Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
MADDOX
It takes everything in me to walk out to her truck and open the door for her like a gentleman.
What I really want to do is lift her up out of the truck and pin her against the side of it just to ravish her out here where God and the cows and Mama’s nosey ass can see.
I can’t see the Big House’s lights on, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have some sort of Spidey-sense that lets her know when there’s a woman at my cabin.
Austin’s already spewing some bratty bullshit that I’m not even comprehending, but the second I close the door behind her, I’ve got her pushed up against it.
“Hush,” I tell her lowly, ducking my head enough to get my lips on one side of her neck and my hand cradling the other.
I feel her pulse jump and she shivers as my mustache tickles her, but she hushes like she was told.
I don’t draw her attention to it, knowing she’d go out of her way to do the opposite if I praised her right now.
“Safe word?” I mumble against the bend of her neck, nipping her when she doesn’t immediately answer me.
“Color system is fine,” she breathes, and I grin against her skin, using my finger to push aside the strap of her tank top so I can kiss down her shoulder. “Are you gonna continue to assault me against the door or take me to bed?”
“Gonna fuck you on the floor and give you a reason for your bitching if you don’t hush like I told you to.”
She bristles, but it happens a few seconds too late to be her genuine reaction to my words. My girl wants to be good for me, she just wants to make me work for it. Fair enough.
I bend enough to wrap my arms around her thighs and hoist her up. She wraps her legs around my waist like they belong there, like we’ve done this a million times and will do it a million more.
“So you are gonna take me to bed then?” she snarks with a grin when I kick open my bedroom door. I only respond by dropping her on the mattress, watching the way her tits bounce as she does.
I’m undoing my belt buckle when I see her smile twitch and her eyes cloud with something I don’t like. “What?”
Her smile returns just as quickly as it left. “Nothing,” she says. “Wondering if it’s true that the camera makes things look bigger than they are.”
The tone of her voice is flirtatious, but I’ve learned the difference between her actual flirting and the words she coats in that tone when she’s weaponizing them.
I let go of my belt and lean over her, fists framing her hips on the bed.
“You’re gonna tell me the truth, or you’re gonna get back in your truck and go home and we’re not gonna play together like this.
If I can’t trust you, I can’t dom you, Austin. ”
She blinks and her eyes turn to steel. Does she even realize how expressive they are? Before she can throw her walls back up, I grip her chin hard enough to get her attention and stare at her expectantly.
“I’d rather you didn’t use the belt on me,” she finally says, jaw tight, like it physically pains her to have to admit a hard limit. I want to press for more, to ask why her mind immediately went there when all I’d done was undo my belt buckle, but she’s barely comfortable as it is, so I don’t.
Despite this feeling like a huge win, a small chink in her armor, I treat her exactly like the wild mustang she is and don’t make a big deal out of it.
Instead, I press my lips to her forehead, mutter, “Good girl,” and pull away again.
When I get my belt through the loops of my jeans, I pointedly toss it to the side, out of reach.
I hadn’t planned on using the belt on her in the first place.
“What? Are you waiting on an invitation, Tex?” I ask her, reaching behind me to pull my shirt over my head. I lose sight of her eyes for a second, but when my shirt’s off, I see her gaze snap away from my chest like she’s too proud to get caught ogling me.
“Waiting to see your cock before I decide if I’m staying,” she quips back.
I snort, palming myself over my jeans. “Think it’ll be less of a ‘pencil cock’ in person?”
She hums to buy herself time to think of a retort.
“This is as naked as I’m getting til we talk a bit more and get you out of your shorts, at the very least.”
Tugging her up from the bed by her hand, I turn her around until her back is to my chest. I grab her hair in my fist and use it to tug her head to the side so I can kiss her neck again, using my other hand on her stomach to push her back against my cock.
“I was tested at my physical last November. I set the results over there on the nightstand if you wanna verify, but I’m clean. Are you on birth control?”
She stiffens a bit in my arms, but she’s quick to nod. “I’m good. And clean, I swear.”
“After I give you a spanking good enough to make up for all the hell you’ve put me through the last few months, can I come in your sweet pussy, baby?
” I punctuate the question with a nip to her earlobe and she shivers again.
She’s so fucking responsive, it’s killing me to take this slow and ask the questions I gotta ask to make sure this stays safe, sane, and consensual.
Jamie would be proud. Not that I plan to tell him.
Austin nods again, and I tut, nipping at her shoulder. “Verbal answers.” I may be getting better at reading her cues, but I won’t risk hurting her because I misread her body language.
She rolls her eyes, thinking I won’t know just because I’m behind her, but I can see it in the way her head rolls with them. “Yes, you fucking caveman, you can come inside me.”
I grin against her skin, nipping her hard enough to leave a little pinch-bruise that she’ll find in the mirror tomorrow. “Time to see how red your pretty ass gets when it gets the attention you’ve been begging for.”