Chapter 27 Just in Case
JUST IN CASE
CORBIN
I scoop her up, toss her over my shoulder, and stalk through the doorway that leads to the back of our bakery.
“Corbin. I can walk.”
“It’s faster if I carry you.”
“Is it really though?” she asks as I cross into the kitchen-slash-dressing room area.
“Woman, don’t test me right now,” I say.
She drums her hands against my back. “Why? Are you going to put me down and strip my apron off me?”
I smack her ass. “The sass from you.”
I can’t see it, but I can feel her smile.
Like I stood a chance at staying away from her.
From the dress she wore today, to her hair, to the apron.
The goddamn apron that drives me wild for some reason.
I guess apron kink is a thing, and I have it.
But mostly it’s the way she’s so goddamn bold and bright.
She’s like the sun shining as she chases what she wants.
And that somehow, incredibly includes me.
I set her down on the concrete floor. The kitchen’s on one side, with its gleaming appliances, mixing bowls, and trays.
The other side, with the makeup tables and exposed lightbulbs, is what this place might have been. For a moment, my thoughts linger on Sticks and Dicks, or whatever the strip club would have been called.
If that place had gotten off the ground, if those past owners hadn’t had trouble with it, Mabel and I might not be working together.
Those last two words echo like a warning—working together.
We are definitely working very closely together, and this—kissing, touching, fucking—is a recipe for failure.
But when she looks at me like that, lips wet, eyes dark, I can’t bring myself to care about consequences. Not when she’s right here in my arms and I need her so damn badly.
I make quick work of the apron strings, undoing them at her neck as I crush her lips with mine.
Her mouth feels so good, soft and pliant. She moves with me, our tongues skating together. Our moans mingling.
“It feels like forever since I kissed you,” I mutter as I briefly break the kiss, frantically tugging down the apron, exposing the collar of the dress that I bought her.
“A day is a long time,” she teases.
“I didn’t kiss you yesterday.”
She seems to think about that for a few seconds. “You should keep making up for that.”
“Oh, I will.”
She glances at the staircase, nodding to it. “Want to go upstairs?”
The bunk. Of course. That makes perfect sense, but I shake my head. “Too far. Can’t wait. Been wanting you for too long.”
She laughs, a flirty kind. “All day? Or since the romance fair?”
I back her up to the makeup table. “Try since I met you, Mabel. Since I met you.”
She blinks. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say, relieved to get that off my chest.
She scoots up on the table, looping her arms around my neck, and now it’s her turn to undo my apron strings. “That’s a long time.”
“You’re telling me.”
Her smile ignites. “You really have?”
I nod, breathe out hard. “When I didn’t see you all the time, I just lived with it.
It was there in the background. Now I see you, and it’s like a life force.
” I shouldn’t admit this. I know I shouldn’t.
But here she is, tossing my apron to the floor, tugging at my shirt, jerking it over my head, and then running her fingers down my abs to the scar where my appendix was.
“I love all your scars,” she says in a reverent voice. My head swims with lust. And I’m tossing her apron to the floor with mine.
My fingers tease at the hem of her dress, ready to yank it off too. But she sets a hand on my chest. “What about protection?”
My lips quirk up. It’s hard to say this without seeming like sex has been premeditated. “I have one.”
I brace myself for…attitude. She might think that me carrying is presumptuous.
Her eyes sparkle though. “You have a condom because you planned to fuck me tonight?”
I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment, then admit the truth. “I’ve had it since the day in the trailer. I wanted to be prepared. Just in case.”
I open my eyes, and the wicked delight has not left her face.
“You have a lot of restraint,” she says, grabbing at my jeans, unbuttoning them but not taking them off me yet.
“I don’t know about that. Doesn’t feel like I’ve been restrained at all around you.”
“And you’re not going to be restrained tonight,” she says, and then she strips off her dress.
It feels like ages ago that I last saw her naked, even though it was just yesterday. But I gaze at her in her bra and panties like a ravenous man.
After seven years, I finally get to have her the way I’ve dreamed about. For seven years, she’s drifted in and out of my life. Now she’s all the way in it. Dangerously in the middle. If we’re not careful, we could mess with a good thing—the bakery. Sex complicates everything.
It’s already more than sex.
I tell that voice to shut the fuck up as Mabel bites the corner of her lips. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I blink because, holy shit. I got a little lost in my thoughts, and here she is, taunting me.
“To do this,” I say and rope my arms around her chest, unhooking her bra, letting the white cotton fall to the floor and those gorgeous globes swing free. Full, lush breasts greet me. Dusky nipples. Hard peaks. My cock aches, an insistent throb in my jeans.
I can’t stop staring at her.
“Get it, Corbin,” she urges.
I shake my head, amazed, impressed with this woman. I slide a hand up the back of her thigh, smooth, soft flesh, savoring the feel of her. I lift her thigh up, raising her leg slightly off the table. “Do me a favor. Will you?”
She juts up a shoulder. “Maybe,” she teases.
I dip my face to dust a kiss across her delicious lips, making her whimper when I break the kiss far too soon. I take a step back, lower her thigh, glide my hands down her legs to her knees, then I meet her hot gaze. “Part these pretty legs and show me how much you want it.”
With a shudder, she spreads her thighs, offering me the most fantastic view ever—the soaking wet panel of her white panties. A groan rips from the center of my chest, loud and carnal. A rasp that gives away exactly how much I want her.
I drop to the floor, kneeling, spreading her thighs. Dragging my nose along the panel, I inhale the scent of her pussy. My brain sizzles. My skin is on fire.
She spreads her thighs farther while roping her fingers through my hair. I plant a kiss on the fabric, then flick my tongue along it, tasting how hot and turned on she is even through her panties. She trembles. Grips me harder. Shudders.
I tap her ankle. “Ask me again,” I murmur against all that wetness.
“What?” she asks, dreamily, rocking against my mouth already.
“Ask me what I’m waiting for.”
In a breathy voice, she complies. “What are you waiting for?”
I meet her gaze. Her eyes are hooded. “I want to taste you all over my face.”
She moans. Grips me harder. And I tease her more, kissing her undies, winding her up, homing in on her swollen clit. She clamps her thighs against my face and shudders. “Oh, god.”
That sound. Those words. I grab her panties, yank them to the side, and clamp my mouth on her pulsing, needy clit. She cries out, a breathy gasp as she tries to fuck my mouth.
“Don’t worry, Firecracker. I’ll take care of you,” I say, reveling in the hot, wet taste. In seconds, she’s thrusting, jerking, and falling apart.
And holy fuck. That did not take long at all. I feel ten feet tall. Like a king. Like I won the Cup.
When she comes down, she blows out a breath, saying, “That was a surprise.”
“You don’t usually come that hard?”
“No,” she says, sounding drunk off me. Pride radiates through my chest.
“Well, then let’s test it again.” I rise up and free my aching cock. She gasps, hitching in a breath as she stares at me.
Finally, she tears her eyes away. “Give me your cock.”
“Oh, you’re getting it, sweetheart. You’re definitely getting it.”
She arches a brow playfully, wraps a warm hand around my dick, and lets out an appreciative sigh.
I shudder. Groan. Grab her shoulder and hold on. It feels that good.
“Just like I imagined,” she purrs.
“What did you picture, Firecracker?”
Her gaze strays down to my cock, pulsing in her hand. “Hard.” She runs her hand down the length and back up. “Long. Pretty. And so fucking eager,” she says, sliding a thumb along the crown, then swiping off a drop and bringing it to her lower lip.
I am a live wire as she rubs it into her lip, then licks it off, nice and slow. I nearly come right there. “Fuuuuck.”
“What are you waiting for?” She stares at the space between us. A cue.
I grab the condom from my back pocket, rip open the wrapper, and roll it down. Then I notch the head of my dick against her sweet, slick pussy, and I push inside.
The first inch is unreal, warm and tight. She fits so fucking perfectly. I take a moment to savor the feel, then my gaze roams over every inch of her creamy flesh, her flushed chest, her darkened cheeks.
And those big eyes, flickering with heat, darkening with lust. It steals my breath for a sharp, hot moment that I don’t want to end. Ever.
But I focus on business. “Put your feet up,” I say, patting the edge of the table.
She complies, lifting her knees, resting on the balls of her feet, giving me even more room to slide deeper. And looking so unbearably sexy with her thighs spread wide and her wet pussy on full display.
A red-hot spike of pleasure shoots down my spine. Then I get it together so I can focus on her. I grab the back of her thigh, holding on tightly, gripping her there. I ease out, then back in, then out. Her breath catches.
I stay like that, teasing her for a few long seconds.
She whimpers. Whines. Stares at me with the most petulant look.
My lips quirk into a grin. “Wait for it,” I say in a low rasp.
She lifts her chest, pushing out her pretty tits and making it impossible for me to wait any longer. I slam back into her.
“Oh, god,” she shouts.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I groan.
Her hands dart out, grabbing my biceps, nails digging into my skin, holding on for dear life.
I swivel my hips, thrust back in, letting her feel the absence, then letting her feel all of me. My muscles tighten. I curl my hand tighter around her thigh. Drive deeper. Rope my free hand through her hair and tug it. Another gasp.
My brain is scrambled. I can barely think.
I dip my face toward her neck, burying it in the crook of it as I layer kisses along her sweaty skin, murmuring until I reach her ear and whisper, “Knew you’d like that. Want to know how?”
“Tell me.”
I pull back. “When I braided your hair that day?”
“I was pretty turned on,” she says, with a smile that tells me she likes being known.
“Yeah, I knew you’d like this,” I say, then I pull her hair again.
She lets out the sexiest cry. I drop my hand from her hair, my palm skating down the side of her neck to the hollow of her throat. She shudders, legs squeezing me tighter as I curl my hand around her neck, pressing lightly, squeezing her.
Hot breath gusts across my hand. I grip a little harder. Another sexy gasp that ends when she grabs my hand and shoves it between her thighs.
She’s a woman who knows her mind. I’m so far gone for her.
But not so lost that I can’t give her everything she needs.
I stroke her needy clit. Faster and faster still. Seconds later, she’s shaking, chanting, alerting the whole town to her orgasm, then coming hard on the dressing room table in the back of our bakery in the little town of Cozy Valley.
Lust plows through my entire body as I thrust hard, groan, then spill into the condom. My brain blurs. My chest heaves. My soul quiets.
I want to just stay here and breathe her in. So I quickly ease out, dispose of the condom in a tissue and place it on a table, and pull up my jeans. Then I inhale the sweet vanilla scent of her hair. “Mabel?”
“Yeah?”
I raise my face, run a hand through her hair. “There’s something I want to know.”
Her eyes widen with curiosity. “What is it?”
“What color is your hair?”