Getting Rough (4 page)

And then the mudroom door opened again and this man that drew a vague recollection in my mind strolled in and sidled up next to Cassidy like he was staking a claim. If I hadn’t already known this island was chock-full of lobster fishermen, I’d swear the bow in this guy’s legs was put there by years of riding horses on a stud farm. Not that I was saying he was good-looking enough to be a stud himself. On the contrary, he looked like he’d just mastered the upright movement on the human evolutionary timeline. His face was covered in three-day-old stubble and he looked sturdy as hell, so it was quite possible that he was the missing link. The way his brow furrowed over his eyes when he looked at me only added credence to my theory, but it still wasn’t enough. If I could just get him to carry a giant club and grunt out a few words like “me make fire,” I’d be on my way to the Smithsonian with my discovery.

And then suddenly there was a pregnant pause in the room, one that was long enough for things to start shifting around with a primal realization. We’d somehow gone from a prehistoric jungle to the plains of some hot-as-fuck wilderness. Maybe it was instinct that had me on high alert, something ingrained in the very fiber of my makeup that made me steel up my stance, like a predator about to face off with another predator of equal strength. Cassidy stood between us like a zebra in the grasslands, frozen in place. Something in my gut told me shit was about to change.

“Are those my cookies?” the new guy grunted.

Well, he didn’t so much grunt as growl the words, but I wasn’t far off the mark. Jesus, had he eaten gravel for lunch?

Abby smiled up at the guy. I’ll admit, it made me a little jealous. “And this would be my little cookie monster.” Up on the tips of her toes, she pulled at his collar until he stooped so she could kiss him on the cheek. A cheek she then patted a little too hard, but it seemed he was used to it. “You have to share your cookies with the guests, Casey. Don’t be stingy.”

Whoa, wait. Casey?
I’d heard that name before. Worse, I’d
seen
that name before. In permanent ink. Right above the lovely ass cheek of the woman I’d recently been fucking.

Said woman squeezed her eyes shut like she wished she could rewind time and carve those two little syllables out of the script before hitting the live button again. Oh, I was going to have too much fun with this. But first impressions were lasting impressions, so I had a little alpha work to finish first. And the one thing that spelled alpha, even more than brute strength, was confidence.

I crossed the kitchen like I commanded it, the infamous Casey giving me the once-over all the while until we were standing toe-to-toe. And then I took one more step forward, breaching the invisible barrier to his personal space just to see if he would take one back. He did not. Instead, he squared his shoulders and leaned in. The thickness in the air that separated us arched with opposing energies of testosterone, our inner lions giving silent roars to test which had the stuff it took to be king. With his chest puffed and shoulders flared like a cobra’s hood, he stood his ground and looked me in the eye. I was impressed, though not intimidated.

The offering of my handshake before he had the chance was the first victory in what I was sure would be a pissing match for the ages. The grip as he shook my hand was his silent acceptance of the challenge that now lay at his feet.

“Casey, was it?” We all knew I’d just heard his name, but not acknowledging it was like dismissing its importance. Hence the smirk on his scruffy face.

“Yeah. Casey.” He released the shake, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, an act that said he wasn’t threatened by a surprise attack. Nice maneuver on his part. I wondered if he knew I’d been fucking his girlfriend. “And you are?”

I had my answer. Obviously not.

“I’m the man eating your cookies.” To prove my point, I finished off the one I’d been savoring right in front of him, and then dusted the crumbs from my hands.

“He,”
Cassidy interrupted, “was just leaving.”

I didn’t even spare a look in her direction. Not necessarily to be rude, but because to take my eyes off the man before me would be a point in his favor. “You know… I think I’ve changed my mind. I could do with a bit of fresh sea air in my lungs.”

Casey nodded. “Sea air is very therapeutic. Might even put some hair on your chest.”

Touché.

“Actually, I find most women like a man to be nice and smooth.
Every
where.” My meaning was well caught.

“Not Stonington women,” he said with a wink.

I chuckled because I simply couldn’t help myself. “You sure about that?” I asked with a quick glance toward Cassidy and back.

That confident smile dropped just as quickly, and the muscles in his body tensed. Bingo! It was like a double bonus-point score for me in the testosterone-driven game we’d decided to play. Someone probably should’ve told him how competitive I could be.

“Casey Michaels, I’ll have no more talk about grooming habits in this kitchen,” Abby said in a stern, motherly tone that made both of us stand a little straighter. “Cassidy, you go on upstairs and make up the bed in our guest’s room. We’re still running a business here, ya know. Then I want you to get yourself some rest before suppertime.”

“No!” Cassidy said loud enough to cause every head in the room to snap in her direction. She shifted her weight from one hip to the other, attempting to look casual. “I mean, Shaw doesn’t really want to stay here. He has so much work to do to get Denver signed to a team and ready for training.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t handle from here.” Backing out of Casey’s compromised space, I came to a stop at her side. I’d planned to permanently attach myself there to make her as uncomfortable as I possibly could for the duration of my stay. That, and I felt like being a cock-block for Missing Link Casey. I could be a real dick sometimes.

My eyes were pinned on Casey as I threw my arm over Cassidy’s shoulders, staking a wee bit of a claim of my own. Cassidy shrugged me off, but I put it right back because, yeah, she was mine and maybe Casey wasn’t the only one who needed to know that. “Besides, this seems like so much more fun,” I told her, and then I leaned closer to her ear. “All work and no play makes Shaw a very dull boy.”

She tried to shrug me off again, but I flexed, not allowing the deadweight to drop. Of course Cassidy wasn’t okay with that, so she grabbed my hand and shoved my arm off. But she didn’t release her hold once the task had been accomplished. Instead, she gave Abby and Casey a tight smile and said, “Will you please excuse us? We have some business to discuss so Shaw can be on his way.” And then she dragged me from the kitchen.

I laughed at her because it was damn cute how aggravated she was, huffing and puffing and towing me through the foyer to the stairs. “What’s your rush, Cassie? I already told you I’m sticking around for a bit.”

“No, you’re not. And,
Cassie
? Really?” she asked, though she didn’t stop pulling me up the steps, a task I didn’t make particularly easy on her.

I leaned back, not giving her all of my weight but still enough resistance to give her a good workout. “Oh, is that not what they call you? Cassie and Casey just sounded like it would be a thing.” Even though her back was to me, I still did the air quotes with my free hand. “A thing like the two of you are a thing, right?”

She stopped and turned on me. Only then did I realize we’d somehow made it to the top of the staircase despite my attempt to be a major pain in her ass. Cassidy was breathing hard from the effort, but she hadn’t broken a sweat. Christ, I wanted nothing more than to see her sweating and breathing hard for an entirely different reason. Plus, there was still the matter of those damn leggings and a pussy that needed tending.

When she looked from right to left, I swear I could read her mind. She had no idea which room was mine, and I was all too happy to show her. With swift movement, I pulled her against my chest and looked down at her. She was looking back, that heavy-breathing thing still fucking with my guttered brain and making my cock want to join it there. The way she looked up at me, that bit of desperateness in her eyes. Well now, that was the Cassidy I’d come to know when she and I were alone. She needed me just as much as I needed her. And maybe… just maybe she wanted to be claimed.

My hands went to her ass, which felt even more amazing than it looked in those damn leggings, and farther still to her thighs where I grabbed on and hoisted her up so she could wrap her legs around my hips. And then it was on. Lips met lips, fingers found purchase in hair, and Cassidy was sucking on my tongue. Jesus fucking Christ, where the hell was my room?

He smelled like Shaw and tasted like Casey, thanks to Abby’s cookies. I found myself burrowing deeper into the crook of his neck, desperate for more of the delicious aroma emitting from his body like some addictive form of untried confectionery. My fingers latched on to the strands of his hair and I didn’t want to let go, despite the conflicting emotions oscillating through me at this new, yet disturbing, concept.

I should have stopped, but my legs only tightened further around his waist as Shaw propelled us down the hall to an unknown destination. And I realized it didn’t matter where he was going as long as I got to go along with him. He was everything familiar. And I really needed familiar right then.

My God, but his cock was a raging bulge pressed to the core of me. One that couldn’t and wouldn’t be ignored. And all I could think about was how badly I wanted to taste the salty hint of his flesh, feel the heavy weight of him on my tongue, and lick him from root to tip.

I’d already begun to plot out how I was going to make that happen when Shaw crossed the threshold to a room – his room, I assumed – and kicked the door shut with the heel of his shoe. And then my back was slammed against the wall.

“What the —”

My protest was cut off when his hand covered my mouth. Shaw brought his face inches from mine and I could do nothing but lose myself inside the blue heat of his eyes.

“Shut up.” His words were clipped and edgy, but the pulse of his arousal continued to demonstrate how turned on he was. And my mouth watered at the thought of taking his length and sucking him. Hard.

When I made no attempt to struggle out of his tight hold, his fingers squeezed my cheeks before relaxing back against my face.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

Without lessening his grip, Shaw leaned forward and nuzzled the side of my neck. The softness of his lips moved across my skin and my eyelids drifted closed. I was trapped – entangled by my own lust and his overwhelming presence. Until his teeth clamped down on the sensitive flesh of my neck. It infuriated me, both because I liked it and because he knew it. Not only that, but his hand over my mouth was preventing me from being able to put his cock there.

Besides, this was my house, dammit, and everyone knew the house ruled. If it was a fight he wanted, it was a fight he was going to get. So I grabbed a good handful of his hair while prying his hand away. Finally my mouth was free, though the snarl to Shaw’s lip meant he wasn’t happy about it and likely wouldn’t allow it to go on for long. My mission was only half complete, as I still needed to get his cock in my mouth, so I had to act fast.

I fisted another handful of hair to keep him in place, while releasing the hold my legs had around his waist so I could drop to the floor. Shaw wasn’t having it. He kept me pinned to the wall with his body, a sexy yet annoying smirk on his face even as he continued to pull against the hold I had on his hair. At any moment, I expected him to break free, with or without his mane intact.

“Let me go,” I ordered, bucking against him and kicking my legs back and forth to jar myself loose.

“Say please.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “No.”

“Then we’re going to do this my way.”

“Do what?”

With a quick move that caught me off guard, Shaw released me to the floor, catching me with one arm around my waist until I was firmly planted on my feet. And then he pinned me again. “Whatever I want to do.”

There was a wicked gleam to his eye and something told me I’d just played right into his hands. Well, we’d see about that.

“We’re not doing anything until you tell me what you’re doing here.” I wasn’t sure my words carried very much weight, what with them sounding all breathy and just plain flimsy. Though his lips and teeth had returned to my neck, so I passed the blame for my mousiness on to them. Not only that, but Shaw was moving lower and lower, his mouth closing around the nipple he’d managed to find even though he couldn’t see it through the sweater… and cami… and bra. But he didn’t stop there. No, he took the position I’d wanted. I would’ve hated him for it if it hadn’t been for the added perk I knew would be mine.

“That makes zero sense, seeing as I’m already doing it. Why haven’t you ever worn these things before?” Shaw was on his knees before me, studying my leggings. I could feel each warm exhale of breath on my center when he nuzzled the tight space between my thighs with his nose.

I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate, and then I asked the question again, “What are you doing here, Matthews?”

The undeniably hot, wet stroke of his tongue when he licked me through those stupid, beautiful leggings was my undoing. My knees buckled from the sensation, but Shaw was there to pin me back in place. Working me with his full mouth, he buried his head and moved back and forth with each deep sweep of his tongue until his teeth scraped my clit, sending a jolt of “something wicked this way comes” through me. The description wasn’t far off the mark; the orgasm already building was definitely evil in nature.

Breathe, Cassidy, breathe.
 

Shaw pulled back then – only slightly – giving me a reprieve I was sure was more for his benefit than mine. He didn’t even look at me, but he did finally answer, “Tasting you. What are
you
doing here?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, which was just as well. I had lost all ability to form a coherent thought, much less the ability to string words together and make a logical response. Instead, I drowned in sensation as his strong, capable hands moved across my hips and then over my thighs before circling around my back. There, he cupped my backside, kneading my bottom and molding my flesh under his large palms like a piece of malleable clay.

When I felt his fingers seize and curl under the waistband of my pants, all the air rushed out of my lungs. I glanced down my body as every nerve ending went on high alert. Shaw, on his knees, was a sight to behold. As he began to lower my pants, the tendons in his arms were taut with the rigid control he always kept in check but hovered just below the surface. You could practically feel his strained urgency pulsate between us with a life force of its own.

His movements were maddeningly slow, deliberate even as he stopped short of pulling the thin scrap of material over my hips.

I grabbed the stupid leggings to give them a shove, but Shaw flexed against my hold, not allowing me any control. Damn him. His jaw ticked and nostrils flared, though I wasn’t really sure what he had to be so mad about. He was the one causing the delay. Maybe the control he’d refused me was only barely contained within himself.

“Not until you answer the question.” He nuzzled me again, making it impossible for me to think clearly.

“Um, I can’t remember what it was.”

“Then I’ll ask it again.”

I tried to focus, I really did, but the soft kiss along the seam of those godforsaken leggings wasn’t helping matters.

Shaw released a heavy breath. “You ran.” His fingertips pressed into my flesh with his tightened grip. “Why?”

With each rise and fall of my chest, my nipples became increasingly sensitive. It was as if the oversized sweater I’d thrown on that morning had turned into some erotic sex apparatus. Jeez, had someone slipped me some ecstasy when I wasn’t looking? “I did not run. What would I have to run from?”

He yanked my pants down. Just enough to bare my pussy, and then he came to an abrupt halt. “Me.” With that one clipped word, Shaw clutched the rolled leggings at my thighs and pulled me toward him. His hot mouth zeroed in on my clit – tongue, lips, and teeth working together to make me forget everything I’d ever learned since birth with the exception of that feeling of intense pleasure given to a woman only by a man.

Just as quickly as he’d begun, he stopped again. Good God, but my girly bits were getting whiplash. What little part of my brain that wasn’t obsessing about getting his cock in my mouth was now calculating the stealthlike maneuvers needed in order to knock him to the floor so I could ride his face.

“Continue,” he demanded. “And make it quick.”

I peeled my hands from the wall and pushed my fingers through his gorgeous bedhead of hair. I might have even nudged him a bit to encourage a continuation of his previous action. “I wasn’t running from you. I wasn’t running from anything. I was running to something.”

“Casey?” he asked. His voice dripped with little green monster ooze. Maybe it was sick and twisted, but his jealousy turned me on even more. Surely he had to see the proof of that right in front of his face.

“No, not Casey. My mother had an accident. I had to come home. My family needed me.”

“Maybe they weren’t the only ones.”

At least I think that was what I’d heard him say. His voice was muffled by the fact that his face was buried between my thighs again, which I wasn’t complaining about, but still. Wedging my hand between my nether region and his forehead, I pushed, forcing him to stop what he was doing. “What did you just say?”

Shaw tilted his head up, rubbing against my hand like a cat taking the stroking it deserved. And then his soft kiss brushed my palm.

“Touch yourself.” It was an order and a request.

“That’s not what you said,” I told him even as my fingers dipped between my folds.

With hooded eyes and parted mouth, he watched. And then his tongue made an appearance to wet his lips. My fingers swirled around my clit, the pleasure intensified with the knowledge that Shaw was held hostage by my explicit movements. My breath stuttered. He wasn’t content to simply watch, though. Hooking an arm around one thigh, he pushed a thumb inside my pussy from behind. My head fell back with the sensation of finally being filled, my moan barely stifled by the bite to the inside of my cheek. I wanted to ride the euphoria as far as it would take me, but Shaw – as always – had other plans.

The warm, wet, velvety glide of his tongue as it met my core shot me straight into oblivion. My fingers, his tongue… they might as well have been skipping along in a meadow filled with daisies while holding hands. That was my happy place.

My other hand found the back of his head and I urged him even closer while his thick thumb worked me from behind. Biting down on my lip, I closed my eyes and let the dual sensations take the lead. I didn’t give a crap why Shaw was there. I was just glad he was and that he was giving me what was shaping up to be one hell of an orgasm.

I wanted to part my legs to give him more room, but those stupid leggings had me restrained. Something I’m sure had been Shaw’s intention all along. I was trapped, but there was no place else I’d rather be in that moment. My orgasm continued to rise and I’d begun to ride his face and his thumb… desperate to help even though my own manipulations had stopped in favor of feeling his. And then his finger entered my ass.

I came. Hard. My teeth clenched with a barely contained moan. How the hell I had the presence of mind about me to be careful of not being too loud, I’d never know, but thank God I did. Shaw did not, however. His moan of approval had thankfully been muted, though not intentionally. The sound barrier presented by my thighs and vagina had everything to do with that. And the vibrations from that moan had only one place to go. Directly to my clit. I came again, pushing my hips toward his face, pulling his head closer, and somehow managing to rock back and forth on his thumb and finger still inside me.

The heat from the boiling inferno within me had broken free, coloring my skin a light pink and causing a thin sheen of sweat to take up residence in order to cool my body back down. The pulse of my orgasm battled with the rhythm of my heartbeat, making the euphoric cadence radiating through me go straight to my head. I was dizzy, filled with a bliss I knew would be short-lived, but you better believe I was going to ride it out for as long as I could.

Then it occurred to me… the one thing I’d wanted, even more than my own orgasm, was Shaw’s cock in my mouth. Once again, he’d somehow managed to get his way and deny mine.

So I refused to bask in the afterglow. Jesus, that sucked, but not as much as it would suck for Shaw’s ego. He’d no doubt be disappointed by my mediocre response and it would wipe the arrogant smirk right off his too-handsome face.

I wanted his cock. And I was going to have it.

Resolved, I placed the sole of my boot on his shoulder and extended my leg with deliberate ease. His thumb and forefinger slid from my body and I fought the urge to put them back where they belonged.

Shaw rocked back on his haunches, a confused expression on his face as he tilted his head to the side, quizzically.

“Stand up.” The order was quiet, methodical.

The corner of Shaw’s mouth lifted before he rose to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. He raised a single eyebrow, waiting to be dazzled.

Pushing off the wall, I pulled up my pants, the proverbial Closed for Business sign dangling from my navel, and stepped to him. Reaching up to cup the back of his neck, I pulled him down to me, kissing him deeply and tasting myself on his lips. It was my tongue that took the lead, coaxing his to play along even as I massaged his cock through his pants to do the same. Shaw’s breath was heavy through his nose, his body a willing participant to what I wanted.

His hand covered mine and squeezed, encouraging me to stroke him harder. His cock was thick, firm, and pulsed inside my grip. With a quick maneuver of my feet, I turned us so that he was now the one with his back to the wall. Amusement washed over his face and he chuckled. I may have controlled his body and held his cock in my hand, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Shaw had allowed this. It didn’t matter.

Dropping to my knees, I made quick work of his belt and freed his erection from the confines of his pants. I grinned in satisfaction when the object of my obsession finally sprang free. I’d just prepared to suck him off when Shaw cupped his cock and pulled it to the side. Away from me.

“No,” he said when I peered up at him with a furrowed brow.

“What do you mean, no?”

“No is a pretty basic concept. What is it that you don’t understand about it?” The corner of his lip caught between his teeth and he pushed a lock of hair that had fallen from my ponytail behind my ear. What was that look he was giving me? And, God, he was rubbing himself.