9. Duncan #3
"Fine by me," I said. "So, to continue. I baited him because I saw him glaring at you like he was pissed at you for even existing.
It made me angry on your behalf, so I decided to fuck with him.
Number two, I kissed you like that for two reasons.
One, because I'm fucking obsessed with kissing you.
Number two, because I knew it would really get that bitch's goat seeing me kiss you.
And then as for the toast thing, that was for you. "
"Um, you're gonna have to explain that one? How was it for me?" She finally turned around and looked up at me, her big blue eyes wet with tears.
"Well, after you ran away from me in your haste to avoid me, Hayes followed you.
I saw him corner you outside the bathroom.
" I held up a finger. "Actually, I gotta give credit where it's due—it was Hamish who saw it first. I could tell you were getting upset, so I went over and listened, in case you needed backup. "
"I can handle Hayes on my own, but thanks."
"Handling Hayes wasn't the issue, Rune." I dropped my voice to a murmur. "You guys were shouting at each other. The whole bar had gone quiet."
Her face paled. "What?"
"Everyone was watching and listening, Rune. Everyone . I…" I sighed, shrugged. "So I drew their attention to myself. I didn't think you'd like that kind of attention, especially not on the, um, conversation you were having, so I did something about it. The toast was the first thing I thought of."
"Oh." She sounded small and miserable. "I just don't get him, Duncan. Even after having months to think about it, Hayes still doesn't understand why I'm so angry at him. It feels like gaslighting, but I think he’s just so narcissistic, he just genuinely doesn't see the problem."
"Rune—"
"I just feel so stupid ," she whispered. "How could I have ever loved someone like that? I look back and all the signs are right there . Our first date, he never held a door. I paid for my own food. He was rude to the server."
"Well, there you go. Alongside the shopping cart theory, how someone treats service workers says everything about who they are."
Rune frowned up at me, tugging at the end of her braid. "Shopping cart theory?"
"It's a psychological, social thought experiment thing.
Basically, it posits that the greatest litmus test of what kind of person you are is whether or not you return a shopping cart to the corral.
I mean, think about it. There is absolutely no consequence whatsoever to not returning a cart.
No one is going to yell at you. It's not illegal.
It's not even really immoral or unethical or whatever.
So, are you someone who returns a cart or not? "
She frowned, looking away in thought. "I always do. But Hayes never did. He'd leave it in the middle of the parking lot. It drove me nuts. Like, it takes all of sixty seconds, and it makes life that much easier for the poor assholes who have to round up the carts."
I laughed. "I was that poor asshole, as a matter of fact. My first job was at Safeway, collecting carts."
"I figured your first job would've been washing dishes for your parents," she said.
I snorted. "Oh I did that, I just didn't get paid for it.
I actually got the job at Safeway so they couldn't keep making me wash dishes for free.
Although looking back, I think that was their plan all along.
I hated that job at Safeway. I lasted all of a month and a half before I was begging Dad to officially hire me as a dishwasher. "
"Did it work?" she asked.
I nodded. “Oh yeah. I washed dishes at the original Badd's all through high school for pocket cash. Once I turned eighteen, they trained me in other jobs. They just had to see me develop my work ethic and drive."
"Your parents sound pretty cool."
“They are." I brushed a thumb under her eyes. "Why are you crying, Rune?"
"I'm just…angry. At Hayes. At myself. I'm also a little drunk, which makes me weepy sometimes."
I swept another tear aside as it fell, caught another at the corner of her mouth. "Don't cry, Smokeshow. He's not worth it."
Her wet blue gaze lifted to mine, and she nuzzled her mouth against my palm. "Don't, Duncan."
"Don't what…Rune?"
"Look at me like that."
"Can't help it."
“I’m going back to LA. My life is there."
"I know."
She pushed her lips into my palm, and then nuzzled her cheek against my hand, and her eyes slowly drooped closed. "I wish like hell you hadn't kissed me like that," she whispered.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I can't stop thinking about it."
I shifted closer to her, and her breasts crushed against my chest, and her thighs pressed against mine. "Me either."
Her eyes snapped open, blazing brightly. "This doesn't change anything."
"What doesn't—"
Her lips slammed against mine, cutting off my words and stealing my breath. I growled, surprised, and then her tongue was sweeping against my lips and her hands were in my hair, pulling me down, and she was lifting on her toes and gasping and tilting her mouth to deepen the kiss.
Need took over, then, and I dipped at the knees, filled my hands with her ass, and lifted her. She immediately and instinctively hooked her legs around my waist, and her arms circled my neck and her hands clutched at my hair, and she kissed me with everything she had.
I walked us toward the bed, supporting her with one arm and peeling her shirt off with the other. She broke the kiss long enough to toss the garment one way, unhooking her bra and flinging that the other way.
With both of us topless, her heavy, lush, beautiful tits swaying between us, she cupped my face in her hands and stole a soft, delicate kiss. "Tell me you have condoms, this time, Duncan. Please."
"In my toiletries bag," I answered.
She unhooked her legs and slid to the floor. "Go get them."
I went to my bag and ripped the zipper open, grabbed my leather toiletries case, and withdrew the new box of condoms, ripped it open, and tore free a few squares from the string.
When I turned back to the bed, Rune was wriggling out of her jeans, taking her panties with them. My eyes caught at the apex of her thighs, at the dripping honey of her arousal, and I stalked toward her.
She kicked her jeans and underwear aside, putting a palm to my chest as I reached her. “Wait."
"I'm no mood for games, Rune," I murmured in a low grumble. "I need to taste you."
She yanked at the fly of my jeans, roughly shoving them down. The waistband of my boxer briefs caught on my erection, and she pulled them away, dragging both garments down past my hips. I stepped out of them and kicked them aside, growling as Rune's hand wrapped around my cock.
"Rune, wait. I need—”
She spun us so my back was to the bed, stepping into me so I had to step backward. She took the condoms from me, tore one packet free, tossed the rest toward the head of the bed, and ripped the packet open with her teeth.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she lifted onto her toes and shut me up with a kiss, rolling the condom onto me hand over hand, eliciting a soft snarl from me.
"I don't want that right now, Duncan," she breathed.
She clenched her arms around my neck and gave me her full weight, forcing me to pick her up—I palmed the soft warm flesh of her ass and lifted her, and those strong thick legs circled my waist once more.
This time, there were no layers of clothing between us, just the hot wet cradle of her sex against my belly and the grip of her thighs around my hips.
Clutching my neck with one hand, Rune reached between us and gripped my dick in the other, guided me to her opening.
Pushing up with her thighs, she fit me into the slick press of her seam.
"All I want is this." She claimed my mouth, demanded my tongue, and then broke away again as she sank onto me. "Holy shit ," she gasped as I slid a few inches inside her. "Duncan, oh god, holy shit."
I lost my breath as she pulsed around me, hot and tight and slick and wet, and my legs shook, and my eyes squeezed shut and heat billowed through me. "Rune, fuck, fuck, oh god fuck!"
I heard her whimper, a soft, quiet, almost broken sound.
“You okay?" I asked.
She pressed her face into the side of my neck and nodded. "You're just…" she tilted her hips subtly, and I slid a little deeper, drove a little further inside her. "You're fucking huge , Duncan."
I laughed, but it came out as more of a rough, ragged groan.
"You…you really know how to…" I trailed off into a wordless, huffing growl of shocked ecstasy as she sank onto me further yet, taking me deeper, and now I was buried fully inside her, aching at the rippling squeeze of her vise-tight pussy.
"Oh god, Rune. You really know how boost a man's ego, saying shit like that. "
"I…" she had her arms cinched tight around my neck, face buried in the side of my throat, and she used her grip on my neck and shoulders to lift herself, dragging my cock back out through the hot clutch of her pussy, groaning at the slide of me through her rippling, spasming channel.
"Oh my god , Duncan. Holy shit. Holy shit.
" She sounded like she could barely breathe, her words thin and breathless and shaky.
"I knew you'd feel amazing inside me, but…
oh god, oh god. I didn't know it would feel like this . "
Words failed me. I needed…my god, what did I need? Her. All of her. More of her. I needed to move, to take her. To feel her slide and feel her come.
"Rune," I gasped. "I need to move."
She slid wet, stuttering kisses from my throat to my chin, to my jaw, to my mouth. "Duncan," she whispered. “Just…be gentle. You're a lot."
I growled into her mouth, tasted her whisper of need as I tilted my hips away to slide out of her.
"Ready?" I asked.
She nodded, her forehead touching mine, hair coming loose from the braid to waft in inky clouds around our faces.
I adjusted my grip on her ass, held her apart and let gravity ease her down around me as I drove a thrust up into her, moving slowly, gently.
She whimpered, shaking all over, and her fingers clawed into my neck and shoulders with a sharp, painful bite. "Duncan—holy shit .” She let out a feral, keening, high-pitched wail as I bottomed out inside her, throwing her head backward.
"Again, Duncan," she pleaded, pulling back to stare into my eyes, hers wet and blue and bright and wild. "Do that again. Please."