The Lark and the Bull

by Carolyn Faulkner

  That got a small, hesitant smile from her as she nodded slowly.

  "Yours, too, babygirl?"

  "Yes, please."

  The way she colored so prettily when she was embarrassed had him wanting to drive himself mindlessly into her, but he clamped down on those particular desires in favor of indulging himself in another that he particularly enjoyed.

  Holding himself above her on his palms and the tips of his toes, he looked her directly in the eye as he drawled, "Be a good girl and spread your legs for me, Lark."

  That, apparently, was the balking point. Those bright blue eyes never left his, but she began to shake her head slowly back and forth, and he felt her, instead, clamp her legs together beneath him.

  "Are you really sure you want to be naughty like that, missy? I bet you know that I won't hesitate to spank you if you don't obey me."

  She did know that, but not because of anything she'd gleaned from what he probably considered to be her magical powers. Everything he'd said and done to her since he'd told her that he wanted her screamed that he was a Dom, and, even in her somewhat limited experience, few Doms in his current position would refrain from spanking a recalcitrant sub who didn't do as she was told.

  Then she remembered the sheer size of this man's hands and his obvious considerable upper body strength, since his arm and shoulder muscles weren't even beginning to shake or shudder at the stress of holding himself off of her, and she thought better of the idea.

  Granted, she only opened them a bit, but when he was once again lying atop her, it didn't matter. His weight nudged her legs wide open around him, and she could feel the impressive size and implied urgency of a very large, jean covered erection pressing against her now exposed privates. To her utter humiliation, she couldn't seem to keep her hips from at least attempting to arch up to him, opening herself a bit further beneath him.

  The guttural growl he issued from the back of his throat at her actions made the hair on her arms stand up. Her eyes flew to his and she watched him walk himself back from the edge. The edge of what, she wasn't quite sure, but she was glad he did, anyway.

  "You are pulling the dragon's tail, babygirl. That can have dangerous consequences for a tiny morsel like yourself."

  "Lion."

  He looked up at her. "You see me as a lion, not a dragon—or a bull?"

  Lark nodded.

  "Not mythical. Real."

  His chest swelled with pride at that, although he certainly didn't know why.

  "Well, then, kitten," he growled, "don't go rubbing yourself up against a male lion like that. You never know what he'll do."

  She didn't look worried—for which he was grateful— granting him another almost smile that made his chest ache.

  Keeping her wide open beneath him and gently but firmly instructing her to put her hands over her head and leave them there, he started again at the top of her head, kissing and licking and suckling and lightly nipping his way down her until his head was poised just above another set of soft blonde curls, an arm on either side of her, threaded beneath her open knees.

  "Give me your hands."

  Her eyes flared slightly, but she threaded her fingers between his, anyway.

  When he was already staring down at the secrets his mouth was about to discover, Bull heard her small, soft voice.

  "Male lions eat kittens—cubs."

  When he looked up at her, he let every bit of the greedy anticipation he was feeling show on his face. "You bet they do, little girl. And they thoroughly enjoy every single mouthful."

  And he made damned sure that she did, too.

  Bull was just as thorough about that as he'd been about every other aspect of taking care of her this evening. He wasn't one of those types who stabbed his tongue at her for ninety seconds then called it good.

  No, she realized with a low, throaty moan, this man obviously knew exactly what he was doing to her. He took his time, skirting around the perimeter first, bestowing sloppy kisses here and there, licking broad strokes over the sensitive skin where thigh met hip, gliding expertly down the outside of each lip then back over again, careful not to touch his tongue anywhere between them, even when he'd made it to the top and he was moving down again, this time on the innermost edge of her outer lips.

  Lark couldn't help but tug against the way her hands were trapped, entwined with his as they were, but, try as she might, she couldn't free them.

  Bull noticed that she was struggling and lifted his head. "Are you okay?"

  "I—yes."

  "Am I hurting you?"

  "N-no."

  He gave her a considering look. "Do you like the fact that I'm not letting you go? Do you just like to struggle and feel overpowered?"

  Her mouth opened, but nothing came out—although she was beet red, and he knew he had stumbled onto something.

  "Answer me, little kitten," he rumbled, his soft lips a hair's breadth from her clit.

  She couldn't! He was too damned right, but she could hardly say that to him!

  Lark shook her head once, but before she could do it again, she found herself pulled forwards as he sat up, positioning her perfectly over a huge thigh he'd folded neatly beneath him, getting her bottom soundly spanked.

  "Yes! Yes! Yes!" she yelled immediately.

  But it was too late. Hell, he'd only given her about twenty swats before he laid her back down—onto her now very unhappy behind—but they were each the equivalent of about four swats from anyone else, she would swear! He packed quite a wallop when he walloped!

  She had been so cute while he was spanking her, her little feet drumming steadily against the mattress, downright shrieking with every swat, begging him to stop from practically the first instance his palm connected with her cute little backside.

  When he repositioned himself—including repossessing not her hands, but her wrists, so that she would experience even more of a feeling of being controlled, he would swear that she was a hundred times wetter from the spanking he'd given her.

  Damn, he lamented silently. She was just exactly what he wanted in a woman.

  Minus the crazy, his brain reminded him.

  Instead of lamenting what they wouldn't have, he applied himself to the paradise that was laid open before him, using the very same technique as he had before, exploring every inch of her with his hot, wet lips and adventurous tongue—including finding his way to her little brown pucker.

  She yelped and arched away from him as best she could—which was to say she stayed right where she was.

  "Is that area off limits?" he asked, removing himself from there immediately.

  Lark was panting so hard—he was driving her so crazy—that she couldn't marshal her thoughts enough to answer him before he answered himself.

  "Say no more. No tickling and no rosebuds. Got it."

  Before he could set himself ravenously upon her again, though, he heard, a very tentative, "D-don't know."

  Bull smiled up at her. "Good girl for telling me." This time, he literally felt her contract against him at that, and it made his smile just that much broader. "No more thinking. Just relax, babygirl. I just want to make you feel good."

  She'd had so much buildup that it didn't take him and his very talented mouth—with its equally dexterous tongue—long to get her very close.

  "Please—fingers?" Lark panted.

  He leaned up then, saying in a deeply warning tone, "All right, little one, but you have to keep your wrists right there, no matter what."

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  "If you move your hand, you're going to get another—longer, harder—spanking."

  That got a bit of a whine from her at the threat, but he let her left wrist go in order to give her his fingers. He usually used two from the start, but she was so small that he just went with his index finger, and—although she was damned tight—she practically sucked that into her with long, low moans as he eagerly watched it delve into her.

  "Beautiful," he breathed, beginning
to crook and move it within her, slowly at first, then more demandingly, switching to his middle finger and feeling how deliciously her body clamped down on it as he fucked her with it, too.

  She sounded wonderfully desperate, and he wondered if she could come just from his fingers. He was too entranced in watching her take them, for the moment, to break away from the sight of her and concentrate on that goal, as she was enticingly flushed and swollen and leaking rivers around each digit as it penetrated her.

  "I want to see you take two, Lark. I have to." He crossed one over the other and, forcing himself to divide his attention between her expressive face and her unbelievably snug passage, he began pressing them slowly into her.

  The sound she was making was going to flat out kill him. Her head was whipping back and forth, and his fingers were disappearing into her with agonizing slowness as her body was forced to part around them.

  "Jesus Christ, you're tight," he barely ground out.

  His cock was straining with jealousy behind the zipper of his pants, and he was inches away from letting it loose and driving it into her.

  But he wanted to bring her off first. If she was this tight, she needed him to prepare her, and she needed to be as aroused as he could get her to be able to accept him. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.

  When he was finally buried in her up to where his fist began, he started to pulse his hand in and out of her as she tried to ride it, although she was barely able to move.

  "Please!!"

  Bull loved the unguarded urgency in her tone.

  "All right, baby." He leaned forward, covering her clit with his mouth as he began to pump his fingers in and out of her.

  Her own fingers gripped the bed sheets so hard she thought they were going to break as he held her still, giving her no choice but to submit to what he was doing to her, to submit to him.

  He didn't talk to her, he didn't let up and he certainly didn't stop. He was going to make her come, and when she did, she screamed and clenched and screamed again as he continued to lap his tongue completely over her, coaxing as much pleasure as he could from her pliant body, relentlessly making her shudder and shake and spasm hard around his fingers and between his eager lips.

  Knowing some women were excruciatingly sensitive right after they'd come, he pulled back a little, groaning, "Fuck me, that was unreal!" He kissed around her clit, fingers still buried deep inside her as she came down a bit, panting and whimpering and wearing a sex flush that went past the tops of her breasts that he didn't think she even knew was there.

  Experimentally, he leaned forward, pressing his mouth over her again, his tongue not flicking out, because he thought that might catch her all at once in a too sensitive spot, but dragging the flat of it over her in one long, ice cream cone lick.

  Based on how she reacted, he knew he'd come damned close to bringing her to the edge again just with that, and he was glad that he could hide his more than slightly evil grin from her as he pressed his mouth more dedicatedly over her while those demanding fingers began to stir within her.

  In the end, she came for him seven times before he rose up, reached down and freed himself. He'd been hard for so long that he was probably going to disgrace himself as soon as his weeping cockhead touched her pussy, but he genuinely didn't care.

  "Can I?" she asked, looking at his cock.

  "No, kitten." He was hanging onto his control by a tenuous thread.

  Once he'd lined himself up and leaned over her, he pinned her hands to the mattress again and rocked his hips forward, trying his best to take it slowly, even though he knew it was going to be the death of him.

  She inhaled sharply as she felt herself being stretched around him, and it was music to his ears. "Let me in, little bird," he whispered huskily, catching her eyes as he sank himself—carefully but relentlessly— into her.

  "Uh…uh…ahhh…mmm—" Lark groaned, panted, and reminded herself to relax, as she felt more possessed by this man than she ever had in her life. She was small, but she'd never had any problem taking anyone else.

  He was a challenge, though, one she intended to meet.

  The second he had gone as far as he could, he began to withdraw again and her shivering moans made him need to speed up before he might have. Two thrusts, three, and then he drove himself home to splatter his seed against her walls, coming so hard he practically felt faint and wholly unable to keep himself from literally collapsing down on top of her like a ton of bricks.

  It was several long moments before he recovered his senses, practically leaping off of her. "Christ, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

  Looking delightfully disheveled, she gave him a quizzical look. "Fine, thanks."

  "I don't, uh, usually do that, especially not with someone—not the first time. I know I'm big and heavy and I worry a bit about…crushing women. And you're so tiny."

  Lark nodded, but sought to allay his concerns, grabbing his arm—as best she could—and encouraging him to come back to her, to the exact position he'd been in before he'd practically done a balletic leap off of her, although he was reluctant to do so.

  But she was insistent. "I like it."

  Bull looked at her for a moment, then let her convince him, a bit against his better judgment, but it did feel good to be so intimate with her again. He smiled when he realized that she was trying to wrap herself around him as best she could, but even with both arms and both legs, she couldn't really make it, although he certainly appreciated her attempts.

  Small hands stroked his back, fingertips dancing lightly over his muscles and finding their way up to what would have been his hair, if he'd had any. He kept it shorn very close, not wanting to deal with taking care of it.

  "I have a full head of hair, you know," he said, somewhat defensively, feeling as if she thought he was somewhat lacking in that department. "I just don't want the bother of it."

  Lark shrugged, her fingers still exploring his scalp. "Don't care."

  He grinned, reaching up to tug gently at her curls. "I don't think I could quite say the same thing about yours, however chauvinistic or misogynistic that might sound."

  "Me, neither," she admitted.

  Chapter 5

  A second call from the same number—that she also ignored—pulled her out of her reverie about last night and sent her heading to the bathroom. By the time she'd gotten out of the shower, there was a third, as well as a text, all from the same demanding, autocratic, terribly sexy person who could turn her on with just his voice, apparently. That was a dangerous discovery to make.

  Grabbing her phone and her purse, she headed out to the compact, hybrid car she'd rented for the duration of what seemed to be her extended stay, heading for the police station.

  Once there, the first person to see her was him, of course.

  Not that he'd been checking his phone practically every minute in case he missed her responding back to him, nor had he been looking up every five seconds in case she appeared—no, not him. He wasn't that type at all. Still, Bull rose and bore down on her as if he was going to back her up against a wall and have her in front of the entire department.

  Except the little minx didn't move a muscle as he approached.

  "'Bout time you decided to show up," he growled under his breath, so that only she could hear it. "I left you three messages and sent a text. You didn't answer any of them."

  As much as large parts of her wanted to surrender themselves to him again, right then and there, Lark instead stiffened her backbone and looked up at him. "I wasn't aware that I was under any kind of obligation to report to you."

  His eyebrows rose. "Not even common courtesy?" he asked pointedly, enjoying throwing her own words back at her, then leaning down a bit to whisper, "Not to mention the fact that I'm going to tan your little hide as soon as I can get my hands on it for being such a naughty little kitten and not doing so."

  Normally, he didn't believe in mixing work with pleasure, but she had already gotten under his skin so mu
ch that he was having a hard time controlling his bodily responses, as if he was some kind of randy teenager.

  Whether she was blushing because of the common courtesy remark or because of the threat he'd made—that she already knew he was more than capable of backing up—she didn't know, and she was saved from having to try to decide which it was by the appearance of the chief, thank God.

  "Dale—I'm sorry I didn't come in sooner." She leaned around the behemoth who had planted himself in front of her.

  The older man was almost fatherly in his concern. "We were worried about you, Miss Jeffries."

  "Oh, dear. I'm Miss Jeffries now." She smiled. "I guess I really did screw up."

  He looked down his nose at her. "Well, Lark, we cops take care of our own, and you were in a bit of a pickle last night. We were all very concerned about you." His demeanor softened considerably. "Better now, I take it?"

  A delicate color rose in her cheeks. "Yes, thank you, I am, thanks to the detective's—" She wanted to say "tender, loving care" but that sounded entirely too intimate. "Uh, excellent assistance," she finished lamely.

  They headed for the conference room, and Holly hugged her tightly as soon as she saw her. "Oh my God, I was so worried about you!"

  Even Randall, who seemed very nice but kind of tongue tied around her, told her that he was glad she was feeling better.

  "I'm so sorry to have worried everyone. That happens sometimes when things are really…when there's just so much overwhelmingly strong, residual emotion. It can get hard for me to step back from the feelings, and it does a horrible number on me." She took the seat she was motioned to, surprised when Bull took the one next to her. "But the detective took wonderful care of me, I have to say, and I'm fully recovered. I made some notes this morning about what my impressions were."

  They spent quite a while discussing the scene last night, with everyone contributing, and Lark sticking to her guns about the killer being female. Three heads turned to look at Bull expectantly when she reiterated that stance, and they were silently amazed when he didn't say anything.