Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Teller
Madison had fallen quiet after the confrontation with Riley. I didn’t blame her. I had hoped to cheer her up and distract her, but she was stuck in that brilliant mind of hers. The drive home was close to silent. She commented on the stars we could see above the shadowed outline of the mountains while holding the box of bakery goodies. In the house, she put the box on the island.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and blinked at the top of the stairs. Why would she look worried— Oh.
“I’d love to have you sleep with me tonight,” I said softly. “We don’t have to do anything. I just want you there.”
Her eyes were shining as she stared up the stairs, then she blinked slowly. When her gaze shifted to me, there was nothing but determination. She yanked me closer by the fly of my jeans and rose on her toes to place a kiss on my jaw, then another, and another, until she got to my ear.
Heat kindled in my groin. Then her sharp teeth nipped my earlobe right before sucking the damn thing into her mouth. Lust coursed straight to my cock and muddled my brain. I fought for clarity. She hadn’t been this bold before. I opened my mouth to say something just as her tongue swirled around the flesh of my earlobe and she started kissing her way toward my lips.
Something was off. “Madison?”
“Mm.” She licked across my lips.
I should kick myself to shut up, but something was wrong. There’d been Riley, then Madison’s silence, and now this. She’d never made the first move, always me, as if she had an anaphylactic reaction to rejection.
I returned her kiss but gripped her shoulders. “What’s this?” I asked against her mouth.
She paused.
“What’s wrong, Madison?”
She stiffened and stepped back. An embarrassed blush raged across her tanned skin. “Nothing.”
“Don’t get me wrong—” She looked away. I ducked my head to keep her attention on me. “Mads. I want you all over me. But something’s wrong, and I’d rather we talk about it.”
“I’d rather suck your dick.”
My groan came as hard as I would between her sweet lips. “You are invited to blow me at your earliest convenience, but I’d rather you do it because you want to and not because you’re upset about Riley.”
She drew back, genuinely confused. “I’ve forgotten about Riley.”
Oh. Then what the fuck had she been in her head about? “Her date?” Our date?
“No.” She took another step back.
I could argue with her, beg her to tell me, but Madison had only ever opened up to me in her own time since we’d started this venture. Would she with this, whatever it was?
It wasn’t up to me. “I’m going to bed, Mads. I still want you there, whether you’re ready to talk to me or not. But the last thing I want is for you to feel used.”
A crease formed between her brow. I gave her a small smile before I started for the stairs.
“Teller.”
I stopped on the third stair.
“You have the network. The confidence. The money. You have all the power.”
Carefully, I turned. Her fear cut straight to my heart.
“All the resources,” she continued and bit her lower lip. “And when I’m around you? I don’t care about any of that.”
“You trust me.”
She clenched her jaw.
I took a step down, and she rushed to the bottom of the stairs. I sank to my ass onto a step to keep from towering over her.
“I’m afraid to trust you,” she said, her voice tight. “It’s different when my subconscious is whispering this isn’t right. When I’m trying not to question why I had to put up with awful behavior. It’s different when I’m getting pitying looks, or ‘that poor girl’ stares, or even hostility. Riley was jealous tonight. Jealous . Of me .” Her chest rose and fell faster. “I’ve never experienced that. No one is jealous of me, Teller. And now... there’s you.”
Each word shot through my heart until it turned into a hunk of Swiss cheese. “Jesus.”
She’d laid it all out there. She was scared. Putting all her trust and faith in me would leave her wrecked if something happened between us. She’d known she’d never gotten what she’d deserved. She’d even said good riddance to her ex and moved on. What she’d said about me was humbling as fuck.
But what did a blow job have to do with it? “Do you think you need to pleasure me to get me to stick around?” What had I done wrong to give her that impression?
She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “No. It’s... I thought...” She dropped her arms and sighed, tipping her head back. “You unravel me, Teller. So easily. You can hold all of me suspended on the tip of your tongue. I wanted to feel that power for once.”
I scooted down a step. If I stood, I’d crowd her and she needed her space. She was being raw and vulnerable and open. I could do the same and I could do it sitting on my ass. “You don’t see that you do have all the power. I don’t think you realize how much you turned my world upside down.” I squeezed her warm fingers. Her grip was loose, ready to break away and run. If that was what she needed, I’d let her. “Before you, I worked, Maddy. I did chores in the morning, I was at the distillery past closing, and I spent all weekend at the ranch.”
“You’re still only working.”
“I’m enjoying myself. I get to go on dates with you.”
Doubt darkened her eyes. “You could go on dates with anyone.”
“I wouldn’t enjoy myself. You have your own mind. Your own plans. Aspirations that aren’t tied to my name. Yes, you needed to borrow my influence to keep from getting screwed over with Flatlanders. That’s bold. You donated fifty grand to a charity to get my help. That’s a big fucking leap of calculated faith—in me.” I rubbed my thumbs over the backs of her hands. “People put me on a pedestal and they don’t like it when I don’t live up to their expectations. I’m just a guy who works damn hard and wants a quiet life. You saw that. You saw me right through the Bailey name. I don’t have to be anyone with you but a guy who thinks you’re fucking amazing.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, spilling over her cheeks when she blinked. “God, Teller.”
The tears were my undoing. I tugged her toward me to straddle my lap. I tangled my hand in her long locks and captured a tear with my lips. Then another, the salt staining my tongue with the flavor of her trust and her vulnerability.
She opened up this way for me and me only. An experience I wouldn’t take for granted.
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and I claimed her mouth, delving inside. Electricity crackled between us as emotion zinged back and forth like we were carrying each other’s burdens.
The saltiness of the tears lingered, but her sweet flavor shone through and I drank like I was dying of thirst. This woman got to me in a way I’d never expected, not from anyone.
She cupped my face, her palms scraping over my beard and her fingers tunneling through my hair. She was ferocious, biting and nibbling my tongue and my lips. She was unrestrained, no longer willing to be on standby, catching the scraps tossed to her and making do. She was taking what she wanted.
I grabbed her ass and ground her down onto my erection. The position wasn’t the easiest and the edge of a stair dug into my back, but I didn’t care.
She rocked over me and I groaned.
“Take what you want.” I might be undoing her initial intentions. She wanted to have power in the relationship—and that was what this was. Only she didn’t see that I was just as helpless when it came to her.
Madison
I rode the hard ridge behind Teller’s jeans. My emotions were flayed wide open, but he was proving to be a safe spot for that to happen. It’d only occurred with him. Only Teller.
Desire built inside me. How could I go from a raw, gaping mess of feelings and tears to an inferno of arousal? It was too big for my skin and my peak was way closer than it should be for having all my clothes on.
Yet, I was on top. Teller’s big hands clasped my butt cheeks and he grunted each time I ground onto him. I wanted him to feel as powerless and powerful and hungry as I did.
I broke away from our frenetic kiss and laid a path of sloppy, open-mouthed kisses down his neck, sliding off his lap as I went.
I had begun with the intention to blow him, and my motivations had changed, if only slightly. I wanted power over him, but not just that anymore. I wanted to give him the same mindless pleasure he so easily and generously gave me. The drive to have my mouth on him was for both of us, not just me.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice rough.
“Lean back, Bailey, and let me undo your jeans.”
He slid his ass to the edge before I finished speaking and propped his elbows on the length of the stair behind him. “Fuck, Mads. Seeing you like this, on your knees in front of me, your hair a sexy mess from me? I won’t ever fucking forget it.”
“I’ll keep reminding you,” I purred and his pupils fixed, making his eyes almost black. I opened his fly and yanked his underwear down as far as it’d go with his jeans still on.
His ragged groan cut through the quiet house, growing stronger as I gave his shaft a good pump, then another. He was hot in my hand, smooth, yet rough with veins and the ridge at the crown.
I glided over him, rhythmically squeezing. He sucked in a breath, his gaze fixed on what I was doing to him. Was this how he’d felt when he was getting me off all those times before we’d had actual sex?
I was enjoying this. He was at my mercy. He was allowing it, but he was also powerless. He could carry me up the stairs to his bedroom and have his way with me, but he let me play. He wanted me to. From the tint on his cheeks, the way his mouth puffed open with each breath, and his rigid position, he needed me to.
I stroked up and down. “Are you going to taste like a strong bourbon? Rich and smooth? Bold with a nice finish?”
“Fuck, Mads.” He thrust his hips up into my grip. His cock twitched against me.
Oh, I liked this. “I’m going to start by taking a little sip.” I shoved his legs wide and wedged between them, then licked across his crown, circling it with my tongue. My hair fell on each side of me.
“Fuck,” he repeated.
I did it again, licking at him like a lollipop, tasting the salty precum. I’d been right. Rich and bold. When he vibrated like he needed more, I sucked him all the way in, as far as I could go. His tip hit the back of my throat and I swallowed him.
“Fuck me,” he growled, rocked up, restrained, like he was afraid to choke me.
I’d choke myself on him.
I hummed and his entire body went rigid, like I had spark plugs lining my tongue.
“Christ, Maddy.” He gripped the step he sat on.
I pulled up, almost releasing him, and then plunged back down.
“Fuck,” he moaned, his hips jerking.
His cock spasmed along my tongue and he grunted. He was close.
I wiggled my hips, trying to relieve the throb between my thighs. Working his length, I let my eyelids flutter shut and enjoyed the feel of his strength in my mouth, his taste on my tongue.
“I like you like this,” he said roughly. “On your knees in front of me.” Another hard exhale, then a hiss. “ Yes . Do you feel that? How much control you have over me? I can’t fucking move, Madison.”
I held him still with nothing but my mouth. He was taut, every muscle pulled tight, flinching at each swirl of my tongue. I worked him in a punishing rhythm.
“Jesus. So fucking good.” The small buck of his hips punctuated every word.
I hummed again.
“Ah, fuck. I’m going to blow, Maddy.” He said it like a warning. A once-and-only notice if I didn’t want him exploding in my mouth.
I sucked harder and his breath whooshed out of him.
He yanked at the step. If he wasn’t sitting on it, he might’ve ripped the boards up. So controlled. So restrained. Because of me.
The power. The trust. He could grab my hair, pump my head up and down at the speed he liked it, but he was handing it all over to me.
I hummed again.
“Mads!” He rocked his hips up and his erection pulsed, pumping hot jets into my mouth.
I swallowed it all, working him until his entire body went slack except for the aftershocks that kept his hips thrusting weakly. Then I let up, releasing him with a pop.
His shaft bobbed in front of me, wet and flushed like my mouth probably was. He lifted his head off the steps and peeled his hands away from the edge of the stair. Taking my arms, he gingerly lifted me to straddle him again.
“That was... fuck .” He pushed a hand into my hair and drew me down to him. A stab of fear went through me. Any second, he’d recall where my mouth had just been and push me away. Instead, he captured my lips and kissed me like nothing would ever keep him from doing it. The tempo between my legs increased, loud and demanding.
I sank into him, returning each stroke of his tongue, trying to keep from rocking on his sensitive cock.
When he stopped the kiss, he held me close, our foreheads touching. “Did I mention that was amazing?”
“Something like that,” I murmured. I didn’t mean to squirm against him, but he was still hard and prodding against my demanding core.
“I don’t think you’re finished with me.”
I lifted my head. His gaze was half-lidded, but the spark in his irises was still there. He could go again. No, I wasn’t finished with him.
I would never be finished with him.