All Kinds of Tied Down

by Mary Calmes

  “It’s not so easy to simply walk back into my—”

  “Is there something I can do to show you that you’re home and safe?”

  Silence.

  “Ian?”

  But he couldn’t say. He couldn’t tell me. I was just supposed to know. Giving in to temptation, I cupped him through his pants, feeling the long, hard length under my palm.

  His halting groan was all agony.

  “I’m gonna think I can take what I want, if you don’t say anything,” I whispered.

  Now there was a reason for him to remain quiet.

  “Ian, this is like steel, buddy,” I said hoarsely, my voice deep and low as I stroked over the cock I had seen so many times but never touched. He bucked, wanting my hand, needing the friction; his soft, low moan was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard in my life. “If I wasn’t on a fuckin’ airplane, I would take this down the back of my throat for you and suck out every drop.”

  He jolted, and I worried for a second that I’d pushed too far, scared him, been stupid, shredded three years of friendship in a rush of desire. But instead, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before turning to me.

  “Don’t be a fuckin’ tease, all right?” he said gruffly. “Do what you say.”

  I nodded.

  “And you can’t—I’ve seen how you are, with guys. You fuck and forget or you pick the wrong ones, like with Brent.”

  “Yeah,” I husked.

  “But you can’t do that with me. You gotta mean it.”

  “Okay.”

  “It can’t be just whatever. I value myself more than that.”

  Had I been that much of a whore before Brent? “Course.”

  He took a breath. “I think there’s a reason I’m shitty in bed.”

  I felt myself frowning, unhappy with him running himself down. “Which is?”

  “I think it’s ’cause I’ve never been in bed with you.”

  Chapter 12

  IT WAS the longest three hours and thirty minutes my life. We had a stopover, but where, I couldn’t say. No one else on the flight to Blountville, Tennessee, growled when the captain announced that there would be a slight delay with landing.

  “I like that noise,” he teased, patting my leg and then leaving his hand there, slowly sliding it sideways to my inner thigh.

  I counted to fifty. In German.

  Once we landed and were out of our seats, I mapped his frame as he walked ahead of me, like I never had before. The rolling swagger of his walk, the tight round ass, the veins in his wrists and forearms, and the flashing smile that had only ever been for me… all of it I appreciated and wanted to be mine.

  I had a singular agenda. Carving out a path through the Tri-Cities airport, I said excuse me a lot and people moved for me, not the other way around.

  “Why are we jogging?” he asked as I grabbed his arm and dragged him after me.

  “I will kill you if you don’t keep up with me.”

  “Like I can’t keep up with you,” he scoffed.

  At the car rental counter beside the baggage claim, the lines were long and I couldn’t take it. I pulled my badge—which I never did—announced that I was a federal marshal, and jumped to the head of the line.

  “Technically,” Ian apprised the woman preparing the paperwork. “He’s a deputy US marshal. We only say federal marshal during a raid or something.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, nodding.

  “And that was a dick move,” he scolded me, but really, I couldn’t have cared less.

  Once I had the rental contract in hand, I led him out the doors to the rental cars parked in long rows.

  “Where do we get the key?”

  I couldn’t even talk anymore; it was too far beyond me. My heartbeat was so loud in my ears, I was amazed he couldn’t hear it.

  Presenting the contract to the girl waiting under the canopy, I tried my best to smile, hoping not to scare her. It must have worked, because instead of running away, she directed us to the left.

  “Any of the vehicles in that last row toward the parking structure, gentlemen. The keys are in them, but remember you have to drive back this way to get out.”

  The car itself didn’t matter, only the distance between the entrance to the lot and where it was parked.

  “Where are you going?” he asked as I hurried, walking fast. “Shouldn’t I be the one to pick since I’m the one who—”

  I couldn’t wait even a second more. We were as far away as I could manage.

  Rounding on him, I fisted my hands in his coat and dragged him between two enclosures, then around the side, thankful that while the partitions between every two cars were tarps, the walls and frame were metal. After slamming Ian back against it, I took his face in my hands, pulling him forward at the same time I leaned in.

  I ground my mouth over his, forcing my tongue between his lips, craving his taste, his heat, all of it, everything he had to give.

  I suffered a split second of terror that maybe having me all over him would be too much, but he sank into the kiss, melted against me. His whimpering moan was decadent, rich with submission and desire. The need to claim him and mark him was utterly primal, and I aggressively mauled his mouth, sucking, biting, and taking what I had to have.

  His hands scrambled on my peacoat, wanting in, unbuttoning, parting, lifting my sweater, pulling the T-shirt free. His hands on my skin had me moaning into his mouth, and when he pressed his groin to mine, grinding, pushing, I realized through the haze of aching, helpless desire that I was just as hard as he was.

  He lifted his mouth from mine for a second, for a quick gulp of air, and then he was the aggressor, kissing me hot and wet, tipping my head back to shove his tongue down my throat before licking the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheek, missing nothing. I whined when he pulled away and then quivered at the sound of the low chuckle before his teeth sank into the spot where my neck met my shoulder.

  I ground out his name. He must have liked it, because he pivoted and drove me backward into the same wall I’d held him against moments before.

  “Shit,” he panted, and I had a second to admire what passion looked like on him: swollen lips, flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, and hair spiked up with sweat. It was incredible. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? Sometimes I’m too rough and—”

  I lunged at him, reclaimed his mouth, my lips covering his, kissing until I felt the fear leave and only need remain. He was boneless in my arms, pliant and willing, and it was then that I yanked him sideways, switching places so it was Ian, again, with his back to the wall.

  “M,” he moaned softly. To hear such a sound of longing come out of the man drove me to my knees. “I—you can’t.”

  Quickly, expertly, I got his belt unbuckled, pants unbuttoned, zipper down, and gorgeous erect cock leaking in my hand.

  He bucked forward and his voice cracked. “I… Miro… I haven’t even been able to get—”

  “Get what,” I asked before I licked over the swollen crown, then nipped and sucked at his groin.

  “Hard,” he choked out.

  I grinned up at him. “I don’t think that’s an issue.”

  My name spilled out of him like smooth thick honey from a squeeze bottle.

  Opening my mouth, I rolled forward and took the man down the back of my throat in one long sensuously smooth motion. His hands instantly clutched at my hair, and I liked that, his loss of control.

  His heavy breathing, the way it stuttered every few moments, how he couldn’t stop his hips from snapping forward, I savored every one of his reactions, but most of all the feel of him in my mouth, the weight on my tongue, his taste, his musky woodsy scent. All of it, of him: I could get addicted so very fast. When I wrapped my hand around the base of his cock and made the suction strong, licking and laving, he stopped forming words, only making deep guttural noises.

  I tasted salty precum. He tried to move me, but I made the draw stronger instead.

  He shivered and I purposely scraped
my teeth along his thick shaft. The carnal growl of my name was sweet.

  “You can’t—M!”

  He spurted hot in the back of my throat, and I swallowed fast, taking it all, loving the way his lips parted and his head fell back against the wall. I didn’t let his cock slip from between my lips until there was nothing more and I had licked away every trace. He was the picture of sated lust, utterly ravished as he stood there panting, eyes narrowed to slits of blue, fly open, shirt and Henley rucked up, stubble burn on his pelvis as well as bite marks and hickeys from where I’d sucked on his skin.

  When I stood up, we were eye to eye since he was slumped against the wall, still not moving. He was worrying me a little. Even though I knew he’d liked it when I was blowing him, I wasn’t so sure how he felt now.

  “You should put this away, buddy,” I said softly, stepping in close to him, lifting his briefs up over his now-flaccid cock, tucking him in. “I don’t want the whole world to see you.”

  “You didn’t care about that a second ago.”

  I met his gaze. “No one saw your dick since it was buried down my throat, not to mention that there is no one out here in this cold but us.”

  He inhaled sharply, straightened, and took my face in his hands, then slid his thumbs gently over my cheeks, beneath my eyes as he eased me forward and sealed our lips together.

  His lips were soft, the kiss tender and deep as he slid his tongue over mine. One hand pushed into my short hair, his fingers tracing the curve of my skull, finally cupping the back of my head, holding me still. Compared to the frantic mauling I had given him, his movement was sensual and deliberate.

  He could kiss me forever if he wanted. The languorous attention made me feel drugged as he feasted and sucked, licked and nibbled on my lips. I succumbed easily, and when he turned me, pushed me back into the wall, I let myself be moved, bumping gently into the concrete as he deepened the kiss, not letting me breathe, only taking.

  His hands slipped down the sides of my neck to my shoulders, then lower to my chest, clutching at me, touching me. I was arched against him, painfully hard and needing to be stroked, when the blast of a horn startled us.

  Someone drove by on the other side of the wall, obviously having gone the wrong way to get out. I noticed then that Ian’s pants were still shoved to his knees—no wonder he’d shuffled when he walked me back into the wall—so I bent and pulled them up around his hips.

  “Now you’re worried about someone seeing me?” He chuckled, low and seductive.

  I zipped him up, still not meeting his gaze, and slid my fingers into his pants to button them. He bucked and I framed his hips with my hands, loving the fact that he was letting me touch him like this, so intimately.

  “How come you weren’t before?” he whispered, leaning forward, the huffs of breath in my ear and the sensation of the stubble on his cheek against the scratched-up skin on my face making me shiver.

  I was terrified that I was dreaming. “I wasn’t thinking before.”

  “Yeah?”

  After I buckled his belt, he crowded close, shoved his thigh between mine, parting my legs, wedging himself tight against me.

  “Look at me.”

  I lifted my gaze to his and saw the apprehension there.

  “Don’t go all silent.”

  He was standing in front of me, clothes rumpled and hair tousled, and I could barely breathe.

  “Okay?” he murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  His hands slid up my sides. “You gotta talk some.”

  There was so much to say, to ask for, and I was afraid of hoping for too much.

  “Will you get in the car?”

  “Sure,” I answered as he stepped away. It was ridiculous, but I already missed his hands on me.

  “How ’bout the silver one?”

  “Whatever.”

  It was a Dodge Avenger, and when we got in, he made sure I was comfortable, checked that I liked the interior before he eased the car out of the parking stall. We had to stop at the gate so the attendant could check that we had a contract, ask us to confirm the mileage in his computer, and make sure we had a full tank of gas. Once that was done and we were on the street, I got my phone out to check the GPS and see where we were in relation to Elizabethton.

  “It looks like it’s only like forty-five miles or so away.”

  He grunted.

  “So it’s like one thirty or so here. I’m sure we can be there in an hour, easy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ian wasn’t really listening to me.

  “Tell me when you’re ready for me to navigate.”

  “Yep.”

  I sat back and got comfortable. “We should stop and get water.”

  Another sound of concession to acknowledge he was listening. Sort of.

  Giving up, I looked out the window at the gray March afternoon, wondering how cold it was outside. The weather had been so odd, and in January, with the freaky cold snap, it had been nuts. It was probably in the thirties now, snowing a little.

  Ian stopped at a Walgreens, ran in, came back out with a bag, and tossed a bottle of water at me as soon as he was back inside the car.

  “Chips? Vitamin Water, other snacks? What are you, a communist?”

  He snorted out a laugh but got the car moving and pulled out of the parking lot fast without even putting on his seatbelt.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  But he didn’t answer, and I noticed he was not getting back on the highway.

  “Ian?”

  THE STARLIGHT Motel had one of those old neon signs that looked like it belonged in Vegas, not downtown Blountville. It was three stories of mauve and pink, and when he pulled into the driveway, parked beside the office, under a carport, I wasn’t sure what was going on. But he got out, forked over some cash, got a key—on one of those plastic numbered plastic tags the likes of which I had only ever seen in a movie—and then got back in the car with me.

  “What’re we doing here?”

  I got nothing from him.

  He moved the car and parked again, grabbed his backpack, and ordered me to get out and grab my duffel.

  “Ian,” I began, doing as he asked, closing my door as he made the alarm chirp. “We need to go and get our—”

  “Shut up,” he snapped, starting up a flight of stairs that had a chipped white paint railing I would not trust my weight to. It seemed more decorative than anything else.

  At the top, he strode fast and reached the door he wanted, 15A, opened it, and disappeared inside before I caught up.

  “Holy shit,” I groaned, following him in, amazed at the pink shag carpet, floral print curtains, and the mauve quilted polyester bedspread. “This is like the hotel we stayed at in Fort Lauderdale, you remember?”

  “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, slamming the door and sliding the chain lock on before he rounded on me.

  It was dark inside, but enough faint light filtered through the front window’s drawn curtains for me to see him staring at me—his eyes glittering—tracking my movement, listening to me breathing. Like I was prey.

  Sometimes I didn’t pay attention when I really should.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked, my voice low and rough.

  He huffed out a breath as I took a step forward, closing on him.

  “Ian?”

  He raked his fingers through his hair and then laced his fingers together at the back of his head. It was new, the uncertainty on him, and I found it endearing.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Lube.”

  I nearly swallowed my tongue in surprise.

  “What? We need it, right?”

  “If we… yeah,” I stammered. “I hope you got the right kind.”

  “Me too.”

  “You could have sent me in.”

  “I wasn’t really thinking.”

  I liked hearing that.

  “It might
not… happen, yeah?”

  “Sure.”

  “And I maybe won’t be able to… all of it.”

  “I know.”

  “But we’ll still be… all right.” It was both a question and a statement.

  “Yes,” I said with absolute certainty.

  “Okay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He licked his lips, nodding slowly.

  I slid a hand around the back of his neck and drew him to me. His eyes drifted closed as I slipped my tongue in the seam of his lips. His moan was soft and sweet as he parted them for me, kissing me back, his hands on my hips.

  “Ian.”

  He grunted, not stopping the kiss, moving me back toward the bed.

  “Will you let me lead?”

  Please, God, say yes.

  He made a noise that sounded like agreement, but I wasn’t sure, and I had to be. Breaking the kiss, I stepped sideways so I wouldn’t topple back on the bed.

  “Ian?”

  He was staring at me intently, waiting.

  I had to tell him what to do, I instinctively understood that. No wonder he’d supposedly been crappy in bed with Emma and the others, he was supposed to be the one leading and he wasn’t made that way. I could see it all over him, the tremble that engulfed the hard-muscled man. He looked like he should be the one throwing me down, taking what he wanted, but instead, he was waiting for instruction.

  The time for more questions was past. I couldn’t ask what he wanted, I knew that. If I asked permission, I lost control, and Ian craved my dominance. He had always noticed my body, the innate physical strength in it, but he had never guessed at the leashed power inside. But I understood that a part of him wanted to be held down, wanted to be made to submit, and intuitively, he’d known I could do that for him.

  It was scary. If I messed up, I not only ruined a friendship, but a partnership as well. If I’d misread him, what he needed or wanted, I wouldn’t recover. If I was somehow wrong… but how could I not take the chance to have everything? Not knowing, that was worse. I was a lot of things, but a coward wasn’t one of them.

  All of this rushed through my head while Ian remained frozen, waiting and vigilant.

  “Come here,” I ordered.