Rapid Pulse: A Limited Edition Spicy Romance Collection

by Gina Kincade

  Wendy moved Maggie’s feet a bit wider and squatted her hips a little to shift her balance. She then began moving the Cat in her hand, tracing through where the motion should be traveling. It was not at all what Maggie had tried to do. They went through the motions several times like that before Wendy stepped back and let Maggie try alone.

  “Curl more than push. That’s better. Throwing is physics and you can add energy or take energy away by the way you do it.”

  As Wendy watched, she corrected or adjusted the movements as Maggie repeated the steps she had shown her.

  “Nope, nope nope...don’t flick. Curl and pull. Flick has a hard stop. You can’t follow through. Try again.

  Better. You moved your feet. Check your stance. There you go.”

  Bit by bit the movement adjusted and got more comfortable as it was corrected. It was likely less than an hour, but it was immense. Surprisingly, nothing hurt when they stopped. Maggie beamed.

  “Thank you! I can’t believe the difference in how that feels.”

  Wendy was smiling. “Trust me; your partner won’t believe the difference in how that feels either. It’s easy to fall into bad habits and that’s how people get hurt.”

  She motioned the wall. “We need to wrap up. Someone is waiting for the room. Why don’t we try for the long tail room next Sunday early...but ONLY if you practice before.”

  Maggie had nearly jumped to say yes before Wendy had added the caveat of the practicing part. She would find a way to practice.

  “I’ll practice. Promise.”

  “Good. One or two o’clock is usually quiet. I’ll be here. Ask at the bar if you don’t see me.”

  She had rekeyed the panel and code as she spoke. The couple waiting gave Maggie a curious stare after giving Wendy a peck on the cheek. Wendy turned to head up the hallway, Maggie headed for the drape.

  “See you then.”

  “Yes ma’am. See you then.” Maggie replied with a broad grin.

  Cutting across the main room, she was oblivious to everyone around her. Maggie made a beeline for the door anxious to work some more at home. Two steps onto the sidewalk she heard her name. She knew without turning who it was but turned anyway.

  “Thorne, I didn’t see you.”

  He was holding his emotions in tight check leaving a blank look on his face as he spoke.

  “I’d wager you’d not have seen an elephant in the room for how fast you were moving, Are you okay?”

  “I’m perfect.” She put on her best smile. “Just something I need to get to.”

  He didn’t flinch sizing her up as they stood on the cement.

  “Okay. Don’t let me keep you then.”

  Maggie dipped in, pecked his cheek and was off again at nearly the same clip, though she pulled back a little. “Thanks, I’ll call you soon.”

  Maggie didn’t look back to know if he’d watched her go or returned to the club. She was on a mission.

  ‘Love is a battlefield...’

  Maggie worked through the evening and next day before work on curling instead of flicking the Cat, pulling back to get the snap and continue the motion for the next throw. The difference was dramatic. Her shoulder and wrist weren’t tight and throbbing the way they had been the first night for one thing. It was hard to believe it hadn’t been longer in between.

  It was her second to last shift at Wenstry’s and her final Monday. Walking in she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Clearing the archway to the storefront from the back she nearly jumped out of her skin at the loud,

  “SURPRISE!”

  Everyone was in for a change. She wondered where they’d stashed the trucks. Cake and cards, small gifts and flowers, it was a sweet sendoff. The afternoon was a blur. Before she was left alone, Phil pulled her aside and let her know that she was always welcome back. Her notice had been appreciated and while she’d be paid for Saturday too, she was free to take it off. Maggie didn’t hesitate to accept. All she had to do was put her keys in a drop bag down the chute after she closed or bring them by tomorrow. He handed her one final envelope with her last check and it was over but the closing.

  Thankful she had driven, Maggie pulled away from Wenstry’s for the last time as an employee with a full back seat. One more item on the list checked off. She debated a night out to celebrate, but knew she needed to be on the road and at the casino early for rehearsal. She went home.

  She was again practicing when the buzzer sounded. The peep hole revealed broad shoulders under a well cut suit coat, Thorne. She put the Cat on the shelf before answering the door in a ratty t-shirt and cut offs.

  “Well good evening. I’m surprised to see you. Come in.”

  He was all business. “Are you really surprised? The way you were all but running out when I saw you yesterday, I thought I should check on you when you didn’t return my call.”

  Maggie looked at the blinking machine. “I hadn’t realized you called.”

  Still business. “You really need to check that thing more often. Someone might think you were dead.”

  Maggie scoffed. “No one is that interested in me or my life.”

  He scowled. “I guess that makes me no one. Thanks for clarifying.”

  She sighed and debated if damage control was needed.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He tried to brush it off like a piece of offensive lint from his precious suit. He failed.

  “I was not prepared to see you alone at The Brickhouse. I absolutely was not prepared to see you all but running from it. I was worried. I don’t like having to worry like that. Then, you didn’t call.”

  Maggie gave him her eye-roll face without the actual eye-roll.

  “Don’t then. I may be new to it. That doesn’t make me unable to handle it.”

  Mr. Serious was back. “Margaret, you are playing in a dangerous world. You could so easily get hurt.”

  Unsure why, Maggie was mad and launched. “Thorne just get the fuck over yourself already.” His eyes flew wide at her opening volley. She wasn’t done. “Yes, it’s dangerous. So is walking down the street, or driving over train tracks. God...so is plowing a damn field with no one else around you. People actually die doing those things but no one tells them to stop, tells them that it’s dangerous. Everything is dangerous but we still live, we still go on, we still try. You’ve met me, did you honestly think I was going to ask, hope or allow someone to coddle me and kid-glove my exposure every single time I ventured out? That’s not going to happen. It’s not the life I want.”

  His eyes were back to normal. He hadn’t actually blanched, but he was not taking her outburst well either. He had fisted his hands more than once during her diatribe.

  “You are naïve. You have no idea what this world you’re venturing into is like. Not every player is what they claim.”

  Maggie was shaking.

  “And somehow in the rest of the world they are? Good God Thorne, are you fucking delusional? I walk into this world of yours expecting the deception, expecting the subterfuge. It’s called being a realist, being aware. Just because I don’t wear my distrust across my forehead or like an apron doesn’t make me naïve. It makes me aware but smart enough not to tip my hand to the room. It’s a lifestyle sure, but before that it’s a game and everyone has to learn the players. I’m not content to read the card that says Colonel Mustard did it in the library with the candlestick anymore. Damn! Give me a little fucking credit. Can you manage that much?”

  He paced to the slider and back obviously counting as he moved.

  “Margaret, you make me crazy. I can and do, control everything and everyone around me, but not you...no, not you. You do exactly the opposite of what I expect. Every time I think I have an idea of who you are and what you want, you change on me. The idea of collaring and taming you keeps me awake at night. I want to see you blossom and yet doing so in any way other than at my bidding just might kill me to watch. You turn me inside out without even trying. Do you know how insane that is? Do you know how
insane it makes me?”

  Maggie didn’t mean to laugh. It slipped out as a hard, “Ha!”

  “You want to be there, but you don’t want to be for what I want. Guess we both lose. Sounds a lot like a catch twenty-two anyway. Neither of us would be happy in the scenario the other envisions.” She was calming down. Cool logic was rising above and taking the place of her anger.

  “You know I’m right Thorne. You know it won’t work just as I do, nor would it be worth it to try to make it work. Not your scenario, not mine. Think back to when you were me. Tell me you were any different.”

  He stared. His mouth was doing the fish thing without sound as he tried to deny her assertion and couldn’t.

  “You cannot do for, or prevent for me, anymore than anyone could for you Thorne. You wouldn’t have wanted it and neither do I. Face it, sex aside, you and I don’t work. We are the same side of the equation.”

  She thought he was going to come back with a handful of his hair as he shoved his fist through so forcefully.

  “Why can’t you just agree to do it my way? Why?”

  Maggie shook her head, speaking quietly. “For the same reasons you can’t agree to do it mine.”

  He dropped onto the sectional, throwing his head back staring at the ceiling.

  “I know. I don’t want to. I don’t like it even a little, but I know.”

  They were both quiet for a long while. Maggie dropped onto the opposite arm of the sectional. She had known the conclusions long before he came around to accepting them. It was an oppressive truth. When he finally spoke, he had stopped yelling.

  “What does that leave us then?”

  Maggie grinned at the ceiling, not looking at him as she responded.

  “Probably S and Fs.”

  He lifted his head, complete confusion on his face. “What?”

  Maggie put on her best stage smile. “Sex and Furniture shopping.”

  He laughed loudly but stopped short. “Wait. Did you say sex first?” came out on a growl.

  Maggie couldn’t hold it. She couldn’t keep the straight face. She burst out laughing and kept laughing until her cheeks and sides hurt. He joined her laughing, looking around as he mocked her.

  “Margaret, you have nowhere to put anything, what are we shopping for? Or, are we just sticking to sex then?”

  Finally catching her breath, she let him finish mocking her before she replied. “For now, and we’re shopping for a Crux Decussata.”

  If he had a chuckle left it was gone as she’d answered.

  “You’re serious?”

  “I am.”

  That shut him up in a way all her ranting hadn’t. Perhaps for the first time all night, Maggie was pretty sure he was actually seeing her.

  She got up and walked over to stand in front of him. She moved his knees together and straddled his lap setting her knees on either side of his hips on the seat.

  “You know, you never had your sample. Maybe you should try it, see what you’re missing.”

  His growl was a deep rumbling in his chest as he lifted his head to look at her face.

  “You and I both know you are only interested in seeing me out of my chaps. You’ve already seen that. What else have you got?”

  She undid the buttons on his shirt and pushed the sides open, sliding her hands up his chest before sliding them down to his waistband and popping the fly. She reached around to the sides above his hips and tugged at the fabric after unzipping the zipper as she scooted back off of his knees. He was commando, popping to attention as she pulled the fabric further from his body.

  He watched her. One by one she took his shoes and then freed each leg from the pant leg of his trousers sliding her hands flat-palmed up his shins and thighs before holding still. She waited for him to say or do something. He didn’t move.

  She spread his knees and settled between them before leaning in and licking the length of him from base to tip with her tongue. She watched him as she did so and saw the moment his jaw went slack. His hands were balled by his sides. He was fighting not to take control. She was hoping he could continue.

  She left her hands resting on his thighs, doing all the work orally. Licking, flicking and sucking intermittently. She listened to his breathing change from even to soft hitches and back again as she rolled her tongue over the tip, slid her mouth over the entire shaft and swallowed, repeating the process at different speeds. His gasp was audible when she applied her teeth. Carefully biting down at the base, she applied pressure and raked the length against her teeth as she pulled up.

  She watched his balls draw up tight as she worked his cock taking him to the precipice and letting him see the edge but not the fall, just as he had done to her. He was trying to drive up and trying not to at the same time. Taking one last long stroke down, letting him rest at the back of her throat as she swallowed, she pulled up and off deliberately slowly moving to stand in front of him.

  His eyes flew wide when she dropped the cut offs on the floor and kicked them aside, also commando beneath, before she moved up to straddle him again. She lined herself up and slowly impaled herself on his length before she whispered against his mouth. “Now that wasn’t so terrible was it? You could do this for me couldn’t you?”

  Before she knew he was moving, his one hand was in her hair and the other under her butt as she was lifted and then was flat on her back on the floor between his pants and shoes with him driving deep, hard and fast. She rolled her hips back away from his forcing him to try to adjust, hooking her heels behind his knees and trying to roll him.

  “I wasn’t finished with you yet.”

  He grabbed her hips, lined them up and continued his agenda, driving straight as he pulled her hips to him as he thrust. “Oh yes, you were. If you were anymore finished with me you’d be tasting me down the back of your throat. Now fuck me like you mean it. Play time is over.”

  The switch flipped. Maggie leaned up and bit his lip. It drove him harder and he drove her harder. She was done when she said she was done. Playtime my ass.

  She grabbed his head as he had done hers, by a handful of hair. She pulled him in and devoured his mouth with hard demanding kisses. He met her and tried to raise. Her hand hadn’t been played yet. She clamped down on her Kegel muscles and squeezed hard at the next thrust. He stilled at the change pulling back to look at her in disbelief. She pulled her hips back after releasing him, sliding off.

  She moved to walk away, he moved to follow her. She shoved him back onto the sectional, covering his body with hers restarting the demanding kisses before sliding herself back down onto him. One foot still on the floor, she used the leverage to drop hard, lift and drop hard again. He wanted to play rough, she could play rough.

  She put her fists solidly against his shoulders and rode. She drove hard and fast then soft and shallow not breaking the rhythm to give him a chance to flip her again. When he started bucking from underneath, she pushed to go faster. His hands came up to her hips and pulled them down as he speared up from below.

  She shifted her position slightly on a withdraw changing the angle just enough to rake down his length with the bone of her pelvis as she ground harder against him. They were both panting. He was growling, she was mewling and in between they were fucking for everything they had in them. She was determined to outlast him and kept her mind firmly on the goal.

  When he started jerking erratically she clamped her Kegels down again but kept riding. It took exactly one stroke more for him to blow. His face showed the shock that she’d outlasted him, hers showed the victory. She squeezed the inner walls tight and let them loose milking him for every last contortion as his whole body convulsed with each squeeze.

  Once he was done, she went and got the warm cloth and towel to clean him up, taking special care to clean but not abrade him with the rough washcloth across the sensitive tip. She trailed her fingers down the sides of his face speaking softly but taunting a little too.

  “I said I wasn’t done with you. You shoul
d listen to me.”

  He laughed a little. “You did say that. I heard it.”

  “But you didn’t listen. It was my turn.”

  His grin was satisfaction and the growl was more a hum. “I should have. But, you did get your turn, mostly”

  She scoffed.

  He rolled his eyes before sitting up. He snared her around her waist pulling her onto his lap. As he kissed her he moved a hand to roll the tight bundle of nerves that had not been touched.

  “I don’t recall you finishing as part of ‘your turn’ Maggie. That will not do.”

  He expertly teased her clit to a throbbing beat as he devoured her mouth. She was whimpering against his mouth long before he let her cum. He eyed her as she broke the kiss, shouting out as she rocked against his hand. Her face was flushed and her eyes glassy as she rode the release to the end.

  After they were cleaned up and tucked in together lying on the sectional, he in socks and one sleeve of his dress shirt, she in her threadbare, ratty t-shirt, both with heads full of knotted hair from each other’s hands he finally spoke again, somber and serious.

  “I think sex and furniture shopping just might kill me too.”

  She knew what he meant. There would be no easy way not to completely fall for this man if she were in and out of his bed, not the way they were together. The hard truth hung between them.

  It wasn’t said. It didn’t have to be. For her to pursue the path she wanted, and for him to be able to let her, this would have to be the last. Somehow that broke her heart.

  ‘Call me by my name...’

  Maggie skidded into rehearsal with barely enough time to buckle her shoes. Cynder was already in place. She stopped short of glaring at her in favor of getting started. A grip came out of the wings and wrapped Maggie in a feather boa, a bright pink feather boa to be precise. As the last getting into line, she got the last one, neon pink. Lovely.