They’d played this game before.
But this was different. This time, she couldn’t get away. She bumped against the bar but he was still there, towering in front of her, the candlelight accentuating the angles of his cheekbones, the masculine scruff on his jaw.
“Your phone,” she commented. She was so close she could feel the vibration against her thigh. “Let me guess. She’ll see you once, and then never again.”
“Too bad no one ever calls you,” he said.
“It’s called standards. You should think about getting some.”
“Are yours as high as the ones you have for that boring-ass bar you want to open?”
Oh, that was rich. She couldn’t believe she was still talking to him. She couldn’t believe she’d once considered him…if not a friend, then not always that bad. Someone to roll her eyes at but not actively loathe.
“Like you’ll ever have the chance to know,” she practically growled, and tried to take a step back.
But there was no place to go. She could feel the heat from his skin, the hard graze of his belt buckle against her stomach.
“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you had me,” he taunted, his voice so low she had to strain forward to hear him. Strain against him, trapped between the bar and the taut slab of muscle in front of her, his chest rising quickly with his quickening breath.
“Try me,” she said, daring him to do it. Go ahead. Call her bluff.
His lips were on her so quickly she gasped. Connor didn’t taste. He devoured. His lips were soft, his mouth so warm, and yet nothing about this was gentle. His scruff scratched at her cheek as his hands pulled on her hair.
He thought he was too much for her? He thought she was some demure little girl who didn’t know how to fuck? She’d show him. She kissed him back just as hard as he pushed her up against the bar.
She was never going to be a notch on Connor Branding’s belt, forgotten just as soon as it was over. She was going to make sure he remembered this kiss. She was somebody, and as she felt his hands run through her hair, down her back, grabbing her hips, her ass, pulling her toward him—she knew she’d made her goddamn point.
So she could stop now.
Really, any minute.
One more second and she’d push him off. Pull away. Tell him this was never going any further. It was just some fucked-up kiss when she was pissed as hell at him and they should forget it ever happened.
Except her legs were turning to jelly, her heart was pounding in her chest, and ending this was the last thing her body was going to let her do. If she had any doubts, there was his hand pressing between her thighs, his fingers stroking right along the seam of her jeans as he said, “You think I’m bad at this?”
She knew he could feel her heat as she squirmed against him. But no way was she going to give him the satisfaction.
“Jury’s still out,” she panted, running her hands over his chest, grinding her hips against his hand.
“I’ll just have to try harder,” he said.
She matched him with a hand over the front of his jeans. Something was definitely hard. And thick, and so goddamn good her legs were trembling in anticipation. No matter what a bad idea this was…she wasn’t sure she could stop.
Connor bit the side of her neck, and she shuddered as he pressed against her hand. “Fuck,” he groaned into her skin. “Yes.”
“Is this what you want?” she murmured. She went to slide down his zipper, and his answer was another variation on the words “fuck” and “yes” and “now.”
Of course he wanted this. Of course she knew how to get to him.
But right when she was sure she was the one in control, the one saying how this would go, he grabbed her wrists and pried her arms back. He was breathing hard, and for a second she thought he was going to push her to her knees. She would do it, give him the silk of her tongue, feel the heat of him shooting into her mouth.
But he must not have forgotten who he was dealing with. He must have thought better than to trust himself with her teeth.
Because instead of focusing on his pleasure, he lifted her so she was sitting on the edge of the bar. Her bar. Fuck, he was going to take her right here.
After which she’d need the construction crew to rip out the bar immediately, because she’d never be able to serve drinks on it again.
Connor had no such apprehensions. He bit her nipples through her shirt, and her back arched as sensation shot through her. He yanked off the buttons; there came a pop and the sound of one falling to the floor.
She was wearing a black bra topped with a delicate trim, and Connor’s teeth raked over the lace. Clearly no voice in the back of his head was asking snidely if this was such a genius idea. He didn’t waste time unhooking it, simply yanked down the cups and flicked her nipples with his tongue, teasing as he held her breasts in his hands.
Mack knew it didn’t mean anything. If he weren’t stuck here with her tonight, he’d be with that other woman.
And yet he made her feel so incredibly wanted as he pulled off her jeans and kicked them to the floor. It was like he couldn’t waste a single second on decorum—not while he was so busy fucking her with his eyes, taking in her favorite lace, the bra still twisted around her, her nipples hard and pink and glistening from his tongue.
Shouldn’t they talk about this? Clarify some ground rules? Make sure they were on the same page about those pesky things that sometimes cropped up to get in the way—what were they called again? Oh yeah. Feelings.
But she knew what they were doing. And the rules? Evidently there weren’t any, because this wasn’t like any game she’d ever played.
“Spread your legs,” he growled.
She couldn’t believe it. “You think you can tell me what to do?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t want this.”
“That depends,” she said.
“On?”
“Whether you know what you’re doing.”
He slid his hands up her thighs and drew her legs apart, just as he’d demanded. “Lucky me,” he said. “I like a woman with high expectations.”
He pushed her back so she was propped on her elbows, and then he brought his mouth down, biting through the lace. Teasing her, torturing her. Announcing that no matter what happened, he wasn’t at her command.
But it must have been torture for him, too, because he grabbed her panties roughly and twisted them to the side as though he couldn’t keep delaying what he wanted. He slid a finger not quite inside her but just enough to make her squirm. More. She had to have more.
His thumb teased her clit. She whimpered.
He pressed harder, and her thighs trembled against his shoulders.
Then in one smooth motion he slid the finger all the way inside her and crooked it at the knuckle, pressing, stroking, finding the rhythm to match her movements, her gasps. When at last he brought his tongue down to the center of her desire, she threw back her head and let out a long, breathless sigh.
She looked down, and their eyes caught over the plane of her body draped in candlelight. She may have checked out his profile online, but she’d never let herself imagine the look of him between her thighs. She’d never imagined anything like this at all.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want.”
Mack whimpered, and he pushed his finger deeper. “You know what I want,” she said.
“Say it. Say you want it.”
She held his gaze until he hooked the finger inside her and she squirmed with pleasure. “Say it,” he commanded again, working her harder, not taking his eyes from her.
What did he want, a signed declaration that he was the god of sex? She wasn’t going to bend to his ego. That he was going to make her come didn’t change anything between them.
But she relented, saying “Please” like he wanted. Look at her being so good. Now could she have her reward?
But it wasn’t enough. He eased up on the pressure he was giving her inside. �
��Please what?” he said with a smirk.
“Fuck you,” she said, but it came out breathless—not at all how she meant.
“Be nice,” he teased. Then his eyes flashed. “Or I might not let you.”
She tried to pull away. This was why she couldn’t do this—his ego, his presumption, the knowledge that this wasn’t going anywhere and she’d still have to see him the next day, and the next, while he went home with a parade of other catches…until he finally left Gold Mountain for good. Because guys like him breezed in and out all the time, and she’d had enough of being left in the dust for one lifetime, thanks very much.
But he had her pinned with his hands, his tongue. So she wasn’t going anywhere. And for right now, neither was he.
His tongue moved slowly, tantalizingly, up the full seam of her. A tease and a promise, a reminder and a way of laying claim. “You have to tell me what you want, Mackenzie,” he said again, and she was so fucking annoyed—by the way he said her name, the teasing in his voice, the reminder of what he thought of the bar she wanted—she was ready to scream at him to make her come already, she couldn’t hold on.
“Harder,” she said though clenched teeth.
“What was that?”
“Harder,” she practically shouted, and then gasped as he complied.
He lapped at the peak of her clit as his fingers thrust into her. “Like this?” he asked.
Fucking asshole, needing her to beg.
“Shut up already,” she whimpered, and gripped his hair as she pushed her hips to meet him.
He licked until her legs began to shake. “Make me come,” she panted. “Make me come and then fuck me.”
He wanted to prove to her how good he was? Then this was what she wanted: his whole face pressed to her, his tongue, his fingers, moving in the rhythm she set. The stronger the pleasure surged through her the smaller she felt in its grasp, until the full tidal wave crashed and she was nothing, she was breathless, she was gone.
She lay there panting, thighs trembling in bliss.
And then she opened her eyes. Connor was looking up at her from between her legs dangling over the bar. Reality hit her harder than any orgasm ever could.
I’m so screwed.
But she closed her eyes again, not wanting to come back.
Chapter Six
Connor reached into the cash tin on a shelf behind the bar. It was where they stored quarters for emergencies so they weren’t always running to the bank. And where he kept a few condoms hidden in a compartment in the lid, just in case.
“You’re shitting me,” Mack said.
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to?”
Mack swept the hair out of her face. She was sweaty, flushed, beautiful. “Let’s not ruin this by talking.”
She licked her lips, plump and pink from where she’d bitten down as she came, and he didn’t care, he didn’t fucking care about any of it—the restaurant, the name, the fact that she didn’t really want him, it was only because of the night, the rain, the happenstance that he was here. He was rock hard from the way she’d danced against his tongue, and he thought he might actually die when she unzipped his pants and wrapped her fingers around his aching cock.
She didn’t take his pants off, and she was still in that goddamn flimsy lace he never would have imagined she wore, but he liked it like that, so dirty they couldn’t wait to get undressed. She inched down his boxers, and he slid on the condom and guided her back against the bar again. The candle had burned low, but he could see the look on her face, a wince of sharp pleasure as he pushed in.
He knew immediately that this was dangerous, how she could make him feel so good. The fact that he was still partway clothed while she was spread open beneath him let him pretend he had some semblance of self-control. In reality, the sensation of her enveloping him obliterated every thought but how incredible it was going to feel when he spilled inside her.
“Do you want this?” he panted as she braced herself against the bar.
“Fuck. Yes.” Her breathing was hard and growing faster.
“You’re going to come again.”
She responded by sliding her hips forward, bringing him deeper inside her than he’d thought he could go. But he couldn’t worry if it was too deep, too hard, because the way she was moving said it would never be deep enough, hard enough, for her.
Rain drummed against the roof, darkness protecting them in an impenetrable cocoon. The candle flickered with their breathing but didn’t go out. Connor, unable to restrain himself, pulled out and turned her so she was facing the bar. When he slid into her again she groaned as he hit home, picking up the rhythm as her ass pressed against him, her knuckles white from gripping the edge of the bar.
He thrust into her and pulled her hips back. Then he threaded his fingers through her hair and tugged. She arched her spine, letting out a cry as she pushed herself onto his cock.
“Like that?” he said, and she whimpered.
“Don’t you dare stop.”
He felt her tightening around him, her breath coming ragged and raw. He brought his hand to her mouth, and she sucked his fingers. He trailed his hand down, over her breasts, tweaking her nipples with his wet finger and thumb. Grasping her stomach, teasing his way down until he found her again, between her thighs, slick and eager as though she’d been waiting for his touch all along.
She leaned against the bar, against his hand, her ass up and ready for him, and he couldn’t hold it in; he couldn’t stop himself anymore. He said her name, once, and she said please and that was all it took. He was gone.
He came inside her in a rush of heat, the sheer force of it never ending. And then she ground her hips against his fingers, his cock still hard inside her, until her body grew taut as a string, vibrating tighter and tighter until for one split second she was still.
He felt the shudder, the release, her body racked with it as he kissed across her shoulders, her back, finally resting his forehead against her because he didn’t want to pull away.
He could have held her. He could have made the moment last. Anything to show he wasn’t the guy she thought—good for nothing, someone she didn’t have to listen to.
But as soon as she finished, she slid off the bar, tugging her bra and underwear back in place. She reached for her jeans on the floor, not looking at him. Looking anywhere but where he stood. She pulled them on, and then her shirt with its missing button. She had a hoodie draped over the far end of the bar and she put it on, too, as though to cover as much of herself as she could.
Connor threw out the condom and zipped up his pants. His long-sleeved shirt was still wet, so it was a T-shirt and jeans for him. He had much less re-dressing to do.
He didn’t know what she was thinking, or what he should do. But then she said, “I’ll take the sofa in the office. There’s a blanket you can bring out here for the night.” And he guessed that about summed it up.
“They’ll clear out the fallen tree in the morning,” he said, to show he could be businesslike, too.
He wanted to kiss the top of her head, smooth down the flyaway strands of her hair. But she went to get the blanket and passed it to him, and the office door clicked shut.
He lay down behind the bar with half the blanket over him, the other half underneath for padding, and listened to the rain. His eyes were still open when the candle sputtered out, and it was just him in the dark.
Chapter Seven
Mack awoke to an uncomfortable weight on her chest. Heart attack? Had the file cabinets fallen over in the night? She panicked and shifted, and her elbow hit something soft. Something soft that let out a moan.
She jerked away in surprise, and the weight lifted. Connor pulled his arm off her and rubbed his eyes. What the fuck?
She looked wildly around her. She was on the floor, tangled in blankets. Tangled in Connor. Light streamed through the window, a mix of sun and clouds, and she was warm. Warmer than when she’d fallen asleep, curled up on the office couch. Alon
e.
Alone and shivering, the inside of her jeans uncomfortably damp and sticking to her thighs in rebuke.
Connor had taken the blanket and gone to sleep in the bar. She knew he had. She’d sent him there.
So how had they both wound up on the office floor, his arm curled protectively around her, her back against his chest as though it thought that was where she belonged?
She didn’t know whom to blame. He’d obviously come into the office at some point in the night, but she’d clearly been drawn from the couch. By the blanket, she told herself. Not by him.
Either way, it didn’t matter. She had to get out of there before someone came by, saw both their cars, and stopped in to see what was up.
The rain had passed, leaving a sweet, cool gray in its wake. Fog lifted thickly off the mountaintops. The trees were heavy with new green, and flowers seemed to have shot up overnight. It was hard to imagine that something so cleansing had left such destruction in its wake. Everywhere branches were down, and although the power line had been dragged off the road, it was going to take more than a day to clear the debris.
But a crew was busy chopping up the downed tree and she could get out of the parking lot, which was what mattered. She booked it out of there as fast as she could. She didn’t care what Connor was doing—probably looking for his shoes. All she wanted was to get in her car and drive.
To Canada, maybe. Straight up to the North Pole. Somewhere where she’d never have to face Connor—or herself—again.
She didn’t have enough in her checking account for that kind of gas, though, so she settled with going home and taking the hottest shower she could stand, as though she could scrub the mistakes from her skin.
When that proved impossible, she tried to pace the regret away, turning circles in her living room until she was dizzy and bored.
By the afternoon, she had to accept that she was getting nothing done. It had been a tactical imperative for her to exit before anyone could see them there together, her shirt with its missing button, that unmistakable just-fucked look in her hair.
Make Me Beg (The Men of Gold Mountain) Page 4
