Ford’s grin was gone, replaced with a clenched jaw and darkened eyes. What I’d said obviously hit deep. As it should.
I’d reached a new low and become the kind of woman who accepted money in exchange for use of her body, even if it wasn’t clearly stipulated, but in turn he’d become the kind of man who was willing to buy me to get what he wanted. I wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Chapter Twelve
Ford
Her words stung deep. There was no doubt about it. Whatever respect Charlie had for me disappeared after my proposal. I watched her flit around her crappy apartment as she packed a weekend bag, wondering if I hadn’t completely blown my shot with her.
This was my first time inside her place and it was all I expected it to be and worse. That’s not true. It was a hell of a lot smaller and dingier than I expected but then again I didn’t have any realistic idea of what someone on a salary like hers could afford to rent. It was basically one room, with a small alcove with a door to a bathroom.
That was it.
Her double bed was pushed up against one wall and a small sofa sat in the middle of it all in front of a wooden coffee table that had seen better days. The kitchen was almost non-existent, with no stove to be seen, just a microwave and sink installed in a tiny countertop. It felt like one of the cramped dorm rooms I’d seen at a college.
This place was a dump.
And it made me feel like shit to think she’d been living here for at last two years. I didn’t have a clue where she’d been before I hired her. I had no real idea where she came from and what her story was. Something I planned to rectify this weekend. But right now I needed to focus on getting her out of this place and back to my house.
The ride back from the restaurant had been mostly silent. I’d broken it up by explaining a few things—like the fact we would head back to her apartment and pack a bag before heading up to my place in the woods. I ran through a few things I wanted to do and what clothes she might need. I didn’t intend to take her out again. I was serious when I said I wanted us to spend quality time together, just the two of us. But hiking was on the itinerary, as was using my hot tub and I surreptitiously adjusted myself as she threw in a tiny bright blue bikini into her weekend bag.
Having seen her naked once didn’t make the idea of having her in a tiny bikini sitting in my hot tub, her luscious breasts bobbing on the surface of the water, any less hot.
She grabbed a bulging makeup bag and threw it in the sports bag. Pausing at the side of the bed, she froze with her phone in hand. I approached her slowly and swept her hair off her shoulder before resting my hand on it.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Got lost in thought.”
“What were you thinking about?”
She turned her head to the side and gave me a furtive glance before looking back at the bag on the bed.
“I used to have these rules, like my cardinal rules I lived by because I thought … it doesn’t matter. I just realized none of my old rules apply here. They can’t help me figure this out.”
“What sort of rules?”
Charlie shrugged. “Maybe I’ll tell you over the weekend. I guess it’s the sort of thing a girlfriend might reveal.”
I turned her to face me, holding her shoulders.
“You don’t need a set of rules for this weekend. This isn’t some trial you need to figure out how to survive, Charlie. I want you to think of this as just you and me, a new, happy couple wanting to connect. Can you do that for me?” I pulled her against me, wrapping my arms around her small frame. Her hands came up to rest on my chest and for a moment I thought she would push me away. Instead, her fingers curled into my dress shirt and she turned her head to rest it against my chest.
“I’m lost here, Ford,” she whispered so quietly I couldn’t tell if she wanted me to hear her. With one arm holding her around her waist, keeping her close to me, I stroked her hair.
“You’re not lost, Charlie, I’ve got you. I’ve got you and I’m not going to let you go.”
I held her for a few more moments, relishing the scent of her hair, the feel of her heartbeat, so close to mine.
This was hard for her and I knew it was a lot for her to get her head around but she hadn’t given me any choice. Not really. Charlie was a stubborn woman. That much I knew about her and this was for her own good. Her sister messing up Charlie’s credit score was the final straw in the chaos that was my girl’s life. I knew something had happened in Charlie’s life that had left her aimless and uprooted. And as soon as I found out what it was I would have a much better insight into what made her tick. Until now, I was always having to guess at why she did the things she did.
Picking up her bag, I kept an arm around her shoulder and guided her out of the apartment. The moment we’d shared broke the ice and me touching her didn’t seem to bother her. In fact I could have sworn she leaned into me. Touching the small of her back as I guided her into the car, my hand on her bare thigh as we drove through the dark woods, it felt natural and she didn’t flinch or draw away. I watched her as she looked out the window, into the dark trees, wondering what the best tactic was to get through to her. Charlie was usually feisty and excited. A lot of that was a façade, I’d come to realize.
There was a dark side to her I needed to learn. The fact she kept her past a secret was a blaring indicator it was the first place to look. Also, the fact she’d never been taken out on a real date made alarm bells ring. It didn’t make any sense. I’d clearly embarrassed her though and she’d made up the prom story.
How come a woman as fun and beautiful as Charlie had such a patchy dating history? Thinking back, I tried to remember if any of the guys I’d ever seen her with had been anything but bad news. They were always typical bad boys, or at least boys trying to pose as bad, but really living off their parents. I knew men like that, having been one myself when I was younger and dumber. Either way, Charlie was obviously drawn to a type. A type I was not.
The only common denominator was they didn’t take Charlie seriously and to hear her say she’d never been taken on a real date confirmed my suspicions. She got used for sex. A lot. Whether or not she was aware of that fact was yet to be determined. I’d seen Charlie act less smart than she was in order to stroke a guy’s ego but maybe she was genuinely bad at reading what men wanted.
It wouldn’t be that shocking. After all, I didn’t have a fucking clue what women wanted. If I did, I would have figured out how the hell to get what I wanted a long time ago. Here I was at the age of thirty, having to pay the woman I loved to spend a weekend with me just to get some time alone with her.
Chapter Thirteen
It was late by the time we got back to my place and I decided the best I could do was help her get settled and relax. I led her upstairs to the master bedroom and put her bag by the large walk-in closet.
“Why don’t you get ready for bed and I’ll be up in a minute?” She glanced from the bed to her bag and then to me. “No pressure here, Charlie, just like I said. Pretend you’ve just come home from a late date with your man and now you’re going to relax a bit and hang out. It’s not rocket science. It’s not code for sex. It is what it is.” With those parting words, I walked out and hustled downstairs to the kitchen.
Chocolate. It had worked last time I had her in my house. I made two mugs of decaf coffee, just the way she liked with her vanilla creamer, and then piled up the small bowls with four different type of chocolates I’d bought earlier in the day. Everything on the tray, I made my way upstairs, reminding myself how nervous she was probably feeling.
She was sitting cross-legged at the head of the bed, wearing what looked like the same outfit I’d found her in a week ago—tight little jersey short and a white tank top. Her long dark hair hung around her shoulders and despite the allusion of confidence she was trying to exude, the rapid rise and fall of her chest was a dead giveaway to how nervous she was.
Placing the tray on one of the bedside tables, I g
ot undressed, keeping my boxers. Somehow I was managing to keep my erection only at half-mast. After all, I told her there was no pressure for sex and I needed to live up my word. Turning on the lamps on either side of the bed, I switched off the main light before sitting next to her on the bed and passing her coffee to her.
“Now we have some serious work to do, Charlie.”
Her eyes widened and I internally winced. What was it going to take to make her stop thinking I was about to drop another bombshell on her? Putting the tray between us, I gestured to the bowls of chocolate. “I’m thinking about introducing chocolates to Java but I need someone to help me taste test this first batch. Think you’re up for the job?”
A saucy eyebrow lifted up and she smirked at me, finally, my reliable, sassy Charlie was back, at least for the moment.
“I think I can help you out there.” Reaching for the first bowl, filled with milk-chocolate truffles, dusted with some sort of chili sugar, she popped one in her mouth and moaned. Whatever sort of half-mast I was sporting was now just full on wood. Adjusting myself as surreptitiously as possible, I tasted one of the chocolates and asked her about the texture. She started giving me her opinion and I knew we were on the right track.
Twenty minutes later, Charlie flopped down next to me, her forearm over her eyes.
“Let’s play truth or dare. And when I say truth or dare, I mean mainly truth because a dare is going to require one, if not both, of us to get up and that’s basically impossible because I’m about two bites away from a chocolate coma.” She peeked out from under her arm and she looked so damn cute and innocent, a smudge of chocolate on the side of her mouth I desperately wanted to lick off. Instead, I controlled myself and wiped it with my finger.
“All right, let’s do it. You ask first,” I answered, ignoring the shiver I felt run through her when I touched her face.
“Okay, ready? Truth or dare.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Truth!”
She swallowed nervously. “Why am I only the third?”
I figured she’d ask that question eventually but I thought it would happen a few months down the line. Not a few hours into the weekend.
“Really?”
“It’s truth or dare. You have to answer. And it has to be a real answer.”
“A real answer. Fine, but then it’s my turn that rule applies.”
“Totally. Now spill, Ford.”
“I guess you know my family’s got money. Well, from a really young age it became clear people would do just about anything to get their hands on it. And that included women. Even as a teenager, it was always about what I could give them—girls who were interested in me always wanted something from me and expected I spend shitloads of money on them. It was a major turn off. It reminded me of the kind of women I saw around my dad, always causing fights between my parents. As I got older, it only got worse. At college, trying to find a woman who wasn’t interested in where I was getting my MBA was impossible. But there was one girl who I met at a frat party. She seemed pretty cool and didn’t seem to light up when she found out my last name. But in fact she was just really good at hiding it and after a few weeks, it started to come out and I ended it. We had sex once and it was awkward. I don’t even think she was into it. That might not make me sound great, but the whole thing just seemed like part of her plan to get me hooked. You know, third date kind of thing, she finally invited me up to her dorm room, her roommate was out for the night, the whole thing was planned. No spontaneity, no feeling, no real attraction. You can imagine. Candace. Her name was Candace.”
I stared up the ceiling, remembering how used I’d felt, not just because of the sex but because I’d fallen for it, the whole act. Men weren’t supposed to feel used because of sex. College boys were supposed to be collecting panties and talking about the most outrageous places they convinced their girls to give them blowjobs. There I was, a junior, feeling dirty for doing it under the covers, in an event that took a total of six minutes to complete. Obviously she didn’t come. She barely even took her clothes off yet somehow convinced me she wanted me.
“Candace sounds like a piece of work. All right, number two, let’s hear it.” Charlie’s direct, cheerful voice brought back from my dismal memories.
“All right, number two was a classic one-night stand. After graduating, my parents started setting me up with women they thought were suitable as future daughter-in-laws. Marilyn-type women. That was a nightmare in its own right. After a particularly disastrous date with a woman who basically dressed like my mom but twenty years younger, I went to a bar and started drinking. Somehow I ended up in a woman’s apartment and we slept together. It was fine. She kept her boots on, which was kind of hot but also weird as hell. I didn’t even know her name. As soon as I could find my shoes, I got out of there and got a cab home.”
“Ah, a classic get-in, get-off, get-out. Didn’t know you had it in you, Ford.” Charlie shoved my shoulder playfully.
“It’s not something I’m proud of, Charlie.” I grimaced, remembering how thankful I’d been I’d remembered to at least wear a condom. “That’s not how I want sex to be—some random act I can barely remember. After I didn’t have time to date much, I was too busy starting my business and playing phone tag with my parents. Every once in while they still try to meddle with me, send random women my way as if I’ll suddenly change who I am and decide to up and marry one of them. Just to make sure the family line stays strong and wealthy.”
“So how do you want sex to be?”
“Fun. Hot. Based on a connection, an attraction, not the size of my bank account. Or because someone is wearing beer goggles.”
“Don’t worry, Ford, that girl in the bar didn’t pick you because she had too much to drink.”
“Fine but my point remains valid.”
“I totally see your point but I don’t think you’re being totally honest with yourself.”
“In what way?”
“Well, you want sex to be fun, hot, a bit dirty, a bit out of control, like you get that buzzing sensation on your skin and you know the only way to make it go away is with a big ol’ orgasm that makes your toes curl and your eyes squeeze shut. But to get all that, you’ve got to relax, let lose, allow yourself to make the connection.” Her voice got husky and I couldn’t help but remember what she looked like when she came, her whole body writhing under me, muscles contracting in pleasure and a bit of pain. “But to get those things,” she continued, “you have to be honest about what you want.”
I swallowed, still not clear about what she was talking about, but not wanting her to stop talking. Or moving. Because now she was in motion.
Putting the bowl of chocolates on the bedside table
Rising on to her knees.
Crawling towards me slowly.
The neckline of her tank top dropping down and giving me a shot of those oh-so-squeezable tits.
“I noticed it when we had sex.” She straddled my thighs and ran her hands down my bare chest. “You were hesitant to ask me to do what you wanted. I had to coax it out of you. But I think it’s an act, Ford.” Charlie shimmied down a bit further, resting her fingertips just inside the top of my boxers. “I think you know exactly what you want, don’t you?”
My hands clenched the sheets on either side of my hips as she pulled down my waist band until my hard cock was released. Placing her hands next to mine on the sheets, she lowered her face down until it was mere inches away from my cock, already beading with pre-cum. Pausing, her eyes met mine, and she asked, “What do you want me to do now?”
“I thought we were playing truth or dare?”
“You get another turn. I dare you to ask me what you really want me to do.”
The little tease. Her voice was low and husky, innocent but filthy at the same time. Her little pink tongue slipped out and licked her lips.
There was no way I wasn’t going to take that dare.
There was no point pretending with Charlie, not now. Either she wante
d me for who I was, what I was or she didn’t. And that extended to sex. I ran my fingers down her face, thumbing her bottom lip.
“Sit up,” I ordered. She rose to her knees, a perplexed look on her face. “Put your hair up in a ponytail. I want something to hold on to.” Her eyes slid shut and she blushed. Using an elastic she had around her wrist, she quickly put up her long dark hair into a messy ponytail.
“Now what?”
I sat up, grabbing the base of her ponytail and jamming my mouth against hers for a brutal kiss. She tasted like chocolate and something else. Just Charlie. My gorgeous, sweet, sexy Charlie. Pulling her off me, I stared into her eyes, looking for any hesitation, any reluctance to do this. All I saw was my own needs mirrored.
“Now wrap those pretty lips around my fat cock and make me come.”
“God, when you talk dirty to me…” she closed her eyes and I felt a shiver run through her. Guiding her down between my legs, I watched in rapture as she took me in her mouth. Deliberately leaving her hands next to my thighs, she let me pick the pace. Starting slowly, I guided her down, watching to see how much she could take. This was a first for me and I needed to figure out her limitations. It was one thing to receive a blowjob, it was another thing to dictate one. She kept with the slow pace for a few minutes before slowly sucking all the way to the bulbous head and flicking her tongue on the underside.
“Fuck, that feels good.” With a pop she released me and I almost came as I watched a thread of saliva stay connect to her mouth and my dick as she took a deep breath. Taking me back in her mouth, I held her hair tighter and she picked up the signal. Her head moved faster, driving me closer and closer to the edge.
Into the Woods (Lust in the Woods Book 2) Page 7
