Steel Country Boxset

by Fields, MJ

  She nods. “I’d really like to be your friend.”

  “But you also like me licking your—”

  “Yeah, well, of course,” she says, closing her eyes.

  “Would it be out of line to ask you about shit I want to know?” I ask.

  “Like what?” She looks up.

  “I don’t know. Like how old were you when you fucked for the first time?”

  “You really want to know that?” she asks, sounding a little confused.

  “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “Um, like, eighteen.”

  “Who was the lucky guy who busted your cherry?”

  She shrugs. “High school boyfriend.”

  “How long did you date before you fucked him?” I take another drink, hoping maybe I will stop wondering about that and just get back to licking...that.

  “A couple years.”

  “Years?” I ask, nearly spitting out the Jack.

  She nods and looks down. “Mom was sick. I just didn’t...you know?”

  “Yeah. So, what made you finally give in? Was he hung or something?”

  She closes her eyes. “He had been sleeping with someone else, and I found out. He said it was because I wasn’t meeting his needs. So, I gave in.”

  “Wait. I may not know shit about relationships, but you fucked him after finding out he cheated on you?”

  “Stupid, I know. All the shrinks they made me see after Mom died said that because of her illness through my formative years, I was lacking in social skills.” She shakes her head and silently gives a laugh, mocking herself.

  Pisses me off to see that.

  “Who the fuck said that to you? A shrink?”

  Her face starts to turn red, and her eyebrows knit slightly. “It wasn’t all wrong. I did. I tried to.” She pauses and sighs. “It was hard on everyone around to see her suffer. She smiled through it all. When she was in pain, I was asked to leave the room, or go to the store.” This time she laughs out loud and looks up. “So, yeah, I made a crappy choice and several more after that.”

  “You made a choice trying to make them happy, which isn’t your fucking job, Mandee. You should have been able to fucking trust a boyfriend. Friends...fuck, anyone to help keep you together and let you fucking fall apart.” I feel my blood pressure rising. “It wasn’t your fucking fault. You trusted the adults in your life, and obviously what the fuck do they know? You’re not fucking invincible.”

  I take a step toward her and lift her chin. “That fucker didn’t deserve you. Those pieces of shit at your college, they should be walking with a limp for what they did to you. And Blue and the rest of these assholes who think they’re protecting you from assholes like me, they should look a little fucking deeper and see you...you as a fucking woman who needs a goddamn man in her life to do all those damn things your body wants and guard possibly the sweetest heart I have ever met in my life. You’ve fucking come through all that, and still, you smile. Fuck them.”

  “Fuck them,” she whispers.

  I don’t like how that sounds one bit, so I clarify, “Well, not fuck them, but FUCK THEM.”

  Her eyes cast down a bit, leaving mine. “I know, Gray, I know.”

  She rests her hands on my hips, and it dawns on me that I don’t give a fuck that she’s touching me. I like it. Fuck that. I crave it, and fuck if I don’t want to hate it.

  “Blue told you about...” She pauses.

  I nod and put my hands over hers, guiding them up my body really fucking slowly.

  “Is that why—”

  “No more fucking talk about him. The others, fuck them all,” I whisper, because saying it any louder may give hope in a truly hopeless situation, to both of us.

  “Fuck them,” she whispers. Her hands now move on their own, stopping just above my chest. She curls her fingers around my shoulders, and I look down to see her hands resting over the inked wings. The look on her face is almost sad, almost wistful, almost pained.

  “And fuck them, too,” she whispers as she looks up.

  I immediately pull her closer, ass in hand, and take her lips. I turn as I pull her up and sit her on the kitchen island.

  “Fuck everything but cake,” I tell her as I push that sweater off her shoulders.

  She pulls her arms out then grabs my shoulders harder this time. I like that, too. Then she pulls me in and kisses me.

  Her lips grab mine and she sucks. Then she pulls my lower lip out with her teeth.

  I love the way she tastes, smells, but fuck if I don’t want to taste her with cake.

  I reach over as I kiss her and blindly feel for the plate, sink two fingers in it, and scoops some out.

  As I lean back, she closes her eyes, and I swear she gives a little disappointed sigh. And yeah, I like that, too.

  I rub the cake on her lips, and she smiles and opens her eyes as I lean in, licking the white buttercream frosting and red velvet cake off her smiling lips.

  She laughs against my mouth, and so do I.

  I step back and look at her, at the smile on her face, eyes bright, big, and beautiful, and her creamy skin is flushed.

  “You’re fucking beautiful, Mandee,” I tell her then lick my lips, cleaning off some of the mess I made of them, hoping like hell she thinks the same of me. And no, I shouldn’t want that, not for a girl like her.

  When her lips purse in an almost pout, I can’t help reaching over and grabbing up some more.

  “I’m awfully glad you think so,” she says.

  I feel that tightening in my chest. I know it well. Mags, Mom, my brothers, and Brand make that shit happen. No one else.

  I momentarily allow its warmth to spread, and then...then I realize who the hell I am.

  I’m Grayson Falcon, and no love should ever be wasted on me. But I sure as hell will give her what it is we have agreed on. I will be her friend. Hell, I want that. And I will fuck her, too. No doubt I want that.

  So, I tell her, “Take off the tank and lie back.”

  As she pulls it up and I see her white bra, as if it’s even possible, my cock gets harder.

  I close my eyes, trying to will my balls not to burst right here and now.

  When I open them, her arms are crossed over her body.

  “Don’t fucking do that,” I tell her.

  “You closed your eyes. I thought—”

  “Whatever you thought was wrong. Now lie back and let me fucking have my cake and eat you, too.”

  To that, she smiles and lies back.

  “Not sure where to start,” I say, grabbing her leg and setting it on my shoulder. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

  Her legs are up and resting against my body as I spread the cake and frosting from one hip bone to the next, her squirming a little under my touch. Then I bend down and rub my lips from one side to the other, then back, using my tongue.

  “Fucking delicious,” I say, grabbing more and rubbing it over her smooth, bare lips. I never looked at a woman like this before. “Your pussy is sexy as hell.”

  “Thanks?” she says as I squat to taste cake and her.

  I look up after the first lick. “Best cake ever.”

  She smiles, covers her eyes, then laughs...until I lick a little harder, getting less cake and more her. That’s when the laugh turns into a moan and her legs fall apart farther.

  “Fuck,” I groan then look up at her. All I see is tits in a white bra and chocolate hair being fisted in her hands.

  I reach up and grab a handful of tit, and she pushes it into my hand, still licking, still tasting, as she now rocks a little against my face.

  I feel her insides tighten around my tongue, and I remember last night and what comes next—her.

  I grip her hips now and pull her hard against my face, wanting her to come all over my mouth and not my fingers this time.

  “Gray?” she asks, pleads, as she tries to fight the inevitable. “Oh, no. Oh, oh, oh, God!” Her knees clamp against my head, a move that totally fucking contradicts her words as she grabs my hai
r and grinds against my touch.

  When her body and the tone of her cries relax a bit, I slow down and lighten my touch. But I don’t stop licking. I fucking can’t.

  “Tastes so good, Mandee. Better than cake.”

  Then...then I can’t help getting her to that point again.

  When she lies limp, I kiss up her hip, her belly, and when I get to her tits, I unhook the front clasp and they spill out.

  Her nipples are the exact same color as her lips with no lipstick. They are hard as hell, and when I grab her tits and suck one in my mouth, while rolling the other between my fingers, she whimpers, “Gray.”

  Gray, the man I am, unable and unwilling to give or expect love to be given to me by a woman like her. Gray, my name, a color that is neither black nor white. Gray, just something in-between, and fuck if I don’t want to be her in-between.

  Chapter Twenty

  Confessions

  Mandee

  How many times did you come? is a question most boys asked me when I was going through my “experimental stage” in college. All damn near demanded an answer. So, I gave them one.

  Lying here, spread wide, Grayson’s still-clothed length against me as he sucks on one breast while kneading the other, and then switching, I try to figure out what to tell him when he asks. All I can think about is the others and what I thought was coming was like a pebble in the calm lake, a ripple of disturbance to the norm that fades out quickly. Whereas, Grayson...Well, Grayson was a landslide of boulders.

  I cover my face and smile when my boob falls from his mouth.

  “What?” he asks.

  I know my smile is getting bigger when he grabs my hand, uncovers my face, and asks again, “What?” He looks pensive now, and I certainly don’t want that.

  “Fuck them.” I smile when I say it, because I honestly hope that explains it all.

  When he scowls and almost immediately cocks his eyebrow, he looks a little...

  “Are you mad?”

  He shakes his head, his face now expressionless as he starts unbuckling his black leather belt, then unbuttons his pants and shoves them down.

  He’s huge. No, not huge. His enormous erection springs out, and instead of pointing straight out, it hangs a bit.

  I smile and say it again, hoping he gets it. “Fuck them.”

  I reach out to grab him, but he grabs my wrists, stopping me then pulling me closer to the edge.

  My heartbeat accelerates as he takes my arm and draws it across my body as if we are dancing and trying to make me turn in a circle, which is exactly what I do.

  Lying on my stomach, my toes barely touching the ground, I look over my shoulders, wanting to see that look on his face as he enters me.

  He presses against the middle of my shoulders so I’m lying flush against the counter.

  “Gra—” I start to ask him if everything’s okay, when he shoves into me fully.

  I feel that feeling again. Pain, pleasure, the inability to breathe out.

  He stills, and I remember what comes next.

  He will tell me, “breathe, sweetheart,” and right now, I need him to.

  With one hand, he grips my hip, while he wraps the other around my hair. He starts rocking in and out, fast, hard. If he wasn’t hitting every nerve in my body designed for pleasure, I’m sure the pressure of being so full would cause me to burst. But he is, and I am not going to.

  “Fucking tight, little cunt,” he hisses as he pulls nearly all the way out then slams into me. “Squeezing the life out of me,” he stammers as he fucks me faster and faster. “Fucking loosen up.” He rolls his hips, trying to make it fit better?

  When he smacks my ass once, twice, then three times, I wait for something. I wait for him to squeeze me roughly because I learned it’s what he does out of need and desire, and I like it. When it doesn’t happen, I wait for something...more. His lips on my back—something.

  Something that doesn’t come.

  At this moment, I know that something has shifted.

  Something isn’t right or good. This isn’t like last night, or even five minutes ago.

  This isn’t sex. This isn’t the Grayson I felt comfortable with exploring and keeping secrets with. This is Grayson from the parking lot at the bar, and this is me...getting fucked.

  “Fuck it. Where do you want me to finish?”

  I hold my face in my hands, wishing I could disappear right now.

  “Come on; answer me,” he demands.

  “Fuck you.” I push back against him and bat his hands away from me. “Fuck you and fuck them, Grayson Falcon!”

  I cringe when I feel empty, because that loss, that emptiness, that feeling, it sucks. My body wants him. It wants him badly. But no...Fuck him.

  “What the fuck was that?” he snaps as he grabs my sweater and holds it over his cock.

  I grab my tank and pull it on over my bra that is still hanging off my shoulders and look at him. His eyes are clenched tight, as are his teeth, and his nostrils flare as his body jerks slightly then trembles. Then he sighs, and his body loses all tension.

  I cover my mouth and gasp when I realize what just actually happened as his eyes flutter open.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Did you just come...on that?” I point to my freaking sweater.

  “You didn’t answer me,” he says, looking at it, then around as if has no idea what to do with it. For some reason, that flips a switch, too.

  “Well, by all means.” I bend down, grab his shirt, and shake it at him.

  “Don’t,” he says, reaching out to me.

  Don’t what?

  I want to scream, because I have no clue what he thinks I’m going to do...until his eyes travel down to my bare and now battered, and worse, empty nether regions.

  Ha, fuck him, I think as I step back and hold up his shirt.

  “No?”

  “Mandee, I swear to God...” He pauses when I take it and drag it between my legs. “Do you know how fucked up that is?” he snaps.

  “I suppose I do.” And I do it again.

  “Mandee! I have to wear that when I leave. You’re fucking...” He stops and starts again, his voice rising. He sounds like a little boy being told no. “That’s fucked up, and you know it.”

  I shrug and toss him his shirt. On the inside, I’m patting myself on the back for standing up to a man. On the inside, I want to call Phoenix and tell her, because yes, I’m proud of myself. On the outside, I really hope I am hiding all that, because yes, I just wiped my wet crotch with his shirt and it is possibly the most immature yet badass thing I have ever done in my entire twenty-three years.

  He looks at it, then back at me a good three of four times before I see yet another side of Grayson Falcon. He’s pouting.

  I can’t help smiling now.

  “Oh, real funny, Mandee,” he grumbles in that same much-younger sounding voice as he puts it on.

  “You’re an ass, Grayson, a total ass for what you just pulled on me. But right now, you’re kind of adorable.”

  “I’m an ass? Well, you’re fucking confused.” His voice is nearly at squeak level now, a far cry from that deep baritone he sings in, or that gravelly voice when he’s doing things to my body.

  I turn and put my pants back on. “You’re an ass because you just fucked me like I’m no different than...one of them. We were supposed to be friends. But hey, it is what it is, right?”

  “Yeah, it is what it fucking is,” he says, fully pissed off now.

  “Well, see you next time,” I say, hoping that pisses him off, too.

  “If you’re fucking lucky,” he says as the door swings open.

  I wait for it to close behind him, and when it does, my chest squeezes my heart, and it hurts a little, but I was prepared for this feeling before last night.

  I was prepared to say goodbye.

  It just sucks that if that was our goodbye, I never really got to say it at all. And I am not okay with not saying goodbye.

  Not wit
h him.

  I walk to the kitchen window and look out to see him trying the doorknob. I laugh to myself when big, bad Gray Falcon slaps his hands to his hips then shakes his head. He starts to turn around, and I hide so he won’t see me.

  Then I hear a boom and look back out as rain starts to fall. Not just fall. It’s pouring.

  He looks up at the sky and raises his hands. I wish I could hear what he is shouting, but then thunder rolls through the night air again.

  I wait, expecting him to walk back in. Clearly, the door is locked and it’s raining.

  I walk over to open it, but decide to be the little less hospitable Mandee and a little more of the Mandee I am starting to like, the one who just told a man like Gray, “See you next time.”

  I try to forget the next part, the part where he said, “If you’re lucky,” because that part didn’t make me feel badass, not at all.

  I wait for what seems like ever then look back out the window. I don’t see him at all.

  I wait to see if he found the hide-a-key and expect the garage door to open. Then I wait longer because I assume he’s in the garage, waiting out the rain.

  After a while, I realize he has no problem walking miles to get wherever he wants, like when I left him at the Landing, and then he was several miles away at the edge of the woods.

  I walk toward the front of the house, knowing I left my wine out there, and I need it right now. If I don’t get a few glasses more in me, I know the Mandee I am fighting will win out, and then I will drive until I see him. I can’t do that. Not with him. He’s Phoenix’s soon-to-be family. I just can’t be that Mandee. So, I will be the me that I can be with him for some reason.

  I open the door and walk out to grab my glass, but it’s missing.

  I look around, expecting the wind to have taken it and smashed it all over, when I see him sitting against the house, my glass in his hand and the bottle in the other.

  He takes a drink then swallows. “I’ll leave when it lets up.”

  He’s soaked.

  “Fine. Do you want a shirt?” I wish I could gobble up the niceties, but that’s impossible.

  “No.” He pouts again then takes another drink.