Forever (9 page)

“So you’re not on birth control.” His tone reflected nothing other than interest, and she tried really, really hard to detect anything else.

“No.”

“You got a reason for that?” Again, mild interest, but she picked up on something else this time around and decided to be brutally honest. A first for her with men.

“Yup. I’ve got a history of having casual sex with men. Lots of casual sex. It was my lifestyle actually, and I wanted to change it after
… after something happened to make me realize there had to be another way to live.” She took a sip of coffee and waited for him to comment. When he didn’t, his eyes watchful but giving her nothing to read, she screwed up her courage and continued.

“I haven’t been with anyone for coming up to a year. I quit taking birth control to try and tell myself I didn’t need it. That I wasn’t going to do casual hookups anymore. There has to be more than that. I’m not saying sex isn’t important and okay, but the physicality was all that it meant. I wanted to believe I deserved more.”

Sipping again, she forced herself to sit quietly, watching Dean process her confession. He let her see him do it, the impassive look falling away, his features still tight but readable.

“First off, if I knocked you up, we’ll deal.” At her flinch, he raised a hand, lowering it, palm down, in a
wait for it
gesture. “
We’ll
deal, Amy. Let it go.”

She subsided, once again entertaining that little flicker of hope she’d actually met someone who
would
deal. Competent, not merely arrogant.

“As for you wanting more than the fuck, the sex, can’t say where I fit in your plans. I’ll meet your honesty, sweetheart. I’m fucked up when it comes to women. Doesn’t matter why, although when you tell me your history I’ll share mine, maybe. I don’t trust women, haven’t needed them for more than what we just did. But I’ll admit there’s something different between us. It remains to be seen if it’s enough to make me reconsider.”

Okay. Confident, competent and freaking arrogant. But she heard the pain, the emptiness behind the words, being equally familiar with the feelings, even if he wasn’t aware the hurt had leaked over. Still, it pissed her off.

“So, you’re like, going to test drive me?”

His face suffused with color and a bark of laughter passed his sensuous lips. And she needed to stop looking at that part of his anatomy as well as another so unfortunately hidden by his jeans, and concentrate on his cavalier attitude. The prick.

“I guess that sounded arrogant.”

Understatement.

“A touch,” she agreed. “We’re going to be right back where we ended last night, Dean, if you keep opening your mouth and inserting both of your big feet.”

The amusement vanished from his face, replaced by an assessing, dark stare that sent a thrill spiraling through her belly to settle in her sex. Poked the bear again. She just
had
to remind him about the lube incident.

“It took nearly eight dollars to wash my truck, sweetheart, not to mention the cost of the lubricant.”

“You gave that to me!” she protested, moving her ass off the stool, abandoning her coffee. She positioned herself directly opposite his big frame, the island a comforting bulwark between them. “I had the right to do anything I wanted with it.”

“Except anoint my truck, Amy. You don’t mess with a man’s woman or his truck.”

The strange look washing over his face made her hold her tongue. Interesting choice of words, and he’d obviously realized what he’d said. He shook himself, literally, like a dog shedding water, and fixed that steely stare on her. “How you gonna make it up to me?”

She inched sideways as Dean casually leaned to his left. Sexual excite
ment thrummed between them, fueled by the sensual intent shading his voice.

“I don’t know.” Her voice was breathless, husky, and he quirked his brow. She’d see it in her sleep, that trademark expression.

“I do.” He lunged and she screamed a little in shock, laughter bubbling up as she navigated the corner of the island, bare feet slipping for purchase on the planked floor, losing momentum. And he was on her, his long arms making it no contest. He turned her body into the countertop, hard body pressing against her back, burgeoning erection against her buttocks. Grasping first one hand, then the other, he lifted her arms to lay them on the tiled surface, folding her fingertips under the opposite edge, the length stretching her out. A hand on the back of her next urged her torso to lie prone, the position putting her on the balls of her feet. Her breasts mashed flat, nipples beading harder at the hard, cool façade and her cheek rested just outside the ring made by his coffee cup.

“Hold this position. Don’t let go.”

Or what?
Amy desperately wanted to ask it, wanted to know what he would do. But she didn’t. A tiny voice in her head soothed her choice,
s’okay
, somehow louder than that rebellious one shouting
go to hell
.

The shirt rode up and she could feel the air on her exposed ass. Dean pulled it higher and tucked in around her waist. “My hand or the wooden spoon.”

Managing not to laugh out loud, the absolute ridiculousness of the moment stunning her, Amy tried to answer. He was giving her another choice, bizarre as those choices were. “Hand.” The suppressed mirth was audible despite her best efforts.

She’d never been spanked before. Slapped, kicked, punched, locked in her room, the cellar, denied the basics for days, beaten, but never spanked. Did he think he’d punish her this way? Ha. Think again. A big hand smoothed over the curve of her buttocks and a big foot gently kicked her ankles apart. Knowing what was now open for Dean to view triggered an aroused response
, and she fought not to close her thighs. She was so wet, she could feel the moisture coating them.

The first smack caught her by surprise. It echoed around the room. The next few stung a little, but did more to heat her skin, an interesting sensation, particularly when he rubbed the affected area with his palm. But, like the little wheel wielded by Eric had done, when the whole surface of her ass was heated, as well as the tops of her thighs and the crease where buttocks and thighs met, she was sensitized beyond reason. Her pussy throbbed and she reached back to try and get a hand under her to ease the need.

Dean forestalled her, grabbing her fingers and flipping her onto her back, one of his big hands protecting her spine as he lifted her higher onto the counter. The pressure and instant temperature change against the tops of her buttocks elicited a gasp. She panted in reaction. He pushed between her legs and leaned over her, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “I told you not to let go.”

“Sorry. I couldn’t, I mean…” Amy tried to quit babbling, amazed at her response to the spanking. Dean placed a hand under each of her knees and slid her even further up, bending her legs, placing her feet flat on the cool surface. He again grabbed the hand she tried to pleasure herself with and sucked the fingers into his mouth, soaking them with his saliva. Setting them between her folds he sat back on a stool.

“Do it, then. Get yourself off.”

This was intimate. She was splayed on her own kitchen island, Dean’s shirt up around her waist, one breast partially displayed as her struggles loosened the top buttons. As if reading her mind he reached out and flicked the rest of them open, pulling the material aside to totally bare her to his gaze. His eyes were molten silver with lust, features tight. She could see the pulse hammering at the base of his neck, muscled chest rising and falling with the intensity of his breaths. She took a deep breath of her own and closed her eyes.

“Keep your eyes open, Amy. I want to see all of you.”

Prying her lids up, she focused just above his right shoulder, inserting her middle finger deeper between her labia as she did so. She was drenched and hadn’t needed need him wetting her fingers but it made the act hotter, even more intimate. He stared down at her apex, and she got on with it. Truth to be told, she was so close it was no real effort. Her clit was swollen, poking out from its protective hood, and she circled it, dipping down to gather more of her juices, anointing it, rubbing those tiny circles ever faster. The far off tingle in the soles of her feet and in the small of her back announced her impending orgasm. And Dean pulled her hand away.

“Noooo,” she moaned. “Please…”

He blew across her begging flesh, pulling her back from the edge, then pushed what felt like two fingers up inside her. Her cream, redistributed, ran down her cleft, and she could feel it, hot and sticky at her buttocks. He pulled his fingers out and followed the wet trail, pausing suggestively at her anus, pressing lightly. When his mouth descended to press an open mouthed kiss on her pussy, Amy simply begged.

“Dean, please. Please.”

Skilful nibbles and licks were the response to her pleas, and the pressure at her bottom hole increased. A digit pushed past the tight muscle just as Dean’s tongue lanced into her channel. She chanted nonsensically in her head, hands fisting at her sides, longing to push into his hair. Another finger joined the first and stretched her back entrance, his tongue now circling her pussy opening. When he sucked her clit between his teeth and bit down lightly she screamed her release, arching into his hold. Her pussy clenched on air, the invaders in her ass feeling impossibly huge.

Heart rate and pulse slowing, she blinked up into Dean’s eyes, his mouth and chin wet from her orgasm. He smiled at her, not one of those smug male smiles saying he knew how hard he’d made her come, although she had no doubt he was fully aware. It was a diffident smile, cautious, and it made her reach a hand out to him, fingers catching in the hair on his chest, tugging him down to her. She kissed him, tasting herself on his lips.

“Even Steven?” She used a term she barely remembered from her childhood.

He squinted. And smiled a real smile. Teasing had just been added to whatever it was they had going on, and it felt fine. Turning from her, she watched his nice ass disappear down the hallway, heard water running, and then he was back. Back with a cloth to clean her up. Jeez.

“I have to go.” Back to confident, competent Dean. It was disconcerting.

“Okay.” She knew she sounded puzzled, didn’t try to hide it.

“I have a meeting at six and shit to do before. Business. You want me to come back after?”

Did
she? Do bears crap in the woods? “Yes.”

“It’ll be late.”

“I’m going to dinner at Sandra’s. I won’t be back until maybe nine.”

“Late, sweetheart, for me, means maybe two in the morning.”

“Oh. What is it that you do?”

“That’s a conversation for another day. I need my shirt.”

Amy squirmed off the counter and pulled it off. Totally at home in her own skin—Vegas show girls tended to get that way—she didn’t miss the way Dean’s eyes tracked the movement of her breasts or the way his gaze dropped down her body. The crotch of his jeans bulged—the man had incredible recovery time. She gestured to him. “That can’t be comfortable.”

“It isn’t. But you’ll make it up to me tonight.”

No way should her pussy get wet again. She decided to ignore it. “Ring the buzzer, two shorts, one long.”

“You could give me a key.”

“I could, but Sandra has my spare.”

“Those are pretty good locks, but I could show you my lock picking skills.”

“You could, but then I might shoot you.”

Obviously, that wasn’t the right kind of teasing for him. He stepped into her, tense and scary. “You have a weapon?”

“Yes. Both Sandra and I do. We’re licensed and we trained.”

Some of the tension relaxed from his big body. “Where do you keep it?”

“Where I can get to it in a hurry, Dean. And
that’s
a discussion for another time. Don’t you have to go?”

“I can’t believe I’m standing in the kitchen, having an argument about a gun with a naked woman.” He flashed her another pussy
-wetting smile and struggled into his shirt. She was getting addicted to those smiles. The kiss he laid on her was added to her list of addictions. Gently pushing her in the direction of the bedroom, he patted her bottom.

“I’ll lock up. I don’t want anyone catching a glimpse of you when I leave.”

She walked down the hall, hearing the front door open then shut firmly, the lock engaging. Well. She hustled back and armed the system again. She had enough time to make up the bed, get dressed again and get some work done. Then she’d buy a dessert for dinner. It would be a long time before she could make anything on that island without remembering how she’d been Dean’s dessert.

****

“After that breakfast, neither one of us needed caramel crumble, Amy,” Sandra chided as she set dishes in the sink and rinsed them.

“I felt like one, and you’re so freaking thin,
and in such good shape, you intimidate me.”

“I ate my share of cholesterol this morning, probably enough for the week. I don’t want to be in some hospital bed with an illness I could have prevented with good diet and exercise.” The,
and with no one around to visit me,
was unspoken but audible anyhow.