of his hands slid down her back to her ass and squeezed, hauling her closer and then spinning her, backing her against the doorway. The breath left her as her adrenaline spiked and then she found that place where everything went soft and slow, so torturously good that she’d begun to recall these moments with him when she masturbated. This was better than any fantasy or remembrance, though. This intense swell of energy and chemistry between them swept her away and she held on, letting him take over.

Every place he touched as he kissed her, her back pressed to the cool wood at her back, seemed to make her skin come alive. Sensation pulsed through her as he opened her shirt and popped the catch on her bra in mere moments.

Nearly rough at first, as if he couldn’t stop himself from rushing to touch her, his fingers first made featherlight touches of her nipples. Slowly, he drew her deeper, the heat of him dizzying, the little flicks of pleasure as his touch grew bolder, the light touches turning into tugs of her nipples until her breath caught.

Her knees went weak as she held on, as he dropped to his own, kneeling before her.

He shoved her skirt up and hummed in pleasure when he saw her panties. He liked the sheer ones so those had been what she chose. She slid her fingers through his hair as he kissed the tops of her thighs, above the stockings she wore. His perfectly manicured beard had gone scruffy and he looked entirely disreputable. Like a pirate in a suit.

The beard tickled her skin as he rolled the top of the left stocking down, kissing all the skin he bared.

This big, elegant male with the big, broad shoulders knelt at her feet and kissed her tenderly and she had to close her eyes a moment as he snagged the sides of her panties and drew them down her legs.

He nibbled his way back up her thighs, his palms skimming her skin and then he twisted his wrists and slid her open with his thumbs, baring her clit to his gaze.

“You have the loveliest pussy.” He took a lick, swirling his tongue around her clit.

He gripped her upper thighs and held her still as he nuzzled her clit gently with his lips. And then his tongue lapped, licked, flicked, drove her to the edge and backed off. Each time he drove her up again, the pleasure grew sharper. His grip on her hips tightened, pressing her back and tipping her as he flattened his tongue against her clit over and over until she splintered apart, her fingers tangled in his hair as he continued past the point where the first orgasm had ended and into a second one, so hard she had to let go of his hair and grab his shoulders to keep standing.

He kissed the inside of each thigh, pulled up her stockings and stood, tucking her panties into his pocket. Two steps back and he’d grabbed her overnight bag and was standing at her side again like he hadn’t just blown her in his front entry against a doorway.

“Now, hello. Come and have a drink with me and tell me what you’ve been up to over the last ten days.” He tucked her arm in his and walked her upstairs.

“I can sadly confess I’ve not had any such fine welcomes at all during the last ten days.”

His bedroom had an outer sitting room that she’d quickly decided was her favorite place in his house. The view was incredible, the big trees to one side, the water to the other. There was a fireplace and a bar, an overstuffed couch, a television and good speakers from the house system.

“I love this room.” She let go of his arm and moved to make him a drink. “Laphroaig?” She removed her shirt and bra before she went to the bar.

He’d already changed his clothes and so he settled on the couch and watched her, pleased that she’d taken her shirt off, baring her breasts to his gaze like he preferred. “Yes, thank you.”

She brought it over and placed it at his right hand and dropped to the floor with a happy sigh, sipping from her glass as she looked at the fire. Her head rested against his knee, his fingers automatically seeking the softness of her hair.

They’d spoken on the phone and had texted quite a bit over the last week and a half, but it hadn’t been as good as touching her, having the weight of her leaning against him.

“I was about to tell you that I was not the only bidder on your piece. In fact, there was even a bidding war between me and two other people. I did of course win gracefully.”

She laughed. “I’m sure.”

“I gave them both your information and card.”

“Thank you. Truly.”

“It was my pleasure.” And it had been. Even without this other thing between them, he’d have been promoting her work to the other collectors he knew. “What else did you do?”

“I quit three jobs and got one more.” She told him about her job with Mary and the idea she’d had to combine Jules’s and Mary’s businesses in the same place.

“You’ve got a great mind for business on top of a great amount
of artistic talent. You look better than ninety-nine percent of the population both clothed and naked. Really I’ve yet to see something you’re not good at.”

She scrambled around to kneel between his legs. “So says the man who is perfect at everything.”

“Not everything.”

“Oh yes? What is that then?”

He paused, on the verge of sharing. Instead, he put his tumbler down and took hold of the end of each of her braids and pulled her close to kiss those lips.

She allowed it, but they both knew he was ducking the subject.

“What was your favorite part of the week?” he asked as he broke the kiss.

“Other than this part?” She smiled. “Arch, the red piece with the woman you said you wanted?”

He nodded, hoping like hell she hadn’t sold it because he’d meant every word when he said he wanted to buy it.

“I told you I had other plans. I entered it into the art walk selection process and they called me today. A few hours ago actually. They chose me.”

He stood and swept her up into his embrace, genuinely pleased for her. “Wonderful news. This calls for a celebration.”

“This
is
a celebration, silly.” She smiled, her face tipped up to his, her arms around his shoulders.

It was a simple thing. Affectionate. Given without any expectation of a return. It felled him. It made him happy. It had been a long time. Probably since the earliest of days with Kelsey when what they’d had was still good. Before he’d finally opened his eyes and everything had fallen apart. Too long to have gone without a woman making him feel this way.

“I like you in my life.”

Her smile widened and she kissed him. “I like it too.”

Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he kissed her. “On your
knees.” After he got rid of his jeans, he dropped a pillow there and she tucked it beneath her knees. He brushed his cock against her lips and she opened immediately, licking around the head and crown, keeping him very wet.

He took a braid in each hand and pulled her forward on his cock that way. She rewarded him with a low moan, the kind she made when he did something that made her hot.

“Unless I say otherwise, even when you’re not cuffed, I want your hands clasped at your back when my cock is in your mouth and you’re on your knees.”

She did it without hesitation as he continued to pull her forward by her braids before she slid back slowly. Her breasts swayed as she did this.

“And I want your eyes.”

She dragged her lids up slowly, her gaze slowly clearing and focusing on his.

He was getting close. He needed to pull back now. But the sweetness of her mouth on him was so hard to resist.

“You’re irresistible. Ten days without you is no fun.”

He hadn’t meant to say it but once he had, once he saw the way her eyes lit, he was glad he had.

“Okay, okay. Enough. I want to be in you. But first…” She pulled off his cock and looked up at him, watching, waiting.

He drew her into the bedroom and unzipped the bag, bringing out the crop and slicing it through the air to hear that sound. Her eyes widened.

“I bought this last week. Just been waiting to use it on you. Hands on the bed. Bend at the waist.”

She didn’t know what to expect. All she knew is that her knees trembled with excitement. And when the first strike came, preceded by the
whick
of the crop as it split the air on its way to her ass, she wasn’t expecting it to hurt. But it
totally
did.

Right before she was about to turn and say no, thank you, nice
experiment but I don’t desire more of that, the sting soothed into a slow spread of heat. His cock at her hip was hard and so hot it burned through the thin material of her skirt.

He liked it. Which made her like it if for no other reason.

Again. And this time it hurt less, though the vibration of it seemed to echo through her body. Each strike came in a different place on her ass and thighs and she sort of lost track of everything but her hands against the cool material of his bedding and the near rhythmic sound of the crop cutting through the air before it struck.

He put the crop down nearby and paused to take in the glory of her ass and thighs. In their time together he knew her skin marked easily, so there was a network of welts from the crop. Nothing she’d feel an hour from now. The marks, so apparent right then, would disappear soon enough. He bent to blow over the sting and her skin pebbled.

He caressed up her legs and she made a soft, sweet sound and that need snapped back into place, straightening his spine as he stood.

Gently, he pushed her thighs wider and found her wet. So fucking wet. He rolled the condom on and pressed into her slowly, trying to let her adjust around him, trying to catch his breath before he came three seconds after he got inside.

She was hot around his cock, tight and perfect. The skin of her ass and thighs radiated heat against his body as he stood behind her. But when he pulled back on her braids she stirred, coming up from sub space, taking a deep breath and looking back at him over her shoulder.