CHAPTER FIFTEEN CLARKE
Chapter Fifteen
Clarke
Athos’s words played on a loop in Clarke’s brain as he lay in bed wide awake.
They have snowstorms in Montana that close down airports.
He’d been forced to stay the night given the storm. No flights out of Bozeman airport, and the pilot who’d flown him on his small plane couldn’t fly him back to the city.
He was fortunate the pilot could put him up for the night when he returned the truck. If he hadn’t, what then? Stay the night at Ceci Rivers’s? He shuddered. The pilot had even been decent enough to accept Clark’s vague story regarding the black eye.
Cock-a-doodle-do!
What time is it? It’s pitch black out there, he thought, gazing out the window. Even with the light from his phone, he couldn’t make out anything, not even those imposing mountains in the distance. All he could see was darkness.
Cock-a-doodle-do!
He looked at his phone. Three a.m.
As he lay in bed listening to the wind whistle and rattle the windowpane, he wondered how a man was supposed to weather two storms in the span of time it would take him to finish one lap at Monza. At least that’s how it felt to him.
Ceci Rivers and now this.
Cock-a-doodle-do!
Don’t they only do that when the sun rises?
Some far-off corner of his brain was trying to remind him how he’d felt before she’d punched him. Hadn’t he been prepared to ask her to dinner? And wasn’t that because he didn’t want the date to end? She hadn’t meant to punch him. And she’d made sure the man who came at him suffered.
You mean, she came to my rescue, he thought sullenly, speaking to that remote region of his brain. Yes, she came to your rescue, the remote region responded.
Again.
Clarke lifted his head and punched the pillow, startling Holly, who’d already settled into the perfect slumber spot, the little space behind his bent knees, sandwiched between his calves and thighs as he lay on his side. She stood up and reproached him with those glossy black eyes.
“Sorry,” he muttered, laying his head back down.
Cock-a-doodle-do!
What did it matter whether the rooster crowed all night? He wasn’t going to get any sleep anyway.
He sighed, shutting his eyes. With any luck he’d be on a flight out of here tomorrow. With a little less luck, the day after.
Holly was already snoring and running in her sleep.
Maybe she’s reliving her victory today.
The movement, the rumbling, and the rhythmic humming of her snore put a hypnotic spell on him, and soon he was drifting off to a world he readily welcomed, if for one and only one reason—it was a world without Ceci Rivers.
Or so he thought.
He heard a voice. It slivered through a blizzard so thick he couldn’t see his hands.
Sir, the voice said.
The voice was followed by a scent, dreamy and sweet. It entered him like warm honey, making his legs tremble.
You like it? the voice said.
Suddenly out from behind the fog came a figure.
Is it a cat? It’s walking on two legs.
It’s a woman. A cat-woman.
Dressed in a black suit that covered her completely, from her neck to her wrists and ankles. And yet, it was revealing. He could see everything—every angle, every curve, where her flesh dipped and where it rose, every turn of that terrain.
I want to ride that.
Do you?
Yes. Please.
Suddenly a rooster crowed.
That’s your cock, she whispered. He shivered, realizing she was next to him. Her breath grazing his neck.
She placed her hand on his dick and he jolted.
She chuckled, toying with the head, teasing it with her fingers.
Oh. Fuck.
Oh. Fuck. What?
Oh. Fuck. Yes. Please.
Suddenly her whisper in his ear had all the force of a tidal wave because as it entered, he felt himself rise and fall.
Do you want me to kiss it? Make it feel better?
Yes, please.
Her fingers moved in long, slow strokes.
Up and down.
He felt himself swell. Then harden.
Don’t worry, I know how to work a gearshift.
She did. His dick was so hard he felt like it could drive a nail into concrete.
He groaned.
She lowered herself to the ground, kneeling before him. He watched her mouth inch forward until it was so close her breath cloaked his cock in a warm mist.
She lapped up the liquid dangling from the tip before licking his shaft, her tongue slithering up and down, in long and slow strokes like a debauched snake.
He placed his fingers in her curls and tugged gently at first.
Mmm …
She likes that.
He pulled harder.
She moaned, and then took his cock in her mouth.
He watched those cherry red lips suck him like a lolly.
Damn, he thought as her mouth slid down.
And down.
And.
Down.
His stomach muscles clenched and he arched his back, as her lips slammed up against his balls.
Fuck, she’s swallowed all of me.
Those gray eyes flashed up at him, and a sudden and delicious electric spark shot through him, releasing a shudder that bolted with the force of an earthquake. When the shaking finally stopped, he looked down.
You taste good, she said, licking her lips and catching the last of his release at the corner of her mouth.
Those nipples.
Would you like a bite?
Yes. Please.
She was no longer kneeling but standing before him. He brushed one with a light kiss before taking it between his teeth.
He plucked it before biting down. She purred.
Then he took as much as he could in his mouth and sucked hungrily. But it wasn’t enough.
I want more.
He pulled her toward him, and he could feel her.
All of her. Is this what it would be like?
What she would feel like? He ran his hands down her back.
When he reached her ass, his fingers slid into her crack.
She was naked. He grabbed both cheeks and pulled her up until she wrapped her legs around him.
He rammed his lips against hers, his tongue devouring hers, and still he couldn’t get deep enough.
Twice he’d felt her pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.
When he finally released her, her cheeks were on fire and she was breathless.
I need to taste you. Now.
He grabbed the back of her thighs and hoisted her up, not stopping until she was on his shoulders. He slammed her up against a tree. Her pussy was there. Right there. He could reach it with his tongue.
Her lips were velvety like the petals of a rose.
She grabbed the back of his head and opened for him, spreading her thighs wide.
He licked that flower from root to tip, flicking her clit before entering her with his tongue.
She tasted the way he imagined a mermaid would—like the sea, the sky, and the air.
Sweet but not the kind of sweet that comes and goes—the kind that lingers.
Not so delicate it would shatter at a gentle breeze.
Something more visceral. A taste so feral it would grip his tongue, possess it, and stay with him even after she was gone.
It was gripping his cock now. He was hard again.
Is this real?
I suppose now you want the cherry, she murmured.
Yes, he groaned.
You sure?
Please.
No hesitation? Not even on that final turn?
Why did she go there?
You don’t really want to be behind the wheel, do you? You want me to do it? Shall I ride you?
Okay, then.
She smiled.
He blinked. Her pussy was gone. She was no longer on his shoulders. Not even in his arms. She stood both eyes and mouth curled and cocked a whip in her hand.
The rooster crowed a third time just before she cracked the whip, and that jolt fired at his heart and his lungs so that he could hardly breathe.
A surge of adrenaline shot through his veins making even his bones quiver.
He felt the ground beneath him shake, open up, and he fell.
And he fell. And he fell. For how long and how far he couldn’t tell.
He only knew that at the end of it was complete darkness.
Clarke bolted upright.
Cock-a-doodle-do!
Fuck.
There is a rooster crowing.
But as for the rest of it. He looked about the bedroom.
No catsuit. No whip. No Ceci.
But that feral taste still lingered.