by Skye Warren
It took effort to force the idea away. Regardless of what happened next she wouldn’t accept money for today. And she would take this moment without apology to herself or anyone else. Couldn’t she have this much? Every other minute was for work—to study and make good grades and pay for tuition. This minute would be something else.
He shut the bedroom door, closing them in.
No one else was in the house but the two of them, but it added to the intimacy of the moment, that closed door. This wasn’t a chance encounter, but an illicit meeting. A joining. A decision. She glanced at the bed and swallowed hard.
Blake stepped behind her and buried his face in her hair. Amused, she made a mental note to stock up on this shampoo. Then the heat of his body and his own woodsy scent enveloped her, and she forgot everything else.
His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then slid down to her breasts. He stroked them, only thin fabric between his hands and her flesh. Her breath caught. The gentle caress dipped to her waist and then beneath her shirt to touch bare skin. She wore yoga clothes when cleaning, comfortable to maneuver in but stretchy enough to allow him access.
He cupped her breasts beneath the elastic, circling and pinching her nipples until they ached. Pausing to draw her shirt and bra up over her head, he returned his hands to her breasts—thank God. Cool air wafted against her sensitive skin, a sharp contrast to his hands. His breath, hot and increasingly labored, blew against her shoulder. What a sight she must have made for him, her breasts bare and flushed.
“So lovely,” he whispered.
He pinched harder, and pure sensation spiked through her core, making her moan. Her hips canted forward in search of friction, rubbing against nothing. In answer to her involuntary plea, he slipped his hand into the waistband of her pants—roaming lower and lower until he reached the curve of her mound, until he found her wet folds.
One long finger dipped down to her opening to draw the moisture up to her clit. His mouth worked along the side of her neck in light kisses and licks. Her head fell back to his chest as she abandoned herself to the pleasure. His fingers slid down into her folds and slipped inside, thrusting his fingers in as the heel of his hand pushed into her clit.
Her hips bucked as she mindlessly sought climax.
She came in a blinding whirl of pleasure, an almost unbearable relief, as if she’d been waiting to come since she saw him climax last week. Her whole body fell back against him, sated, boneless. The tension of these past few days, of these past few months, if she were honest, finally released. All her worry made quiet in one explicit moment.
He undressed her completely and placed her on the bed.
She had no strength to stop him. No desire to stop him. By the time she floated back down to earth she lay spread eagle on the bed, completely naked, with him kneeling between her legs. She only had a glimpse of his scarred face, taut and carnal with arousal, before he lowered his head and brought her to ecstasy again.
He brought her to climax four, five times—a generous lover. She lost count. He made her come again and again with his mouth on her clit and his fingers thrusting inside her.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” he would moan when she came.
He was relentless in his pursuit of her orgasms, taking unmistakable pleasure in her sounds and responses. She was reminded of how they would discuss topics related to his work or her college classes. He always argued fiercely and often won their debates, but when she would win, he wouldn’t look disappointed or angry—he looked almost proud. Triumphant, even. Like her victory was his, and now her ecstasy was his, too.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “So damn beautiful. You look like a goddess. Like a warrior. Like you could slay me and you do. Just looking at you ruins me. I could watch you lying spread like this forever. Open to me, wet and flushed—forever and never grow tired.”
She’d read his articles and treatises and interviews. He had plain-spoken words and scientific words and even words of dry humor, but she had never heard these words before. These almost-poetry words melted her everywhere, sex and love made into sound.
Her body throbbed, exhausted from her climaxes, but her heart burst from his generosity. She wanted to do something for him. She wanted to do everything for him.
Erin reached down and touched his cock, drawing a gasp from him. The pulsing shaft jerked in her hand. He pulled away. From her position she couldn’t reach him in his retreat. He touched her again and she jumped, oversensitive.
“Just let me please you,” he said. “Let me give you pleasure.” His caress lightened.
She moaned and her legs relaxed open again. It felt too good to question, too incredible when he had learned how to touch her in exactly the right way to make her come.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, that’s right. Good girl.”
His fingers spread apart her folds, slick and swollen. “I’ll make you feel so much pleasure,” he said. “So much you won’t care that it’s me.”
Wait, what? She tried to push through the haze of her arousal.
“So good you’ll forget it’s me,” he whispered, staring down at her spread legs, entranced. “You won’t regret this. I won’t let you regret this,” he promised.
“Stop,” she gasped out. “What—what did you say?”
He shook his head and some of the sensual fog cleared from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you…did you want to stop? Are you done with me?”
“No, I don’t want to stop,” she said, torn between exasperation and a deep tenderness for the man between her legs. “I want to keep doing this with you. Lie down.”
He blinked in apparent surprise but moved to obey, his muscled body splayed on the bed. Like it had been that day she walked in on him, except now she could touch him.
Without giving him a chance to reject her, she reached down and grasped his cock again. He felt heavy in her hand, large enough to intimidate her—but he held so still. As if he didn’t want to scare her. All the muscles in his body held tight, strong hands twisted in the sheets.
She touched her tongue to the tip.
“Oh God, yes,” he groaned, just as he had when he’d pleasured himself with his hand, imagining her mouth. This time was real, and she’d make sure he knew it.
She savored the salty flavor as it hit her tongue, breathing in the musky, male smell of his groin. His thighs shook with restraint, especially when she pressed her lips to the crown of his cock in a chaste kiss. All this power and virility trembled under her mouth. It intoxicated her.
Erin took him deep and then pulled back to the tip. In and out.
Deeper and deeper.
The rhythmic motions of his cock sliding back and forth between her lips felt like a chant. This man was so good and so kind and yet…did he question his worth because of his scars? It was impossible. Those wounds, received in battle as a soldier, proved his bravery and honor. It was another example of him protecting others, the way he advocated for unheard groups and causes in his writing, the way he debated social justice.
How dare anyone—how dare he—question his value? He was everything she could ever want in a man. He was everything she wanted, and for this moment, he was here, in her hands. In her mouth. She loved him.
What the hell? Where had that thought come from?
No, she couldn’t love him. There was no future for him and her.
Only now. Only this, his pulsing arousal between her lips. Her eyes snapped open to find him staring at her intently, as if he could devour her with sight alone. He looked fierce and sexy and intimidating. Her eyes widened at the hunger in his eyes.
Through his arousal, he managed a small smile and touched her cheek tenderly. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “You don’t have to look.”
He thought she didn’t want to look at him, to see his beautiful face? He thought she wanted to pretend it was someone else licking her, pleasuring her?
Anger burned inside her like acid. Anger because he doubted h
imself. Anger because he doubted her, too, thinking that she’d be so shallow.
Anger at the faceless people who had wounded him, outside and in.
It didn’t have to be like that. She would prove it to him. Even if this afternoon was all she had with him, he would know his worth to her.
A battle. That was what they’d have—a sensual battle to make him understand. She fought by tightening her lips and sucking hard. His hips bucked in helpless response, and he groaned, eyes closing, knuckles turning white as he clenched the sheets.
She continued her onslaught using strong suction and steady thrusts. She took him in deep, too deep. Almost hurting her throat, impaling herself with his cock; she didn’t care. She sucked him that way as hard as she could, as if his cock was her lifeline—and maybe it was.
“Erin,” he moaned. “It’s too much. You have to stop. Oh fuck, don’t stop.” He thrust his hips up jerkily, mindlessly trying to get deeper, push farther.
She tried to oblige him, jamming her head down onto him, her lips grazing the hair at the base. And that groan rumbled all the way into her throat. She could have come from the sound alone, if her hands had been free to touch herself, but they weren’t.
His cock choked her, but it seemed insignificant compared to this. Compared to the strain of his thighs beneath her palms, to the ache between her legs. He came with a hoarse shout and a burst of warm fluid down her throat, trembling for what seemed like hours but could only have been minutes, his body made supplicant by the flick of her tongue.
Violent shudders ran through him, even after she lifted herself from his cock, even when he reached down to grasp her, to pull her up, seeking a connection she was too willing to give. A similar sated haze crept over her. She clambered up his body and curled herself up at the crook of his arm, feeling like some small animal, a squirrel nestling in the cradle of a tree. Replete. Safe. He would hold her through the storm.
Chapter Three
Blake
Blake absolutely would not, under any circumstances, jump her bones.
Not right away. No, not ever again. At the very least, it was sexual harassment, what he had done. His mind had even drifted to the worst in the days since she’d gone. What if she hadn’t wanted it? What if she’d felt that she couldn’t say no? It would have been practically rape.
Either way, he should be arrested. Beaten.
Someone should kick his ass for taking advantage of her. It was too damned bad that Erin didn’t have anyone to beat the shit out of him. No father, no brothers, no punk-ass college boyfriend either. She was vulnerable, and he’d been the worst kind of bastard.
“Mr. Morris, it’s Erin.” It was the same way she always called out when she came into the house, and his cock hardened like a goddamn puppet on a string. God, no.
He couldn’t do this. Bad enough she knew he was a dirty old man, taking advantage, lusting after her. Worse that he’d used her own desperation, her need to work to pay for her college, as a tether to keep her near him.
He couldn’t also take her body, her innocence.
Isn’t that what you did, asshole?
It was a little late to protect her when he’d already come down her throat.
No matter what he’d done to her, she was innocent. It didn’t matter that he’d touched her. That her mouth made him come hard enough to see stars. Not even before his injuries had he gotten it so good. But her brown eyes were so open, so trusting. Her body was lithe and smooth and young. She was innocence personified. He didn’t deserve any of it.
There she was, entering the kitchen. That incredible body and beautiful mind.
Everything he couldn’t have. “We have to talk.”
She picked up on his tone correctly, setting her face into solemn lines, but then she’d always been bright. Probably she was worried he’d touch her again, put his filthy hands on her body and his ugly face near hers. And why shouldn’t she be worried?
“I’m afraid this isn’t going to work,” he said, damning himself for being an animal. If he’d been able to keep his hands to himself, he could have kept seeing her. “You can’t work here anymore.”
Emotions chased across her face—worry and fear and hurt. “Okay,” she said, sounding calm. But her hands trembled around the broom she held. And when she saw that he’d noticed, she leaned it against the door.
She wasn’t one to show her weakness, and he hated that he’d made her weak.
“You understand, this isn’t any fault of yours. You’ve done a great job. I’ve never had such a clean house. It’s just…well, I’m sure you realize the problem.”
“Right,” she said, her voice hollow. “I understand.”
“It can’t happen again.” He didn’t want to hurt her, but he could see that he had. She needed the money from this job. That much was clear from her threadbare clothes and secondhand textbooks. And maybe she would be a little disappointed. He liked to think they’d had a friendship, but maybe that had been in his head.
Maybe she’d be relieved that she could get away from the lecher without him making a fuss. That would have been bad, but this was far worse.
“I know you rely on this job for college, and I’m not going to let my actions ruin that for you. I can give you some money. The same amount you would have made it if you’d kept working here. So you don’t have to worry about that.”
Her voice broke. “You want to pay me?”
“Well, yes,” he said, confused that she seemed even more distressed. He was the one who fucked up, by having sex with her. He would pay the price in the worst possible way—by not seeing her again. The least he could do was leave her whole, and that meant paying her the wages she would have earned.
Her lower lip trembled. “You can keep your goddamn money.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you needed it.”
“You don’t understand? I’ll explain it to you. I know I’m just some stupid college kid and you don’t really care. I can accept that. I’m just a maid to you, and a girl you can fuck, fine. But I am not a whore. You can’t have sex with me and then pay me to go away.”
Shock left him breathless. “I didn’t mean it like that. Of course you’re not a whore.”
Her face crumpled at the last word. She turned and ran from the room, her dark hair flying behind her. It took him only a second to follow. He caught up to her as she grabbed her purse from the hallway table, fumbling inside for her keys.
He touched her arm. “Erin. Erin, please.”
She couldn’t see what she was doing through her tears, and she dropped the bag in frustration, but she refused to look up at him. His chest ached at her clear distress.
“Erin, I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should have touched you. You deserve so much better than this. Better than me—”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” she cried, finally turning up her tear-stained cheeks to him. “You know I’d give anything to be with you. I’d take it any way you could give it to me, but not if you’re going to pay me for it. I can’t be a prostitute, even for you.”
“Never,” he said, his jaw hard. “That’s not what it would have been. I want you, that’s all. I just can’t have you. You’re so beautiful, so young, and I—”
Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Shhh,” she said, pressing a finger to his lips, a hitch in her breath. “That’s it. That’s all we need to say to each other. If you meant what you said, if you really want me, then that’s enough for me.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be,” he said, his voice hard. Anger made him meaner than he meant to be, colder than he thought he could. “You should have standards. You should—”
She took a step back and grabbed the hem of her shirt, and he forgot what he was going to say. She should—what? He couldn’t think, especially when she lifted the shirt over her head.
Her bra was something made for working out, a bright purple. He didn’t understand why it was so damned pretty. Straps crisscrossed over her cleavage, emphasiz
ing the pretty curve. The thin, stretchy fabric gave him a clear view of her hard nipples. His mouth went dry with the urge to lick her, to taste her. To bite her until the soft flesh of her breasts trembled against him.
Warning bells clanged in his head. He’d said he wasn’t going to do this, wasn’t going to touch her, that he didn’t get to have her.
Then she pulled off the pretty purple bra, too, and his brain shut off.
With a groan of surrender, of appreciation, he pulled her into his arms for a slow, languorous kiss, his tongue exploring hers with slow, insistent demand. This was happening. Whatever came after would be on his head, but for now he had to taste her, to feel her beneath him, to pretend that he was worthy of a woman like her.
Beautiful, beautiful. He wanted to touch her in all the beautiful places, but that was everywhere. Her full lips, but no, that was for him to explore. And those breasts, plump and tipped with bronze—they were for his mouth.
Lower was the soft, feminine curve of her stomach, all sleek lines and sloping shadows. And even lower, the satiny softness of her sex, but he couldn’t touch all the places. Not at once, and that’s what his mind was consumed with, now.
Touch her now, take her now. She’s mine now.
Too late, he noticed her hand pressing against his chest, stopping him. She wanted him to stop. Yes, he would. Of course he would. He would never force himself on anyone, and especially not her. Not his broken face or his worn body.
She wasn’t really stopping him. Instead she took him by the hand and led him upstairs to the bedroom, the same way he led her last time. Kicking off her black yoga pants, she crawled onto the bed, making him watch the curve of her ass.
Her legs were parted in that haphazard way of a woman. Sprawling in invitation but tilted closed with modesty. It was the perfect dichotomy that made her—the knowing seductress, the innocent young woman. He wanted them both.
Before he could process any reasons why he shouldn’t, he was on top of her. A crazed man. He licked and sucked and bit. She should stop him, the small rational part of his brain demanded. That thought was doused by her heat and his.
