He was standing before her. She could tell because when she tilted her head forward, trying to orient herself in the darkness, her cheek grazed the front of his jeans. She felt flames shooting up inside her, her body ready to combust.
His thumb traced her lower lip, and she flicked her tongue over it. When he stuck it in her mouth, she sucked.
“You’ll take anything in your mouth,” he said, standing over her like the dirty bastard he was.
She responded by biting down. He laughed and ran the wet thumb over her lips. “Are you going to behave?”
“That’s a risk for you, isn’t it?” She licked her lips and then bit the bottom one, tugging slightly, reminding him that she still had some power.
She heard the rustle of fabric, pictured him with his hand on his cock and wished she could see it, touch it, be the one pumping it thick and hard and drawing it into her mouth. She squirmed, trying to get her hands free.
“Look at you, kneeling there waiting for me to give you more to put in your mouth.”
“I’m kneeling here because you made me.”
“I don’t make you do anything you’re not dying for. Tell me you want it.” His voice shifted, a low edge. “I’m not going to give you anything you don’t want.”
It didn’t take much for her to cave. “Let me taste you. Let me suck you. Let me swallow everything you give.”
That must have been more than he’d been bargaining for, because he groaned loud enough that Mack, not for the first time, hoped there weren’t any hikers about.
“Say please,” he choked, like he could barely get out the words, and Mack felt the heat rush to her face—this time not in lust but in rage. How dare he make her beg.
But she did it. She sat there on her knees and she begged for him on her tongue. She said please, she said Connor, she said put your cock in my mouth and she wasn’t buzzed and it wasn’t late and she wasn’t stuck anywhere and she had no excuse and that was the point, wasn’t it? That was what he wanted from her. No pretext, just the obvious evidence that she desperately wanted to blow him.
That arrogant prick.
Except it worked. She did want to blow him. To suck him and tease him and taste him and fuck him, oh God, to fuck him. Again.
Not when she’d looked at his profile online, not when she heard his stories of the women he’d bagged, saw the grins he flashed to Austin when he didn’t need to put his debauchery in words, not ever in the whole time she’d known him had she considered that he was this filthy.
Or his cock this thick, this perfect, this silky soft along the head, running across her lips, skimming her tongue, pushing all the way in.
She didn’t have her hands to act as a guide, to stroke him while she worked the tip or hold him off and stop him from going too deep. She was completely at his mercy as she opened her mouth and his hips pressed toward her and then away, moving the length of him up and down her tongue.
Or maybe he was at her mercy, because he could barely control his breathing. It was coming low and jagged the deeper he pushed, and when her tongue swirled the head before plunging him back to her throat she stopped keeping track of who owed whom, because quite honestly the thinking part of her brain wasn’t quite working anymore.
He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling her tighter to him. Somehow he knew she liked it like this. Maybe it was the way they talked to each other, egging each other on, that let him know he could go hard, that she could take it. Maybe it was her, the way she worked her mouth over him, and he didn’t have a choice.
He pulled out, quick, panting, and she wondered what was happening, but then she knew—he was standing over her, lowering himself to her tongue, and she licked his tightening balls while the jerking against her told her he was stroking himself as she made good on the insistence that she take everything into her mouth like a good girl, like a bad girl, like whoever the hell she was when she was blindfolded and tied up on her knees out in public by a lake sucking him off and getting so wet she was going to have to go home commando.
Connor repositioned her head, slid his cock back into her mouth, and she worked her tongue until she felt him tensing, his hands pulling tight on her hair. And then he groaned, the best fucking sound in the world, as he filled her and filled her and filled her. He was still hard as steel when he pulled out of her mouth, sliding the smooth tip over her lips as she licked him clean, and she wished she could have seen him, the look on his face when he came. She hadn’t seen it last time, either.
The realization that there was a this time and a last time and that she couldn’t see him, she couldn’t tell, she didn’t know what the hell was going on, filled her with a sudden panic, an oh shit rising within. She twisted against her constraints, feeling locked in, feeling like she’d never get out of this, she’d never be free.
She realized she was talking, she was saying, “Take it off, take it off.” And he must have understood this was different, this wasn’t playing anymore, because he did, quickly, tugging off the blindfold and releasing the ties around her hands.
He stood back as she scrambled to her feet, squinting in the sudden brightness. But she was still herself, and he was still Connor, they were by the lake, the light was beginning to dip behind a few clouds streaky across the sky, and nothing had changed. Nothing was going to change.
She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t knowingly fling herself headfirst into this disaster. She couldn’t be this person, whoever she was, who could simply act out whatever he wanted when it was convenient for him.
“Are you okay?” His eyes ran over her face, but she couldn’t look at him. She still tasted him in her mouth, felt the phantom pressure of his hands in her hair.
She flexed her wrists, circled them around, tried to reorient herself to where she had been this whole time.
They were on a checked picnic blanket by the water’s edge. She’d had her right side to the lake, the path back to the parking lot snaking up to her left, mountains in a panorama behind the water. There were tall grasses and wildflowers and the dark outlines of trees. On the picnic blanket were the containers of food he’d brought before she arrived. It looked the same as how she’d pictured it in her head. But different, because it was real.
“That was incredible,” Connor said. He reached a hand around her waist, drawing her near. One touch and he’d feel how soaked she was, wetter than she’d ever been. Wet enough that she could feel it through her underwear, her jeans.
Wet enough that his fingers would slide in so smoothly, her body opening as he brought her to orgasm after orgasm with his fingers, his tongue. His cock when he was ready again.
And that was fine for a fantasy, the kind of thing she’d replay in the dark of night, wanting it to come true.
But in reality, she was wet enough that she felt it with every step as she ran up the path to the parking lot, leaving him behind as he called to her, following. But she was faster, she was in her car first, she was pulling away while he was yanking out his phone, calling her until she turned the sound off.
She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t be this, and he had to understand that they were done.
Chapter Ten
Connor stayed by the lake until the sky was streaked with orange and the water polished to a glassy shine. Then he packed up the remains of the meal and carried everything back to his car. He’d tried to get in touch with Mack, leaving her voicemails and texts, but the only response he got was one line telling him she was fine. He just wanted her to know he was sorry. For whatever he’d done.
He’d thought she’d been as into it as he had. He’d heard her panting, seen her back arch, her lips part. He’d felt the heat between her legs and wanted nothing more than to spread her across the picnic blanket and lick her senseless until any poor saps out in the woods could hear her crying his name.
What had changed? It was as if a door had closed, something sliding over her face until her features were different, flat and unyielding, giving no
thing away. Allowing nothing in.
And him completely misreading whatever was happening, becoming the asshole who didn’t know a thing.
He went home and cleaned up the mess he’d created in the kitchen. He thought about calling Austin and Sam and taking them some of the leftovers, but he wasn’t sure how he’d explain all the food. He had a great concept for the new restaurant, Mack had liked what she tried, and no, they weren’t any closer to an agreement. She was still moody, mouthy, and confusing as hell. And she still thought he was an ass. How did he know? They’d have to trust him on that.
When his dad called that night, he thought about not picking up. It wasn’t like he had any updates.
But this was his father’s money he was spending on the restaurant. If he wanted to prove he was worth the cost, he could start by not running away.
He tried to sound upbeat when he answered, but his dad barely said hello before getting down to the real reason he was calling.
“What’s happening with my investment?” he said.
“Demolition started on the Dipper, and we’re putting together the blueprints for the new place,” Connor said, stretching the truth as much as he thought he could get away with.
“Then you’ve established what the new place will be?” his dad asked.
“We’re…in progress.”
He could hear the agitation in his father’s voice when he demanded to know what that meant.
“Mack and I are ironing out the details,” Connor said.
It was sort of true. It could be true. At some point in the not-so-distant future he hoped it would be true. Before their time ran out.
“Mack,” his father said, as though trying out a word in a foreign language he’d never heard spoken before. “Don’t know what kind of name that is.”
“It’s short for Mackenzie.”
“How peculiar,” he said. “And she’s the one supporting you?”
“We’re partners, Dad.”
His father grunted. “I’m not sure I like you having to answer to this girl.”
Connor gripped the phone. The alternative was chucking it across the room. Not that the word “partners” didn’t stick in his throat like glass. But there were limits to what he would put up with.
“First, she’s not a ‘girl.’ And second, I’m not ‘answering’ to her. I told you—Kane Enterprises solicited both of us to invest in a new concept after sales at the existing restaurant have been down. We’re turning it around, but the process takes time.”
Time that they didn’t have, but he didn’t need to get into all that.
“As long as she’s not holding you back,” his dad said gruffly. “When you came to me, you told me you had an airtight plan. Only now you’re giving me vague answers. Is there something going on?”
“No,” Connor said quickly. “Everything’s fine.”
He couldn’t think of any two words that were less believable. His brother had always been the one who could read him like an open book. But even his father could guess by his voice alone that there were things he wasn’t saying.
But what was Connor supposed to do—tell his dad that yeah, actually, he’d just blindfolded Mack and tied her up and had her suck him off outside, in public, beside a gorgeous, glittering lake, which was great for him but maybe not so great for their business plan?
It didn’t have to be a big deal, he reminded himself. It was like Mack said about the night at the bar. It was just sex. They were stressed out and blowing off steam. It didn’t change anything about what he had to do.
“I promise, I won’t let you down,” Connor said. But his dad cleared his throat, and he knew a lecture was coming.
“When you asked me for that money, I admit I had my doubts. But your mother and I were hopeful that you were finally ready to make use of your talents and not squander the opportunities you’ve been given.” He paused, the silence reminding Connor that yes, they’d paid for his entire education and he’d done what with it, exactly?
“We’ve decided, however, that if this investment doesn’t work out, we’re not bailing you out again. Your brother mentioned needing more help on the farm. If the restaurant closes and you need a job, I trust you’ll make yourself available to help Matthew with whatever he requires.”
At one point, moving on from Gold Mountain and going to live with Matthew for a while would have seemed like the perfect idea. But they weren’t kids anymore, snowboarding and hopping from hot tub to hot tub, thinking their futures were wide open. It had been clear for a long time that Connor was no longer the example, the son his dad bragged about to clients, the one always making them proud. The thought of leaving Gold Mountain a failure and having his little brother take him in made his throat burn.
He had to make this work. It didn’t mean he owed Mack anything. It didn’t mean he couldn’t do whatever he wanted once the restaurant had become a success. It wasn’t like he had to feel tied down.
But thinking about being tied down made him think of…other things. As soon as he got off the phone, he picked up his notebook to go through his recipes before his mind wandered down that path again. Only it was hard to concentrate when his body had its own ideas about how he should be spending his night.
He wasn’t going to listen, though. He was going to make his restaurant work, no matter what Mack said.
Chapter Eleven
It was just a blow job. That’s what Mack kept telling herself. Just a little on-your-knees quickie. Happened all the time.
Okay, maybe not all the time, especially in Mack’s world. But it wasn’t like she lived under a rock. She was a bartender. Billy’s had been a touch, well, seedy. She was more familiar than she wanted to be with heading into the back room, the bathroom, the alley behind the bar, and walking in on couples in that exact position. Usually not blindfolded and bound, but not everyone had it so good.
The reminder of what she’d done made her squirm. Had he planned that part of their afternoon, too? Or had it simply happened? One time at the bar could be forgiven. But twice? And at the lake? Why couldn’t he have sat her down at a table like a normal colleague, so they could snipe at each other as usual?
He was the one who’d whipped out his dick like there was anything remotely appropriate about inserting a little BJ action into an otherwise professional conversation about the menu.
Except that no matter how badly she wanted to convince herself that was what happened, she had to admit it wasn’t true. She’d wanted it. Hell, she’d gotten on her knees and begged.
If only it had been anyone but him. That was probably why he’d blindfolded her in the first place—so she’d forget who she was dealing with and be more willing to go along. With the food, the sex, whatever it was he was looking for. Well, she wasn’t going to forget anymore.
She reached for her phone on her nightstand and went to the first number in her favorites. Not because Connor was her favorite person. It was simply the most convenient place to store his number, since, as the person she worked with so closely, he was the one she called most.
Other people had those spots reserved for family, the numbers for Mom, Dad, their cell numbers, work numbers, their childhood home, a neat little bow tying everyone together. There wasn’t anyone from her foster homes Mack felt the need to keep in touch with. After Billy passed away and she left Portland, she’d finally deleted his number from her phone. Todd she called sometimes, but it was hard. They caught up when they could, but he’d never been that chatty—more of a card-on-your-birthday kind of guy, and she appreciated that plenty. She really did.
“Mack?” Connor said, his voice sticky with sleep. “Is everything okay?”
Mack looked at the clock and groaned. Calling someone this close to midnight wasn’t a great start to the “Let’s keep things professional between us” conversation they needed to have.
“Shit, you were asleep. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.” She pictured him sitting up, rubbing his eyes, running
a hand through his hair—
Stop it!
“What time is it?” Connor asked.
“Eleven thirty.”
“I guess I was tired.”
“Yeah, well. You did a lot of work today.” Realizing how that sounded, she quickly added, “We don’t have to talk now, I just—I’m sorry about running off. That was…weird.”
Wait, that wasn’t what she’d meant to say. She was supposed to be calling to tell him in no uncertain terms that whatever was happening between them wasn’t. Not anymore, not ever again.
“No,” he said quickly. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong, but I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.”
“You were upset, though. I thought about swinging by but I figured you wanted some space.”
“It was…” She tried to figure out what to say that gave enough but not too much. She settled for “complicated.” He didn’t need to know that she never let anyone do that to her. When she was seven she stayed with a family that had three brothers who locked her in the closet. For six hours. In the dark.
She’d peed her pants, which made the parents yell at her, demanding to know what she’d done, like it was her fault the boys had been mad there was another kid cutting into their slice of the pie.
So she wasn’t big on darkness. Or small spaces. Or being in any kind of position where she couldn’t protect herself if needed. That she was short made self-defense that much more important. Elbows, knees—she wasn’t above fighting dirty. Whatever it took, and sometimes it took a lot.
So the fact that she’d willingly closed her eyes to him, opened her mouth for him… It raised a panic in her that had nothing to do with logic. But it wasn’t the kind of thing you could easily raise. Hey, you know how you talk about your brother and your dad and I talk about absolutely no one? Well, here’s the thing…
“We can’t do this,” she said forcefully, getting the words out. Stopping herself from saying something she might regret.
“Okay,” Connor said.
Make Me Beg (The Men of Gold Mountain) Page 7
