Chapter Four #2
Her fingers went tight in the bedding. "This," she said. "I wanted this."
"Good girl." I brought my palm down a second time and she pressed back into it hard. I steadied her and pulled her up. "We're not done."
"Obviously," she said, breathless, the dry edge still in it even now, and that alone made me want to start over.
I turned her to face me and got my hands on her hips. I tipped her chin up. That mouth — all that smart talk, and now mine.
"I've been thinking about those lips wrapped around my cock since the day you caught me going out that window," I said. "Every time that mouth gave me grief, this was where I was going with it."
"On your knees, sweetheart."
She went, not fast and not reluctantly, just with that particular quality of deciding to do something and then doing it completely. She wrapped her hand around my cock and looked up at me with those hazel eyes.
"This is what happens to brats who say things they know they shouldn't," I said.
"I'll keep that in mind," she said, and ran her tongue up the underside of my cock from root to tip, watching my face the whole way.
My hand went into her hair. "Do that again."
She did. Slower.
I let her run it for a while — that warm mouth working me slow and certain, taking her time like the night was hers to spend, and my grip was tight in her hair and my jaw was tight and when I finally pulled her up she was flushed and breathing hard and I was done waiting.
I got her jeans off and took her down onto the bed.
She shifted to give me the good side without being asked, her knee coming up.
She was worth every second stretched out across those sheets, all bare skin and curves, those hazel eyes gone dark, and I put my mouth on her pussy and she arched off the mattress hard enough that I had to put my forearm across her hips to hold her down.
"Jesus," she breathed.
"Stay still sweetheart," I said against her, and felt her shudder at that.
I worked her slow and thorough, tongue and fingers, learning what made her thighs shake and what made her stop catching the sounds she was making. She tasted clean and sweet, and I could have stayed there all night. I kept the pace steady. She lasted longer than I expected.
"Baby," she said finally, voice stripped down to nothing. "Please."
I gave her what she was asking for. She fell apart, hands tight in my hair.
I pressed a kiss to her hip and moved up beside her. She caught her breath. Then I stood.
She sat up. Her eyes moved down to my cock — hard and straining — and back up.
"You're so big," she said, breathless.
"I'll take care of you."
"I didn't ask you to be careful."
"And I told you I'd take care of you." I held her gaze. "Those aren't the same thing."
Something shifted in her expression: the wall, for two full seconds, entirely gone. Then she reached up and pulled me down.
I pushed in slow and she exhaled against my jaw, long and rough at the edges, and her hands gripped my back. I held still.
"You okay?" I said.
"More than okay." She pressed her hips up against me. "Fuck me, Scorch. Please."
So I moved. Careful of the wound, which she was already helping with, one hand at my hip, her body working with mine like she'd already figured out the geometry, and I stopped thinking about the wound inside a minute because she rolled her hips and the sound I made was embarrassingly honest.
"Oh god," she moaned against my jaw, voice gone rough at the edges. "Right there. Don't stop."
"You're going to be the death of me," I said.
"I know CPR."
I laughed low and got my hand between us, found her clit, and the laugh broke off against her throat.
"Not fair," she breathed.
"You want me to stop?"
"If you stop I will personally remove those sutures myself."
I didn't stop. I watched her go from composed to completely wrecked in stages I was going to be thinking about on every straight stretch of highway between here and Bandera. She came hard the second time, nails in my back, legs locked, and I followed her over not long after.
WE STAYED EXACTLY WHERE we were.
Her breathing slowed. The evening had gone quiet outside and she hadn't kicked me out of her bed, which I took as good sign.
"Your brisket better be spectacular," she whispered into my shoulder.
I laughed — caught off guard the same way she'd caught me red-handed that first night. "It is. I'll personally guarantee it."
"You'd better. I have very high standards."
"I know," I said. "I've been paying attention."
She made a small sound that wasn't quite a laugh and settled deeper. After a while her breathing evened out and she was asleep.
Saturday was two days out. Cricket on the drive, me on the route from the passenger seat, Detour on sweep where I could see him. The job. I'd done it a hundred times.
What I hadn't done was do it with someone I wanted to show it to.
Something landed at the foot of the bed, careful and four-footed. I kept still.
The cat walked the length of the mattress, assessed the situation with the green-eyed judgment of a creature who had standards and enforced them, and settled herself against Whitley's legs.
"Told you," I said quietly.
Whitley didn't stir.
I lay there with a cat who'd apparently decided I'd passed whatever test she'd been running and Whitley's weight against my arm. Not bad for a man who'd been trying to climb out a hospital window four days ago.