53. Chapter 53
Chapter 53
“I’m thinking of getting my nipples pierced,” I said, snuggling against Hawk’s chest and kissing his piercing. “What do you think?”
We were in the Den of Sin for the first time in months. After staying with Jenn through Thanksgiving Day, we’d returned home so I could take my final exams. My last one—Clinical Pathology—had been today, and Hawk had deemed it playtime.
Finally. Of course we’d had plenty of sex the past couple weeks—my man had a fantastic incentive program when he helped me study—but I had craved him going hardcore on me like he did in this room.
“I think it’s your body, so do what you want to with it,” he replied. “But I respectfully request that you only do one at a time.”
“Why?” I asked, looking up at the furry face I loved so much.
He kissed me on the nose. “Because it takes over six months to heal, and I can’t stay away from your tits that long.” He tweaked one to prove his point. “Though if you want a similar sensation without doing something so permanent, I picked up something at the sex store yesterday.”
“Something else ?” I asked with a lift of my eyebrows .
He chuckled and rose from the bed. My hand rubbed over the silky silver sheet, absorbing the warmth his big body had left behind. “Why are these sheets silver? The ones you had in here the first time were black.”
Hawk was rummaging through a drawer in one of the cabinets, but he glanced over his shoulder at me. “I threw them away and got new ones once I thought I might bring you in here.”
“Why?”
He continued searching through the drawer. “I wanted something lighter because you make me feel lighter. You take away some of my darkness.”
Okay. Wow.
“Just don’t lose all of it. I like that dark guy.”
That earned me a smile as he walked back toward me. And oh, could this man turn me on simply with his prowling gait. His abs were on full display, and the veins in his body popped from his exertions of a few minutes earlier. And that long, thick cock hanging heavily between his legs… yes, please.
He stopped at the end of the bed, and I drank him in before my eyes dropped to the array of dildos and vibrators right in front of him. There was a nice variety of colors and sizes represented.
“Exactly how much money did you spend at the sex store?”
His lips quirked up on one side. “I may have to get a second job to finance it, but it was worth it. I wanted to test a bunch of them to learn your preferences.”
I pushed up to my elbows, and his eyes dropped to my exposed breasts. “And what did you learn,” I purred, “since you made me come with every single one of them? ”
He bobbed his eyebrows and picked up a dildo with a twisted, candy-striped base and a thick red tip. “I learned you really liked Santa’s Little Helper.”
I flopped back onto the bed, closing my eyes at the memory of that thick thing inside me. “God, who knew holiday sex toys could be so hot?”
“It’s the reason for the season,” he quipped, and I opened my eyes to glare at him.
“You’re seriously going to hell for that, mister.”
Crawling up the bed until he was straddling my hips, he laughed and held something up. Two clamps with pink padding at the tips were connected by a thin chain.
“Nipple clamps,” he announced. “Can I put them on you?”
“Do they hurt?”
“Do you care?” he shot back, and I giggled. I’d discovered I liked a little pain with my pleasure.
“Okay, let’s see how they feel.”
He placed one of them around my left nipple with expert fingers. “I can adjust the tightness with this little slider,” he said, demonstrating.
The pinch was exquisite, and I moaned, feeling him harden against my stomach as he clamped my right one. Hawk smiled darkly at his handiwork and tugged the chain, making my back arch sharply from the bed.
“Yes! Do it again,” I begged, and he did, but this time, he leaned down to lap softly at my rock-hard peaks while he pulled on the chain .
“You like that, baby?” he growled, and I nodded, feeling dots of perspiration pop up near my hairline. His mouth sucked hard on the tip of my nipple. “Use your fucking words, Bee.”
“Y-yes, I like it.”
“Good girl,” he said, straightening and reaching behind him. He wiggled the striped dildo at me, and his grin turned wicked. “Why don’t we get mister twisty in on the act?”
Oh, sweet hell. I’m not sure I’m going to survive this night.
“That was a damn fine meal, Shiloh,” Cam’s dad said, leaning back in his chair and patting the small pooch of his belly. I adored my Uncle Sean.
His daughter-in-law smiled and waved a hand toward me and the man seated next to me. “Mallori and Hawk brought most of the side dishes. I just did the turkey and dressing.”
“My friend Bode made the desserts,” Cam added.
“That pecan pie was the best I’ve ever had,” my father praised, and his posture mirrored his brother’s. It was amazing to see how much they resembled each other when they were side by side. Dark hair with a smattering of gray. Bright blue eyes. Strong Irish jaws.
My mother eyed me across the table as I spooned up another bite of creamy banana pudding with cookie crumbles on top. “Do you really think you need to be eating that, Mallori?”
Hawk tensed beside me, but I just said, “Yep, I might even have seconds,” and smiled through another bite .
She’d started in on me from the moment she and my father had arrived this morning for our early family Christmas dinner at Cam and Shy’s house. First about my short hair, and then about dancing. And now I was apparently a fat-ass.
I’d had a FaceTime session with Merrit and done my bumblebee meditation before we came over here, and I was regretting not making Hawk meditate with me. Hell, maybe he should talk to my therapist as well because his tension increased with every verbal jab my mother threw my way.
“Karen,” my father said in a low voice laden with warning.
Nervous eyes darted around the table surrounded by my family—my mother and father, Uncle Sean, Hawk, Cam, and Bella sleeping in Shiloh’s arms—as Mama clamped her lips together… for all of five seconds before she had another outburst she couldn’t seem to contain.
“I can’t help it, Brian. Just look at our daughter. She’s done that… thing with her hair, and I’m sure she’s put on at least five pounds.”
“Six,” I corrected, licking the back of my spoon. It was kinda fun being a smartass to my mother now that I knew she couldn’t control my life anymore.
“Cut it out, Karen. I think she looks fantastic,” my father said, tossing me a fond smile across the table.
“I agree,” Shiloh, ever the peacemaker, added. “That haircut is so flattering on Mal. She has the perfect face for it.”
Mama’s face took on the approximate color of the cranberry sauce in the dish in front of her at being overruled. “And she’s living with that man,” she snapped. “Aren’t you going to say anything about that? ”
I could feel the heat radiating off Hawk, and I gripped his hand beneath the tablecloth, feeling the white bandage there.
Dad gritted his teeth and pulled up the sleeves of his royal-blue sweater. “No, because our daughter is a grown woman. She’s happy and healthy. She had all A’s in her first semester of school, so she’s obviously doing well. There’s nothing to complain about.”
My mother’s eyes widened as anxiety ratcheted its way around the table. All eyes were on the arguing couple, and Shiloh stood and left the room, presumably to put Bella down.
“I can’t believe you, Brian. Don’t you see what’s happening? Mallori is… changing .”
“That happens when kids grow up,” Dad gritted out. “Now drop it. This is not the time nor the place for this discussion.”
“Oh, no, I will not drop it. I won’t stand for this.” She focused on me. “You are coming back to Pennsylvania if it’s the last thing I do.”
Hawk mumbled something under his breath, and I moved my hand to his leg for a quick squeeze as Shiloh breezed back into the room with a fake smile on her face.
“Anyone want more dessert?” she asked, obviously attempting to break the tension filling the room. But my mother was not to be deterred.
“If you insist on pursuing this,” she waved her hand through the air as she sneered, “physical therapy crap, you can come back home and find a program there.”
“No.”
I had opened my mouth to say that, but the voice that actually uttered it wasn’t mine. It was much deeper. Hawk’s voice. Fuck .
“Excuse me? What did you say?” my mother asked, snapping her attention toward the man beside me.
He leveled her with a glare that should have burned two holes through her head. “I said no.” My fingers pressed into his leg, but he ignored me and continued his stare down with my mother.
“Who are you to speak to me about my child?”
Hawk stood slowly, placing his palms on the table and leaning across it as I tugged at the back of his shirt. “I’m the man who would never lock Mallori in a room for five weeks.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.