9. Playing with Matches
Chapter 9
Playing with Matches
R ose
At this rate, the bedroom’s TV remote was never getting its batteries back.
After all the flirting and touching yesterday at the beach then cozying up to watch a movie at the end of the day, I’d had to give the Velvet Plum Marvel a spin in the shower last night. I tried to force Deck Daddy out of my mind, but he kept barging into my fantasy with his dimples and his giant cock. And ohhhh mama, did it get the job done. A few times. The rabbit vibrator truly was a marvel, and I was gonna have to name it soon.
And today hadn’t been less titillating. Even though we didn’t go to the beach because it rained most of the day, Jason psyched us up to spend the day wandering around Baytowne, eating good food, listening to live bands, shopping, and getting ice cream, and touching…oh my god, so much touching. I’d spent so much time up close and personal with him today—taking selfies, getting tickled, trying hats on each other, sitting so close together wherever we were that our thighs touched—that I’d abandoned my romance novel because real life was more exhilarating.
After dinner at the condo, I curled up on the sofa to read and return messages on my iPad. He was beside me, doomscrolling on his phone for news on his house. Thankfully, everyone we knew was safe. But because the interstate was still closed on either side of New Orleans, no one we knew had made it back home yet to let us know how his house had fared.
I was busy sending funny cat reels to Abby, but I couldn’t stop glancing over at how tense his whole body was, bent over his phone.
I put my iPad down and laid my hand on his knee. “Hey.”
His gaze snapping to me was a jolt of electricity zipping straight to my bottom.
“Let’s do something.”
His eyes flickered to my hand on his knee, and a muscle tensed in his jaw. “Like what?”
I smiled, enjoying the gutter his brain seemed to have visited. “I don’t know. Do you want to go see a movie? Or go on a late-night candy raid at the grocery store?”
“Yeah.” He set his phone down and put his hand over mine. “What about…have you ever been to the beach at night?”
“You know, I don’t think I have.”
He was smiling again. Mission accomplished.
“You’ll love it.” He stood and pulled me to my feet. “You don’t have to touch the waves. It’s absolutely magical to sit on the beach, watch the moonlight sparkle on the water and the stars break out overhead.”
“Then let’s go.” Anything was better than having him enumerate—again—all the trees that could’ve fallen on the buildings of his property.
We stepped off the walkway steps into the sand, and I started to understand what he meant. It was beautiful. The sky was as black as the horizon, and the incessant crashing of waves filled the air with shushing. No one was out here but us and a group around a bonfire maybe over a mile away.
“Come on.” He ditched his sandals by the steps and ran off toward the water.
I slipped mine off too and ran to the water’s edge where I stood beside him and let the rolling waves kiss my feet with foam. The wind blew my skirt up dangerously high and took my breath away as much as standing next to him was.
I stepped farther into the foam. He grabbed my waist, gently pulling me back higher on the beach. “Don’t go too far in. My mom always says the larger fish come out to feed at night. I don’t know if it’s true, but I don’t want you to get gobbled up.”
I laughed and put my hands on his, stepping back with him onto the beach. Without overthinking, I pulled his arms around my middle and leaned back against him with my arms over his.
My heart raced. I let my head fall back against his chest, and he nestled his face beside mine, his beard sweetly scratching my cheek. The longer I gazed into the dark sky, the more stars popped out, bright and shining from the blackness, rivaled only by the silver ribbon of moonlight dancing in the waves.
We stood in the anything-but-silent rush of the wind in our ears, sending long locks of my hair waving like flags. The ceaseless waves crashed, and as his thumb rubbed my side, my heart pounded with the unmistakable rising hope of falling. My fingertips ran soft circles on his arm.
As much as I wanted to stay in this moment forever, I wanted even more to find out what was happening between us.
I turned to him. He pulled his head back and met my gaze, his big brown eyes dark except for the moonlight sparkling in their depths. His face softened into a smile. His hand left my middle to nestle into the curls beside my face, gently pulling them back from blowing into my eyes, his thumb gently caressing my cheek and his gaze straying to my mouth.
My heart thudded as I tipped my face up to his. His lips were parted, his breath soft and sweet.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked softly.
I nodded and lifted my face closer to his. “Please,” I murmured.
He closed his eyes and the distance, laying the softest kiss on my bottom lip, then barely skimming his lips against mine. It’d been the most innocent of kisses. But when he kissed me again, he mmmfed and pulled my face closer as if my lips were the divinity he needed. His hand tangled in my hair at the back of my head as his mouth grew hungrier, and I eagerly matched his intensity, raising up on my tiptoes to get closer. I slipped my hand under his shirt, catching smooth, bare skin across a mountain range of muscle.
I pressed the aching between my legs against the hard line between his. He softly moaned against my mouth, his hand slipping to my bottom and pulling me closer.
Soft laughter and a dog bark broke us apart. An older couple with a German Shepard hailed us. “Pardon us! Have a good night!”
I giggled against Jason’s chest as he smiled and waved back to them. “Night!”
He hunched over and tucked his face next to mine, kissing my cheek then my temple.
“Let’s go back to the condo,” I said, eager to get him all to myself.
The moment we got inside, Jason kicked his sandals off in the foyer and dusted the sand from his feet into the catch tray by the door. “Do you want to watch Star Wars? I still can’t believe you’ve never seen the original trilogy.”
A cloud passed over my heart. We hadn’t talked much on the way home, and I’d chalked it up to us both being nervous and excited to get back here and go back to making out. After that kiss , I wanted to sprint through all the bases. But…he just wanted to watch a movie?
“Um, I guess.” I tucked my feet under me on the couch and adjusted my skirt over my thighs while he popped the DVD in. Every cell of my body was concentrating on figuring out what the hell was happening.
He sat close to me on the sofa, started the movie, and reached his arm around me with a smile. Okay, so at least maybe he didn’t regret it. I leaned my head against him and slipped both hands onto his thigh. An invitation.
A few minutes into the movie, he reached across and rubbed at my ankle tattoo. “Why a butterfly?”
I pulled my leg forward a little so my knee was resting on his. “To remind me that even in the dark times, I’m growing, and I’ll come out stronger on the other side.”
His brow knitted as his fingers slipped down my shoulder. “I love that. And the roses?”
I shrugged. “I just love roses.”
“Do you have any other tattoos?”
“Yes.”
A mischievous smile played about his lips. “Where?”
I shrugged again, holding his gaze. “They like to play hide and seek.” He blushed hard while I pulled his arm out straight, examining it. “Do you have any tattoos?”
“Not yet. I’ve thought about getting one, though.”
I bent his arm, making him flex his bicep. “You should get one on your giant bicep. Look at this thing.” I squeezed it. “It’s as big as my head.”
He chuckled. “It’s not as big as your head.”
“Seriously! Look at it next to mine.” I held my arm against his to show the drastic difference.
“I’m just bigger than you.” He put his palm out toward me, and I placed my small hand against his big one. “I’m pretty big.”
I snorted. “I bet you are.”
His deep chuckle made me shiver. “I mean that’s what people say, right? I feel like you’d know the answer to that. I watched your videos, and I’m reading this book, but I haven’t learned yet if hand size also correlates to clit size.”
I giggled and moved closer. On the TV, Obi-Wan was trying to goad Luke into action. But I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Jason’s. “I don’t know about that.”
He shrugged. “If it’s that much like a penis.”
“Sounds like you’re learning a lot.” I placed a kiss right at the corner of his mouth.
His eyes sparkled as he cupped my face and moved closer. “I am. Thank you for educating me.”
I rubbed my lips lightly over his. “I’m always happy to share what I know about sex with…interested parties.”
“Oh, I’m interested.” He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, and all talk of the rebellion was forgotten. His hand tangled in my hair, his kisses soft, perfect.
I grasped his shoulders and pulled him down on top of me. I wanted him to crush me and fill me. His mouth burned kisses down my neck, and I lifted my knee, letting my skirt slip up my thigh.
“Truth or dare?” I whispered.
He captured my lips again. “Truth.”
I swept my tongue into his delicious mouth, slipping my hand under his shirt and along the smooth, hard muscles of his waist. “What do you want to do to me?” I whispered against his lips.
He groaned into the kiss. “Rose, I’m not sure I’m ready…to do more than kissing.”
Our mouths parted with a smack, and I pulled away. “Oh. You don’t want to?”
“Hell yeah, I want to. But…” He sat up. Oh—he had been holding his hips away from me.
I pulled my hands out from under his shirt and sat up too, my cheeks heating. “Oh. Oh yeah.” Why was he being celibate again? Because in my mind, this was going straight into the bedroom. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry. I want to do more with you. Fuck .” He pressed his forehead to mine and ran his hands up my arms. “You’re the most beautiful, the sexiest woman I’ve ever known, and I want to do everything with you, but…” He pulled back and pushed my hair away from my face, searching my eyes. “I really, really like you, Rose. I’m afraid of moving too fast. I don’t want to mess this up.”
“Okay.” I nodded, almost dizzy with desire. Thrilled that he wanted me too, but half impressed and half confused by his restraint. “I respect that.” I nipped at his lip and dragged my fingertips just inside the waistband of his shorts. “But so you know, you could totally hit this right now, if you wanted to.”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “I’ll take that under advisement.” He laid a single, gentle kiss at each corner of my mouth. “But I love kissing you. Is that okay?”
“Definitely.” I dove back in for more, and he eagerly resumed exploring my neck with his mouth. I hadn’t only made out with a man in a very long time, and never without knowing it could lead to more. But oh, the kissing was divine. His hand caressed my face, my back, laid flat on my bare chest above my dress. I ran my hand up under his shirt, up his chest. “Your body is so beautiful,” I murmured.
“Me?” He kissed my lips and trailed his fingers down to the neckline of my strapless sundress, dipping his finger just inside to run along the upper curve of my breast. “You’re like a goddess,” he murmured into my lips. His kisses traveled down my neck, and he skimmed his tongue across my collarbone, making me whimper. “You’re the Platonic ideal of a beautiful woman.”
I moaned into a giggle, rubbing the back of his neck and down. “You’re being very generous, but I don’t think what we’re doing qualifies as platonic.”
“Greek philosopher—theory of forms. I’m too goddamned turned on to explain.”
I grinned wickedly. “Then let’s play more Truth or Dare.”
He stopped kissing me to gaze at me with narrowed, hazy eyes. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.”
“Who, me?” I asked innocently, scritching my fingernails gently through his whiskers. “I’m just having fun.”
Jason
How would I be able to keep my composure with Rose pressing her body up against mine, her tongue dipping into my mouth? And now she wanted to keep playing truth or dare? Like playing with matches in a gasoline plant.
Let’s strike the first one.
“Alright. Truth or dare?” I asked.
“Truth,” she murmured, softly biting my lower lip.
Finally, I could ask this question. “What are your favorite sex toys?”
She giggled against my lips. “Excellent question. Vibrators, sonic wave clit stimulators, and ohhh I love the things that simulate oral sex, because fuck me I love being sucked.”
Fuck me, I wanted to suck her. I dipped my tongue into her mouth, wishing I was pleasuring her like I’d been reading about in my book.
“And dildos! Definitely dildos, especially if they vibrate.”
My hand dropped to her bare thigh and slipped up with a mind of its own. With a Herculean effort, I moved it to her waist before it reached the edge of her panties and I lost all control. “So if it was you and me,” I asked softly, “are you saying my cock wouldn’t be enough?”
“Not at all.” She smiled wickedly, her pupils dark and wide. “You could take a break and prolong your own pleasure by using one on me, and then I could enjoy multiple orgasms.” A kiss at the corner of my lips.
That image made my balls ache. “What else could we do with a dildo?”
“Mmmm, I could ride it while I suck your cock,” she murmured in my ear.
A drop of wetness emerged onto the tip of my cock. I tensed my thigh, stilled my hands, and tried to calm my heart.
She rubbed her lips barely against mine. “But you don’t want to do that, do you?”
“God, yes, I do.” I kissed her hard. “You just made me pre-cum with that image.”
She hooked her fingers in my waistband. “Can I lick it off?”
My body involuntarily shivered, and I pulled my knees up a little. “Holy fuck.” I laughed and grabbed her hands, shocked at my resolve. “No.”
She giggled and returned her hands to my chest . “Okay, but maybe tell me where your line is so I can respect it. Otherwise, I’ll probably vault right over it.”
I bit my lip while her kisses tortured my neck. Even if we only used our hands and mouths to sexually pleasure each other, if she wanted more than that, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. And the idea of having sex with a woman I liked this much—especially since she hadn’t even been in my life for two weeks—scared me as much as it thrilled me.
“Maybe just…no sex acts.”
“Okay,” she said. “Then it’s my turn. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
She murmured against my ear. “What top two of your favorite sex acts do you want to do to me right now?”
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Don’t exaggerate.” She booped my nose with her index finger. “I only want to be the little death of you.”
I breathed a laugh out through my nose, kissing her neck then murmuring in her ear. “I want to be inside you.”
“Tell me how you’ll give it to me, Deck Daddy.” Her hands tangled in my hair as she gently sucked at the base of my neck. “Dirty talk makes me so hot. The dirtier, the better.”
I…had never talked dirty. But I’d also never been this wound up, and I wanted to please her more than anything. I put my lips to her ear, gently biting her earlobe. “I want to grab those sexy hips and hold you tight against me, grind so deep inside you.”
Her breathy moan vibrated against my mouth as she sucked my lip. “Mmm, yes. I love a man in charge. What else?”
“I want to bury my face between your legs and feast on you. Every day, if you’d let me.”
She whimpered as she straddled me. Her eyes, all pupils, gazed into mine. “Tell me how badly you want it. Tell me exactly how you would taste me.”
She tracked hot kisses down my neck. “I’m weak, wanting to know what your pussy tastes like. I’d spread you open with my tongue, slip it inside you, drag it up and bury my face in you, suck you so hard, tease your clit with my tongue.”
“Oh God, you’re gonna make me come, just hearing you say it.” She squirmed and whimpered but still didn’t lower to my lap. Her respect for my restraint made it harder to be restrained.
“Imagine how hard you’d come if I worked you over with the Cosmic Dick and my mouth around your clit.”
She scrunched her eyes, pressing her forehead to mine. “Fuck, yes.” She pressed her hands to either side of my face, slipping her tongue into a deep and hungry kiss. “Yes to everything. I’m drenched just thinking about it. What’s your kink?”
It was taking all my willpower not to pull her hips down to my aching cock. The sheer, molten lust in her eyes alone was about to send me over the edge. And then there was the rose perfume over her pheromones, the press of her breasts against my chest, and the thought of her pussy—wet for me—mere inches from my cock. “I think you’re my kink.”
She whimpered. “Tell me what you want me to do to you. Please .”
I hesitated. Dirty talk was harder when it was about me. “Maybe…what you said we could do.”
Her answering smile was sex incarnate. “You want me to run my tongue up your cock? Take it in my mouth and suck it?”
“Yeah.” Said cock was about to burst right now.
“Tell me how you like it.”
I ran my hands up her thighs, afraid to answer her. The thought of her doing that to me—oh God, now her hand was slipping down my shorts and grabbing my bare ass. “Fuck, you’re making me so hot.” She kept her pelvis away from mine, but her squirmy, sexy body under my hands was quickly breaking my resolve.
“Tell me how to please you with my mouth,” she begged.
“Take it into your tight, hot mouth. Suck me so hard, run your tongue along the slit.”
“I want you to wrap your fists in my hair when I take you,” she whimpered.
We devoured each other’s mouths with kisses, and I would never have enough. “I swear I could kiss you all goddamn night.”
“No can do, Deck Daddy. If I wake up with your hard cock against my bottom again, I’m gonna dance naked in front of you until you nail me.”
I chuckled into the kiss. “I can’t. I don’t have any condoms, anyway.”
“I’m on the shot. We’re both clean.”
My heart thudded into a ragged rhythm. “You want to go bare?”
She nodded.
“Holy fuck, baby, you aren’t helping my condition,” I murmured. I tangled my hand in her hair as my kisses dropped dangerously close to the not-celibate-anymore zone below her sundress’s neckline.
“You’re not helping my condition, either, with your celibacy bullshit,” she teased, laughter lacing her words.
“Yeah, well it didn’t help hearing you in the shower last night with Steely Dan.”
“Steely Dan’s at home. That was Eddie Rabbit. I stole the batteries out of the TV remote in the bedroom.”
“Jeez, I might come just thinking about you in the shower with that.”
“It would be entirely your own fault for laying these sexy hands on me at the beach yesterday.” She grabbed one of my hands from her waist and slid it down to her ass, grabbing it with my hand.
“You mean I could’ve started kissing you yesterday?”
“You probably could’ve railed me on the porch that night you found me in your garden, and I would’ve been cool with it.”
Her body shifted down and barely squirmed against my erection. I pulled my body further into the sofa and held her tight to hold her still. “Rose, you’re making this really hard.”
“So I felt.” She kissed me again, panting. “I tell you what. I’m going to spend some time with Eddie Rabbit, and then when I’m a little more…” She swallowed hard. “…satisfied, I’ll come back and we can kiss and cuddle. But if you change your mind, just barge in and join the fun.” She kissed me hard then sashayed that fine ass away from me.
I threw my head back on the sofa, my hands over my eyes. “You’re a siren. You know that, right?” My heart was pounding, my whole body was aching for her. Why would I turn down this invitation?
Her arms wrapped around me from behind, one hand sliding down my chest to my belly. I murmured fuck me while she whispered, “Truth or dare?” into my ear. The buzz of it shot straight to my groin.
“Dare,” I croaked.
She gently bit my earlobe, and whispered, “I dare you to come watch me.”
I froze. “Seriously?”
“You heard me. You wouldn’t have to do a thing.”
I shook my head. “If I watch you, I’m gonna want to help you out.”
“I have an idea about that too.” She turned my face toward her and slipped her tongue into my mouth in a kiss, then she went within my line of sight and made a big show of pulling out The Bag, dropping it onto the bed. Unzipping it. Digging around in it.
“What are you looking for?”
She didn’t answer, just rifled through it then held a box out toward me with a raise of her eyebrows. The black fuzzy handcuffs.
I swallowed hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “It’d be hard to join in if you couldn’t reach me, wouldn’t it?”
This wasn’t exactly celibacy. It wasn’t exactly not, though. “Okay.”
She broke open the box and pulled me into the bedroom, onto the bed. “Will you take your shirt off? It’ll help me get there.”
I whisked it off without a second thought.
“Hello, Deck Daddy,” she murmured, running her hand up my chest. “Get comfy.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively as she opened up the handcuffs, stopping to read the box.
“Rose, are you into BDSM? Because I might be in over my head.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know yet. This is a first for me too.” She held the cuffs up. “Still want to?”
I licked my lips. “Yeah.”
She closed one cuff around my wrist and threaded the other through the ironwork headboard before snapping it around my other wrist. “Comfy?”
“No, not at all.”
Her face clouded over, and she adjusted the cuffs. “Are they too tight? Want me to take them off?”
I leaned forward and captured her mouth in a kiss. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m just all on edge. Not in a bad way.”
“You can trust me. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. To you,” she amended. “I’ll do whatever I want to myself.” She smiled and kissed me for long, aching minutes. Then she pulled back, looking a little dazed. “Okay it’s really hot kissing you while you’re in handcuffs.”
“Yeah, I’m into it too.” I kissed her again, then she moved out of reach and pulled the Plum Marvel box from the duffle bag.
“Eddie Rabbit,” she said.
I watched her like a hawk. Her panties dropped to the floor from under her dress, and she took out the long, thin wand with a little piece jutting off the side and a bottle of lube, which she applied liberally to the device. She knelt on the bed before me and kissed me again. Setting her bottom down beside my knees, she laid on her back and planted one foot on my shoulder and the other on the headboard. She spread her thighs wide.
“Oh God, Rose.” I could see everything. She was waxed practically bare. Her whole, beautiful sex laid wide open for my eyes alone, close enough to lean down and lick. I shifted against my shorts, trying to find release for the almost unbearably pleasurable pressure.
She pressed a button on the side of the toy, and the brrring vibration filled the room.
Languorously running the tip of it along her body in long strokes, she sighed and laid it against her core. For a while, she ran it in circles around her clit. Her soft cries and breaths made my own breathing ragged. Then her gasps exhaled in a series of “ohs” that got louder then stopped altogether as her foot on my shoulder sagged—did she come already? Oh shit, maybe that was just the first, because now she was slipping the whole length of it inside of her, the side projections against her clit. Good god. She sighed in satisfaction and slipped her hand inside her dress, grasping her breast. Under the fabric, her fingers teased her nipple. And Christ , she rocked her hips.
It was the most thrilling, most erotic experience of my life. Watching her squirm. Watching her pleasure herself. Drunk on her unbearably seductive sighs. Her foot on my shoulder flexed and moved as she jockeyed for a better position, lifting and bucking her hips. My hips shifted back and forth on their own, and I shut my eyes, forcing my body to be still. I shouldn’t be watching this.
Her soft sighs got louder, and her foot pushed harder against my shoulder. “Oh, Jason ,” she moaned, and my eyes flared open. Thoughts of me were driving her?
“Rose, baby, you’re so fucking hot. Oh my God, so fucking hot.” I pulled at my bonds, unable to take my eyes away from her. From between her legs, from her hand inside her dress, from her beautiful face. Her eyes were closed, and she tossed her long curls against the bed. Hotter, her body more luscious than I ever could’ve imagined.
With the vibrator plunged fully inside her, she moved it around in circles. Moaning louder, gasping my name. She was close, and I couldn’t stand it.
My right hand broke the cuff and dove inside my shorts, fisted my erection. Her eyes fluttered open, and her gaze landed between my legs.
“God yes, fuck yourself. I want to watch you.”
I didn’t take my eyes off her as I did what she asked, what I couldn’t stop myself from doing. The slippery smacking of her body around the vibrator filled the room, and a trail of her wetness slipped down her ass. The smell of her body was a drug. She went at herself harder, faster, moaning, her whole body tensing up, her eyes never moving from where my hand worked frantically in my shorts. She cried out my name over and over, and when I saw her body contracting, I came in my shorts with her name in my mouth.
I didn’t know if it was physical or psychological, but the waiting had made my release so strong. Like fireworks. And oh fuck, it was amazing.
She lay there panting for a minute, eyes closed, knees falling together. I breathed hard, heart hammering. I’d been hit by a hurricane. Breathtaking, sexy Hurricane Rose.
Her laugh was easy and breathless. “Sorry I made you masturbate.”
I laughed, laid my head back. “Sorry I broke your handcuffs.” I was still reeling. My hand rested inside my shorts, covered with my spend.
She sat up and kissed my lips, kissed along my jaw. “I like it when you call me baby,” she murmured. Then, “I’m taking a shower.” She held the key up between our faces then set it on my thigh. She had the audacity to wink at me before flouncing off to the bathroom.
I undid the broken cuffs with trembling hands. She swept into my life from out of the blue, and now she was all I could think about. Was I just indulging my high school daydreams, or was Rose Guidry my…girlfriend?
But did she only want sex? I didn’t want her to only want sex. I wanted more from her than that. I wanted everything. And there it was—the only thing that held me back from making love to Rose. If I did, I might fall in love with her. God, I wanted that. But did she?
I grabbed a change of clothes and went to the half bath to clean up. Besides sex, what could I do to show Rose how she made me feel?
She was affectionate. She always built me up with words. She literally cried when I helped her unpack and made her that table. That, and how she was always doing little things for me, like throwing the towels into the wash before I could get to them, or leaving her old mini fridge stocked with cold water in my shop because she noticed I didn’t have one. I smiled to myself. She’d left colorful Post-it notes all over my walls and tools with things like “ satisfy your thirst(y fans)” and “getting warmer, getting colder” in her adorable, messy handwriting to hint at the new addition. I still hadn’t taken a single one down.
So I could indulge my affectionate nature with her, do more thoughtful things for her, and…I grinned to myself. I could help her finish her bucket list. That’d definitely put that cute, open-mouthed surprise on her face. I could almost hear her touched aww .
But she was still going to want to have sex.
I set my hands on the counter and stared at myself in the mirror. Fuck, what a risk. The glue wasn’t even dry from the last time I had to put my heart back together. But if I made love to her, and we fell in love…goddamn, what a reward.