Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Tabitha
I follow James in my car to the storage room at the library, where we silently put the books back on the shelves to await the next sale, or until the charity store comes to pick them up.
I replay our conversation in my head and I find myself regretting almost everything I said.
But I don’t know where to begin.
“What is it?” James asks.
I realize then that I’ve been standing here staring off into space instead of helping.
I grab a stack of books and brush off his concerned tone.
“Nothing. Just a little tired.”
“You can go…”
“No,” I say, turning toward the Junior Fiction shelf and stacking the books in order, whether they need to be ordered or not. “Let’s just get this done.”
I place a copy of Alice in Wonderland on the shelf when I feel the heat on the back of my neck.
“Don’t,” he says, brushing my hair away from my nape.
“James.”
“Just listen to me.”
“Okay.”
His fingers continue to brush the skin below my hairline, causing goosebumps to form on the back of my neck.
“I have a hard time expressing myself when it starts to get real. And when I’m around you I feel…exposed.
Because if I say what I’m really thinking, I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me.”
“What, that you think I’m greedy?”
“No. I’m afraid to tell you that I’m the greedy one,” I say.
“What?”
“I don’t want you to take that job at Price Day School because I want you to stay at the library.
I want to see you every morning. I want you to be the first person I see at work, wearing your crazy platform shoes and making me wonder how the hell you walk in those things.
I want to continue to spend my day wondering how you can concentrate on your job with all that racket downstairs, all those hoodlums running around… ”
“Children, James. They are children and it is a children’s annex,” I say, laughing.
His full lips kiss my neck and…what were we arguing about?”
“Just don’t.”
“Hmm?”
I am starting to feel spacey as his lips trail over my skin. His hands hold my hair over one shoulder, his other cupping the side of my throat. I don’t know if he knows he’s doing it on purpose, but his thumb is touching the underside of my earlobe, which is sending me into orbit.
With shaking breath, I ask, “Don’t…what?”
“Don’t take that job at Price Day School.”
My nipples harden. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Two strong hands grip my shoulders tightly. I gasp at the reaction this stirs up in my body.
“Can you please just fucking listen to me and do as I say instead of asking question after question after infernal question?”
His words are out of pocket, but it’s the desperate tone that does me in.
My questions drive him crazy in the best possible way, and that’s a heady feeling.
“James. You have to tell me why you don’t want me to leave.”
His only answer is to say, “Spread your feet.”
His lips on my skin make me forget the things we need to talk about. I wet my panties at the soft scrape of teeth there.
He growls, and I tremble as I lean back against him.
“If I tell you, will you spread your feet a little wider?”
I bite down on my lip and moan something in the affirmative.
His hand snakes down the front of my skirt, and I regret all the layers I’m wearing. Panties, check. Tights, check.
These layers are not a match for James Pierpont.
His strong hand finds its way to my bare pussy, making me gasp. I gasp again when his other hand reaches around to cup one of my breasts.
I turn to look at him over my shoulder and he captures my lips in his. The kiss is surprisingly soft yet sensual as he drags his tongue over my bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth.
His mouth, his hands, his legs keeping my feet spread wide…James is everywhere.
And then his finger finds my heat, and I let out a sharp cry.
“That’s it. There you are, sweetheart.”
His fingers tease me, exploring my wet folds, finding every spot that gets a reaction out of me.
“This is so naughty. We’re at work!” I whisper.
He ignores this and instead orders me again. “Squeeze my finger.”
Oh god. On one hand, I can’t believe this is happening, and on the other hand, I’m desperate for it. I need this to go wherever James is leading me.
I do what he says, and he chuckles softly against the shell of my ear.
“Nice and strong little pussy. I knew it. So fucking wet. Let’s see what you sound like when you come…”
Who does he think he is?
Oh, he knows, I think as he strokes my clit with the meat of his palm, with two fingers deep inside me.
His erection presses against my ass as I ride his hand.
I nearly black out from trying not to come too quickly.
“Let go, Tabitha.”
That’s it. That’s all it takes.
I think my feet leave the floor, I’m not sure.
All I know is I come so hard that James has to hold me up.
“James…”
“That’s it. That’s my girl…”
His girl?
In my orgasm-addled brain, all I can think is he has me right where he wants me.
“We can finish organizing this in the morning.”
“Oh,” I say, brushing my hair from my eyes. James politely helps me put myself back together, smoothing down my skirt. “Well, it was fun…”
“Because you’re coming home with me.”
“Home? With you?” I ask, finally turning to face him.
James sweetly cups my neck and pulls me in for a kiss. It’s hard, and claiming, and stirs up something deeper than lust.
“Yes, Tabitha. You’re coming home with me right now.”
And he still hasn’t told me the truth about why I can’t leave to take another job.
I’ve done it.
I’ve let him take me to his house.
Not an apartment. Not a penthouse. A full-fledged house in the middle of the city.
I didn’t think people had those anymore.
Everyone knows about the Pierpont Mansion on 45th Avenue, at the heart of the historic district. It’s a holdover from the Gilded Age. That’s the subject of the current dispute with his sister.
But I never would have guessed he has a simple two-story colonial in the middle of a leafy upper middle class neighborhood, surrounded by parks and schools and art studios. By simple, I mean by Pierpont standards, of course. It’s still nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived.
“Jeez, what are you paying in taxes here?” I ask.
James locks the oak front door behind us and doesn’t bother turning on the light.
“Are we really here to talk about real estate taxes?”
“No,” I laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pausing by the kitchen. “Do you need a drink? Want to watch a show or something before…”
“No, James. I don’t need you to feed, water, or entertain me before you throw my back out.”
The sharp exhale is something between a laugh and a grunt, but I don’t have time to analyze it any further.
James crashes his mouth against mine, and I forget everything that has happened up until this point.
Everything below my waist radiates and pulsates with need.
His arms lock around my hips, and with one swift movement, I’m over his shoulder, caveman-style.
I was not expecting this from a man who wears sweater vests and ties to work. But I love it.
I struggle, but not much. “James! What are you doing?”
“Easier to carry you to the bedroom than risk you tripping over something in your Frankenstein shoes.”
“They’re not Frankenstein shoes!”
“It wasn’t an insult. They look cute on you,” he says, setting me down a little roughly on the bed, but not too roughly.
Just enough that I squeeze my thighs together in anticipation of what happens next. The promise of getting thrown around like a rag doll makes me squirm.
“Take off that infernal poncho. Take off all of it.”
Impressively, James peels off his sweater, tie, dress shirt and undershirt in one go.
I’m no virgin, but I don’t recall ever undressing in front of a man before. I shiver as I tug off my top and toss it aside with my poncho, top, and jeans.
“I’ll let you do the rest,” I say to his bare, muscled back that bunches as he drops his trousers and kicks them aside. His naked ass is round and squeezable, and I can’t wait to fill my hands with those cheeks.
When he faces me, I can’t keep myself from immediately looking down. However, I’m emboldened by James’ heated gaze skimming me everywhere. Why shouldn’t I take a good, long look at it?
His erect cock is thick and long, which I knew to be true from what we did at the library.
But now I have a full view of it, and I shiver at the notion that this beautiful thing is attached to this man.
This man who confounds me, who says all the wrong things, but also makes me want him. Desperately.
How can James be so hard and so erect one again in the short time since the activities in the storage room?
I close my eyes as James runs one hand along my neck, his thumb brushing over my collarbone. My nipples grow tight as his hands roam lower, cupping my breasts in both hands.
“It’s criminal how beautiful you are,” he murmurs.
I can’t describe how it feels to accept that, just because he says it.
I open my eyes to take in the broad expanse of James’s bare chest, impressively chiseled, though you wouldn’t know it by the layers upon layers of wool and tweed he wears to work. I prefer him this way.
James tumbles us onto the bed, as if he’s unleashed a beast that can’t be contained a second longer.
He hovers over me, running his mouth along my chest, throat and shoulder while his hands take both breasts.
His fingers play over my nipples, and then his mouth takes over, turning the ache between my thighs into an all-out throb.
“I need to know something,” he says between torturous licks and pulls to each nipple.
“What…what do you need to know?”
“If you taste as good as I think you do.”
“Oh…”
For as long as I live, I’ll never forget how he eats me with everything he has.
I spread for him, but James takes control, hoisting my leg over his shoulder.
His tongue…oh god…the noises he makes.
I can barely make out the words he says as he devours my pussy breathlessly. “Perfect…delicious…look at you…”
I don’t take him literally at first.
“I said look at me, Tabitha.”
I’m too turned on to be outraged at how bossy he is in bed.
There have been clues. I shouldn’t be surprised. Despite everything in me that doesn’t like being told what to do, my body reacts.
He refuses to call me Tabby, which he knows I prefer. And still, the way he says my name makes me gush.
I open my eyes and arc upward to look down. What I see is a madman between my legs. He’s fucking enjoying this like nothing I’ve ever witnessed, not even in the filthiest porn.
I don’t know where my gushing ends and his drool begins.
My jaw drops as I watch him flatten his tongue and drag it firmly over my clit.
My body explodes, and I cry out.
“James!”
He growls something like, “I got you,” but perhaps it’s something else. Hard to tell with my thighs clamped around his head. I can’t help it. My body spasms over and over as I come harder than I’ve ever come in my life.
I tumble back against the pillows, breathless and spent after this roaring release.
The crinkle of foil is followed by James turning me onto my side, his front to my back.
I look back at him over my shoulder as he reaches around and lifts my thigh, slipping the tip of his cock inside me.
“There you are,” he says. The words somehow make me melt like hot butter, opening up to take more of him.
Once he has me positioned how he wants me, he hooks one arm around my waist and cradles my head with the other.
“Reach back and hold on to me while I fuck you, Tabitha.”
I do as he says, reaching back and threading my fingers through his hair.
“Now, I’ll be clear,” he says, pushing into me. “I don’t want you taking that other job. Because I want you. With me. At the library. Where I can see you. Every day. That’s the truth.”
Every phrase is punctuated with a deep, firm thrust that takes my breath away.
“I want …I want to see you too,” I rasp, barely able to get words out.
“I want to pick you up for work in the morning and take you home to my bed every night. That’s what I want.”
That’s girlfriend-boyfriend shit.
Is that what I want?
“Tabitha?”
“Yes, James. I’m here.”
With a wolfish grunt, James flings me onto my back so he can face me.
The sensation, the intimacy, is overwhelming.
“Don’t let your mind wander off. Stay here, with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
“Good girl.”
His length pierces me so deeply I gasp.
I’ll never be satisfied with anyone else after this. Not physically, not emotionally, not intellectually.
I thought James was a snob, but he’s so real with me.
He’s my match in every way.