Mr. Andersen’s rage simply boiled over. “You, Mr. Pimp, get out of my store.” Then he turned, his arms still flailing ineffectually in the air. The scent of his overly-strong cologne hung behind as a tangible reminder of his words.
The silence was long and loud, broken only by the whirring of the fans and street traffic wafting in through the open windows. Randi didn’t say word. She was in shock, that could be the only explanation.
“Jesus, I’m sorry. But he didn’t have the right to say that about you.”
Randi shrugged, then picked up her clipboard. “Don’t worry about it. It was my fault. You didn’t know.”
What the hell? David grabbed her arm. “You’re just going to let him say that shit to you?” He couldn’t fathom. He’d come from the loins of a woman who’d taught him the meaning of sticking up for yourself. The meaning of self-respect. No matter what happens, never give that up. Admit you’re wrong, sure, but you can’t allow another human being to demean and degrade you, even your own father.
Randi hugged the clipboard to her chest. “You saw what good it does to challenge him. He didn’t listen to you either.”
“It doesn’t matter if he listens. It matters that you...” He stopped, tipping his head to stare at her. He wanted to shake Randi. He had the sense to understand that while her father had not used a single swear word, he’d cut her to ribbons. Christ, it had been a freaking bloodbath.
And she just took it. No matter what she’d done, the old man didn’t have the right. “You’re just going back to work?”
“He didn’t fire me. He only stopped speaking to me.”
“I don’t think I get what’s going on here, Randi.”
He’d been incredibly stupid coming here in the mood he’d been in, edged as it was with anger and some weird need to dominate her. His mother would have whupped him upside the head for the way he’d acted. He didn’t know his own mind these days or understand half the things that motivated him.
But he did know that Randi Andersen needed more than a few nights of hot sex. She was on the rebound from far more than just a marriage gone bad.
She was on the rebound from a father that could call his daughter a whore. He could tell her old man he had no right to treat her that way, but it would take more than that to fix what was wrong with Randi accepting those words so blithely.
David didn’t have a clue how to show her. He couldn’t even fix his own freaking life.
She spoke first. “You know, I don’t think I feel like doing laundry or having dinner tonight. If that’s okay with you. Let’s just skip it.”
He realized now that’s how she phrased most things, as a question, asking for permission. She cajoled him into helping her fill her gas tank, she let her landlord get away without making necessary repairs. Hell, when the dog had jumped on the bed that first night and practically nosed his balls, she’d freaked out like a little girl, afraid he’d get mad at her. She didn’t allow just her father to mistreat her, accepting abuse was actually a part of her makeup.
He forced this decision on her. “Is that what you want? To skip tonight?”
She glanced briefly at the floor, her chest rising with a deep breath. David himself wasn’t clear on what answer he wanted her to give. But at least she finally gave one.
“Yes, that’s what I want.” Then she shooed him toward the back door. “You better vamoose before Pops comes back.”
She needed time. She needed space. Hell, Randi Andersen needed a lot more than that.
He just wasn’t sure he was the guy to give her anything.
Chapter Eight
She absolutely hated that assessing look in David’s eye. It reminded her of the way her father looked at her every time he stopped speaking for a day or a month or a year.
David had backed off just the way she told him to, along the aisle from which he’d first appeared. She knew he wasn’t backing down from her father. He was backing away from her.
It had to happen sometime. At least the break came at the beginning of the relationship. Not that two dinners and two nights of some very hot sex made a relationship.
It was just rather debilitating that he’d seen her true weak colors. Somehow, it felt worse than the ending of her marriage, though exactly why, she couldn’t say.
Randi tossed the clipboard onto the bench. It slid across the Formica and tipped over the edge, clattering to the concrete floor. She left it there.
Quitting time was another hour’s worth of clock ticks. She couldn’t stand it. Not one more tick, not one more tock. Outside, the sun hit her like a spear right through the eye, and she dug in her purse for her sunglasses. Not there. Not anywhere. She’d forgotten where she left them last, story of her life.
All she wanted was to lay on her bed, wrap herself around a loving bundle of fur, and forget. Forget about David—because he wasn’t coming back—and forget about what happened in the warehouse. To forget. That’s all she wanted right now.
It would have been easier if David wasn’t sitting on her porch when she got home.
* * * * *
The answer to his problems hadn’t hit him like a bolt of lightning or the hand of God. Instead, it had seeped into his brain like a frosty mug of beer nursed over half an hour rather than slugged back in five minutes. The half hour of his ride from Scandia Haus to his own driveway. He’d sat for a minute, hands on the wheel, then flipped a U-turn.
It was simple, really. He’d failed to hold his family together after Lou’s death. They’d almost fallen apart, drowned in the loss, and the fix, in the end, had not come from him. It had happened on its own. With Taylor and Jace falling in love. His mom was happy. His dad was happy. Everyone was happy. Instead of accepting it like a man, David had run like a green kid getting his first kick of sand in the face. A man did not run from his responsibilities. A man didn’t quit his job or divest himself of his family. A man didn’t pick up a young woman on the side of the road, then dump her three days later after he did an unconscionable thing.
Lou wouldn’t have done that. But David could still fix things.
Randi needed him. He couldn’t fight her battles for her, but he could make sure that she fought them for herself. She was special. He’d known that last night when she gave herself so sweetly. He’d known it when he watched her come. When he’d held her as she slept. The awkwardness this morning, even his anger with his dad, well, that had all been part of finding himself. And he’d done it. He couldn’t walk away from Randi if he tried. She needed him. With care, he could help her reach her potential.
He only had to wait on her porch for fifteen minutes, the dog at his feet. He liked the picture they greeted her with.
Of course, as soon as she heard a commotion out at the road, Royal didn’t stay put.
Randi’s truck rattled through the driveway ruts, rolled to a stop, then she stared through the windshield at him.
Finally, she climbed out, dropping a hand to the dog for a quick scratch, a soft word, then she seemed to suck in a breath and close the distance between them. With him sitting the few steps up on the porch, they were almost eye level.
She shaded her eyes. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“We have unfinished business.”
Her gaze fell to her tennies. He looked at her bare, tanned legs, then the strip of skin between her waistband and the bottom of her skimpy camisole thing. On a guy, it would have been called an undershirt. Over it, she’d thrown a short-sleeved shirt, but hadn’t buttoned it.
She fiddled with the keys in her right hand, then lifted her purse to her chest like a shield. “Unfinished business. You mean what we were doing in the cold room?”
There was certainly that. But there was also a lot more. He held out a hand, beckoning with his fingers. “Come here.”
She shuffled a few steps closer.
He leaned forward, grabbed her hand, and reeled her in. “I think we should forget about the cold room.”
She rolled her e
yes and sighed. “Yeah. Let’s forget it.”
“I think we should start over.”
She tipped her head, forsaking her shoes to look at him. “Start over how?”
“Well, first I ask you how your day was, and you say it was fine, but you’re tired.”
“Oh.” The sadness in her eyes at the warehouse hadn’t dissipated.
“How was your day, honey?” he murmured.
“It was fine, but I’m tired,” she whispered.
“Then I take you inside, give you a glass of wine, run you a hot bath, fix dinner, and feed the dog while you’re soaking.”
“I don’t have any wine, and I’m not sure there’s enough of anything to make dinner.”
“I’ll improvise. Then after dinner, I’ll carry you into the bedroom and make sweet love to you all night long.”
She didn’t smile or laugh or fall into his arms. “David. Why are you really here?”
“You had a bad day. I caused the problem. I want to fix it.” What he didn’t say was that after all that sweet lovemaking, he’d help her see that she had to tackle the issue with her dad. He’d go with her, hold her hand, whatever. But he’d tell her all that later, when she lay drugged with passion, when he could make her see what she had to do.
“I thought you wanted to keep things casual between us.”
David stroked a smudge of dirt from her cheek. “I changed my mind. Is that all right?”
Randi knew something was wrong. Off. Like the sensation of being followed. You kept telling yourself you were being silly, but the hairs at the back of your neck wouldn’t lay down. Taking flight seemed like the best solution, but if she ran, she’d never know if David could actually fall in love with her. She’d forever wonder what would have happened if she’d had the guts to stick around.
She’d jumped too quickly and too far with Mick. But was she too battle-scarred to ever jump again?
Maybe. Yes. No. She drew in a breath of calm. And jumped. “I think we should skip the bath, and go straight for the sweet lovemaking.”
* * * * *
David unscrewed the cap off the caviar. “Where do you want me to squeeze it?”
“You decide.”
He pushed with a finger on her chest. “Close your eyes.”
She laid back on the bed, completely naked, and did as he said. In the end, they’d taken the bath together. She rubbed tangerine soap all over him. He’d chosen a cucumber scent to lather all over her. They smelled good. And Randi was in love.
He squeezed a cool line of caviar from the tip of one breast to the other. “Now what?”
“Lick it off, silly.”
“Lick it or suck it?”
“A bit of both, please.”
His lower half lay flush against her, naked flesh to naked flesh. It was a to-die-for sensation. Then he rose on his elbows and bent over her right breast. He blew, the hot-cold stimulation starting a slow burn between her thighs. With just his tongue, he taste-tested the caviar, going straight to her nipple, sucking both it and the caviar into his mouth.
She pressed against him, her mound to his abdomen, his erection nestled along the join of her legs. She would have opened her thighs, but he rocked in the spoon of her legs.
He pulled back, surveying his handiwork. One clean, wet nipple with a slash of caviar paste leading straight to her other breast. “A man’s work is never done.” He bent his head to the task, licking a path to the goal.
She curled around him, running her hands down to his buttocks. They tensed beneath her touch though he kept up the rock of his body between her legs. Opening slightly, she let him fall deeper in the lee, then clamped her thighs. He slid easier in the drop of moisture, his cock swelling, hardening.
But he never stopped licking. Not until he reached her left nipple and sucked it into his mouth. There was something about the suction, the heat, the direct connection between her nipple and her clitoris that made her arousal spike. She started to rock with him, thrusting.
He’d taken her with hot passion. He’d wanted her with a driving need. Now he seemed to savor her, first with long minutes of bathtub play that her had coasting along the water’s edge to orgasm. Coasting without reaching, craving more, but unwilling to give up the sweetness of foreplay for the big bang.
And now this. His light tongue, his gentle sucking, his easy thrust and parry between her legs.
He raised his head and smiled, the bedside lamp glimmering in his eyes like a flame. “That was delicious. Now where do you want it?”
Her clitoris. Her vagina. His tongue, his fingers, his hot, hard cock. She craved all that, but more, she wanted the tempered rise of her excitement. She yearned for the peak, but she needed the climb to be long and slow. Two steps forward and one step back. Until she was absolutely mad, until all he had to do was blow on her, and she’d come.
That was how love should be. A little forward, a little back, a little give, a little take.
“Since you’re not answering, I assume I should decide.”
“Do it just right,” she whispered. A test and a prayer.
He gazed at her, his chin resting between her breasts. Then he went for the gusto, sliding down her body and spreading her legs with his hands. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said as he moistened her with nothing more than that hot gaze of his.
“What am I thinking?”
“That I’m gonna wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am you since I’ve given you five minutes of sucking on those gorgeous nipples.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.” Though her thoughts had been somewhere along that line.
He blew on her as if it were a punishment for the little lie. Her body shook with an involuntary quiver.
“You’ve got it all wrong.”
She snorted softly.
“I’ve got stamina, sweetheart. And you’re going to be screaming for me before I even get inside you.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” she teased. It didn’t matter. She’d take whatever he gave. Hard and fast, or soft and slow. It only mattered that he’d come back.
“You’re going to scream, that’s a promise.” Leaning on one elbow, he parted her folds with two fingers. “My, isn’t this pretty.” He jabbed the tip of his tongue on her clitoris, once, twice, two jolts of electricity, then he withdrew.
She bit her lip and watched.
Holding her open, he aimed the tube and squeezed. She squeaked as the cold caviar paste hit her hot, sensitized clit. Deep inside, her body tightened in need.
“I think that felt good,” he said.
She nodded, loathe to speak in case her voice cracked.
“How shall I go about this? There’s the fast suck where I go straight for the caviar and take your pretty little clit on a quick ride to heaven. Or there’s the slow lick, where I taste each morsel individually. That may take hours.”
She thrust up. Or rather her body did. Begging. Pleading. “Just suck and get it over with.”
He laughed softly, his breath puffing over her. “The slow lick, individual particles of the delicacy savored separately.”
Then he began to devour her, one atom at a time. It went on and on, the slip-slide of his tongue. The glide of his fingers entering her, retreating. No one touch enough to push her over the edge, the combination propelled her closer to heaven. She was so wet, she could hear the entry of his fingers. Her eyes teared up. Her lips ached from biting, and her fingers clenched and unclenched in the bedspread.
And each time, as her body tensed, and pinpricks of light burst before her eyes, he pulled her back.
“Not yet, baby,” he whispered. “Just a little longer.”
“Please.”
He went at her again. His tongue delved, then his fingers. He pumped her as he swirled and sucked the swollen nub of her clitoris. She shook and writhed.
“Please, oh God, please.” It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, the torture went on and on. Until she couldn’t remember her own name.
Unt
il he entered her deeply with two fingers, pushed the tip of his tongue against a spot just beneath her clitoris, and made her scream.
Nothing could have stopped the utter implosion of her body. She orgasmed from the inside out, rocking, thrusting, squirming against him as he pinned her legs to the bed. She tossed her head, gasped air that wouldn’t go down, and still he held his tongue against her.
He made her come until she lost awareness of where she was. Of who she was. Until he was the only thing that existed, and she couldn’t take another breath without him.
* * * * *
He loved watching her come. He loved knowing that he could make her lose herself. He loved that she screamed and didn’t even hear herself.
She didn’t even know when he entered her. But her body knew, gripping him, dragging him deeper. He pulled her leg to his waist, drove in until he touched heaven, and stilled.
When he came, she’d come with him. He could wait, holding himself motionless. The slightest tremor of her body threatened to push him over the edge, but he wouldn’t go without her.
He hadn’t known that he could come without a single pump of his cock, without a hand around him, a mouth on him, or the warm cocoon of a woman’s body holding him.
Somehow, her pleasure, her release, her cries had almost driven him to it. His limbs had trembled, staving off orgasm. They still trembled.
He pressed a kiss to a closed eyelid. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes, her gaze glassy. He nudged slightly forward, his body rasping against her clitoris. She jerked, grabbed his shoulders, and dug in with her nails.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered, then clutched at him, pulling her other leg to his waist.
He slid in to the hilt, not a breath between their bodies. Then he pumped, every muscle straining. He was so damn close that only three thrusts deep inside her made the blood rush in his ears and his balls ache with need.
“Come with me.” He didn’t even recognize his own voice. He didn’t bother to question why it was so important. He simply took her, dragged her along with him, thrust her high up into the clouds, up to the sky, then he shoved them both off into a clear, pure, relentless orgasm that lasted till the end of time.
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