by Lora Leigh
She wanted him to watch. She needed him to watch. Never had her own touch filled her with such intense pleasure, such hunger.
She wanted him to ache as she ached. She wanted him as ensnared in the web created by whatever it was that flowed between them as she was. She needed him to ache, to want, to need just as badly as she needed him. In every way.
Her fingers slid back, slick and hot; her juices coating them and glistening on the curves of her pussy.
Watching him, Sheila touched, pleasured, and knew she would never be able to touch herself again without him watching. Never would she be able to find even the smallest satisfaction without Casey.
The sensations were sharper, more exciting than they had ever been without him. They sizzled through her body, burned through her clit and tightened her womb with spasms of her approaching orgasm.
Casey licked his lips, a slow, hungry movement that mesmerized her as she circled her clit with her fingers, causing the little bud to swell harder, tighter.
Her breathing was rougher now, as though she couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs.
Excitement whipped through her. As though her nerve endings were live wires, exposed and spilling their energy sensation over her flesh. And if the look on Casey’s face was any indication, he was feeling it as well.
His eyes were almost black. She had only seen that when he was at his most aroused. His lips were fuller, heavier, his hard chest gleaming with sweat as he stroked the length of his cock with slow, easy strokes.
The heavily veined, pulsing erection held her attention as she slid two fingers inside the gripping, saturated flesh between her thighs once more.
It wasn’t her fingers she felt.
It wasn’t her own touch that held her enraptured.
It was the remembered feel, the remembered pleasure of Casey’s possession that made her insane. That made her come apart at the seams.
As her fingers penetrated her pussy, it was his cock she felt. It was his possession. The echoes of it. The remembered feel of him stretching her as she parted her fingers and scissored them against the clenched muscles surrounding them.
“Casey,” she whispered his name, her voice rough, filled with need as she realized her eyes had closed.
They jerked open, staring back at him in surprise as she realized he was much closer. He was kneeling between her spread knees, sitting back on his heels as he stroked his cock and watched her.
“Don’t stop,” he growled. “Fuck yourself, Sheila. Let me see you. Let me see how much you want me to touch you.”
She wanted him to touch her bad.
Her hips lifted. A moan tore from her.
His expression tightened.
Kneeling between her knees, his gaze focused on the flesh between her thighs as she penetrated herself, her fingers gleaming with her juices as she tried to hold back her release.
“I dream of you,” she gasped, feeling the release racing to her.
“What do you dream, baby?”
“Of this, sometimes,” she whispered desperately. “Of you taking me, making me cry out for you, because the pleasure is so intense I can barely stand it.”
She wasn’t going to scream in need for it. She was going to demand he take her, that he possess her. She was going to beg him for it.
Her fingers slid back, finding her clit as his gaze lifted to hers once again.
“Fuck me, Casey,” she whispered. “Please. I need you. I need you inside me so bad I don’t think I can bear it.”
He moved closer.
“Keep touching yourself.”
He lifted her thigh, moving in, bending over her, positioning the wide head of his cock at the greedy, saturated entrance to her sex.
She caressed her clit, arching, her breasts lifting as his lips descended to one hard, tight nipple.
Sharp, ecstatic sensation tore through the sensitive tip, streaking through her body to slam into the responsive depths of her womb, then into her pussy.
He sucked the tip into his mouth as the flared head began to part the snug entrance of her pussy.
Sliding her fingers into the cool, thick strands of his hair, Sheila could only gasp his name. Sensation swirled through her senses, pleasure tore through her body. Stretching, burning, his cock worked inside her, separating her flesh as her fingers moved erratically on the swollen bud of her clit.
The intensity of the pleasure whipping through her had her senses expanding with nearing ecstasy. Sensation began to jerk through her body, to race just beneath her flesh faster.
His cock stroked inside her in short, hard thrusts, raking along the exquisitely sensitive nerve endings as she began to gasp with the sensations.
His lips, tongue, and mouth caressed her nipple, drawing on the tiny bud, tormenting it. He rasped it with his teeth as she arched to him. Her muscles tightened, clenching on his cock as it slowly invaded her.
She was dying from the pleasure.
Sensation ballooned inside her, tearing through her senses until she was arching tight beneath him. Her hips writhed on the impalement as Casey sank fully inside her. He seated himself to the hilt with one firm, possessive penetration. The thrust speared through the gripping, milking muscles of her pussy, drawing a harsh cry from her lips.
No sooner than he sank inside her, he was moving.
If pleasure was a whirlwind before, it became a cyclone. The hard, rapid motions of his hips, the heavy, deep thrusts inside her, the caress of the velvet over iron flesh impaling her was like riding a starburst.
Sensations swelled and detonated through her nerve endings, yet the release that seemed so near never seemed so far away. Moving her fingers over her clit in short, rapid motions as he shafted inside her, Sheila only increased the torturous pleasure. She couldn’t stop. She was so close.
“Casey,” she cried out, panting for air. “Oh God, it’s killing me. Please.”
His head lifted from her nipple.
“Please what, baby?” he groaned, his lips moving against the mound of her breast, his tongue licking over the damp skin he found. “Tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you. You only have to ask.”
“I need to come,” she gasped, staring up at him, dazed, watching as a trail of sweat ran slowly down the side of his hard face. “Make me come, Casey. Make me come all over your cock. It’s so thick and hard inside me…” she moaned.
As though she had struck a match to fuel, Casey gave a tortured moan before he began moving harder, faster.
Thrusting, shafting inside her with hard, quick strokes, his cock shuttling in and out of the tight confines of her sex, he gave her what she begged for.
Within seconds Sheila was exploding. Tossed headlong into a rapture she couldn’t control and had no desire to rein in. It began in the very depths of her pussy, radiating outward to attack her clit as she stroked it in time to the hard strokes filling her cunt, and the brutal shudders that began tearing through her.
The little bud swelled quickly, harder, more sensitive than ever as she gave a wild, fractured moan and let it fling her into an ecstasy she was certain Casey had never given her before.
This one was brighter, hotter, it tore past her mind, completely obliterated thought or any belief that she could ever be the same once reality returned.
Because as that explosion ripped through her, it did more than fill her body with the most exquisite rapture she had ever known. It did more than simply satisfy that feminine ache as no other man had ever been able to do. As she exploded around the hard, fiery erection filling her, she felt him bury in deep once again, then felt his release tear through him as well.
She felt the hard, heavy spurts of his release filling her.
She felt his arms wrapping around her.
She felt his wide, muscular chest scraping against her nipples, his powerful thighs tightening.
She felt the white-hot center of her release tear a hole through the defenses she had built against him as well.
As his rele
ase jetted inside her, she swore she felt a part of him sink inside her soul.
He had finally possessed her.
And she knew she hadn’t managed the same with him.
She knew. And she swore she felt it breaking her heart.
FIVE
Sheila remembered what it felt like when she was nineteen and she learned the man she thought she loved had only been using her to get to her father. That it hadn’t been her he wanted, it had been a position that her father controlled. One that, once he’d acquired it, Douglas Rutledge couldn’t take from him.
But, as her father had said, it wasn’t worth taking back. It had been worth it to know he’d wanted the job rather than the daughter. And better she’d known before Sheila had messed up her life and married the man.
At the time, she hadn’t seen it that way. She understood the reason he had tested the relationship by assigning the position before the proposal, but the knowledge that she’d been wanted for anything more than what her father could provide still managed to hurt.
She had never taken a love interest to meet her father since. Dates picked her up at her house, a small cottage a half mile from her father’s main house. She never told her father who she was seeing, or when she was seeing them.
It was easier that way.
If anyone mentioned wanting to meet her father, it spelled the end of whatever relationship they had.
She never dated anyone her father knew.
Until Casey.
But, she excused herself, she wasn’t exactly dating Casey. She was only sleeping with him, wasn’t she?
Still, she was breaking one of her own rules and she knew it.
Then she had compounded that error by falling in love with him.
Yes, she was in love with him, and she knew it.
Sitting in her car outside the bar two nights later, she knew she had made that drastic mistake. A horrendous mistake. One guaranteed to break her heart in half.
Breathing out roughly, she tested the feel of the boots she wore before opening the door of her small car and stepping out.
The hollow heel still felt a little strange.
Casey had brought her the boots the night before, claiming he felt the newly designed heel would be more secure than her purse for hiding the flash drives she carried to her father twice a week.
The tiny chamber was waterproof and it would be impossible to detect the drive using any electronic means, he assured her.
He’d acted positively protective, and for a second, just a second, she’d wondered if she had been wrong, if he felt something more for her than simply lust.
“Can’t have those drives getting lost or stolen if some yahoo decides to grab your purse.” He’d shrugged then. “I hate wasting my time.”
And her hopes had plummeted.
Dammit.
She’d thought by now he would have at least shown a few emotions besides worry over the damned flash drives.
The information on them was imperative, she knew. The tracking of terrorists, both homeland and overseas was imperative. Drug and weapons runners and any other criminal element that walked through the doors of the bar was fair game.
Every customer was photographed the second they entered and, using hidden remote cameras, additional pictures could be taken.
Who they met with, who they danced with, what they did in the parking lot. Rumors, gossip, and drunken bragging were recorded, saved, and then placed on the flash drive to be given to the captain. He then delivered it to the homeland security team assigned to break down the information and investigate as needed.
It was done quietly, effectively, and it had worked for eight years. Since the day Ethan Cooper had reopened the Broken Bar and brought the proposal to the captain, after he’d learned about the clientele he wouldn’t be able to keep out of it.
Since that day, the bar had reigned as the only alcoholic establishment allowed within the county limits. The Broken Bar was a favorite among the locals as well as the criminal element. And Ethan Cooper ran the establishment with an iron hand.
No dealing, drugs or otherwise, was the rule, though they’d recorded it happening often enough.
The bouncers watched out for the women first, innocent men second, and they were all friends of Cooper’s. Tough, hard-eyed bastards who had been discharged from the army for one reason or another.
Some honorably.
Some not so honorably.
Smoothing the skirt of her short dress, Sheila made her way from the parking spot she’d managed to snag at the side of the building and stepped up to the wood walkway that stretched around the bar.
The entrance was manned that night by Turk.
One of those hard-eyed bastards who had been not so honorably discharged.
“Miss Rutledge.” He nodded as he opened the door for her.
“Thanks, Turk.” She threw him a quick smile as she moved past him.
“Casey will be out in a bit, he’s in a meeting with Coop.”
She almost paused at the bouncer’s announcement. She almost turned around and asked him why she should care. But she knew these men.
Number one, he wouldn’t tell her what he knew, and there was no doubt he knew something; otherwise, he’d never have said anything.
Holding her irritation for Casey until later, she moved into the building and headed for the long, gleaming teak bar at the side of the room.
A band was belting a country-western tune on the other end. The sound of the steel guitar, the lazy sensuality in the singer’s voice, and the sight of the customers swaying on the dance floor was enough to assure her she’d arrived late.
Everyone had had just enough booze to loosen inhibitions, if any existed, and lead them to the dance floor where they could rub and grind and in some cases even complete the sexual act in the dimmer areas as the sexually charged music seemed to infect them.
Her father had always warned her to beware of alcohol and slow dancing.
And he was right.
She almost grinned at the thought.
The first night she and Casey had been together, they had danced to a slow, lazy tune after the bar had closed and after they had shared more than one drink.
Her stomach clenched at the memory of that night.
There on the bar. He’d turned the cameras off and he’d taken her like a man starved for a woman.
“Hey, Sheila, you’re blushing.” Sarah Cooper’s brows were arched as she made the accusation teasingly. “What are you thinking about that has your face all red?”
Hell.
She was half tempted to turn around and walk out rather than face the warmhearted teasing. She hoped that Casey wasn’t around.
“Secrets,” Sheila informed her as she took the bar stool one of the bouncers vacated.
The new guy, Morgan Keane.
Six feet four and a half inches of power and well-honed muscles. Dark blue eyes and black hair, sun-bronzed skin, and a hardened expression.
Wearing jeans and a black “Broken Bar” T-shirt, he looked like a man most men would be scared to run into in a back alley, let alone a woman.
The background check her father had done on him had pretty much confirmed that impression. He wasn’t a criminal, and never had been, as far as Captain Rutledge could tell. He was just a man that had treaded a thin line a little close to that element.
Even worse, and a bigger sin in the captain’s eyes, Morgan Keane hadn’t joined one of the military forces and served his country either.
He was a hell of a bouncer, and one Sheila knew Cooper was coming to depend upon after less than six months.
“You are not answering me.” Sarah leaned forward, a shy dimple peeking out from her rounded cheeks as she brushed back the incredibly long curls that fell around her.
“That’s because I don’t want to,” Sheila answered as she leaned forward as well, ignoring the other girl’s playful pout. “Where’s Cooper? He’s supposed to be keeping you out of trouble.”
/> “In a meeting with your bed warmer,” Sarah all but whispered as her grin widened. “Tell me, Sheila, how long did you think you would keep it quiet if you dared to challenge Casey as you did?”
Sheila’s brows lifted. What in the world had Casey told Sarah? It wasn’t like him to tell anyone anything about his private life.
To say she was shocked he had even let on that they were sleeping together was an understatement.
Sarah rolled her eyes, almost laughing back at her.
“His truck has been parked at your house the past two mornings and several of the bar’s customers just happen to be working on your father’s landscaping.”
Sheila grimaced. She had forgotten about that. She should have thought. There were very few members of the community who hadn’t been in the Broken Bar at one time or another.
“Oh well, he can deal with it then.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter when she knew very well it did. She detested being gossiped about. But even worse, she knew for a fact that Casey had broken off relationships with other women for no more reason than the fact that his personal business with them had become public knowledge.
She didn’t need this.
She didn’t need to be forced to grapple with her own emotions and fears while wondering who in her father’s employ would dare to gossip about his daughter. Because she knew every damned one of them would. It was the reason why her father employed them.
How better to stay below suspicion where the wrong men were concerned than by employing the worst gossips in the county? Men and women who knew or worked with the very men that Ethan Cooper and his bouncers watched on a nightly basis.
“So when did all this begin?” Sarah propped her cheek in her hand as she stared back at Sheila. “Come on. Give deets. Ethan so refuses to allow me to take an interest in his bouncers’ buff bodies.”
Sheila winced as the bouncer behind the bar, Morgan, stared at his boss’s wife in amazement. He was only seconds from blushing, and Sheila had a feeling he rarely, if ever, blushed.
“I’m not giving you deets, Sarah,” Sheila informed her, well aware of the fact that the other woman would be horrified if she did attempt to do so.
Sarah pretended to pout before giving Sheila a subtle wink and turning to Morgan once more. “Perhaps Morgan will satisfy our curiosity then.”
