by Eden Connor
Colton was moving now, pulling her away from Eric, hugging her fiercely, but seeming to get that this wasn't the time for declarations. "Let us get this done before it rains, Delilah." He kissed her, just a touch of his lips to hers, the look in his eyes tender now as he tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "Then, we'll talk. We'll talk all night if you want. Jonah needs some quality time with his uncles anyway."
Her world went a little sideways as his arm suddenly went under her knees, lifting her into his arms. He made the few steps to the back of Eric's truck and sat her down. His thumb brushed away the tears she hadn't known had fallen.
While she sat there debating, because it felt as if there was still something wrong about taking their help, Daniel rose to his feet, his handsome face solemn. Picking up his shirt off the rail, he pulled it over his head then began tucking it into his dark green work pants. A small gesture, made large by the sweltering late-afternoon heat and the pressing humidity from the brewing thunderstorm. Silently, Eric poured out his beer and put away the cooler, tossing Colton his shirt off the side of the truck before jerking his own over his head.
She nodded, too choked up to speak, as Jonah knelt by her side while Colton shrugged his t-shirt on. The kiss Jonah pressed to her cheek was as awkward as it was sweet.
She kept her vigil, her arm around Jonah, from the tailgate of Eric's truck, tears softening her vision as she watched the De Marco clan dismantle Pete's bridge to the world.
* * * *
Lila turned her attention to dinner preparations after she signed the real estate listing contract, pleased to have finally taken the step she'd so often contemplated in the last couple of months. She eyed the recipe for peach cobbler as she peeled and sliced the fresh peaches from the flea market. She followed the recipe carefully and placed the dessert in the oven to bake, double checking the freezer to be sure she had ice cream, smiling as she listened to the sound of the power washer scouring the mildew off the steps that had been hidden from the sun for so long.
Just as she got the table set, hungry males tromped in through the back door, each one careful, she noted with amazement, to wipe their feet before stepping onto her kitchen floor.
Her eat-in kitchen wasn't a small room, but it seemed to shrink from all the massive bodies hovering. "Sit down," she begged. "It's ready and you're underfoot." She enlisted Jonah's aid to fill the glasses with ice and place them on the table, noting he immediately filled his own with sweet tea, no longer bothering to whine for soda.
* * * *
Colton tried to enjoy the meal. It was delicious, he was sure, but thoughts about the check in his pocket prevented him from appreciating it as Jonah and his brothers were doing. He wanted to wring her pretty neck as badly as he wanted to kiss it. And, he had no idea what she'd say when she heard about the fight, much less what he'd said to her realtor.
Mostly, he disliked the fact she felt she needed to pay him back. Even the meal was a sort of payback.
Why was she so damn independent? He stewed as he ate, noting the amused glances he kept getting from Eric, as well as the confused ones Lila sent him.
Even the hot, homemade peach cobbler and ice cream didn't soothe him, but it had Eric and Dan groaning as Lila set the bowls before them, though he noted they didn't turn the dessert down.
"How are we supposed to stay awake in the movie now?" Eric demanded, mentioning the plan Jonah hatched after hearing he was spending the night with E. "Come on, squirt, let me and your poor Uncle Dan off the hook tonight. We'll go to the movies tomorrow afternoon. I'm so full I'm going to fall asleep the minute the lights go down."
"No way," Jonah said, his face falling as he tried to decide if Eric was serious. "You both promised." He looked anxiously from Eric to Dan.
"You're going to the movie, Jonah," Colton assured him with a speaking look to Daniel and E. "Just elbow them if they start to snore. Whatever they miss, they can see later on DVD."
The brothers thanked her profusely for the meal. She gave them a wistful smile and thanked them for their help with the ramp, then said, "In all the years I was part of the Walker clan, I never got to establish my own family traditions, and everyone went out of their way to let me know I could do cleanup instead of making a dish to bring. If you guys are brave enough to eat my cooking on a regular basis, maybe we can do this more often?"
All three brothers stared at her, then each other. Hell, they didn't have any family traditions, certainly none centering around a woman who wanted to feed all of them on a regular basis. The woman who should have done that walked away without a backward glance, and their sister, stuck with the chore as the only female in the household, had followed on her heels as soon as possible. Their idea of Christmas dinner was throwing steak on the grill together.
Colton felt his anger shrivel to nothing as he saw the stunned looks on his brothers' faces. "I doubt you could keep them away, Lila."
"Well, I damn sure ain't coming back," Daniel said calmly. "Not if you really expect us to deposit your check, Lila." Colton took the cue and began his objections about her payment.
Eric started laughing. "Just shut up and somebody tear the thing in half. I'll play guinea pig any time you want, Lila. You're a good cook in my book. And for the record, none of us had a problem with what Colton did to your truck on the company time and dime, if that's what you were thinking."
"I just didn't want to be a problem," she explained. "I'm an only child, so I was kind of surprised by some of the ways family fights got started with the Walkers. Taking something for free was a great way to go through some real misery after the fact. Half the time, paying was just as bad. It's important to me not to cause a problem between you three."
"All we had growing up was each other, Lila," Colton added, truly touched she'd been worried about coming between him and his brothers and not trying to prove her independence, as he'd feared. He didn't miss the olive branch Eric had extended, or the way she'd accepted it. "Something like that isn't going to come between us." Bolder now, he added, "They'd never have a problem with me taking care of my woman." He sighed. "But you might have a problem when you hear about the way I punched out a visitor you had today."
"That insufferable bastard," Lila cried, her blue eyes flashing angrily when Colton finished the tale about Van Westbrook and his damn roses. "I tried to get his advice on how to invest the insurance money, and he dragged me off to lunch under the pretense of talking investments, when all he really did was look down my shirt while he asked me to play golf."
Colton grinned at the way she said "golf," using a tone he'd have reserved for crotch crickets. Van and his red roses knew nothing about the woman he loved.
"I helped," Eric added. "I put his roses in the trash after I put him in his car."
"Movie," Jonah reminded his uncles, oblivious to the undercurrents in the room. "Starts in twenty minutes. Can we go now?" Before Colton could reprimand him, he added, "Sure was good, Lila, thanks. Let's go, huh?"
"We got cleanup next time, Lila," Daniel assured her gruffly as the three of them stood to leave.
"I thought that was what kids were for," Lila said with a wink to Jonah to soften the blow, earning a big laugh from all three brothers at the way their nephew turned in his tracks to see if she was kidding. Colton couldn't swallow his last bite when he saw the kid throw his arms around her. Lila returned the fierce hug, and she kissed the top of his head.
"If I got to sit through this movie instead of finishing off that cobbler, he gets my turn too," Eric taunted, ruffling Jonah's hair when Lila let him go. E looked at Colton hopefully. "Don't suppose you're planning on saving us any leftover cobbler?"
"Not a chance, bro," Colton shot back triumphantly as he stood to start clearing the table. "I plan to have the rest of it for breakfast." Hopefully, in bed with Lila.
"Let's take it to your house, then," Lila said as the door closed behind them. Thunder rolled as the first drops of rain began to strike the window behind her kitchen table. "It's suppos
ed to rain all day tomorrow, too. I was thinking how nice it would be to read on your patio or maybe set up a jigsaw puzzle the three of us could do, since my usual Sunday activity will be a rainout."
She was taking that last step, he realized joyously, volunteering to stay overnight and hang around when Jonah was home, the final "outing" of their relationship she'd avoided. He decided to push his luck, and to stall having to tell her about what he'd said to the realtor. "I'll clean up the kitchen. You get stuff together for two nights, stuff you can leave at my place. I'll bring you back Monday morning."
"Okay," she agreed, making his heart rush like the wind shoving her camellia bushes around. "By the way, I saw a used truck I want to drive, would you look at it with me tomorrow?"
Chapter Thirty
She didn't look like Pete Walker's widow now, Colton thought as he pushed the slipknot tight on the tie he only wore to weddings and funerals. Not with her hair spilling over his pillow and her body spread for his pleasure. And judging from her smirk, she must still think she was in charge, even with every limb tied. But she'd agreed to this, and before he untied her, he'd have answers to some of the things bugging him.
He tugged his shirt over his head. "You never planned to buy that new truck, did you, Delilah?"
"The way I treat a truck?" she asked, breaking into the sunny smile that melted him.
Colton balled up the shirt, firing it toward his closet, amazed at how calmly she admitted playing him. "So, you think you can get around me so easy? Baby, by the time I let you come, you'll understand not to play me that way." He undid his jeans, trying not to smile back at her.
* * * *
Delilah wasn't scared. She'd agreed to this, her "punishment" for the little trick with the new car salesman, one he'd suggested she deserved as they'd walked up the steps to his house. This was something Lila had never experienced, but Delilah was game. Besides, she knew this had everything to do with male pride at being outsmarted.
She watched as he stripped off his clothes at the foot of the bed. The act of being tied had made her wet and his eyes were fastened to her bare, slick pussy. He'd let her come, she decided. He liked tasting her too much. To encourage him, she pushed her hips off the mattress. She was so aroused by being tied and helpless for him, all she needed was just a bit of attention there from his talented tongue.
His smile was predatory. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you've manipulated men all your life, Delilah. You use those pretty blue eyes and those incredible tits along with that quick mind of yours, and you always get your way."
She still wasn't worried. And she didn't bother to deny his observations. He didn't know some important instances where she'd failed and neither cunning nor logic had worked. But thoughts of those failures were far from her mind as he placed his knee on the mattress between her parted thighs.
His lips whispered across her calf, then her thigh, and to taunt her, he kissed the top of her mound, working his way slowly up her body. He thoroughly tasted her belly button, the soft pressure sending tendrils of pleasure curling into her womb. His rigid shaft brushed her mound as he dropped his head to one hardened nipple. Lapping and suckling each in turn until they became aching swords, she thought he'd surely break down and fuck her, but the more she strained toward his cock, the less he allowed the monster to touch her. Her pussy clenched and unclenched while his fingers traced wicked patterns over her straining mound and dripping folds, but he never put them where she needed them to be.
The hot, hard length of his shaft along her thigh taunted her. God, how she wanted him inside her. Her pussy bench-pressed air.
Okay, she might be in trouble, she thought as she panted, moaning as he turned from suckling to teething. She strained to press her thighs together, even though she knew that was useless. So was pressing her pussy toward his hand. His head rose, tugging her nipple with it for a moment before he stared into her eyes.
She'd never seen his eyes turn quite this shade of green. His handsome face wore an expression she found indecipherable as he studied her.
Caught in his gaze, she didn't see his hand as it descended. Three sharp caresses to her mound tripled her need in a most shocking manner. Her body bowed toward the high ceiling. "That's for thinking you had to pay me back for the work I did on your truck," he informed her.
Her mouth rounded as she tried to think how to best explain again why she had to pay him back, but her deliciously abused clit screamed it wasn't important. She needed to be saying other things, like begging him to give her some relief. "I thought you understood," she managed.
"Just making sure you understand you're mine to take care of, Delilah." Three more hot caresses between her open thighs punctuated his assertion. "Say you understand, baby."
The monster was digging into her hip now, wanting her as badly as she wanted the monster. He'd give in soon and make them both happy, she figured. She shook her head as she arched her back. "Fuck me." Her words were a challenge.
Colton rolled away from her and she heard the slide of a drawer. He turned back and she could only stare in shock as he basted the valley between her breasts with silky lubricant, which he next applied generously to his shaft. Watching the motion of his hand twist around the top third of his cock only increased her need. The intimacy of watching while he jacked himself, knowing she couldn't help or touch her own sex in response, was marvelous torture. She could only look up at him as he straddled her and positioned his throbbing cock between her breasts.
"This isn't fair," Lila cried as he began to fuck her breasts. He was going to come, and leave her needy, giving him more time to use her body against her. She could see the intent in his eyes. She struggled with her bonds as he chuckled, his hips pistoning back and forth.
"All's fair in love and war, sweetheart," he crooned as he pumped his cock between her breasts. "And when it comes to getting your way, apparently. You don't like it when I pay attention, baby?"
"Pay attention to your cock, Colton. You know my hot pussy would feel a lot better than what you're giving it now," she suggested. "Think about it. I'm so wet. Wouldn't you rather be inside me?"
"Not in charge right now, Delilah," he reminded her, letting one breast go as he reached back to punish her pussy again with the flat of his hand.
It was starting to scare her how much her body responded to that hard touch. Her clit was demanding she tell him whatever he needed to hear. Her juices trickled between her ass cheeks in a hot reminder she was helpless beneath him, not an equal in this situation. Need made her wriggle like a worm in hot ashes, but her movements did nothing for her and he seemed to enjoy them far too much.
He smiled down at her, still easing his cock in the channel between her breasts. "What's wrong, baby, you think I'm going to take care of my own needs first?"
"Looks that way," she managed to say.
Still, she got to look at him while he stroked his cock between her breasts, reminding her of their first time, while her untended clit sent out desperate signals for attention, but he surprised her by reaching back to drag a finger through her drenched slit. Her channel ached for him.
"I tried to take care of one of your needs, Delilah, but you wouldn't let me. So I figure we need to work on your trust issues." He removed his finger from her pussy, dragging more of her juices to her anus, circling the tight knot as he spoke.
Her eyes flew to his face instead of the monster right in front of her, a sight she truly loved. She grew even wetter as his wandering finger pressed against her pucker. "Please, yes. I want you there."
He sighed, staring at her. "First, you want to have sex without a condom. Now, you want anal sex. Do I need to explain to you that after this, I'm pretty much going to figure you belong to me in every way a woman can belong to a man?"
She laughed softly. "And they say doctors knock the penises off all the smart ones at birth."
* * * *
Her smile took his breath every bit as much as the eager way she responded to his t
ouch. Returning to her breasts, he labored to dress her in pearls, crying out her name as the pleasure blinded him to everything but the soft feel of his Delilah.
When he slid inside her last unconquered place, the sensation was fucking incredible. Her ass was so tight it felt like they were the same being. Somehow, he managed to hold on long enough for her to go over the edge before he allowed himself to give in to his own desperate need to come a second time.
After the most intense orgasm of his life and one that made her pass out in his arms, why was she sobbing as she came back to herself? He held her as tightly as he could and hoped like hell he hadn't fucked up forever as he tugged the ties loose, praying her tears were from ecstasy; terrified they weren't.
"I've got you, Delilah. I'm right here, sweetheart. Tell me you're not hurt." And because she didn't stop crying, he said the words he'd tried to hold back, because he needed her to know he'd never hurt her on purpose. "God, Delilah, I love you so much, please don't cry. Did I hurt you?"
But she'd been right there with him, he thought in despair. Surely he hadn't mistaken cries of pain for pleasure?
"Not yet," she struggled to say.
Huh?
He managed to tilt her face up so he could see her. "Talk to me, Lila. I don't understand, sweetheart. Are you in physical pain?"
"Nn-nn-oo-o," she managed to hitch out. "B-b-but we need to talk."
Those four words chilled his soul, especially paired with the look in her eyes. "Can I run us a bath first?" he asked, determined not to panic. She nodded and he wasted no time getting the water running before scooping her out of the bed and settling into the warm water with her. He washed her as gently as he knew how while he watched her try to steel herself for whatever it was she had to say.
Because, God damn it, she wasn't walking out on him without him making it as hard as possible for her, and this felt an awful lot like good-bye. Some-fucking-how, he'd let the caveman mess this up. Damn it. His hopes seemed to go down the drain along with the bathwater.
