by Ann Jacobs
“Sure.” Deidre had suggested Gator’s Croc & Roc, probably because she thought he’d be missing Cajun cooking after several months of surviving on The Corral’s fare. Les had been there several years ago with a couple of his med school classmates whose homes were in Dallas.
He looked forward to watching Deidre sing, “watching” being the operative word. Les couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it but he liked the party atmosphere and the menu of casual dishes that ranged from alligator in various guises to Tex-Mex to plain, classic burgers. “I expect you to sing for me,” he said as they crossed the street and headed for the club.
From the flick of her lashes at him after he said it, he sensed a hint of surprise and realized he’d put a hint of intentional command in his tone. The flush of her cheeks told him she responded to that light command.
* * * * *
Deidre couldn’t remember when she’d had as much fun as she’d had with Les tonight. Unlike some of her past dates, he had drunk responsibly, nursing a craft beer while she’d put down three of the frozen, lightly spiked concoctions that Gator’s was famous for. He’d clapped when she’d sung karaoke and shown her that while he might come across as quiet and serious, he was a hellishly good dancer.
They’d held hands and walked all the way back to the hotel suite, bumping hips together occasionally. Just that light contact had heated her libido as much as some of her past boyfriends’ hardcore foreplay. Now as she stood in the bathroom washing off her makeup, brushing her teeth and slipping on an oversize T-shirt with SpongeBob stenciled on the front, she could barely wait to take her relationship with Les to that next level.
Just one thing worried her. She was pretty sure she needed a Dom—somebody who would control her reckless impulses. Les wasn’t one—at least she hadn’t seen any signs that he’d be inclined to command her obedience. He was as hot as hell, though, and it wasn’t just his looks, which she’d noticed made other women turn their heads and practically drool. The man was everything she looked for in a companion—attentive, well-mannered, even protective.
What else could she ask for?
Nothing, except that aura of command she’d observed in Doms at Club Rio Brava. They’d made her tremble with the need to submit, much like the way she used to feel about Jack Duval even though she’d never experienced his mastery except in her fantasies.
“Deidre?”
Shit. She’d stayed here in the bathroom for too long, her head in the clouds and her imagination running wild. “Be right there.” She took one last look at herself and opened the door.
Omigod. Les had looked good in clothes, but stripped down to nothing but a pair of navy-blue boxer briefs he took her breath away. She hadn’t imagined he’d be so buff, but he was. Well-defined muscles rippled in his arms and chest, and his legs looked as though he ran miles every day. The distinct bulge in the crotch of his briefs held the promise of a fun evening to come, even more than the turned-down covers on the king-size bed behind him.
His gaze settled on her bare legs. His dark eyes turned almost black. He looked at her as though she were one of those Lady Godivas she’d seen laid on the pillows and he was starving for a chocolate fix. “Come here.”
That sounded more like a command than a request, but Deidre had no impulse other than to obey. She made a beeline for the bed. When he reached out and drew her close, tingles of anticipation ran down her spine where he was using his splayed fingers to work out the kinks in her muscles. His touch made her pussy grow hot and wet.
Needy. She wanted nothing more than for him to claim her. To fuck her until she dissolved into a quivering mass of sensation.
Oh yeah. The doc knew how to kiss—hot and wet and deep, his tongue tangling with hers, claiming her mouth. Devouring it. Her nipples grew hard and swollen and he hadn’t even touched them yet—except that he was holding her so close that his heartbeat pounded against her flesh through her thin nightshirt.
He tasted like hops and honey. His breathing became more ragged with each moment that passed and his rising arousal fed hers. His hard, thick biceps muscles felt warm and strong beneath her fingers, as though he could protect her from life’s hard knocks.
I’m trying to see in this man all the traits I want my master to have.
Deidre knew she’d fantasized a lot about what a Dom was and wasn’t, and having fun with a hot one, but she hadn’t imagined anything permanent. That was the thing—she’d never really imagined anything permanent, she’d been running for so long, reacting to Four’s betrayal of their family, dealing with her own pain and anger. Standing inside the aura of Les’ calm strength today, she had found herself thinking of other things. What she wanted for herself, not in just a temporary, one-night-at-the-Neon-Lasso way, but in a life partner. Could she change midstream, turn away from her interest in a Dom and enjoy the vanilla sex he’d deliver with obvious skill?
She’d pulled away for a moment because she wasn’t sure, but she knew she wanted Les tonight even if he wasn’t the hard-edged, take-charge lover of her late-night fantasies. She snuggled up to him again, loving the heat and hardness of him. “God yes, fuck me.”
When Les held her, his touch firm and hot but not demanding, she craved not just his body but something more. That scared the shit out of her.
“Let’s get this nightshirt off you, chéri.” Stepping back a little, he lifted the shirt off her and took a long, hot look at her naked body. “God, but you’re gorgeous. Smokin’ hot, too, with your taut nipples, and that cunt just asking for my tongue. The SpongeBob nightie is cute, but not nearly as arousing as you. Let’s go to bed.”
His deep, lilting speech pattern, which had become more pronounced with his arousal, reminded her of New Orleans, of beignets and steaming sweet café au lait on a lazy morning in the French Quarter. Maybe he’d take her there one day.
Her mind was going too fast. She was losing resolve, fantasizing about forever when this was nothing more than a night’s diversion. Telling herself to get real, she sat on the edge of the bed, watching him hook his thumbs into his briefs and slide them slowly down and off. She could hardly wait to touch all of him, up close and personal.
He had a beautiful cock, long and thick with prominent veins and a deep-rose color that contrasted with his olive-toned skin. Fully aroused, it stood high and proud against his belly, giving her a good view of heavy testicles nearly bursting out of a smooth pink scrotum. She liked seeing a smooth groin like his on a man, yes she did.
Especially when it took her by surprise, and it had surprised her to see that Les shaved his pubic hair. She licked her lips, wishing she were exploring him with her tongue instead. “Oh yeah. I want some of that.”
“You’re gonna get it, sweetheart.” Stretching out on the bed, he took her in his arms. His hard-on pressed against her thigh and he stroked her throat, her breasts, her belly, before slipping a hand between her legs and tweaking her clit. Then he laid his palm over her mound. “You’re soft as a baby. I like it.”
She’d had her pubes permanently removed after her first sexual encounter back in college when the boyfriend of the hour had teased her because they were a lot darker than the hair on her head. She’d kept her light-brown hair highlighted since her mom had finally let her have it done as part of her sixteenth birthday present. “Hair down there doesn’t bleach very well,” she commented against his throat as she savored the sensation of his beard stubble brushing her cheek.
When he chuckled, the rumbling vibration tickled her face. “I’ve never experimented with hair color there or anyplace else. I kind of imagine black hair like mine would be difficult to bleach even if I wanted to do it. I just shave it off for special occasions.”
“I’m a special occasion?”
“Very.” Deliberately he lowered his face to her breasts and caught one nipple between his teeth. He tortured it until it swelled in his mouth and went rigid against his tongue, before giving the same delightful treatment to its mate.
She played with his small, flat nipples, tweaking them with her fingertips, eliciting a small sigh from him—nothing more.
“My nipples aren’t sensitive like yours. The only foreplay I need is to look at your incredibly sexy body, but if you’d like to explore a little lower, feel free.” He resumed sucking her nipples, first one and then the other, driving her half mad because she couldn’t reach…
“Is this what you want?” He shifted, lowering his head between her legs but positioning his body so she could explore him to her heart’s content.
The wet heat of his mouth and tongue on her clit practically pushed her over the edge. She fondled his balls, loving the silky texture of the skin and the way they shifted against her hands. “God yes. Don’t stop.”
“I won’t. Love to taste you, know that you’re wet for me.”
His words, spoken so close to her aroused flesh, sent shivers of anticipation through her body. When he inserted two moistened fingers into her pussy, she practically came at that first delicious touch while he kept on sucking her clit.
His long thick cock was hot. It felt as velvety as his balls, she realized when she took it between her palms and gave a tentative caress. Impossibly, the taut flesh grew even bigger and harder as she played. Finally she leaned over and took his thick, heart-shaped cock head in her mouth. When she lapped up a drop of the lubrication from the deep slit in its tip, she loved the clean, slightly salty taste of him and the feel of the slick wet fluid on her tongue.
“Stop that or it will be all over.” Though his words came out as hoarse commands, he sounded desperate, much like she felt with him between her legs.
When he grasped her hair and gently tugged her off his cock, she let out a sigh of protest. “You taste delicious. I don’t want to stop. Not yet.”
“We’re just starting, chéri. And it won’t be over after tonight, either. Hold that thought while I protect you.”
It won’t be over after tonight? Sometimes my sweet, serious doctor sounds like a Dom.
Deidre remembered how she’d thought his suggestion to come to him earlier had sounded a lot like an order. That had to be just wishful thinking.
Don’t let yourself get caught up in the moment, in his gorgeous smile and his hot body and his Cajun drawl.
She lay back and watched him roll a condom over his big, hard cock before putting her onto her back with insistent strength and kneeling between her legs.
She was milk and honey, peaches and cream, her pale hair spread over the pillow as she looked up at him when he sank into her tight, hot cunt. Bracing his outstretched arms on the bed, he lifted his upper body off her until his cock and her pussy were the only parts of them that were joined.
His skin, bronzed by years spent in the sun as well as his Creole heritage, looked dark compared with her sun-kissed paleness. She felt smooth, like satin caressing his rougher flesh. Beneath him the way she was, she seemed small, even though he’d noticed right away that she was above-average height for a woman, slender except for those generous, highly sensitive breasts. Her rosy nipples tempted him to swoop down and feast on them as he fucked her, his hips moving slowly, deeply.
Claiming her. Not exactly the way he’d claim a sub. More like the way he’d take a lover, and he hadn’t had a vanilla lover since before Jessica. Hadn’t wanted one, but damn, he wanted Deidre that way. Her little moans encouraged him to move faster, harder, and the soft look in her eyes seduced him even more now than it had the first time they’d met.
She was close, sweat glistening on her beautiful body as she met his increasing thrusts. She knew how to make a man desperate to come, milking him with her inner muscles and looking at him as though she thought he’d hung the moon. He stifled a burst of jealousy for the other men she’d fucked.
I wasn’t her first but by God I’ll be her last.
Where the hell had that thought come from? Les had sworn when his position as Jessica’s sex slave had ended that jealousy and possessiveness would have no place in his future relationships, and he’d stuck with that, enjoying sex play as a Dom at clubs but never claiming a slave. He’d rarely fucked the same sub more than two or three times before moving on, and he’d avoided vanilla relationships like the plague.
He would consider the implications of this unexpected emotional connection later. Now he was desperate to come. Afterward he would regain his sense of self-preservation. He hoped.
“Wrap those long, pretty legs around my waist.” When she obeyed he shifted and sank into her welcome heat so deeply that his balls nestled between her outer labia. “Come for me now.”
She clutched his shoulders, her short nails digging in. More arousing than painful, her touch helped him to focus, hold back for her. Her eyelids closed as though she was memorizing the sensation of his every thrust, willing his heat and desire to flow into her. Her breath came out in little pants and her cunt contracted wildly around his cock.
Then she came, a series of little screams that triggered his climax, long hard bursts of semen that seemed to go on forever. He was still coming when his arms gave way and he collapsed on her, seeking and finding her lips and ravaging them as he had just ravaged her cunt.
“That was good, Doc. Really good,” she whispered against his lips after he broke the kiss. “Thank you.”
Les didn’t want thanks. He wanted…
Fuck, he didn’t know what he wanted except more of Deidre. All of her?
“It’s I who should be thanking you, chéri.” Rolling off her, he disposed of the condom before drawing her close to his side and stroking her silky flesh. “Go to sleep and we’ll do it again later. I’m afraid I’ll need a little time to recover.”
For a long time he lay beside her, keeping one hand on her hipbone, listening to the slow, steady beat of her heart, watching the nuances of expression on her beautiful face as she apparently revisited something disturbing in her sleep. The degree of emotional connection he felt with Deidre so soon after meeting her scared him more than he’d admit to a living soul.
Though he closed his eyes sleep wouldn’t come. He thought about his fledgling career, not yet punctuated by any great accomplishments, the past he’d turned his back on out of an excess of Cajun pride. Who the fuck was he, thinking about a lifetime with a woman whose father owned practically a fleet of planes, a garage full of luxury cars, a mansion of a house and a ranch bigger than a few small countries he could name?
A woman whose father made his wealthy old man look like a pauper, never mind that he’d walked away from his inheritance and told Paul Fourchet to leave Belle Terre to the church he loved so much if he couldn’t accept Les’ lifestyle or the woman he had once thought he loved.
Fuck, he had belonged to Jessica, enough to let her chain him to a wall and make him service other Doms. Enough to let her make him her 24/7 slave, tattooed and pierced and humiliated for her pleasure. He’d even allowed her to taunt him, saying he deserved to be enslaved because he might be descended from slaves the way so many Cajun aristocrats supposedly were.
He’d still loved her after she’d called him “coonass trash” and dumped him. Even though he wasn’t and never had been trash. The Fourchets had earned success off the sweat of their brows, rebuilding after losing everything during the Civil War and achieving success in a world very different from the one where they’d begun.
He and Jessica had worked together, played together and fucked together, always her way because she’d asserted full control. Les had thought they were in love. He’d even persuaded himself he liked having her chain him to a wall and make him watch her service other Doms, and he’d meekly gone down on all fours later and held his ass open for the same Dom to claim him on her order.
She’d given him the punishment he had craved. He’d agreed to be her 24/7 slave, to let her have him tattooed and pierced and humiliated for her pleasure. He’d endured every indignity she’d forced on him, believing the punishment had been his due. He probably would still have been with her if he hadn’t
awakened to how far he’d fallen under her command and backed away to maintain part of his soul.
Now it seemed he was finally on the right track with Deidre, loving a woman who could love him back for who he was, a woman who didn’t want to twist him up, at least on an emotional level. When he watched the silent rise and fall of Deidre’s chest he realized he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted Jessica.
Maybe he could have her, give her all she wanted physically and emotionally if not materially. Having been a slave, Les didn’t relish the idea of becoming one again, even if it were only to the Caden wealth.
Out here the social strictures weren’t as strong as those where he’d grown up. Marriages seemed to be for sex and love, not necessarily the dynastic matchups that were still common in Creole society. Les considered that Deidre’s brother had married the daughter of a ranching family the Cadens had supposedly been feuding with for over a hundred years. And that Liz Wolfe of the other huge property, the Laughing Wolf, had married small-town lawyer Jack Duval just before Christmas.
Maybe… Shit, the only hurdle Les would have to jump to be with Deidre was that small matter of the however many more zeroes in her bank balance than in his. Unless…
Les sighed, quietly so as not to wake his sleeping lover. He’d already decided Deidre was the woman he wanted, and he wasn’t about to deny himself like a cringing coward, even if that meant he’d suffer later if she or Four should decide he wasn’t good enough to be a Caden in-law.
As he was drifting off to sleep, Les realized that losing Jessica had bruised his ego. He was afraid losing Deidre might break his heart.
Chapter Four
Deidre had enjoyed nosing around the West End with Les, seeing familiar sights through his eyes, almost as much as she had loved having sex with him. They’d woken during the night and fucked, a sleepy, affectionate coupling that had left them both ready to curl up in each other’s arms, and later on they’d done it again. The last time had left her wrung out, breathless, still wanting more yet as sexually satisfied as she’d ever felt before.
