Chapter 31
Nash
I call ahead for the truck. The bike is not an option when Ruby's wearing what I'm about to put her in.
She's in the bathroom. Shower's running.
I lay the outfit on the bed. A short, black skirt, the fabric thin enough that it moves when she walks.
Dark green top, fitted, the color pulling the copper out of her hair and deepening her eyes.
Heels. The red lipstick on the nightstand beside the earrings she wore last time.
No panties.
The small box sits beside the lipstick. Inside is the plug I chose for her: black silicone, tapered, smooth. She asked about the posterior exploration department at six this morning with coffee in her hand. Her voice was light. Her eyes weren't.
My blood is already running warm just from setting this up. The image of her in this skirt with the plug inside her, walking through Vesper beside me, sits behind my eyes and doesn't leave.
The shower shuts off. Ruby comes out in a towel, hair damp, and sees the bed. Her eyes move across the outfit piece by piece. They stop on the box.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Open it."
She picks up the box. Opens it. Her cheeks flush. The towel shifts on her chest, the edge slipping below her collarbone, the swell of her breast visible above the fabric. She doesn't fix it. My eyes drop to the gap before I pull them back.
"Nash."
"You said you had questions and requests. This is step one."
"Step one." She turns the plug over in her fingers, careful and curious, turning it in the light. Heat slides down my spine. "Step one is wearing this. Under the skirt. In public. At Vesper."
"It gets your body ready for later."
"My body is having a conversation with my brain right now, and my brain is losing.
" She looks at me. The flush has spread from her cheeks to her neck and the tops of her breasts where the towel has slipped further.
The pink on her skin against the white towel and her damp copper hair.
My cock presses against my jeans. "How long do I wear it? "
"Until I take it out."
Her teeth catch her bottom lip. She exhales, and her chest rises with it, the towel shifting with each breath. Every small movement drags my attention lower until I'm eager to pull that towel off her and skip Vesper entirely.
"Okay." She picks up the skirt. "But if I walk funny, it's your fault."
"You won't walk funny."
"You don't know that. You've never worn one. Unless there's something you haven't told me, in which case I have follow-up questions."
I cross the room. Take the towel and pull it off her.
She stands in front of me naked, damp, with the plug in her right hand and her chin tilted up.
Water beads on her collarbone. A single drop runs between her breasts, down her stomach, past her navel.
I follow it with my eyes, and my mouth goes dry.
"Turn around," I say. My voice comes out lower than I planned.
She turns. The line of her spine, the curve of her ass, the dimples at the base of her back, all of it pulls my focus until the room narrows to her body and the way she's trusting me with it.
I open the lube from the nightstand drawer, take the plug from her hand and coat it.
Then I move my left hand to rest on the small of her back.
Her skin is warm and still damp from the shower. She braces her hands on the dresser.
"Breathe," I say.
I press the tip against her ass. Slow, steady pressure.
Her breath catches. Her fingers tighten on the dresser edge.
I push it in, past the first resistance, and she gasps.
The sound goes straight to my cock. The widest point stretches her.
Then the base settles into place and her whole body shudders.
My hand is still on her back and I can feel the shudder run through her, feel every muscle in her body respond to the fullness.
"Okay?" I ask.
"Very, very okay." Her voice is tight. "I feel extremely full, and we haven't even left the apartment."
I kiss the back of her neck. Her skin tastes clean, warm, the shower still on her. My lips stay longer than they should. I breathe her in.
"Get dressed."
She does. The skirt sits on her thighs the way I knew it would.
She walks to the mirror, and the walk is different.
Her hips shift with each step, adjusting to the plug, and every shift of her hips pulls my attention down.
The awareness of what's inside her is in her face every time she moves.
My knowing what's inside her is making it difficult for me to think about anything beyond the next four hours.
"I can feel it," she says. "Every step. Every single step, Nash."
"That's the point."
"The point is to drive me insane before we arrive?"
"The point is to make you ready."
"I'm ready. I was ready at six o'clock this morning.
And ready when you kissed me in the back room.
Even more when you fought a man on a sidewalk and walked back into the shop with blood on your knuckles.
I have been in a state of readiness for approximately nine hours, and the plug is not helping the readiness.
The plug is escalating the readiness to a level that should require a permit. "
I hand her the lipstick. "Red."
She puts it on. Presses her lips together. Looks at me in the mirror with red lips, no panties, a plug in her ass, and the kind of fire in her eyes that makes my cock press against my jeans.
"Let's go," she says.
The club truck is parked outside. Ruby climbs in, settles into the seat, and her hand shoots to the center console. Her eyes close. Her lips part.
"Interesting," she says.
"Interesting?"
"Sitting changes the angle. The angle is interesting. The angle is making me reconsider every chair I've ever sat in and whether any of them have been doing their job correctly."
I pull out of the lot. My cock is already straining against my jeans, has been since I watched the water bead down her naked body in the bedroom. The ache is constant, pressing against the denim with every shift of the steering wheel.
My right hand finds her bare thigh. The skin is warm, soft, and when my fingers slide an inch higher, she parts her legs without being asked.
My hand rests on her inner thigh, thumb tracing circles, close enough to feel the heat of her pussy radiating against my knuckles.
I don't touch it. I keep my thumb moving in slow circles on her inner thigh and watch her unravel from the corner of my eye.
"Nash."
"Yeah."
"If you don't move your hand higher, I'm going to move it for you."
"You're not going to move anything."
She whimpers. The sound sends a pulse straight through my cock. I grip the steering wheel harder with my left hand.
"I'm sitting in a truck with a plug in my ass and your hand on my thigh. We're driving the speed limit, and I need you to understand that the speed limit is a personal insult right now."
My hand stays where it is. She squirms in the seat.
Every time she shifts, her breath catches, and every catch of her breath tightens the pressure behind my zipper.
I could slide my hand two inches higher and end this.
I could pull over, take her in the passenger seat, and be inside her in thirty seconds.
I don't.
This is the part I won't say out loud. The part where her frustration feeds something in me that runs deeper than patience.
Watching her need it. Fight for it. Watching her body betray every word that comes out of her mouth.
The denial is its own kind of pleasure that sits thick and heavy in my chest. It's satisfaction of holding something she wants just out of reach and knowing I'm the only one who decides when she gets it.
My thumb traces one more slow circle on her inner thigh. She grabs my wrist. I don't move.
"Nash, I swear to God—"
"Hands off."
She releases my wrist. Her jaw clenches. Her thighs press together around my hand. The heat of her is soaking into my skin.
By the time I pull into the Vesper lot, her breathing is shallow, her fingers are gripping the edge of the seat, and my cock is so hard the walk inside is going to require adjustment. I park. Kill the engine. Sit for a second with my hand still on her thigh, her pulse hammering under my thumb.
Arden is at the door. His eyes move over us once. He steps aside without a word.
Inside, the club breathes. Low music. Dim light.
Ruby's hand tightens in mine. This time she walks in with her chin up, her heels clicking on the hardwood.
She moves through the space in the outfit I chose, with the plug I put inside her and her thighs bare beneath a skirt that barely qualifies as clothing.
My cock throbs hard enough to make every step hurt.
At the main bar, Amelia is in conversation with a brunette in a wrap dress.
Tessa. Wineglass held loose. Her shoulders relaxed on her frame.
She laughs at something Amelia says, the kind of laugh I never saw from her when Derek walked her in here.
His membership was pulled the week after my conversation with Amelia.
The prospects rode him out past the county line and laid out, in language he understood, what happens if he comes back.
He hasn't. Amelia catches my eye over Tessa's shoulder and tips her chin once. I tip mine back.
I don't take Ruby to a private room this time. I turn left past the main bar and walk her toward the back corner of the main floor where the booths line the wall. Semi-enclosed. Heavy curtains on three sides, open on the fourth to the room. Private enough to disappear in. Public enough to be heard.
I chose this booth because of what she said at the clubhouse. The desk in the office. With her parents fifty feet away. The way her voice got when she talked about what we'd done while the family ate dinner.