Casey pushed himself up from the table and walked slowly to her. She backed up against the wall.
“It would not be smart to touch me right now,” she warned, blue eyes flashing, sparking with temper still.
Casey laughed nervously, but kept walking closer. “You already know I’m more brave than smart. I’ve apologized. Now I want makeup sex.”
“You are out of your freaking mind. I’m serious, Casey. Keep your distance,” Alexa ordered.
Casey walked up until he was mere inches away from her. “I’m your hero, Alexa. I deserve a hero’s reward, so I want a kiss.”
“You’re my nemesis, you mean,” Alexa corrected, tossing her head and sending her hair flying. “I am not kissing you.”
“Hurt me then, because it’s the only way you’re stopping me from kissing you,” Casey said, moving in closer still as Alexa all but climbed the wall behind her trying to escape. He wanted to tell her how arousing it was and how it just made him more determined. She would have knocked him flat for sure if he did.
“I’m sorry for embarrassing you,” he whispered, fighting to keep his hands to himself. “But not for talking to Jenna. It was something I felt I needed to do. I never meant to hurt you.”
Casey leaned in and placed his lips on her neck, just above the pulse that pounded furiously still. He brushed his mouth back and forth all the while inhaling the ginger and peaches scent that mixed so well with her heat. His body took the final step into her when there simply was no choice about it. He groaned in relief to finally be touching her again.
Alexa drew in a breath when Casey pressed into her. Indignation warred with arousal, but ultimately lost to the simple need to feel him next to her again. She swore softly, damning him to hell, but let Casey press his hardness into her softness, closing her eyes on her own sigh of relief.
Casey felt her body give in to his but wisely said nothing. Instead, he brought trembling hands to her waist and held her hips while he pressed into her.
“Am I still invited for the weekend?” he asked quietly.
“Would it matter if I said no?” Alexa asked in return, the sting of surrender making her tongue sharp.
“Yes,” Casey said. “If the invitation is rescinded, I’m taking you now—up against this wall if necessary. I’m dying to be with you again. I’ve had a taste and I want more. Lots more, but I’ll settle for what I can get.”
Alexa thought about it. And it wasn’t easy to think with him rocking against her. He stopped rocking when she didn’t answer after thirty seconds.
One of his hands moved to the snap of her jeans, and a few seconds later Casey’s hand was sliding down the front of her, inside her clothes. Then two of his fingers unerringly found their way inside her, sliding through the wetness both of them knew belonged to him.
Alexa arched against his hand and he all but lifted her up as he stroked. He groaned at her response.
“Casey, stop that,” Alexa ordered.
“I wanted to do this in the limo,” he whispered, enjoying her wetness, thrilling with each arch against his palm. “I had a hard time talking myself out of it.”
“Stop teasing me. You can come for the weekend,” she said finally, her breathing hitched and unsteady.
“Okay,” Casey agreed. “But you can do that now while I watch. I owe you for making you so mad after our first night together. I didn’t mean it to work out this way. I’m sorry as hell about it.”
“I can’t have an orgasm in the office,” Alexa protested. “I—“
What she was going to say was lost as Casey put his mouth to her neck again and sucked there while she squirmed. Then he moved to her mouth, his tongue stroking in time with his fingers.
Less than a minute later, she exploded violently in his hand. He lifted up gently, his fingers strong inside her, and held her throbbing against his palm as wave after wave rolled through her.
“God, I love that short fuse of yours,” Casey said. “Take me home with you, Alexa.”
“Okay,” she said, dazed with lust, dizzy with climax.
Casey looked at her dazed face, groaned, and took her mouth in a searing kiss. He eased his hand out of her clothes, zipped, and snapped her back as if nothing had happened. He kissed her hard then and stepped away quickly.
“I need to go wash my hand before I’m tempted to lick my fingers. If I do that, we’ll end up locking the office door and staying here all afternoon. This floor would be hell on my hip. Be right back.”
Casey walked away to her restroom.
Alexa heard the water running in the sink as she slid bonelessly to the floor.
“Holy hell,” she said to the empty room. How was she ever going to win an argument with a man that calmed her with orgasms?
When Casey came back, he could barely stop laughing long enough to help Alexa up from the floor.
Sydney’s snicker as he said good-bye to them had Alexa turning pink and wondering if she looked as guilty as she felt.
Casey pretended not to notice her pink face or Sydney’s knowing look. Instead, he picked up his duffle bag and gave Sydney a sharp salute before they left.
“If you’d stop feeling guilty about us, you wouldn’t be so embarrassed,” Casey told her, holding her hand in one of his, and his bag and cane in the other, as they stepped into the elevator.
Alexa looked at him in disgust. She closed her eyes and banged the back of her head on the elevator wall as she swore at him.
“That’s anatomically impossible, but we’ll figure out a substitute later. I’ve been studying the Kama Sutra, looking for variations on the seven safe positions for me. I think I’ve found several that will work. I can’t wait to try to them with you,” Casey said reasonably.
He was enjoying her embarrassment as much as he had enjoyed her climax. Alexa really did bring out a wicked side of him.
Alexa dug in her purse for keys and slapped them into his hand. “Here. Play with my car and leave me alone for a while. I don’t want to talk or flirt. I’m still really mad at you. ”
“Great,” Casey said happily, as they walked to BMW. “I get makeup sex later.”
“No. I want a nap,” Alexa said with pout. “And I will seriously hurt you if I don’t get one. I may take that cane of yours and beat you in your sleep as it is.”
“I can see that orgasmic high didn’t last you long. Sorry, I’ll do better next time,” Casey told her, trying really, really hard not to laugh.
Alexa rolled her eyes, climbed in the car, and glared at Casey when he got in beside her.
“I think I really do hate you,” Alexa said, looking at him and wondering how Casey Carter had gained so much control over her so fast. “I must be insane to be taking you home with me. I don’t even like you most of the time. I can’t believe I had sex with you. Sometimes you can be so charming, but mostly you’re—you’re a bossy, control freak.”
“Have you been reading my bad press?” he teased.
Alexa drew in a breath and let it out slowly. She counted to ten, and then to twenty, just to be sure she wouldn’t launch into a tirade in the parking garage.
Casey’s eyes darkened as he studied Alexa’s pink face and fractured breathing. He wanted to soothe her as much as he wanted to do a hundred other things to her. Loving this thorny woman was not going to be easy, but it was going to be a lot of fun. For both their sakes, he hoped to eventually figure out how to not make her stark raving mad every ten seconds.
But there was already one reality between them Casey had absolutely no doubts about at all.
“Alexa, sleeping with me is the best decision you ever made. I’m the man you’ve been looking for, and honey, I want everything you’ve been saving up.”
“Honey—you are full of shit,” Alexa drawled, with Virginia in her voice and loathing in her tone. “I don’t see how your ego even fits in this car.”
“Good point,” Casey said agreeably. “With all the space yours takes up, we’ll drive the pickup next time. It has room
enough for both our egos.”
There was another round of swearing, following by some head banging on the seat back, accompanied by a grin from Casey that said he knew she didn’t mean it.
There was also promise in Casey’s eyes to prove what he said was true, but neither was going to mention it until they were alone again.
Tired of being mad and getting no benefit from it, Alexa turned her head to the window, closed her eyes, and to her utter surprise fell dreamlessly into sleep.
She didn’t stir until Casey woke her to code them into her neighborhood.
Chapter 17
Though Casey had let her nap when they got home, he had later exhausted her again. They had fallen asleep early in the evening after a particularly energetic round. When Alexa woke again, it was just after midnight.
Casey’s head next to hers on the pillow confirmed she wasn’t merely having an erotic dream. As a lover, the man was close to being insatiable. She marveled that Casey had gone so long without a woman in his life—without sex.
No, companionship, she thought, not able to suppress an amused sigh remembering their first heart-to-heart talk. It was another of Casey’s euphemisms for sex, but at least a nicer one. She’d probably never hear the word again without laughing.
Alexa had also come to think fondly of getting nailed, as he so crudely put it. For a man with a physical limitation, Casey could still pound himself into her until she was begging him to stop. The man could give her more and stronger orgasms than she’d ever had with anyone else. If doing so caused him any pain, she doubted Casey would ever tell her.
And that’s what bothered her.
Alexa’s worry over his injury had morphed into genuine concern. Her version of being careful had naturally translated itself into complete physical surrender to him.
As a result, Alexa knew Casey was developing some wrong ideas about her. It wasn’t her nature to be passive—in bed or out—but Alexa was afraid of doing something to hurt him. She couldn’t seem to help feeling that way, and she couldn’t seem to ever quite forget about his hip.
When Casey opened his eyes, he found himself looking into Alexa’s worried ones. She was also frowning. Not exactly a strong endorsement for his lovemaking, he thought.
“I hope that frown is from a bad dream and not from something I did,” he said, reaching out to put an arm around her. “Or something I didn’t do,” he added, “though if you think of anything else you want, just say the word.”
Because the first words that came to mind for Alexa were companionship and getting nailed, she laughed, but it came out like a snort.
“You remind me of a man when you laugh, especially the snorting,” Casey told her, laughing himself. “Like someone just told you a dirty joke and you can’t decide whether it’s okay to laugh or not. So instead, it comes out in a snort.”
Alexa looked at him and shook her head.
“You know, you sound so much like Regina sometimes, observing and analyzing everything. You should become a psychologist or a psychiatrist.”
Casey hugged her and dipped his head to tuck it under her chin, a bit ashamed. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I just tend to notice everything. My mind comes up with crap constantly, but I try only to let about ten percent of it out of my mouth.”
Alexa giggled into his hair. “Well, at least that partially explains why you talk so much during sex.”
Casey flushed, reached around and pinched her naked backside until she yelped. “Every time you’re mean to me, I’m going to pinch you. One day maybe you’ll learn to be nice.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Alexa said with a laugh, putting her arms around him to hug him close.
He pinched her, berated her, and insisted on her giving up control of way too much to him, but still she liked him. If it was a foolish thing for an older woman to do with a younger man, she would just have to deal with the fallout later.
“One day I may get the nerve up to hurt you back, Casey Carter. I might not settle for pinching,” she warned.
Casey’s head came up on that one. “What’s stopping you from retaliating?” he asked.
Alexa lifted a shoulder and tried for light-hearted. “Hard to stay mad enough when you punish me with really, really, really great sex,” she told him, hoping to tease his mind off the subject.
Casey rose up on one elbow to stare at Alexa in the semi-dark. They’d found a nightlight they used now, so they wouldn’t have to leave the lamp on. They both liked to see each other. Neither liked the pitch-black.
“Are you holding back because of my disability?” Casey asked, searching Alexa’s eyes for the truth in case she decided not to answer truthfully.
Alexa answered first with a snort. “I would hardly call a man disabled who can make good on his threat that I would walk funny for a week after sex with him.”
“That wasn’t my question,” Casey said.
“What do you want me to say, Casey?” Alexa protested. “Of course I worry a little. I don’t worry a lot. Maybe I’m being a little careful. We’re still fairly new to each other. I think of it as learning about you. Don’t all new lovers hold back a little?”
“Don’t hold back with me,” Casey ordered, wrapping a strand of her hair around his finger and tugging. “I want your passion. I want all of it. I’d rather you hurt me than hold back.”
“That’s just silly,” Alexa told him.
“Promise me,” he demanded, not able to keep the deep hurt from showing.
Alexa noticed Casey was giving her what she’d come to think of as his Marine look—obstinate, determined, and unbending. There was no counter-logic he could hear in that mental state, but she was learning how to get around him. So she sighed and nodded yes.
“Okay. I’ll try,” she promised, only willing to commit to what she knew for certain she could do.
Casey lay back down on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “I wondered why you were being so submissive in bed. I was having too much fun to question it. But I want the hot, unrestrained woman who kissed me in the elevator, Alexa. Don’t give her up just because you’re worried. You’ll be cheating both of us.”
Alexa rolled to her side and ran a hand over his chest and stomach.
“Sir, yes, sir,” she mocked, hoping to put anger in his voice again. His disappointed pleading was killing her. She let her hand creep south to soothe and rub.
Casey gave her a look that said he wasn’t getting over his mad that easily.
Alexa just laughed because she knew better. And it wasn’t going to take that much either. She wasn’t the only one with a short fuse.
“Since our discussion probably qualified as another fight between us, you get makeup sex again. Though I have to say you are wearing me out with this arguing stuff.”
She leaned into him for a kiss. “And this is absolutely the last time tonight,” she told him, wrapping her hand tightly around an erection that was hot, hard, and already insistent in her palm. She watched his face as she stroked him, watched his eyes darken.
When he whispered her name, she slid herself over his body, guiding him inside her, and rearing up when she felt him go deep. Alexa stilled her body above his for few moments, enjoying the way Casey was bucking beneath her, trying to get in deeper still.
Good, she thought darkly, wanting him to know what it was like to be controlled by desire, to be possessed by the person you were with. This was what he did to her.
“You want to know how I feel about you?” she asked him, more than a little warning in her voice. “You want my unrestrained passion? Fine. Here it is.”
Alexa moved her hips back a little, and then drove down on him hard enough to move him up the bed. Casey stiffened beneath her stroke and arched, giving her all the hardness she sought.
Alexa repeated the process again, at first moving slowly and strongly, and then moving swiftly as Casey’s body broke in release beneath hers.
Then she kept moving on him long past the time he had exploded wi
thin her, ignoring everything he said or did, forcing him to remain semi-hard inside her.
Alexa rode him until she found her own release, until using him to satisfy herself gave her back a sense of control, and then once the orgasm passed she simply collapsed on his chest.
His swearing broke the silence. His heart hammering against her in the aftermath, his chest rose and fell with the effort to breathe normally.
Alexa eventually felt Casey’s quivering arms come around her to stroke her back. She purred in contentment. “Sorry,” she said at last, “I heard you talking, but I didn’t get any of it. You’ll have to tell me again if it was important.”
“I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter,” Casey said hoarsely. “I’m sure I lost a few brain cells. I’ve never had two orgasms before.”
Alexa snorted, feeling proud of herself. “Good for you. I thought I was being selfish.”
“You were,” Casey agreed easily. “And I liked it. Next time, I plan to make it more difficult for you. You surprised me this time.”
Alexa sighed against him. “I really am going to walk funny for a week, aren’t I? Sydney will give me hell.”
“We’re both going to walk funny,” Casey told her. “And I’ve never been happier about sex in my life. I can’t believe it’s this great when we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to see what happens in six months or a year.”
Alexa rose up and looked at him. “You’re kidding me. I’ve never had a sexual relationship get better over time. Seriously?” she asked, her eyes searching his for teasing and finding none.
What she saw in his face caused her to shiver instead.
Casey didn’t answer Alexa. There was a lot he could have said about love and a long-term sexual relationship. And he would tell her eventually, or better yet show her.
For now, he just stroked her back and smiled as she lay back down on him and fell asleep.
Chapter 18
Casey woke up alone Saturday morning. He didn’t hear the shower running but thought he heard soft music playing somewhere else in the house.
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