Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“Holy shit!”
Colby glanced over her shoulder. Not because she was surprised by Ford’s sudden appearance.
That was expected after the crash of metal mixing bowls in the sink.
She glanced his way because over the past few weeks, freshly awake Ford had become her favorite Ford.
Sandy hair a wild mess, his beard and chest hair rumpled, his blue eyes soft, and his boxers riding temptingly low on his hips.
Delicious, all of him.
“What happened here?” he asked, eyes widening as they swept the length of her countertops and the adjacent breakfast table.
She pointed at the plaid baggies on the table first. “Those are more takeaway gifts for tomorrow’s party, in case we didn’t make enough earlier.”
Then at the jars of jam at the far end of the kitchen counter.
“Those are going with me to California.” While the written content for the cookbook wasn’t due for several more months, Cash only had the next two weeks available to shoot the photos.
She was on a flight to San Francisco tomorrow evening.
She gestured to the fridge next. “There’s extra pate à choux pastry in the freezer to take to Chess in the morning. And this”—she nodded at the raggedy ball of dough she was kneading on the floured countertop—“is for you. Should keep you in biscuits until I’m back.”
“It’s four in the morning, Col,” he said as he ambled over to her side. “We have to be at the restaurant at nine, have guests and press arriving at noon, then you have to leave for Logan by six at the latest.”
“Exactly,” she said as she patted down the dough. “I’m not going to have time tomorrow to finish prep before I leave, especially with press at the party. I’ll get drawn into interviews and—”
“Col—”
“This is what I do!” The words came out louder, harsher than she’d intended, but this was her process, how she dealt with one of the few things in life that scared her.
“Can I ask why?” No judgment, no affront, just that same earnestness that had been chipping away at her other major fear for months.
“Because I love to travel, but I hate flying.”
“So you need to wear yourself out to fall asleep on the plane. What if—”
She shook her head, knowing where his brain was going, where hers had gone too early on. “I’ve tried both meds and booze. Both times I spent all flight shoving my fat ass into a too-tiny bathroom to puke.”
“One, those bathrooms are too small even for someone who doesn’t have an ass as fine as yours.” Inching closer, he notched a hand in the groove of her lower back, beneath the tails of his dress shirt she’d thrown on. He leaned in, nuzzling behind her ear. “Two, I’d hold your hair back for you.”
Any remaining tension rushed out of Colby, and she brushed her lips against his. “I know you would.”
“Can I keep you company while you work?”
She kissed him harder, appreciating this person who let her be, who pressed to understand but not to change. That had always been one of her relationship worries, especially after being a bystander to CC’s romance woes before she’d met Al.
He pressed a floured biscuit cutter into her hand.
“Finish these so we can get some shut-eye.” She opened her mouth to protest but lost her words as his hand on her back drifted lower, squeezing her bare ass.
“Just a few hours of sleep so you’re ready for all those inter—” His words died as his fingers found the flared end of the plug she’d inserted before coming into the kitchen. “What’s this?”
She reached a hand into the shirt pocket, pulled out the plug’s remote, and slid it across the counter to him. “My other plan for wearing myself out.” She lifted her ass, and he pressed against the toy’s end, moving it in slow circles and making her moan.
With his other hand, he guided hers holding the cutter back to the dough. “Make the biscuits, Col.” Then he turned on the plug, and the pulsing vibrations against her rim made her breath wobble. “Is this your favorite toy?” he asked. “We’ve played with it a few times.”
She tried to focus on pressing out the biscuits. “No.”
“Tell me what is, then.”
“The saddle.”
He scooted closer, his stiffening cock pressed against her hip. “What’s the saddle do?”
“I grind on it, and it stimulates my clit and my rim.”
He increased the plug’s speed, and she gasped.
“When you win the Beard and we celebrate that night, I want to watch you on it.” He rutted against her faster too, his precome leaking through the cotton of his boxers, and she wanted to stroke him, to smear it all over his cock and taste it herself, but her hands were covered in dough, and she still had more biscuits to press out.
Her mind, though, was speeding ahead to that night several weeks from now, was thinking about another toy she’d seen in the latest Lady Robin’s email. “I want to order something else for us instead.”
He shoved down his boxers and thrust against her bare hip, his voice becoming as thready as hers. “What’s that?”
“A strapless dildo. You can stroke us together.”
He jolted against her and ticked up the speed of the plug, making it work as hard as he was against her side. “Fuck, Colby.”
“You’d like that?”
“Yeah, baby. Fucking finish the biscuits. Now. Need you.”
She pressed out the final two, washed her hands, then took them to the floor, straddling Ford’s hips and dragging her slick pussy along the hard length of his cock.
He bowed his back, and she raked her nails through his chest hair, loving the feel of him coming apart beneath her.
One more grind was all it took for him to explode with a shout.
She rode him through it, continued to work herself up with the friction against her clit, the added warmth and mess of his come driving her higher.
Then right to the edge when he grabbed her ass cheeks and pulled her all the way up his body, knees spread on either side of his head, his mouth finding her pussy as his hands continued to squeeze her cheeks, making the pressure in her ass, the sensations against her rim, maddening.
Wonderful.
All of it. The sex, the man, the lo—
He sucked on her clit hard enough to make her explode, and the scariest notion of all was blissfully wiped away for a little while longer.