Harlequin Dare May 2021 Box Set

by Jackie Ashenden

  “You don’t like the things that come out of my mouth?” Smiling wickedly, she dropped to her knees in front of him and reached for the buckle of his belt. “Maybe you’re more interested in putting something into it, instead.”

  He looked down, watching her pretty blond head as she made quick work of his belt and the fastenings of his jeans. He helped her tug his jeans down around his hips and pulled off his own sweater. When she rose halfway, placing her hands on his hips for balance, he slid both hands into her hair, tugging gently.

  She gasped, then licked her lips. Their eyes met, and he felt a surge of power—not power over her, but power that she was choosing to give him the gift of herself. It made him want to give her what she wanted, everything she wanted, so he tugged on her hair again, not as gently this time, and savored the resultant gasp.

  The connection stretched between them as always, velvety and full of promise, but this time it held a whisper of darkness. Something about seeing Amy here, on her knees before him... He’d touched her eagerly, and he’d touched her carefully. Right now? He wanted to give in to the restless storm brewing between them, to combine his thunder with her lightning.

  The navy glitter in her eyes told him she wanted that, too.

  With his free hand, he grasped the full length of his erection. He stroked his hand up the shaft, slid over the head and back, a handful of times as Amy watched with greedy eyes. With the hand tangled in her hair, he guided her head until her lips touched the swollen tip of his cock.

  “I’m not going to be able to keep things gentle this time,” he told her, his voice dark, so rough he almost couldn’t recognize it. “If anything is too much, just say so. Or if you can’t, just do something three times. Got it? Blink, or hit me, or whatever. Three times, and I’ll stop. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Her breath warmed his shaft, damp and warm. Anticipation was a drug, sliding through his veins and making him high. “But I’ll tell you now... I won’t.”

  Before he could speak, she parted her lips and took him into her mouth. Her tongue explored the weight of his arousal, stroking the underside of his shaft with practiced motions that made him see stars. She kept her eyes open, watching him as she worked on him with her warm, wet mouth.

  Following an instinct he hadn’t known he had, he sank the hand that had been holding his shaft into her tousled blond curls as well. He saw her eyes widen when he used his grip, which was still gentle enough, to hold her in place.

  She hummed around him, the vibration working through his flesh, and his fingers flexed against the flaxen silk of her hair, working her forward on his cock. When he would have eased off, she placed her palms on his thighs to steady herself, the tips of her fingers digging into the muscle while her blue gaze brightened.

  She’d liked that, having that bit of control taken away from her. And if it was what she wanted, then he wanted to give it to her.

  “You were right,” he started, using his grip to pull her back slightly, then move her forward again, taking charge of her movements on his cock. “I do like it when you put things into your mouth.”

  She swallowed around him, and he groaned. She liked that, too, that bit of dirty talk, so he closed his eyes for a moment, then let what he was thinking, feeling, spill off his tongue without censure.

  “I wonder if you like it as much as I do,” he pondered out loud as vibrant colors swirled behind his closed eyelids. She moaned around him, and he parted his lashes to look at her again. “Your skin is flushed such a pretty pink from sucking me, I think you do. But I wonder if I can make you like it even more.”

  Bending slightly from the waist, he cupped a gorgeous breast in each hand, felt the sensation of another of her inarticulate cries muffled by his cock in her mouth. Squeezing softly, he stroked his thumbs over the tips of her nipples, felt her body jerk in response.

  “I’ve been fascinated by these little bits of jewelry since the first time I saw you, standing there in that bar, your shirt so sheer that I could see them, plain as day.” Her sucking faltered, and he stopped in his ministrations until she understood her error and resumed. “But we’re always in a hurry, aren’t we? I’ve never had nearly enough time to play with these gorgeous tits as I’d like to.”

  She whimpered when he released her, but he only did so long enough to wet his fingers in his mouth. He returned his hands to those soft, creamy mounds, this time catching each nipple between a thumb and forefinger, rolling and teasing to see what elicited a response.

  The rosy peaks were already puckered from his touch, but when he gave a light tug to each silver bar, Amy’s body bucked, as though he had stroked a finger right over her clit. Fascinated, he did it again and felt her nipples contract and harden, crinkled beneath his fingers.

  First the gentle hair pull, now the pinches on her breasts. It seemed that Amy liked a bit of pain with her sex, or at least that she wanted it right now. Fred had never really been into pain play, not anything beyond a bout of rough sex, but something about these responses from this woman reached inside him and turned his blood to lava.

  Catching the silver bars in his fingers, he pulled again, and again she moaned and writhed with a whole-body response. He did it again, adding a twist, and her lips parted, his swollen cock falling from her tongue as she panted, hands digging into his muscles.

  “Fuck, yes. Fred.” Her spine arched as she tried to press herself more firmly into his touch, her entire body begging for more. “More.”

  He did, adding a squeeze to the soft, fleshy mounds as well, and she closed her eyes. Again moving on instinct, as though he’d been possessed by a darker self with more taboo desires, he took his hands from her breasts and caught her chin in one hand.

  “Did I say you could stop sucking me?” His whole body stilled, a stark contrast to the quivering of the woman on her knees. He caught a flicker of apprehension in her eyes, but it was twined with debauched delight.

  They were on.

  “No.” She exhaled the word, her smoky voice like a siren’s. “You should probably punish me.”

  Punish her?

  He should have been revolted. Turned off. Instead he saw that this was what she wanted, what her body craved, and he knew he’d do anything to give it to her. He didn’t care what her kinks were, so long as she let him give her what she needed.

  “Damn straight, I should.” He cocked his head as he took in the eagerness in her body. “I want you to sit on your heels, hands in your lap. Do not move.”

  She hummed under her breath, a soft sound of satisfaction. It was physically painful for him to move away from her, but he needed something from his bedroom for what he had planned next.

  In his bedroom, he pulled a bottle of lube from his bedside drawer, and a silver strip of condoms as well. These items in hand, he returned to the living room and found Amy exactly as he’d left her, but for one difference—her busy fingers were buried between her thighs, one hand stroking in and out, and the other circling her clit.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Bending, he caught her by the wrists, forced her to stop touching herself. She laughed, a breathy sound meant to bait him. When she saw the answering smirk on his own face, the amusement faded from hers, replaced with that hint of anxiety again, as well as an undeniable streak of need.

  “If you need something to occupy your hands, then I have just the job.” He let the corner of his mouth curl up just slightly and heard her needy sigh. “But I have to get you ready first.”

  Pulling open the lid to the bottle of lube, he poured a generous pool into the palm of one hand. Setting the bottle down, he rubbed his hands together, warming the liquid before again cupping her breasts.

  “Fuck,” Amy hissed as he massaged the cream-colored mounds. She pushed into his touch when he glanced his fingers over the turgid tips, but he focused his attention on making her breasts, and the crevice in between them, deliciously slick.


  “Lie down.” He traced a single finger over one silver bar before picking up the bottle of lube again. She did as he said, propping herself up on her elbows to watch as he took another generous palmful of the lubricant, this time applying it to his swollen length.

  “I love your cock.” Her voice was rough, as though she hadn’t spoken in a week. He felt himself thicken at the words, but otherwise ignored them, instead straddling her hips.

  “Doesn’t matter if you love it or not,” he informed her, sliding his hand up and down his engorged shaft, feeling the pleasure sparking along the nerves left in the wake of the touch. “You’re going to do what I want with it, anyway.”

  “Yes,” she replied on a hiss, dropping to a fully supine position on the carpet. Bending her knees, opening wide, she cupped her breasts in her own hands, panting with excitement. “Is this what you had in mind?”

  “I guess we’ll see.” He smirked again before ranging himself over her body. He longed to use her parted thighs to cradle his pelvis, to slide himself home and fill her over and over and over again.

  Instead he moved farther up her body. Bracing his weight with an arm on either side of her head, he slid the tip of his erection between her breasts, his eyes almost crossing from the pleasure.

  “Can you reach your nipples?” He slid forward just a bit, savoring the sensation of her snug flesh around him. She nodded, breathless, and he worked forward the rest of the way. “Good. Play with them while I fuck your tits.”

  Another harsh sound from her, and then she did as he asked. Her artist’s palms cupped her breasts, holding them together as he worked his cock back and forth in the slippery space between them. At the same time, she used her talented fingers to pluck at her nipples, much harder than he would have dared.

  He could sense her arousal reaching a fever pitch. Her hips bucked beneath him, and she craned her neck so that she could swipe a warm tongue over the swollen head of his erection as he thrust. Swearing, he pulled out of the warm hollow, the sudden cool air on his engorged shaft making him crazy. She cried out as he flipped her over to her belly, using bossy hands to pull her hips up while she remained bent over.

  “You keep trying to take control,” he chastised her, placing a hand on the small of her back, pinning her in place. He was in his role now, the one she’d wanted him to take on, and enjoying every second of it. “Every time you do, it’s just going to postpone what you really want.”

  “How do you know what I really want?” Her words were meant to taunt but quivered with arousal. With need.

  “Because you told me.” With his free hand, he pulled back, then swatted her across one side of her ass. She gasped, that tight, delicious body jolting forward on the carpet. Her pale skin reddened, and he knew he should feel bad about that, but truthfully...

  Truthfully, seeing it glow scarlet, watching the mark from his hand on her skin? It did it for him, dug a hook into some primal part of himself and pulled it forward into the light.

  His biggest kink was, and always would be, giving his partner—giving Amy—what she wanted.

  But this?

  This was really fucking hot.

  Bending over her, he delivered a second swat, this time to the other cheek. Again she cried out, a wordless jumble of sound, and when he massaged the heated skin, she rubbed her thighs together as if searching for a friction that would give her some relief.

  “Please.” She canted her behind in the air, the pretty pink peeking out from between her legs making his mouth go dry. He swatted her sharply again, then delivered a rapid succession of lighter blows that rained down over her flesh, which elicited a series of whimpers, gasps and moans. “Fred. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “You’ll wait as long as I tell you to wait.” He swiped two questing fingers between her folds. She was soaked, hot and wet, and his cock ached to slide inside. Tamping down the urge, he worked those fingers into her slick channel. “Lucky for you, this is where I want to be. I want to be here so badly it hurts.”

  Climbing to his feet, he worked his jeans the rest of the way off, taking his underwear with them. Tearing into one of the little foil packets he’d retrieved from his bedside table, he rolled the ring of latex down his shaft, then turned his attention back to her.

  His dick was already at attention, rigid and swollen with the need to be inside her. But as he looked at her there, on the floor of his apartment, he felt something flutter around his heart. She was beautiful, sure—the graceful arch of her spine, the riot of skulls and wildflowers inked into the smooth skin of her back, the heart shape of her ass—but it was more than that.

  After a lifetime constrained in a little box made of the expectations of others, he was free to be who he wanted with this woman. More than that—she expected it from him. Demanded it.

  He never wanted to let her go.

  “Up.” He held out a hand to help her off the floor. She stood on shaky legs, and he spun her until they were face-to-face, where he could claim her mouth in a kiss. Dipping his head to hers, he coaxed his tongue between her lips as he lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her to the window. They both groaned at the friction of skin on skin as he set her back down on her feet, his cock pressing into the flat surface of her belly.

  “Turn around.” His hands skimmed her body as she followed his order. A gasp escaped her lips at the discovery that she was an inch from the floor-to-ceiling window of glass, thirty floors above the streets of Boston. “Is this still what you want?”

  “Yes.” She shivered.

  “You’re not afraid of heights?” He spanned her waist, his grip promising to catch her if she fell. Rather than push back into his touch, she closed that last ribbon of space between herself and the window.

  “No.” She settled her smooth cheek against the cool glass. “I love them.”

  “Good.” Taking his cock in hand, he rubbed the tip through her wetness, then worked it up and down, through the crevice that divided her buttocks. Bending his knees slightly, he placed the head at her opening, working the tip into her swollen tissues. She squeezed around him, and he groaned.

  He wanted to surge forward, to seat himself inside her, but forced himself to slow down and savor the moment. Dipping his head, he inhaled the spicy scent of her shampoo, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She sighed, a soft little sound of contentment that reached right through his rib cage and grabbed his heart in a tight fist. He needed to get closer to her; he wasn’t sure he could get close enough.

  Pressing a palm to the window to brace himself, he began to move, filling her at a slow but steady pace. She gasped once he was sheathed inside her to the root, her greedy center clenching around him. Pleasure tightened in his core, and he pressed his forehead to the chilled glass, trying to get himself under control. He wanted this to last.

  Amy had other ideas. Pressing her own hands to the glass, she arched back against him. Bending at the waist to allow him to slide in just a little bit farther, she gave a delicious little wiggle of her hips.

  “In a hurry?” Fred’s voice was amused. “Got a hot date I don’t know about?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she replied, her voice thick with arousal and dripping with saccharine sweetness, “but I thought you said you wanted to give me what I wanted. And what I want is to get fucked.”

  Heat shot through him like he’d touched a live wire, a single sizzle from head to foot, and he growled. Clasping her by the hips, he dug the tips of his fingers into her soft flesh. “Then I’d suggest you hold on.”

  Using her as his anchor, he began to move. Slow, punishing thrusts at first, as deep inside her as he could go. They both made incoherent sounds every time his hips met the curves of her behind; both exhaled when he pulled back. The deep thrusts quickly gave way to shorter ones, harder ones. His pace quickened until he could hear their flesh slappi
ng together, a sound that shouldn’t have been erotic and yet was the dirtiest thing he’d ever heard.

  “Fuck, yes.” Her hands, damp with sweat, slipped on the glass. He wrapped his arms around her waist to anchor her, continuing to move inside her as his entire world narrowed to the place where her soft pink flesh squeezed around the steel rod of his erection. “Please, Fred. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “Come for me.” Dipping his head, he nipped at the delicate curve where her shoulder became her neck. She growled, a purely animal sound, so he did it again, this time giving her a sharp bite since he already knew she liked a bit of pain with her pleasure. Her pussy tightened around him, and her body stiffened, hot and tight beneath him. “Now. Come now.”

  He watched her shudder, felt the vibrations through his flesh, and then she screamed, the cry bouncing off the smooth glass. He moved through it all, her pleasure spurring on his own. His arousal starting to barrel through his body like a runaway train, and finally he could hold back no more. One thrust, two and three and four, and he poured himself inside her, pleasure causing stars to dance behind his eyes.

  They were both out of breath, panting hard enough to create mist on the glass. Heat had sealed them together, and as they both laughingly tried to catch their breath, Fred realized that he could quite happily stay like this, right here with this woman, for the rest of his life.

  The realization should have been terrifying. It should have had him easing out of her body and running for the door, never mind the fact that this was his apartment. Instead, he found that it felt...well, it felt right.

  He knew he had to pull out, but he resented it, even as the slow drag through her tissues sparked pleasure yet again. Carefully, he eased them to the ground, sitting with his legs apart, and Amy between them.