by Gemma Snow
Hollie moaned—she couldn’t help the sound that escaped and she could practically feel the smile Cade gave in return.
“That’s right, Hollie. You’ll be moaning for my cock, begging me to drive your body harder and deeper, to fill your mouth with my fingers or to spread your cheeks wide and slide my thick, heavy cock across your tight hole. Tell me, sweet one, is that what you want?”
Hollie nodded, barely trusting herself to speak for fear of that begging and because she knew he would be able to tell from the first word how close to the edge she was, how incredibly close she was. If she just rocked forward a little bit…
“Are you rubbing yourself against my desk?” Cade asked, and the son of a bitch almost had a note of humor in his voice. “Are you so desperate to come that you’re rubbing your swollen cunt against my desk? Tell me, Hollie, tell me how badly you need my cock in your tight cunt?”
Her response was guttural and she clenched the desk so hard her fingers ached, but there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say except to give over to the harsh and penetrating pleasure that rioted through her body and left her gasping for air. Wave after wave of need crashed over her, and bright light burst when she shut her eyes hard against her own release. Finally, finally, the lust began to roll back and she pushed up slightly from the desk, aware that Cade was standing beside her now, lifting her chin with one strong finger and looking at her as if she were a feast after forty years in the desert.
“You sweet girl,” he murmured, “I’m going to take great pleasure in punishing you.” He walked to the other side of his desk and fished around in one of the drawers until he found what he was looking for—a thick, wooden ruler that he held with the confidence of a man accustomed to the weight and power in his hands.
“I know how much you love to walk the line of pleasure and pain, control and surrender,” he said, coming back to stand at her side, “so let’s walk it together. If you can take my punishment without surrender, hold on tight to yourself and to my demands, then I’ll fuck you right here against this desk. How do that sound?”
Like fucking heaven. Even though she had just come, Hollie’s body was vibrating with the need this man inspired within her and her pussy clenched on emptiness as he continued to promise her all that she most wanted.
“Very fair, Sir,” she replied. “Thank you.”
“Oh, it will be my pleasure,” Cade replied. He came to stand behind her and continued. “Count and thank me for your punishment,” he said. “And remember yourself. Don’t give in or you’ll have to leave.” No part of Hollie wanted to walk outside his office without feeling him again, in and around her body, so she nodded and prepared for the first slap.
It came without warning, simple and controlled, as if Cade had put the setting to two on the scale and was warming her up. Still, the sting of the wooden ruler against her lace-clad ass had Hollie bucking hard against the desk and trying to ride the wave of pain and pleasure before it abated.
“One, thank you, Sir.” At that, he delivered his next spank, then his next, each getting just a little bit harder, each followed by the number and her thanks for all that he was giving her, for all that he asked of her.
“I don’t believe this is quite enough punishment,” Cade said, his voice almost introspective, once they had reached five. He placed the ruler beside her hand on the desk and with an agonizing slowness began sliding her panties down her legs until Hollie was able to step out of them and kick them to the side. He trailed his hand up her leg and she tried to get more of that desperately needed contact, and Cade let her, cupping her sopping pussy with one strong hand that just wasn’t enough, fuck, fuck, fuck, wasn’t anywhere near enough.
Then, when he pressed two fingers deep inside her cunt, Hollie nearly screamed from the pleasure, but she held on, desperate for the bigger prize, for the way he felt inside her, for so much more than just fingers.
“Hold still, sweet girl,” he said, before picking up the ruler once more and, fingers still deep inside her, swatted her bare, exposed ass. Hard. Hollie ground her teeth to keep from giving over to the pleasure, but Cade noticed when she clenched around his fingers.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he said, sliding in and out of her and brushing her clit with feather-light touches when he did. “I can’t wait to slide inside you, Hollie. I can’t wait to have you.”
She was losing her mind and his promises were growing richer and more demanding.
“Then have me,” she wasn’t quite begging, but she was close.
“Not quite yet,” Cade replied. He slid her fingers free of her pussy and pulled back to slowly, almost gently, spread her ass cheeks apart. Hollie sucked in a tight breath. She had long discovered that pushing that particular boundary was an effective way to have her coming in five seconds flat and she had the sneaking suspicion that Cade knew that all too well.
He pressed one of his slick fingers against her hole and she yielded to him with ease, allowing him past the ring of muscle to fill her with one, then two fingers, sliding in and out of her tightest hole with movements that made bright lights flash before Hollie’s eyes.
Then he brought the ruler down on her ass. Hollie clenched her teeth so hard she could feel the blood pumping through her entire body, in time with the rhythm of her mind chanting more, more, more, but she wouldn’t surrender, not this time, not with what Cade had demanded of her, not with all she had to prove to him, to give to him.
“Good girl,” he managed, though his voice too was thick with desire and Hollie ached to make him lose control, ached to have him give over to his baser instincts, to take her body hard and to surrender as much to her as she did to him. “Three more.”
One slap and her body reverberated with the pain and pleasure of it, sparks of lust rioting up her spine and making her shake in his arms.
Two slaps and she almost collapsed then and there, the precipice of release right under her foot and crumbling more quickly than she could move back.
Three slaps and Hollie’s pussy convulsed. Her nipples tightened to painful points. A needy, carnal groan tore from her throat and still she clenched the desk and held on for dear life against the onslaught of pleasure. With a rough, shaky voice, she thanked Cade and rested her head against the desk.
He withdrew with care, each digit a powerful trigger for her need and lust and she held her breath until she was empty again.
“You deserve that reward, sweet one,” he murmured, and she heard the sounds of him tearing open a condom wrapper and unzipping his pants. A moment later, he was pressed against her entrance, hard and throbbing and everything Hollie had ever wanted. She pushed back against him and it spoke volumes to how on edge Cade was because he let her, meeting her body’s movements halfway until he was seated inside her, his cock thick and hard and filling her in all the right ways.
“Cade,” she managed, her voice husky and rough as it drew out his name, sparking with pleasure and need.
He placed a hand upon hers on the desk and threaded their fingers together when he pulled out of her body.
“I know, Hol,” he murmured, no longer in control, no longer in command, just Cade and Hollie and the beauty of what their bodies did when they came together. “I know, you beautiful girl.”
She felt beautiful and like herself again in each pull of his body and push of her own flesh against Cade’s. The complications, the challenges and the history between them could be forgotten, just for the moment, as he gave and took and she gave and took and they met each other in a mutual, building pleasure that took Hollie right to the edge.
“Let go, darlin’,” Cade said. “You can let go. I’m right behind you.” He reached around her waist and slid his fingers against the heat of her throbbing clit, swiping slow and steady until Hollie couldn’t hold on for a second later and she did let go, her release a slow-motion collapse of control, an implosion that started in her toes and climbed higher and higher until her body was trembling, then shaking, then she was
falling right over the edge into a deafening, beautiful, unseen pleasure, the likes of which she had only known once in her life.
Cade followed right behind her, and she distantly felt him pump once, twice against her slick walls before his breathing began to slow and he rested his chin against her shoulder, coaxing her back to the room and the world around them.
“Are you okay?” Cade asked, sliding off her body. He pulled the condom free and tossed it before he buttoned up his pants. Then he found her lace panties and jeans beside his desk and tugged the legs right side out before handing them to her. Hollie slowly dressed, her limbs still boneless with the after-effects of her pleasure, and Cade picked her jacket up off the ground and hung it from the back of the chair in front of her.
“I’m more than okay,” Hollie said honestly. She was, in a way. But the connection between them was so real, so raw that it frightened her too, made her wonder if taking that first step hadn’t been her undoing, if there was any way return to how things had been without imagining and wishing for something else for her entire life. “Are you okay?”
Cade smiled, that aw-shucks, boy-next-door smile he’d given her so many times in her life. The smile that had once been like walking through the kitchen door of her gram’s home on a sticky summer night, like the grassy blanket of backyard between her toes, like stringing dollar store lights around a plastic Christmas tree with the old radio on.
Cade didn’t need any prompting. He walked up to her, gathered her in his arms and simply held her, simply gave her the structure she needed to keep standing in that moment.
“I’m scared too, Hol. I’m scared too.”
Amazingly enough, they were exactly the words she needed to hear.
Chapter Eleven
“I’m not saying everyone should do it. I’m just saying it could be more common if people accepted that sex and mutual love between more than two people is normal.”
Hollie backed into the Triple Diamond Bed and Breakfast dining hall butt first, carrying a tray of coffees and a stack of sheets Lewitt and the team in Denver had sent to them.
“Who’s having mutual love?” she asked, hoping her voice sounded normal and not like she’d been the recipient of mutual love right on the floor and—mmm, that table right there—only two nights before.
Lily took the stack of papers balanced in the crook of Hollie’s arm and continued the rant Hollie had walked in on.
“It’s normal here,” she said. “I mean, no one in this town has looked twice at either of us for having nontraditional relationships, but D.C., the big bad city….”
Given that Lily was from San Francisco, another big, hotshot coastal city, Hollie was inclined to think that the city was not the actual enemy of the people.
Maddy, Lily’s older sister and the calmer of the Hollis sisters, accepted a cup of coffee and donut from the tray Hollie had set down on the table and she leaned back against the table—fuck, that table—and explained.
“Our friend Ev is starting to go public with her relationship and some people are struggling with it,” she said. “Lily’s got it in her head that everyone in the world wants some sort of polyamorous relationship, and while I don’t believe that’s true, I do think we’re a largely conventional society and it’s incredibly detrimental to our progress.” She took a bite and powdered sugar dusted her lips, giving her a youthful, girlish appearance. Maddy and Lily both had a few years on her, but suddenly Hollie felt old and world-weary.
“Why do you think Wolf Creek is so okay with it?” she asked. “When I was growing up here, people took issue if a kid was poor, didn’t hardly look past that.”
Not everyone had taken issue with a kid being poor. And she’d had her friends, even, outside of Sawyer and Cade. But still, she had known how they looked at the kids bussed over from the other side of town. Even when they had first moved to Wolf Creek and she’d barely been old enough to go to grammar school, she’d noticed.
Lily and Maddy both seemed to contemplate that for a long moment and it was Lily who replied.
“People here are a salt-of-the-earth type,” she said finally. “The sky is bigger, you know. There’s less noise and things here, they’re real, good things. Soil, sky, rain, life and death.” She smiled. “Love.”
It was no question that Lily Hollis was in love. And Hollie knew both Micah and Dec fairly well, for all her track record of leaving friends behind when she went. Neither of them was the kind of man to roll over and take something they weren’t okay with. They were both powerful and capable in their own rights and if they were in some sort of unconventional relationship with Lily, it was because they both wanted to be.
“Lily just wants everyone to run around with two boyfriends and keep the balance of the universe,” Maddy teased. Lily chucked a powered donut at her and it hit Maddy square in the chest, an explosion of sugar bursting across her dark red sweater.
“I’ll get you for that,” Maddy said, but Lily had grabbed the box of donuts and was stepping out of reach.
“For the record, no you won’t.” That was directed at Maddy. “And I don’t want everyone to have two boyfriends. I said two partners. Let’s be inclusive here, Mads.”
The women devolved into childish squabbling and it made Hollie think of her own wayward sibling, off somewhere saving the world, out of contact, and suddenly Hollie missed him in a way she hadn’t in some time.
“I think it’s hard for some people to understand,” she said after a moment, breaking up the fight before it could become a serious wrestling match. The Hollis women were slight but that didn’t mean a whole hell of a lot of anything when it came to fighting sisters.
“From the outside, yes,” Lily said, settling into the chair beside them with her cup of coffee and seemingly undisturbed by the chunk of hair that had come free from her fishtail braid in the tussle. “And yes, it’s unconventional. Listen, when Maddy told me about Ryder and Christian, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. And Maddy and I have been through a hell of a lot.” She paused to give her sister a meaningful glance, and just like that their fight was over and they were back to being best friends. And if Hollie felt a pang of envy at that, it was neither here nor there.
“But as I was falling love with Dec and Micah, Hollie, there was no other option. In fact, they tried to get me to choose between the two of them at one point and I was so angry I rode off into the woods and nearly got my sorry ass killed.” A dark expression crossed her face, but Lily just shook her head and continued. “It’s just love. What’s so wrong about that?”
Nothing. Nothing’s wrong about love.
Except that Hollie had struggled to understand what love looked like after moving away. She’d never been in a serious relationship. Wes was the only family that she had left and he was gone more of the time than he was home. She loved her parents and she had loved her gram, desperately. But the kind of soul-bearing, full-sacrifice love that Lily spoke of for Dec and Micah was foreign to her and it made that ache in her heart a little more intense and sad.
Maybe it’s not so foreign as all that.
She tried to hush the voice in her head, but it wasn’t as easy to tune out as the Hollis sisters bickering and Hollie couldn’t ignore the idea that she had felt a deep affection—perhaps a love of sorts—for both Cade and Sawyer when they had just been kids. It was hard not to wonder then, if she gave it more time, if she allowed this thing between them, to, fuck, she didn’t even know, to unfold, then what would things look like? How would she move forward in her life knowing she cared for them, had always cared for them and they hadn’t stopped caring for her?
“How does it work?” she asked before she could stop herself. The curious expressions on both Lily’s and Maddy’s faces were telling of how enthusiastic her tone had been.
“Why, exactly?” Maddy asked, and goodness, that was an older sister voice if Hollie had ever heard one. She had one older brother and had never been an older sister herself, but the tone was unmistakable.
Which they were turning out to be.
“The logistics are different for everyone,” Maddy explained patiently. “For me, Christian and Ryder were already up for nontraditional relationships. Lily had to work every step of the way to get her guys to see what was right in front of their faces. Our friend Ev, she was in a partnership and they invited a third in—these things happen from any angle.”
And what if they hate each other?
It was a question she didn’t dare ask, given how many people knew full well of the temper tantrums between the two men who had been occupying her thoughts and dreams for two days. Not that she was willing to admit it—but there really was no use in lying to herself.
But before she could press further, the far door to the dining hall pushed open and Christian and Ryder came in, carrying large kegs and boxes filled with bottles, to fill the bar at the far wall of the dining hall.
“Micah has your truck for the day,” Christian said to Lily. They placed the heavy cargo down on the ground like it weighed nothing at all.
Imagine how much more convenient it would be to have two of those men cleaning my place.
Hell and damnation, one was good. She wanted one. No, she didn’t even want one. The sparse Denver apartment, still half-unpacked after nearly three years, was not the kind of place where one took a man after a date.
“I’m sure he did,” Lily said under her breath and she faux-whispered to Hollie, “My truck is brand new and much nicer so I’m saddled with an old Ford lemon and he’s going to go enjoy 375 horsepower.”
Before Hollie could reply, Ryder continued, “Also, we got a radio signal that the fire chief is ready for an evacuation test if you want to go down to the fire station or have him come up here.”
