Not for Sale

by Eden Rayna

  “No walking around without shoes on.”

  I have a feeling I won’t want to leave anytime soon. “You know I don’t enjoy taking orders from you,” I say anyway.

  He smiles at me.

  Oh my god, Owen smiled! I made Owen smile!

  I reach forward and draw my thumb over his lips, tracing the curve and committing it to memory. He has a beautiful smile. I clench my teeth together, warning myself not to cry over it. Cautioning myself not to glean more from it than excitement over getting laid. Forbidding myself from getting attached to the idea that he smiled for me.

  Owen kisses my thumb gently before I slide my hand around into his hair and dip my face to his, connecting our mouths again. He bites my lips playfully then sucks the bottom one into his mouth, tugging on it hard enough to make my eyes widen. Then he pushes me back, releasing my lip with a pop.

  “I bet I can make you listen today.”

  Chapter 28

  Owen

  Bringing Izzy upstairs wasn’t what I had planned when I told myself I had to make things right with her. My intentions were pure. I wanted to explain myself. To talk to her and let her know that I finally, painfully, understand her vision for her house and future. I wanted to lift my shirt and show her all my tattoos; explain every one of them and let her ask as many questions as she could think of. I wanted to share stories of my family and hear hers too.

  I tried telling her I would do right by her. That I’d build her a spectacular home if she’d let me. I lost my resolve when she shot back with her biting quip. Just like the day with her moving truck when I caught my first glimpse of her fire and should have known I’d met my match.

  I might have been slow to see the signs, but she’s wrong—I’m not too late. As long as we’re both alive—hell, as long as I’m alive—there’s time to love her.

  “Lift your skirt.”

  She props her heels on the bed and lifts her hips so she can shift her skirt around her waist. I hook my fingers into the sides of her tights and slide the opaque fabric down, exposing her milky thighs and shapely calves. She watches me intensely as I pore over her shape, bend to kiss her warm skin, and skim my calloused hands across her smoothness. It’s almost a crime to touch something so delicate with my inelegant mitts, but I bet she loves the feel of my work-hardened hands on her. I bet that’s been part of her fantasies—my rough fingers on her tight nipples.

  “Buttons.” I tell her, referring to her blouse.

  “Do I have to do all the work?”

  I bite the inside of her thigh and she squeals, then laughs. I’m surprised she still wants to test me after all the arguments we’ve had. I remind her what happens by ripping her shirt open from top to bottom, scattering the buttons all over the bed. A few roll off, bouncing across the floor with soft clatters to settle in the corners.

  “What the hell, Owen?” She tries to suppress her smile, but it’s there when she props herself on her elbows.

  The position forces her breasts forward. I run my finger down the lacy front of her bra, circling her nipple that’s stiffly poking through the fabric, then I pull at the lace and circle her milk-chocolate coloured nipple for real. Izzy’s head drops and she presses herself into my touch, forgetting all about the ruined blouse. At once, her nipple hardens more under my fingers. I tug on it, pinching until her breath hitches and her eyelashes flutter, then I lean forward and draw it into my mouth.

  Her sigh is how I imagine sound is to a deaf man hearing for the first time. It possesses every quality—breathy, strong, quivering, demanding. I pull at the other cup of her bra and put my mouth to that side. She falls to the bed and her fingers thread through my hair, pulling me with her, holding me fast while I suck her sensitive bud to a hard point.

  “Would you like to take your bra off, or should I?” I say into the skin between her breasts, alternating words with small kisses and a grin.

  Izzy sits and I push her ruined shirt off her shoulders. She reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra, freeing her swollen breasts for both of my hands to roam across unhindered.

  In this position, she’s free to roam as well. Her hands slide under the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head. She gasps at the sight of my torso, two-thirds of which is covered in ink. The sexual perusal stops for a moment while she examines me. Her fingers, as much as her eyes and mind, traverse my body, following the lines and curves in ink and muscle. The first image she goes for is the Frank Stella lookalike that sits on my chest where she always lays her head. She runs her fingers across each bar of colour, following the lines like they’re a maze she means to solve. I try to make myself believe that she’s drawn to that one because it’s the boldest of them all. I shove aside Pops’ words and his revelation about Mum’s role with Black Ladder. I bury the idea that the real reason she gravitates towards this one is because she somehow knows it means more to me than all the others. She somehow knows that it represents my mum and me.

  Her fingers travel lower, leaving the inked skin for my bare skin. Spending more time touching me and exploring me than my art.

  No one has ever touched me this way. I focus on a small point on the wall behind her head, trying to enjoy her touches and her interest in me, and not just my past. Trying to stop overthinking things and ruin the moment.

  “Does this bother you?” Her eyes leave my body to gauge the reaction in my face.

  “A little.” It’s been years since a woman has seen me naked. When the inches of ink outnumbered the inches of visible skin, and the questions during sex outnumbered the orgasms, I took to fucking in the dark. It turns out there are a whole bunch of women out there who prefer to have sex with the lights off.

  Her eyes come to mine at the same time that her fingers still. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Want to close the blinds?”

  Yes.

  “No.” None of my fantasies about Izzy happen in the dark.

  She places her flat palms against my skin, keeping her gaze set on mine. She focusses her attention on learning me through touch rather than sight. Izzy uses her palms, her tongue, her lips, her thighs. When she straddles me, nestling into my lap, floating her breasts across my chest while lazily draping her arms around my shoulders, my cock weeps in excitement.

  This is so much better than any of my visions. I realise now how one-dimensional my dreams were. The sounds were repetitive and the smells were non-existent. Izzy is too dynamic to box into the imagination. She needs to be experienced in the flesh.

  Her skirt is bunched around her waist like a belt, showing off the minuscule matching panties to the bra flung on my floor, and I want them gone.

  I want her bare.

  I want my face between her legs.

  I undo the button on her skirt and flip her off me, landing her on her back once more.

  “Hips up.” She obeys without argument, and I remove the last of her clothing.

  The reality of seeing her naked in my bed catches me off guard. It’s different from seeing any other woman naked. There’s an aura about her that breathes life into this room. Life into me.

  I miss a few breaths and am forced to take a giant gulp of air.

  “What?” she asks, eyebrows knitting. When I don’t answer, she covers her chest. “What is it?”

  I blink, coming back from being lost.

  “You’re stunning,” is what I think, but “I can’t wait to eat your pussy,” is what I say. She smacks my arm playfully and rolls her eyes, mumbling my name.

  That mumble quickly switches to a moan when my tongue slips across her slick lips and over her clit. The slow, drawn out strokes drive her wild and she pushes into me, hips rising and falling in no particular rhythm. I slide a finger inside her wet channel to the sounds of her approving chants. Izzy’s core squeezes around my finger. Her orgasm nears already, giving away how tightly wound she is. How long she’s been waiting for this.

  I tease her swollen nub with the tip of my tongue before pulling it between my lips. She screams like
the intensity is too much, but I don’t relent. She’s been dying to bend me to her will since we first met, much like I have craved the same. Her tactics never worked before, and they certainly won’t now.

  I laugh into her apex at her tenacity and feel the vibrations shudder through her when she clamps her legs around my head. The reverberation is enough to push her towards the peak. She slams her hands on the bed and cries out a soulful moan as her hot walls spasm around my finger and reward me with a rush of come.

  I kiss the insides of her thighs then travel my lips into the valley where her leg meets her stomach and farther still, until I can see the flush of excitement creeping into her neck and over her chest.

  “What?” I ask about the smirk on her face.

  She’s looking at me like she’s so proud of herself when let’s face it, I did all the work.

  “You’re smiling.”

  Chapter 29

  Izzy

  Over the past six months, I have never seen Owen smile or heard him laugh. But in the last half hour, he’s smiled almost continuously, and I heard—or at least felt—him crack up. Knowing that I could tease that joy out of him pushed me over the edge to a most spectacular orgasm. He’s quite talented with his fingers and tongue, but his smile is better than anything he’s shown me so far.

  “Why am I naked and you’re still clothed?” I nod towards the tent in his pants.

  He makes quick work of the laces on his boots, then sheds his pants and socks, adding them to the growing mess of garments on the floor. I crawl on to my knees, captivated by The Owen Show, in particular by the wet spot on his boxer briefs. My eyes light up and my belly flutters when he hooks his fingers in the waistband and lowers them over his firm shaft.

  I’ve been drawn to look at what he’s been hiding behind the thick fabric of his Carhartts on more than one occasion. I’ve been busted checking him out and I’m not embarrassed about it anymore. Because all that peeking has led to seeing and feeling and soon, tasting. Time to put my imagination to rest and get ready to enjoy every single inch of him in real life.

  He springs free, and before I can get my hands on him, Owen wraps his fingers around the base and gives a long, slow, teasing tug to the tip, swirling his thumb through his leaking excitement. I don’t think it’s intentional, but I lean in, enraptured by the smooth glide of his thumb across the head. He releases himself and aims his thumb for my mouth. I open and he slides his thumb all the way in, painting a stripe of his essence along my tongue. I close my lips around him and gently suck, swirling my tongue like I’m trying to draw more seed from the tip of his digit.

  He growls, a sound I’m used to hearing from him, but this time, I like it. It hits me in the pit of my stomach and sets off an erotic explosion. I pull my head back and release this thumb with a soft pop then lean in to get a taste straight from the source. I pull his tip into my mouth, swirling my tongue through the slit and tasting his salty manhood. He feels exactly how I thought he would—solid yet satiny. It’s a faint mirror to this new side of him I’m seeing.

  I need to know if he maintains his smile with my lips on him. I crave seeing his lips tip and hearing the rumble in his chest as he laughs. I cast my gaze upwards and see that he isn’t smiling. He’s watching himself slide in and out of my mouth, wearing that hardened mask he sports when exhibiting control. Also sexy as fuck.

  When he catches me watching him, his hazel eyes lock on mine and he captures my face in a gentle grip, stroking his calloused thumbs across my cheekbones. I love that he’s touching me with hands that create beautiful, wonderful things. Hopefully by touching me, part of my energy will flow through his body and into whatever he builds on Gran’s property.

  Who am I kidding? Nothing good will come from this beyond a few orgasms. But we’re in it now, and whether we stop or go all the way, we can’t go back to how things were before.

  “Don’t.” His one-word sentence jars me. “Don’t tell me this is wrong, or stupid, or going to end bad. Don’t give me a reason we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  There isn’t a moment between the end of his thought and the crashing of his mouth against mine. Owen fuses his lips to my lips, then kneels on the bed and wraps himself around me, melting us together from top to bottom. His hands travel over my back, across my shoulders, and through my hair. He shifts my body in and out of the angles that suit his desires best—and, in turn, mine. He deepens the kiss until it isn’t an ordinary kiss. This is a full body touch. A mind-melting, remember-me-forever lip lock.

  I nestle one hand between our bodies and push away from his chest with my fingertips.

  He’s panting. His eyes are bleary and unfocussed, his lips a perfect shade of kissed-hard red.

  Too much. That kiss was way, way too much, and fuelled by an urgency that was about more than getting off. I pull his hands off me. Owen misunderstands my need to pause and examines their rugged state.

  “My hands are rough, I’m sorry.”

  I take them in mine, smoothing my fingertips across the calloused pads at the base of his digits. It wasn’t the physical feel of his palms on me; it was the intensity behind it. I need a break. A reset. We both do. Because we aren’t making love—we’re coming to a mutual understanding.

  I shake my head, shifting from watching my fingers trace the lines of his palm to his eyes. “I like to be touched by rough hands.” I place them on my breasts and he does what comes naturally by teasing my nipples. “I like sharp tongues and big,” I look down then back at him with a naughty smile, “muscled men.” I chuckle at my wisecrack, and lo-and-behold, so does Owen.

  My heart lurches and stutters, and I have to glance away. He’s so beautiful when he smiles. I shouldn’t be the one he shares that with.

  “Get a condom.” I issue an Owen-style order.

  He leans away and reaches for the nightstand, posing like a Roman sculpture. A perfectly carved form of defined muscle and confidence that begs to be gawked at. He doesn’t like when people dissect his personality and inspect his tattoos, but the way he’s putting himself on display right now seems so natural. As though he wants to be studied, like he needs to show someone what he’s been hiding.

  I’m not the right person for the job. I can’t be his confidant. His friend. His lover.

  Owen returns to kneeling on his heels to sheath himself, then he reaches for me, pulling me by the waist, bringing me on to my knees. His right hand slides between my legs, drawing out more nectar and spreading it around, reminding me of what we are, and the one thing we can be: Partners for the afternoon.

  Owen gestures for me to slide on. I wrap my arms around his neck and lower myself on to him. He holds me, letting me adjust slowly as I pull him in deeper.

  My breathing stalls. I am so full. He is so deep. We are impossibly connected.

  “You good?” he asks rather than telling me. I give a breathy nod because my brain has been hijacked by his personality one-eighty. His fingers dig into the flesh of my hips, holding me steady. “Good, because you feel fucking perfect to me.”

  Fuck, he’s right.

  He lifts and lowers me by my hips, setting a seductive rhythm. I circle my hips, grinding my clit against the root of his cock every time we bottom out. His mouth drops to my breast and he rolls his tongue over my nipple before clamping down with his teeth, sending me into a frenzy of awareness. Every nerve ending is firing, lighting up my body.

  “Yeah, Izzy, ride me.” Owen leans over so that he can watch me. Only, I can’t look at him and read his thoughts while trying to contain my own and orgasm at the same time. So, I lean forward and drape myself across him, bear hugging him to bury my face in his neck.

  “No.” He peels my arms from around him, making me watch him. Making me face him with no means to safeguard the emotions playing on my face.

  Owen leans forward, tipping me on to my back, never breaking the pulsing cadence in and out of me. His gleaming eyes tell me he wants—needs—to see me, and likewise, he needs to be seen. It�
��s tough. It’s painful to see him in this state and enjoy the pleasure he’s giving me when it’s at the expense of my heartache. It’s hard for me to acknowledge my pain when he makes me feel so good.

  His hazels flit over my blues then close as he places a soft kiss on my lips that begs of trust. My wilfulness evaporates. I surrender to the awareness that this is what we both desire for right now. I wrap my legs around Owen’s back, digging my heels into him, lifting myself off the bed to meet each one of his thrusts. I nip at his chin, then his shoulder, trying to hold on with all the body parts I can while he pushes me closer to the edge of oblivion.

  I can do this. I can compartmentalise my emotions and enjoy this flawless, forbidden fruit.

  I rest my head on the bed and hold his face in my hands, scratching my nails through his beard and fusing my sights directly on him. He mercilessly returns the stare and thrusts into me with equal vigour. My rapid breathing changes to panting, then again to sharp little cries of, “Yes!” and “Owen!” and I beg, calling out, “Please!”

  He complies and I come undone, arching hard into him and squeezing him in a vice grip between my legs. My orgasm doesn’t stop the piston-like movement of his hips. He slams into me several more times until my spasms cease and his begin. I tighten my legs around him once more, feeling each one of his muscles tense in my embrace, then slacken after he’s emptied himself into me.

  A thin sheen of sweat covers us both and my hair sticks to the sides of my face. With one finger, Owen gently brushes the stray strands aside and places a satisfied kiss on my forehead.

  And just like that, six months of animosity are wiped away in a blur of limbs, screams, and convulsions.

  Owen slides off the bed and makes his way to the washroom. The shivers of indulgence that racked my post-orgasmic body swiftly devolve to shivers of panic. I snag a shirt from Owen’s nightstand and slip it over my head before reaching for my skirt.