Informed Consent (10 page)

“I got
stopped by the cops.”

That must
have startled him because he froze.

“You
drove?”

His hands
were easing the jeans down now.
 
His voice sounded only interested but Denise didn’t quite trust that.

“Ummm.”
She let her hand find his erection.

Damn! The
man flipped her effortlessly, and now she was in a vulnerable position on her belly.
 
Crap.

His hand
stroked her ass and shamefully, she raised it to meet him.
 
Traitorous body parts were the worst.

“Without
a license.” It was a statement; he knew the answer.

He
lowered his hips onto her butt and pressed, found the back of her neck with his
mouth.

She
bucked up to him again.

“What
other sins, my bad wee girl?”

“Crap,
Andrew.”

“Yes, my
sweet thing?”

“I want
you.”
 
Damn. Now she was begging.

“I don’t
think you’re done.”
 
He pressed his
cock against her butt once and then moved to the side.
 

She
moaned.

“I didn’t
want you to know William missed school.”

His hand
came down on her butt.
 
Not
too
hard.
 
But still.

“Lies of
omission.” Another crack, harder, and another lick at the base of her spine,
then a sharp nip.

Several
more cracks.

She cried
out.

“Tonight
was a zoo, Baby.”

Now the
bastard stuck his tongue in her ear.
 
She reared up to press her hot butt against his cock.
 

Andrew
caught her under the stomach and held her with one arm while the other hand
stripped her panties down, leaving them tangled about her knees.
 
His hand swept down again.

She
moaned again, this time pressing herself into his palm.

“We need
to be a team.”

“Umm.”
She trembled. He slipped his fingers into her.
 
She was wet, dripping.

Andrew
groaned, sounding damn pleased with himself.
 
She tried to flip back, thinking she’d pull him down, kiss
him hard, make him forget.

Instead
he pulled back
, and grabbed at the
panties, cursed.
 

That. Was
a rip.

He moved
off the bed.
 
She moaned in protest
because she was not ready to lose him and then found herself yanked
unceremoniously over his knee.

“Nooo!”
She started to cry immediately.
 
Not because it hurt but because she had wanted
it
so much.

“Hush.”
His hand stroked.
 
Rubbed. Kneaded.
Dipped into her sweetness. Played there.

Vaguely,
far away, she heard something. He was moving, to touch her, to play in her,
yes, but something more.

Cold
leather lay down very gently on her warm ass.

“Meet my
belt, Denise.”

He bent
over her, whispered in her ear while his other hand continued to play.

Quite
without voluntary intent she rose up, moaning.
 
He laid an arm across her back, holding her at her hip,
pressing her to his side.
 
His cock
twitched under her.
 
She
moaned.
 
The cool leather
disappeared.

“Tell me
you’re sorry, baby.”

“I’m
sorry!” her voice sounded ragged to her own ears, desperate, pleading.
 
It was awful to be such a horrible
slut.

The belt
landed. It stung, but she knew it could have been much worse.

There.
That one was much worse.

Another,
and she tried desperately to get away but he held her firm.
 
His mouth was back at her ear.

“We need
to be a team, baby.
 
Your brothers
need that.
 
You need that.
 
And sweet thing, I need it. Do you feel
this?”

 
His fingers dipped into her again and
brought the wet to her butt, rubbing her own honey into her skin.
 
“This is good, Denise.
 
We’re good.
 
Don’t fight it so much.
 
I know you need time.
 
I’ll give you time.”

The belt
cracked down hard, once, twice and after that she didn’t feel it anymore,
except far away, somewhere, she knew it was there and then he was moving again
and she was face down over the edge of the bed and he was grabbing her hips,
pulling her up to him and swearing, and there! He thrust deep in her pussy and
said wonderful, horrible, crude things in her ear.
 
He wrapped an arm across her chest, bracing her against his
own thrusting weight, sending his other hand to bring lovely long talented
fingers to bear on other matters.

The world
exploded.

Later,
she was vaguely aware of being sticky, warm, and curled into a ball surrounded
by his big hard warm body and he had a hand wrapped possessively around her
breast.

Chapter 9

In the
kitchen the following morning Denise sat in her chair, numb, hands clutching a
mug of coffee.
 
Andrew spoke
calmly, and she imagined what he was going on about must be important or he
wouldn’t have woken her up to talk about it, would he?
 
Regardless, she hadn’t a clue what he
was saying.
 
She took a long sip of
coffee.

He’d woken her up, one
hand on her shoulder, gently shaking.
 
“Have breakfast with me.
 
We
need to talk.”

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

 
“Drink some coffee then.”

 
Remembering last night, what he had done
to her, she flushed, involuntarily squeezing her thighs together tightly.
Surely by this time yesterday the man had already left the house?
 
So why was he still here today?
 
It was a good thing he’d dragged her
butt out of bed or she’d have screwed up the school day for the boys.
 
Her mind was coming on line now, and
she wanted him out the door so he didn’t witness how hard it was to get her
brothers out of bed.

Andrew slid a notebook
towards her, following it with a pen.
 
“Do you want to stay here?
 
Indefinitely?”

She straightened
abruptly in her chair.
 
“What do
you mean?”

 
“If we’re going to live here, this place
needs a lot of repair work.”

 
Denise opened her mouth to object
because she hated being told what to do. She also intended to fire a million
questions because she could criticize her home but he couldn’t.

 
Andrew shot a warning gaze in her
direction and lifted a ‘do not interrupt me finger”.

 
The temperature of her blood began to
creep up.
 
She shut her mouth
because she was sick of constantly bickering.
 
A second later she opened it again to drink more coffee.

“No big deal,” her
husband was saying, “but no need to bother if you want to live somewhere else.”

 
“This is my brothers’ home!”

The husband didn’t even
blink.
 
Actually, he nodded. He
also stood up. “So, start by calling Jim Breshares, Tom McMasters, and Hank
Nestor.
 
They’re all good general contractors.
 
See which one you feel most
comfortable with.” He stood up and started rifling his bag. “They’ll go through
the place and tell you what needs to be done structurally, and they’ll listen
to what you want the place to look like.”
 
Andrew shoved his chair back to the table. He tossed several business
cards towards her.
 
“Let’s talk at
that point.
 
It’s your call, but
keep me appraised.”

 
William walked into the room and
Denise’s heart stuttered and apparently stopped, waiting for something bad to
happen.

“Yo.”
 
William bumped fists with Andrew. His
hair stood straight up from his head and veered sharply left. His eyes were
slitty slices in his face.
 
But he
was up.

She looked at
Andrew.
 
His face gave nothing
away.
 
Noise on the stairs told her
the other two were on their way.
 
The man must have woken them up.
 
There was no way in hell they’d be up otherwise.

 
Obviously, his wake up techniques hit a
notch above her own on the effectiveness scale.

She whipped her head
around to stare at the clock.
 
Was
there time to take them to breakfast?
 
Could she pay the driver extra to pass by a drive thru?
 
She bet she could, but wasn’t sure it
was the best thing to do on the first day.

Andrew raised a brow and
moved rapidly across the kitchen.
 
He put a hand out to catch Zander’s as the kid poured coffee into a
mug.
 
Denise blushed. Yep! In this
house, no one had ever paid attention to what little kids ate or drank.

 
“No coffee, short stack.”
 
Andrew ruffled the boy’s hair.
 
“You guys get it together fast and I’ll
swing by the bakery on the way to school.”

“You mean you’re driving
us?” Lucas looked suspicious.
 
William watched Andrew closely.
 

“You don’t need to do
that.”

All of the boys looked
at Denise.

Andrew looked too, his
hands still working the clasp of his satchel.
 
“I’m happy to, Denise.”

“I wasn’t going to drive
them. I have a car coming.”

“I’d like to,
Denise.
 
It’s not a big deal. It
will give us some time together.”

“It’s not your
problem.”
 
She heard the
defensiveness in her voice and would have done anything to keep it out, but she
couldn’t.
 
They were her brothers,
her responsibility, and he was right about at least one thing.She needed to
step up and raise them better than her parents had.
 
She would do it.
 
She didn’t need him snatching the job out of her hands, all Mr. Head of
House, or whatever the heck he called himself.

 
Andrew strolled across the room to her
and bent down to give her a kiss.
 
“I’m not criticizing, Denise.
 
Or trying to take anything away from you.
 
We’re a team, remember?”

 
He brushed her forehead with his lips,
one hand squeezed her shoulder.
 

She jerked away from the
hand and the lips.
 
But not before
she felt the surge of heat and moisture.

 
He ignored her reaction except to
calmly put his hand back on her shoulder, exerting the slightest pressure to
keep her anchored.
 
“Let’s go,
men.”
 

He stopped again at the
door.

“Do you have plans for
dinner tonight?”

 
Her head shot up.

“I think we should plan
to eat together as a family more often than not.
 
Do you?”

She kept her eyes on him
warily.
 
God knows what he was up
to now.

 
Andrew shrugged. “Think about it, would
you?”

He turned back to the
door, keys jangling.

 
“I can make something.”

 
“Hmmm?”
 

“Dinner.
 
I’ll make something.”

She looked down,
frowning at the pad he’d shoved in her direction with the contractor’s
names.
 
“Around seven?”

 
He flashed her the grin that had caught
her attention all those months ago -- before anything else, well, maybe the
chestnut hair had come first -- and he whistled as he went out the door.

***

She wanted to kick
herself.
 
She was pathetic.
 
Easy.
 
Flash her a smile, give her a good -- make that a great
orgasm, make that three -- and she was bowing and scraping like a lunatic.
 
What had she done?
 
Offered to cook
Dinner
?