Haven
Chapter Fourteen
It’s startling how quickly Cash becomes a constant part of my evening routine. The next night, he needs to work late, so he walks me home and then heads back to the garage, but promises to return when he finishes the brake job he wants to get done.
When he returns, he has a Saskatoon berry pie and a pint of homemade vanilla ice cream with him. “When you stay late to finish repairing a mini van for a family of seven, sometimes you get sweet bonuses.”
I get us two bowls, and we share dessert while we read side by side.
After Cash takes our bowls to the sink, he returns and leans against me, yawning. “Do you mind if I close my eyes?”
“Not at all.”
“I’m not great company tonight.”
“You worked twelve hours. I don’t expect—”
A soft snore interrupts me.
I giggle and shift myself so I can still read as he naps against me.
When I turn the page, he startles awake.
Okay, Cash is a light sleeper.
I lightly scratch the side of his head. “Go back to sleep.”
He relaxes again, but this time, he doesn’t drift off. He yawns a couple of times, but he’s still awake, I can feel it in his body, even though his eyes are closed.
“That feels good,” he finally murmurs. “The way you’re scritching my head, I like that.”
I roll my fingertips against his scalp, dragging my nails through the little hairs, then following that same path with the pads of my fingers.
He purrs like a big ol’ pussy cat. I laugh to myself at the image of Cash morphing into a happy tiger.
“What’s so funny?” he mumbles.
“You’re like an overgrown wild cat, domesticated as a pet. Complete with a happy little purr.”
“I’ll be your pet any night of the week.” He shifts onto his back. “Call me good boy and I’ll do it again.”
I rub my thumb along the curve of his ear, smiling as I watch him get comfortable. I push my fingers into his short cropped beard—and then go still as my gaze slides down his body.
His thick, long legs have fallen wide, one of them hooked over the end of the couch, the other planted on the floor. And where they meet, he’s undeniably aroused. A thick bulge strains at the fly of his jeans.
“You are a good boy,” I whisper.
He must hear the change in my voice, because his eyes blink open and he stares up at me. I can feel his attention shift from my face—which is on fire—to where I’m staring.
“Shit, sorry,” he mumbles.
“Don’t be.” Heat swirls through me as I instinctively rub his ear again. “Did I do that?”
“Side effect of enjoying your touch.”
“Does it hurt?” It looks really stuffed into his jeans, like the fabric might tear apart at the seams if he enjoys my touch a second more.
He huffs a strained laugh. “No, and if any man ever tells you that he needs you to help him with it because it hurts too much, that guy is a dickhead who needs to be punched in the face. It doesn’t hurt.
Not to put too blunt of a point on the obvious, but it feels good.
Don’t stop scritching. I’m in no rush to get rid of my erection. ”
I giggle and resume the head scratches and ear rubs, trailing my fingers down his throat, up over his Adam’s apple, petting him like he actually is my overgrown pet.
He stays very erect, and I can’t stop looking at it.
“I want to see it,” I blurt out.
He blinks his eyes open. “My cock?”
“Yes.”
He clears his throat. “That’s skipping a lot of steps.”
“So?”
Slowly, he pushes himself up, but he doesn’t pull away.
“Generally speaking, I would want to make you feel good before making my dick the centre of attention.”
“You do make me feel good, all the time. Cuddling is really nice, and the kisses are amazing.”
“Haven, I’m talking about pleasure.” I hate how soft and gentle his voice gets when he thinks I’m too innocent for a conversation.
“Unless, of course, you literally just want to look at it, which is fine in theory, but he’s gonna get so big I’m not gonna be able to put him away again.
Which makes me just as bad as the hypothetical guy who tells you he needs help, after all. ”
I stare down his body. The bulge is now in the shadow beneath him, but I can’t imagine it growing further. “It gets bigger?”
“If you keep staring at it, that’s a guarantee.”
I might actually spontaneously combust.
Maybe he’s right to be gentle with me.
Except I’m not a child. I’m almost thirty years old, and I’ve never seen an aroused cock in person.
“I want to re-negotiate the terms of our arrangement.” I swallow hard and lift my gaze back to his face, where his eyes have gone dark and hooded.
He doesn’t blink. “What are you thinking?”
“I want you to teach me about sex. I’m tired of you thinking you might shock me. Or, maybe you will shock me, but it’s not going to be bad. It might be a good kind of shock.”
“Shock and awe,” he says dryly.
“Exactly. You might delight me.”
“That might make things complicated.”
I shake my head. “Not if we know going in that this is just…”
He waits.
He’s going to make me say every part of this request, in explicit detail. I take a deep breath. “This is just two friends helping each other out. Not out of obligation, but willingly. Mutually beneficial, right? I get a sex lesson, and you get some relief.”
He sits back on the couch, his legs spread wide, his face tipping up to the ceiling for a second before he rolls his head and stares at me. “You want sex lessons?”
“Yes, please.”
“Fuck. Don’t say things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Yes, please. All sweet like that. That’s…a man would sell his soul for polite requests to see his cock. That’s your first sex lesson.”
“That’s not the kind of lesson I was thinking of—”
He snaps his hand out and catches me around the waist, pulling me onto his lap as if I weigh nothing.
“Your second lesson is that your breasts are magnificent, and if you ever want to push me over the edge, you should just show them to me.”
I’m wearing a faded cotton flannel shirt today, and as Cash holds me, his gaze tracks to the buttons down the front, lingers there for a second, then lifts to my face.
Waiting.
My pulse pounds in my ears as I slowly undo one button, then another, my fingers shaking.
When his eyes hood and his attention returns to my cleavage, it stays there.
“Fuck,” he whispers as I bare my bra to him. “Fuuuuuck.”
I can’t breathe as his fingers join mine, as he pushes my shirt off my shoulder and reverently traces the elastic and lace lifting my breasts.
“You’re the best kind of temptation, Haven Bingham.” His voice is thick like honey.
Beneath my bottom, his erection is rock hard, unmistakable.
“You think you want to learn about sex from a friend nobody approves of?”
“I approve of you, and that’s all that matters.” I reach for his head, raking my fingernails through his short hair again. “Please, Cash.”
“I’m not going to take this too far,” he grinds out. “Just lessons. Nothing…irrevocable.”
He doesn’t want to take my virginity. My belly goes into free fall, but I force myself to nod. That would be asking too much. “Whatever you want to teach me. And show me.”
Because I’m not forgetting what started this. I can’t, when it feels like I’m sitting on top of a hardwood log big enough for a fire. I ache inside at the thought of having done that to him, at the illicit delight of getting to see him like that.
He grips my chin in his fingers. “You want to see my cock?”
“Yes,” I gasp.
“I think you should earn it.” He licks his lips. “Can you be good, too?”
I nod eagerly.
“Straddle me.” He pats my hip. “Swing your leg over my lap and put your tits in my face.”
He holds me up as I adjust myself on top of him. We’re both wearing jeans, so there’s a good amount of denim between us, but—oh—that just amplifies the tension in his body as his cock presses right against the seam of my pants, pushing that pressure point right onto my clit.
Ohhh.
I shake as I settle my weight down on him, pleasure rippling through me already.
Just from straddling him.
“That’s it,” he croons softly. “You’re so fucking pretty, Haven. God, I love your tits. Sorry for all the swearing. Jesus. I mean—”
I grab his head and pull him into my cleavage, wanting him to stop apologizing. I know what he means. I know what’s in his heart. He’s not using the Lord’s name in vain, he’s using it in…in…
A superlative way.
“Cash,” I whimper as he curves his hands around my hips, cupping my bum. “That feels so good.”
“I’ll be so good to you, Haven. I swear I will, I promise….” He trails off, mumbling into my breasts. Hot shivers race across my skin.
As he nuzzles me, he squeezes my bottom, then drags his hands up to my bra again. His fingers trace every inch of my covered flesh, then the edge of the bra, sending my breath shallow and my brain spinning.
“You’re mine to teach,” he whispers.
I stutter nod, overwhelmed by the sensations of his hands on my breasts. “Yours.”
“Don’t let anyone else touch you, Haven. I’ll have to kill them.”
“Stop threatening to kill people,” I whisper back.
He groans and nips at the top of my breast. “Can’t kill anyone if you’re wobbling in my face like this.”
“Wobbling?”
“It’s hot, I promise.”
“Okay.”
“You’re so beautiful. I love every inch of your body. Never thought I’d get to hold you like this. Wanted to, though.”
My head spins. Really? I want to ask, but before I can form the question, he’s tugging one bra cup down, and his fingers are on my nipple, and I can’t.
I can’t speak.
I can’t think.
“This okay?” he rolls the peak between his thumb and his forefinger and searches my face at the same time. “Your nipples are as pretty as wild raspberries, Haven. Look just as tasty, too. Can I suck on them? Would you like that?”
I stare at him in wonder and, from a distance, feel myself nod.
He plumps my breast up in his hand and ducks his head, his breath warm and then his tongue—oh, his tongue—wet and hungry.
“Cash!”
I grab his head, holding him against me, and he knows what I need more than I do, because his other hand falls to my hip and he urges me to grind down against his denim-trapped cock instead of shooting up toward the ceiling, although I think I want to do both at the same time.