Love & Rockets

by Maggie Wells

  She lowered her foot to the floor, panties still circling her ankle. “Isn’t that supposed to be ma’am?”

  “Are we agreed?”

  When he fixed her with the pointed, laser beam stare, she’d agree to just about anything. But he didn’t need to know. Affecting a nonchalance she was miles from feeling, Darla gave in with a tiny shrug. “Fine. Agreed.”

  Little more than a breath later, the panties and her other shoe were gone and Jake was rising to his feet. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to,” he said, catching the clasp of her bra as he unfolded his long, lean length, “but they’re wrong. You are an Amazon. You’re strong. Resilient.”

  She gasped when the triple hook closure opened as if he’d waved a magic wand. “Wow. Skills,” she said in a rush of admiration.

  “I’m an engineer.” He slid his hands around to catch the bounty he’d unleashed, leaving the straps to slide slowly down her arms. Cupping her gently, he looked into her eyes. “You know, under the right circumstances, I might be willing to be your slave.”

  Her heart beat triple time. She wanted to arch her back and demand he back up his words with action. She didn’t want tender caresses and teasing words from him. They were dangerous. Oh, so dangerous. Like kryptonite, or whatever it was that sapped Wonder Woman of all her powers. Wetting her parched lips, she managed to exhale a weak, “Okay.”

  In a flash he had her up off her feet. This time, he left her alone and wanting at the very center of his bed while he stripped off the rest of his clothes. By the time he stretched out beside her in all his running man, hard hat wannabe glory, Darla was surprised to find she was nearly panting. She’d never been one who got off on gawking at buff guys. As far as she was concerned, how a guy looked on the exterior was marginally important, but there had to be something more to spark her interest.

  Sincerity. Wit. Intellect. A talent for dropping a well-timed ‘Bazinga’ into an argument.

  She wasn’t sure about the last one, but from what she knew about Jake, the guy was the total package. He skimmed a hand along her side, tracing the outline of her hip and waist before reclaiming her breast. “How do you feel about The Big Bang Theory?” she asked, her pulse beating fast as a strobe.

  Both of his eyebrows shot up, but it was clearly going to take more than a simple non sequitur to throw him off his game. He pinched the tight furl of her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Lowering his head, he glanced up at her from under dark lashes. “I’ve dedicated my life to it.”

  “Good answer.”

  Darla knew damn well he wasn’t talking television, but she couldn’t have cared less. Bowing off the bed, she sank her fingers into his hair as he ran the very tip of his tongue around the aching tip. When he caught the sensitive flesh between his teeth, she sank back down, reveling in the pull as he followed her at his own maddeningly slow pace. And then, as if to punish her, he released her without so much as a kiss to make the hurt go away.

  “Fine. What circumstances?” she demanded, fixing him with a ferocious scowl.

  “Hm?”

  “You said under the right circumstances you’d be my slave. What circumstances?”

  Again, his brows arched in surprise, but this time the excitement of a challenge shone in his dark eyes. “Well, I imagine you’d have to break me.”

  “Break you?” Running her fingernails along his shoulder, she studied him closely. “Define break.”

  “The first one to beg,” he answered without hesitation.

  Amused by how quickly he answered, she smiled up at him. Apparently, he’d been giving this a little thought. Sliding her other hand suggestively down his abs, she stopped shy of the promised land. “You don’t think I can make you beg?”

  “Oh, I know you can. The question is, can you make me beg first?”

  “And after you beg, you have to do everything I say?”

  “Once you say please, you’re all mine,” he confirmed with a nod. “Tonight and any other night we’re together.”

  “Feeling pretty sure of yourself, Professor?”

  His smile came slow, but she felt its impact in her bones. Her muscles burned hot. Her blood grew thick and dense in her veins. He skimmed a fingertip down the valley between her breasts and goosebumps rose on her arms.

  “Fairly confident.”

  She returned his smile with wobbly one, but her voice held true. “Hit me with your best shot.”

  Lord, one of the man’s advanced degrees had to be in kissing. Slow, fast, soft, or deep. Didn’t matter. The second he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she was in terrible trouble. He issued no tentative request or imperious demands. No, those she could easily rebuff. So he hit her with a slick, sensuous slide that said he knew his tongue was meant to be with hers. How was she supposed to deny him when they both knew damn well he was right? She parted her lips, but the man was in no rush to conquer.

  This kiss was a slow, sweeping waltz. His timing and control would have made Miss Celine so very proud. A swooping, swirling whirl of a kiss delivered with controlled passion. He drew her tongue into his mouth, then promptly relinquished her. Oh, it was a masterful performance. Almost enough to make her wish she’d gotten to wear a poufy cotillion gown and twirl across the polished oak floor at the Ft. Whiting Armory. To be the kind of girl he might actually marry one day.

  But the kiss wasn’t what lit her up like a Roman candle inside. She could handle the kissing. The sweet way he finished each volley with a tender nip at her bottom lip or peck to the corner of her mouth made her a little weak, but she could withstand the onslaught. Barely. What she had no defense against were the gruff growls he made in the back of his throat when he slid his hand over her hip to her ass and pulled her on top of him.

  How the hell was she supposed to guard her flank when he conceded the high ground straight off the bat?

  Pressing her hands to his chest, she tried not to be too obvious about sneaking a squeeze as she rose up to straddle him. For the first time in a long time, she wished for long hair. A pixie cut didn’t leave a girl much of a curtain to hide behind. In an effort to mask her discomfiture, she doled out a dose by raking her fingernails, such as they were, down his chest and over the shallow bumps of his abs. “Giving in already?”

  The grin he wore screamed pure, unadulterated rogue. “I wanna watch you say it.”

  Sliding back, she sat down directly on his long, hard cock, trapping him between the damp lips of her sex, but outside the gates of heaven. With that thought in mind, she cupped her breasts in both hands and began to rock. Slow and steady.

  “You forget,” she chided. “I’ve been a lonely single mom for a very long time.” She infused the reminder with wide-eyed innocence to make it clear she was taunting him. Her dear Dr. Dalton had no idea the games were only beginning. Lifting her breasts, she pressed them together, pinching her nipples as she slid along the length of him. “I don’t need you.”

  He swallowed hard. “I know you don’t.” His gaze darted from her breasts to the spot where she sat and back again. “But you said you’ve been lonely.”

  “I can take care of myself very well. I think I proved that earlier.”

  Again he nodded, but this time his voice came out filled with gravel. “Beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  “I could come like this.” As if her body felt the need to back up the smack, her eyelids grew heavy and she began to grind against him.

  “Christ, you’re so hot. So wet.” Jake rolled his hips beneath her, matching her rhythm without missing a beat. “Do it.”

  Her eyes drifted shut. She pressed the flats of her palms to the hard points of her nipples, trying to contain the ache. His hands moved restlessly atop her thighs, urging her on without doing one damn thing to help get her there. Frustration rose in her throat and came out in a squeak. “Help me,” she said from between clenched teeth.

  “I thought you didn’t need me.”

  Her
eyes flew open, a flash fire of anger balling up inside of her. But her pique fizzled the moment she met his dark, steady gaze. Jake was neither smirking nor gloating. He was simply waiting. “What?”

  “Ask politely.”

  Darla scowled down at him. Then she caught on to his angle. “Not likely.”

  “No?” He heaved a put-upon sigh and gripped her hips, his biceps bunching as he stilled her movements. “Okay, then we’ll have to do things my way.”

  Before she could draw oxygen to ask what his way might be, he had her flat on her back. His mouth closed over one nipple, then the other, sucking hard.

  He traveled down her body, trailing his tongue along the underside of one breast, then pecking his way along her ribs. He nuzzled her stomach, and she squirmed. His low chuckle vibrated through her as he kissed his way southward. He dipped his warm, wicked tongue into her navel and she nearly leapt from her skin. When he pressed an open-mouthed kiss below, she found herself willing to forgive him everything and anything. Even the tickly tongue lashing he was doling out.

  Moaning, she circled her hips in what she hoped was an enticing manner as he buried his nose in the dark curls between her legs. If he’d paused an inch or two lower, she might have said the magic word. Or not.

  She’d never been exactly sure how she felt about oral. Having had only a handful of sexual partners in the last dozen years, she couldn’t claim a whole lot of experience with either giving or receiving. The few times a man had actually gone down on her, she’d found the sensation simultaneously electrifying and mortifying.

  Darla had never thought much of oral sex as a means to an end. What was the point? When a woman’s sex life was weighed against hourly babysitting rates designed to crush an already-straining budget, getting to the main event always seemed the better way to go.

  But Jake didn’t go there, much to her mingled relief and dismay. Instead, he placed a loud, smacking kiss to the spot above her freshly groomed bikini line and lifted his body off her entirely, leaving her bucking and grinding against nothing but air.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “I need a minute. Keep yourself entertained.”

  Darla’s jaw dropped as he rolled onto his side and reached for the drawer of the nightstand. “Keep myself entertained?” she repeated, indignant.

  He laughed a soft, rumbling chuckle that seemed to come out of him with no effort whatsoever. “You said you were an expert at it.” He rummaged in the drawer a bit, grunted when he found what he needed, then slammed it shut a tad too forcefully. “The poor, lonely single mom.”

  Grinning, Jake moved down until he knelt between her splayed legs. Darla fought the instinctive urge to cover herself as he took in every inch of exposed flesh. At last, he met her eyes with an expression patently and maddeningly smug.

  “I bet you’re saving up to buy yourself a vibrator, aren’t you? Nothing too expensive,” he added with a somber nod. “Something serviceable, right? It is an appliance, after all.”

  Then, without warning, he tweaked her clitoris with the tip of one finger and she gasped, her mouth falling open wide and her heart shifting straight into overdrive.

  “Like that?” he asked in a husky, spellbinder’s voice. “Or maybe you prefer this?” Moving with a speed and surety shocking to her, he pressed her legs open and buried his face between them.

  He came after her with lips, tongue, and teeth. Licking and stroking her until she spread her legs wider still. Drawing her clit into his mouth and sucking until she was sure she was going to burst into a billion pieces, then letting her go. With every purposeful lick, thrust, nip and kiss, he drove her to the point of blessed oblivion. With his breath blowing hard and hot over her wet flesh, he dragged her back down to earth.

  His stubborn refusal to let her fly should have angered her, but how could she possibly resent him? Not when each swipe of his tongue made her feel like some kind of wild, wanton, sexy goddess allowing this mere mortal to sip from her. How had she ever felt the least bit ambivalent about this? Had any man ever actually done this before? Had any of her nameless, faceless lovers bothered to drag his tongue in those incredible, masterful circles? Or touched the very tip to the forbidden spot between her entrance and her ass?

  He slid both hands under her and lifted her off the bed, squeezing and kneading her ass as he pushed her buttons and her boundaries. She moaned when he thrust his tongue into her and began to fuck her, but she cried out when he did the very same thing to her ass. “Jake!”

  “What’s the magic word?”

  “In me,” she panted.

  Rocking back to sit on his heels, he grabbed the condom he’d apparently appropriated from the drawer and tore the wrapper. “That’s two words, but I’ll let it slide this time, seeing as how you’re not thinking straight.”

  She laughed, but the chuckle ended on a moan as she watched him cover the thick head of his cock with the thin latex. “Shut up and do me.”

  He grinned down at her, his lips and chin slick with her arousal. “Oh, it’ll be my pleasure,” he crooned. Grasping her hand, he pushed it high over her head, lacing his fingers tight in hers as he stretched out above her. “You sure you don’t wanna be on top?”

  “I’m sure.” She sneaked a glance at him from under lowered lashes, but something about the faint sheen of her slicking his skin and the damp intimacy of their clasped palms made her suddenly shy.

  He caught his lower lip between his teeth as he pushed into her, his forehead crinkling in earnest concentration. “Okay, but Darla, I want you to look at me.”

  He called her out on her inability to meet his gaze. Pure stubbornness gave her the strength she needed. Tipping her chin up, she stared directly into those bottomless brown eyes.

  “I’m not going to just ‘do’ you.”

  She answered this pronouncement with a low, keening moan.

  “I’m going to make love to you so slow and so good, you’re going to forget all about pleasuring yourself. And you’ll thank me nicely after.”

  Darla couldn’t find the strength to resist the notion. She didn’t want to. Not when he smiled down at her and began to move inside of her. And, sweet baby Cheeses, could he move. The desperate edge run off in their earlier frenzy, he took her with slow, languorous strokes, making it abundantly clear he had no intention to hurry. She dug her nails into the hard muscle of his shoulder, but he simply drew her hand away and pushed it above her head too, stretching long against her.

  Despite the difference in their heights, somehow every bit of him seemed to match up perfectly with every part of her. As sexy as it was to hear his chest hair rasping against her dress, feeling the crisp curls abrade her nipples was even better. The line tapering down his stomach was softer, but no less arousing in its sharp contrast to the smoothness of hers. She was soft. He was hard. Everywhere except those beautiful warm eyes.

  “You’re an Amazon,” he whispered as his measured control began to slip and his thrusts became the teeniest bit sloppy.

  “I’m gonna come.”

  The words escaped mere milliseconds before the first wave of pleasure engulfed her. But this climax was nothing like her first. This one was breathtakingly different. Smoother, more mellow, but at the same time more intense than anything she’d experienced before. Release unfolded inside her like one of those time-lapse photos of a flower opening or the pieces of an intricate puzzle fitting together.

  Dimly, she was aware of the jolts and spasms rocking Jake’s body, but she was too wrapped up in her own pleasure to care. They rocked together, their bodies moving as a whole, rather than parts. He collapsed onto her without permission or apology. Plastered against one another, they slowed, discovering each other all over again as they matched slower breaths and warmed cooling skin.

  Jake turned his face to her and pressed an absent kiss to her temple. “What do you say?” he teased, his mouth curving against her damp skin.

  Darla blin
ked drowsily, then closed her eyes. There was no point in denying him the words poised on the tip of her tongue. Letting her smile come as she relaxed into the mattress beneath him, she whispered, “Thank you very much, Dr. Dalton. That was lovely.”

  Chapter 9

  Jake was afraid it would be weird, and he was right. It was.

  “I’ll clear up.” Darla rose from the table, taking the bucket of fried chicken he’d procured from an obliging drive-thru as she went. “Thanks for dinner, Jake. I’ll let you two get to work.”

  He smiled up at her. “You’re welcome.” He darted a peek at Grace, but she was already pulling a myriad of notebooks and folders from her backpack. “Sorry I didn’t have time to get something better. Crazy day.”

  She grinned when she caught his gaze lingering on her chest. “I never say no to biscuits.” With a smug smirk and a pointed glance at the top of Grace’s dark head, she popped the last bite of his bread into her mouth and reached for the tub of mashed potatoes. “Gracie, sweetie, don’t wear the poor man out.”

  Then, she disappeared into the kitchen.

  He stared after her. He couldn’t help himself. The snug shirt she’d worn to work had only a small version of The Pit’s logo emblazoned over her breast, but the back declared her “Sassy, Spicy, and Extra Saucy!” And he was the lucky guy who knew those words to be absolutely true.

  Two seconds later, she sashayed past with a bottle of water in hand. “Shout if y’all need anything.”

  Jake knew now he’d see little of her until he said goodnight. He also knew her new habit of hiding out in her bedroom while he and Grace went over her progress served two purposes. First, it nipped the temptation to do more than cast a few lingering looks right in the bud. Second, it let him know in no uncertain terms she trusted him with her daughter. A sentiment he appreciated. Deeply. Her confidence in him was the main reason he never tried to push the boundaries she’d set on their relationship. Didn’t hurt that he was as scared of screwing things up with Grace as he was with her mother.