by Maisey Yates
“Is this going to be a part of my lesson?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I thought it might be.”
Last night had been incredible. Last night, he had given her something that felt special. Personal. Now she wanted to give him something. To show him what was happening inside of her, because she could hardly bring herself to think it. She wanted... She just wanted. In ways that she hadn’t allowed herself to want in a long time. More. Everything.
“What exactly are you going to teach me?”
“Well, I could teach you all the parts of the tractor engine. But we would be here all night. And it would just slow me down. Someday, we can trade. You can give me some welding secrets. Teach me how to pound steel.”
“That sounds dirty, too.”
“Lucky me,” she said, stretching her arms up over her head, her shirt riding up a little higher. She knew what she wanted to do. But she also felt almost petrified. This was...well, this was the opposite of protecting herself. This was putting herself out there. Risking humiliation. Risking doing something wrong while revealing how desperately she wanted to get it right.
But she wanted to give him something. And honestly, there was no bigger gift she could give him than vulnerability. To show him just how much she wanted him.
She swayed her hips to the right, then moved them back toward the left in a slow circle. She watched his face, watched the tension in his jaw increase, the sharpness in his eyes get positively lethal. And that was all the encouragement she needed. She’d seen enough movies with lap dances that she had a vague idea of how this should go. Maybe her idea was the PG-13-rated version, but she could improvise.
He moved his hand over the outline of his erection, squeezing himself through the denim as she continued to move. Maybe it wasn’t rhinestones and a miniskirt, but he didn’t seem to mind her white tank top and coveralls. He was still watching her with avid interest as she untied the sleeves from around her waist and let the garment drop down around her feet. She kicked it off to the side, revealing her denim cutoff shorts underneath it.
“Come here,” he said, his voice hard.
“I’m not taking orders from you. You have to be patient.”
“I’m not feeling very patient, honey.”
“What’s my name?”
“Anna,” he ground out. “Anna, I’m not feeling very patient.”
“Not enough women have made you wait. You’re getting spoiled.”
She slid her hand up her midsection, her own fingertips combined with the electric look on Chase’s face sending heat skittering along her veins. She let her fingers skim over her breast, gratified when his breath hissed through his teeth.
“Anna...”
“You know me pretty well, don’t you? But you didn’t know all this.” She moved her hand back down, over her stomach, her belly button, sliding her fingers down beneath the waistband of her shorts, stroking herself where she was wet and aching for him. His fingers curled around the edge of the chair, his knuckles white, the cords on his neck standing out, the strength it was taking him to remain seated clear and incredibly compelling.
“Take them off,” he said.
“Didn’t I just tell you that you’re not in charge?”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“Maybe patience is the lesson you need to learn.”
“I damn well don’t,” he growled.
She turned around, facing away from him, taking a deep breath as she unsnapped her shorts and pushed them down her hips, revealing the other purchase she had made at the store yesterday. A black, lacy thong, quite unlike any other pair of underwear she had ever owned. And she had slipped it on this morning hoping that this would be the end of her day.
“Holy hell,” he said.
She knew that she was not the first woman to take her clothes off for him. Much less the first woman to reveal sexy underwear. But that only made his appreciation for hers that much sweeter. She swayed her hips back and forth before dropping down low, and sweeping back up. It felt so cheesy, and at the same time she was pretty proud of herself for pulling it off.
When she turned to face him, his expression was positively feral.
Her shirt was still knotted beneath her breasts, and now she was wearing work boots, a thong and the top. If Chase thought the outfit was a little bit silly, he certainly didn’t show it.
She moved over to the chair, straddling him, leaning in and kissing him on the lips. “I want you,” she said.
She had said it before. But this was more. Deeper. This was the truth. Her truth, the truest thing inside of her. She wanted Chase. In every way. Forever. She swallowed hard, grabbing hold of his T-shirt and tugging it up over his head. She licked her lips, looking at his body, at his chest, speckled with just the right amount of dark hair, at his abs, so perfectly defined and tempting.
She reached between them, undoing his belt and jerking it through the loops, before tugging his pants and underwear down low on his hips. He put his hand on her backside, holding her steady as she maneuvered herself so that she was over him, rubbing up against his arousal. “I would never have considered doing something like this before last week. Not with anyone. It’s just you,” she said, leaning in and kissing his lips lightly. “You do this to me.”
He shuddered beneath her, her words having the exact effect she hoped they would. He liked feeling special, too.
He took hold of her hand, drawing it between them, curving her fingers around him. “And you do this to me. You make me so hard, it hurts. I’ve never wanted a woman like this before. Ever.”
She flexed her hips, squeezed him tighter, trapping him between her palm and the apex of her thighs. “Why? Why do you want me like this?”
It was important to know. Essential.
“Because it’s you, Anna. There’s this idea that having sex with a stranger is supposed to be exciting. Because it’s dirty. Because it’s wrong. Maybe because it’s unknown? But I’ve done that. And this is... You’re right. I know you. Knowing you like this... Your face is so familiar to me, your voice. Knowing what it looks like when I make you come, how you sound when I push you over the edge, baby, there’s nothing hotter than that.”
His words washed over her, everything she had never known she needed. This full, complete acceptance of who she was. Right here in her garage. The mechanic, the woman. The friend, the lover. He wanted her. And everything that meant.
She didn’t even try to keep herself from feeling it now. Didn’t try to keep herself from thinking it.
She loved him. So much. Every part of him, with every part of her. Her friend. The only man she really wanted. The only person she could imagine sharing her days and nights and blankets and musicals with.
And that realization didn’t even make her want to pull away from him. Didn’t make her want to hide. Instead, she wanted to finish this. She wanted to feel connected to him. Now that she was in, she was in all the way. Ready to expose herself completely, scrape herself raw, all for him.
She rose up so that she was on her knees, tugged her panties down her hips and maneuvered herself so that she was able to dispense with them completely before settling over him, grabbing hold of his broad shoulders as she sank down onto his hardened length.
He swore, the harsh word echoing in the empty space. “Anna, I need to get a condom.”
She pulled away from him quickly, hovering over him as he lifted his hips, grabbing his wallet and pulling out a condom with shaking hands, taking care of the practicalities quickly. She was trembling, both with the adrenaline rush that accompanied the stupidity of her mistake and with need. With regret because she wished that he was still inside of her even though it wouldn’t be responsible at all.
Soon, he was guiding her back onto him, having protected them both. Thankfully, he was a little mor
e with it than she was.
He gripped her tightly, guiding her movements at first, helping her establish a rhythm that worked for them both.
He moved his hands around, brushing his fingertips along the seam of her ass before teasing her right where their bodies were joined. She gasped, grabbing hold of the back of the chair, flexing her hips, chasing her own release as he continued to touch her. To push her higher.
She slid her hands up, cupping his face, holding him steady. She met his gaze, a thrill shooting down her spine. “Anna,” he rasped, the words skating over her skin like a caress, touching her everywhere.
Pleasure gripped her, low and tight, sending her over the edge. She held his face as she shuddered out her orgasm and chanted his name, endlessly. Over and over again. And when it was over, he held her to him, kissing her lips, whispering words against her mouth that she could barely understand. She didn’t need to. The only words she understood were the ones she most needed to hear.
“Stay with me tonight.”
Twelve
They dressed and drove across the property in Chase’s truck. His heart was still hammering like crazy, and he had no idea what the hell he was doing. But then, it was Anna. She wasn’t some random hookup. He wanted her again, and having her spend the night seemed like the best way to accomplish that.
He ignored the little terror claws that wrapped themselves around his heart and squeezed, and focused instead on the heavy sensation in his gut. In his dick. He wanted her, and dammit, he was going to have her.
The image of her dancing in front of him in the shop...that would haunt him forever. And it was his goal to collect a few more images that would make his life miserable when their physical relationship ended.
That was normal.
He parked the truck, then got out, following Anna mutely up the steps. When they got to the door, Anna paused.
“I don’t...have anything with me. No porcupine pajamas.”
Some of the tension in his chest eased. “You won’t need pajamas in my bed,” he said, his voice low, almost unrecognizable even to himself.
Which was fair enough, since this whole damn situation was unrecognizable. Saying this kind of stuff to Anna. Seeing her like this. Wanting her like this.
She was a constant. She was stability. And he felt shaky as hell right now.
“I’ve never spent the night with anyone,” she blurted.
The words hit him hard in the chest. Along with the realization that this was a first for him, too. He knew it, logically. But for some reason it hadn’t seemed momentous when he’d issued the invitation. Because it was Anna and sleeping with her had seemed like the most natural thing on earth. He liked talking to her, liked kissing her, liked having sex with her, and he didn’t want her to leave. So the obvious choice was to ask her to stay the night.
Now it was hitting him, though. What that usually meant. Why he didn’t do it.
But it was too late to take the invitation back, and anyway, he didn’t know if he wanted to.
“I haven’t, either,” he said.
She blinked. “You...haven’t? I mean, I had a ten-minute roll in the hay—literally—with a loser in high school, so I know why I’ve never spent the night with anyone. But you...you do this a lot.”
“Are you calling me a slut?”
“Yes,” she said, deadpan. “No judgment, but yeah, you’re kind of slutty.”
“Well, you don’t have to spend the night with someone when you’re done with them. I guess that’s why I haven’t. Because I am kind of slutty, and it has nothing to do with liking the person I’m with. Just...”
Oblivion. The easiest, most painless connection on earth with no risk involved whatsoever.
But he wasn’t going to say that.
Anna wasn’t oblivion. Being with her was like...being inside his own skin, really in it, and feeling it, for the first time since he was sixteen.
Like driving eighty miles per hour on the same winding road that had killed his parents, daring it to come for him, too. He’d felt alive then. Alive and pushing up against the edge of mortality as hard as he could.
Then he’d backed way off the gas. And he’d backed way off ever since.
This was the closest thing to tasting that surge of adrenaline, that rush he’d felt since the day he’d basically begged the road to take him, too.
You’re a head case.
Yes, he was. But he’d always known that. Anna hadn’t, though.
“Just?” she asked, eyebrows shooting up. She wasn’t going to let that go, apparently.
“It’s just sex.”
“And what is this?” she asked, gesturing between the two of them.
“Friendship,” he said honestly. “With some more to it.”
“Those benefits.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Those.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling like he’d just failed at something, and he couldn’t quite figure out what. But his words were flat in the evening air. Just sort of dull and resting between them, wrong and weird, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
Because he didn’t know what else to say, either.
“Want to come inside?” he asked finally.
“That is where your bed is,” she said.
“It is.”
They made their way to the bedroom, and somehow it all felt different. He could easily remember when she’d been up here just last week, walking in those heels and that dress. When he’d been overwhelmed with the need to touch her, but wouldn’t allow himself to do so.
He could also remember being in here with her plenty of times before. Innocuous as sharing the space with any friend.
How? How had they ever existed in silences that weren’t loaded? In moments that weren’t wrapped in tension. In isolation that didn’t present the very tempting possibility of chasing pleasure together. Again and again.
This wasn’t friendship plus benefits. That implied the friendship remained untouched and the benefits were an add-on. Easy to stick there, easy to remove. But that wasn’t the case.
Everything was different. The air around them had changed. How the hell could he pretend the friendship was the same?
“I’m just—” She smiled sheepishly and pulled her shirt up over her head. “Sorry.” Then she unhooked her bra, tossing it onto the floor. He hadn’t had a chance to look at her breasts the last time they’d had sex. She’d kept them covered. Something that had added nicely to the tease back in the shop. But he was ready to drop to his knees and give thanks for their perfection now.
“Why are you apologizing for flashing me?”
“Because. In the absence of pajamas I need to get comfortable now.” She stripped her shorts off, and her underwear—those shocking black panties that he simply hadn’t seen coming, much like the rest of her—and then she flopped down onto his bed. He didn’t often bring women back here.
Sometimes, depending on the circumstances, but if they had a hotel room, or their own place available, that was his preference. So it was a pretty unusual sight in general. A naked woman in his room. Anna, in this familiar place—naked and warm and about as inviting as anything had ever been—was enough to make his head explode.
His head, and other places.
“You never have to apologize for being naked.” He stripped his shirt off, then continued to follow her lead, until he was wearing nothing.
He lay down beside her, not touching her, just looking at her. This was hella weird. If a woman was naked, he was usually having sex with her, bottom line. He didn’t lie next to one, simply looking at her. Right now, Anna was something like art and he just wanted to admire her. Well, that wasn’t all he wanted. But it was what he wanted right now. To watch the soft lamplight cast a warm glow over her curves, to
examine every dip and hollow on the map of her figure. To memorize the rosy color of her nipples, the dark hair at the apex of her thighs. The sweet flare of her hips and the slight roundness of her stomach. She was incredible. She was Anna. Right now, she was his.
That thought made his stomach tighten. How long had it been since something was his?
This place would always be McCormack, through and through. The foundation of the forge and the business...it was built on his great-grandfather’s back, carried down by his grandfather, handed to their father.
And he and Sam carried it now.
This ranch would always be something they were bound to by blood, not by choice. Even if given the choice, he could probably never leave. Their family... It didn’t feel like their family anymore. It hadn’t for a lot of years.
It was two of them, him and Sam. Two of them trying so damn hard to push this legacy back to where it had been. To make their family extend beyond these walls, beyond these borders. To fulfill all of the promises he’d made to his dad, even though the old man had never actually heard them.
Even though Chase had made them too late.
And so there was something about that. Anna, this moment, being for him. Something that he chose, instead of something that he’d inherited.
“I like when you look at me like that,” she said, her voice hushed.
“I like when you take control like you did back in the shop. I like seeing you realize how beautiful you are,” he said. It was true. He was glad that she knew now. And pissed that she was going to take that knowledge and work her magic on some other man with her newfound power. He wanted to kill that man.
But he could never hope to take his place, so he wouldn’t.
“You’re the first person who has made me feel like it all fit. And maybe it’s because you’re my friend. Maybe it’s because you know me,” she said.
“I don’t follow.”
“I had to be tough,” she said, her tone demonstrating just that. “All my life I’ve had to be tough. My brothers raised me, and they did a damn good job, and I know you think they’re jerks, and honestly a lot of the time they are. But they were young boys who were put in charge of taking care of their kid sister. So they took care of me, but they tortured me in that way only brothers can. Probably because I tortured them in ways that most little sisters could never dream. They didn’t go out in high school. They had to make sure I was taken care of. They didn’t trust my dad to do it. He wasn’t stable enough. He would go out to the bar and get drunk, and he would call needing a ride home. They handled things so that I didn’t have to. And I never felt like I could make their lives more difficult by showing how hard it was for me.”
