by Gina Conkle
The bigger question was why?
CHAPTER SIX
“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” My voice was razor sharp.
Abbie softened. Eyes dewy, her body slackened, letting the chain hold her weight. I stared at my hand on her neck. The grip wasn’t tight, but I covered both carotid arteries. Another sweaty, desperate scene flashed before me. Another neck, another time and place. Ugly heat flushed me.
“Mark.”
Sweat beaded my hairline. I fixated on my hand.
“Mark,” she said again, calling me out of the past.
Abbie’s lips relaxed. She was kissable, pliant. Her pulse fluttered under my touch. She trusted me. Fuck me if it didn’t work. I ached to be inside her. Control was of the essence, yet I didn’t want it. I wanted my mouth on hers.
My thumb feathered her jaw and Abbie melted against me. Her lashes dropped half-mast and the only thing I craved was her body against mine. The taut energy we’d been spinning since I first laid eyes on her twisted and coiled inside me. I read the yielding in her eyes, the want, the hunger driving her crazy. My hand slid to her nape. I grasped a handful of hair and guided her head back a few degrees.
Abbie’s breath stuttered as her nipples grazed my chest, the satiny peaks burning two holes in my skin. The chain shook as the rosy tips flattened against me and our mouths touched. Plush lips moved under mine…tender and slow, open-mouthed and warm. I brushed my tongue inside her bottom lip, no pressure, no rush, only sweet discovery.
I tasted Abbie and she tasted me. She slanted her mouth, sweeping the tip of her tongue along mine. One lazy kiss led to another. Her hair tickled my skin, driving me crazy. My other hand nudged between our bodies, and I molded my hand over her boob. Fuck. Her supple mounds drove me crazy, the size perfect, fitting in my palm. Abbie’s skin glowed, smoother and softer against my fingers. My back muscles tensed before releasing the tension. I kneaded her boob as we kissed, trailing the pad of my middle finger over her nipple. The sweetness of her lips, the shape her mouth fit mine, and me shaping to fit her. I devoured Abbie, kissing her lower lip and chin, eliciting a moan. Her leg rubbed mine. Skin rubbing my jeans…a tantalizing wisp of sound as she did her best to pull down my jeans.
Our foreplay was give and take, building up and tearing down.
Kisses heated to a boil and slowed hypnotic and relaxed. Our mouths pulled away, and we laughed before touching the tips of our tongues outside our mouths, rubbing and playing. I hadn’t done that since making out as a horny teen. It was fucking erotic.
Abbie’s eyes glazed over when I broke the kiss. I let go of her hair and trailed my hand to her waist. My other hand drew circles around her boob, her pale skin fascinating me. There were noises outside the room, in the hallway, but all I felt was Abbie. The orange, gingery scent of her skin, the taste of her, the feel.
The Stones’ Beast of Burden blared through the vent. By her smile, she heard the song too. From the first notes, Abbie angled her hips, fitting her body with mine.
“It’s slow dancing,” she whispered.
We moved in a private dance, my one hand sliding to her hip, the other on her chest as if we held hands. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slowed danced with a woman. The intimacy of two bodies swaying…there was quietness to it, an implied understanding how we moved in our tight circle. Holding Abbie and smelling her skin, caressing her breast, time blurred. Our hips swung side to side. I looked in her eyes. She looked in mine. It was fucking magic.
Without a word, I bent my knees and nudged the tip of my cock into Abbie. She bit her bottom lip, pushing up on her toes to accommodate me.
I grabbed her ass with one hand and pulled her knee up to my ribs. “Wrap your legs around me.”
Abbie glanced at the hook, and her lips parted in the best sexed up smile. I palmed both her ass cheeks, and she hoisted herself up, her effervescent laughter light between us. The chain jingled and scraped. Muscles tensed in her thin arms as she wrapped her legs around me. Laughter rolled off her onto me. I knew it for what it was —the beginning of a trance state, a state of deeper arousal.
For a moment we were both suspended, relishing seconds of anticipation. My jeans slipped lower. The room vibrated with kinetic energy waiting to happen. The two of us breathed faster, the heat of her skin bouncing off mine, yet we were still as two statues looking into each other’s eyes. I savored this, the powerful draw sucking me into Abbie. Strong, slender thighs wrapped around my waist, her hair grazing my chest. Our eyes almost level, we hung onto the single, heady moment before contact. Wetness collected at the corner of Abbie’s mouth. A little drool. She was so sexed up she forgot to swallow.
I wiped the corner of her mouth. “Still with me?”
“Uh.”
With one hand, I guided my cock through damp curls between Abbie’s legs. The sensitive tip parted her labia like a kiss about to happen. She whimpered. The wait was excruciating.
“Ready?”
She nodded and I slipped the crown inside her.
Abbie’s spine arched. “Uhhhh…ahhh.”
Her face tightened and mellowed all at once. Her mouth fell open. Ecstasy lit her hooded eyes, the blue-green a glimmering crescent behind her lashes. Abbie’s pleasure became my pleasure. The waiting and the wonder. Another level of anticipation. Her skin against mine. The sultry kiss of her pussy’s opening nearly sucked me in. I teased her entrance with small rocking motions. Abbie was pure carnal joy, arching against me, her head back, arms tense and shaking. Both hands curled and uncurled, safely bound by the leather wrist cuffs.
The sight was as hot as my cock nestled between her legs.
The chain rattled. Abbie’s arms shook and I wrapped both arms under her ass, taking more of her weight. Breath skipped in and out of her lungs. Shit, mine did too. Both of us were lost to a place of our own making.
“Now you’ll take all of me,” I said my voice thick.
The end of her nose brushed mine. “Yes. Please.”
Abbie pushed down as I drove up. My eyes shut. I had to. All feeling centered where my body joined hers. The gloved hotness. Abbie’s inner muscles clasped my cock with sweet, pulsing pleasure. She plastered her body against me, burying her face in my neck. So much skin touching…my nerves snapped like a live electrical line.
We groaned barely rocking in our tight embrace. We were both shaking. Metal ground metal. The hook and chain. We were one, hardly budging yet Abbie panted hard, quivering in my arms. Her hips rocked mine with perfect infinitesimal moves. No sloppy wet noises. We were locked together.
“Ma-rk.” Her muffled plea quavered against my neck.
“I know.” My ragged-voiced assurance was false. I didn’t know shit except to hold her.
Something powerful connected us.
My hips pumped hers, tender and careful. Nothing big or fast. This whole thing had already ripped us. I wanted to put us back together. Fuck, I wanted to feel Abbie more than I already did. A white ball of heat rolled down my spine like hot wax. Thighs and ass clenching I tried to hold back. The power of us joined together was coming…big, erratic, drumming through me. Abbie’s legs shook. A shoe clattered on cement.
“Ma-rkkkk,” she cried, grinding herself against me with all her might.
Fuck this wouldn’t last. Abbie was already coming.
Sweat made her thighs slick on my waist. Tremors rocked her. Her breath jagged, Abbie slumped against me, her pussy milking me, a perfect ring cloaking my cock. I squeezed her ass and opened my mouth on her shoulder, salty silky ginger-flavored skin on my tongue. My hips pistoned Abbie, the short tight bursts driving me mad.
A blinding explosion of pleasure spun down my spine, turning off my brain. I shut my eyes. The hot release took over. I held onto Abbie in my free fall…crashing in an ocean of deep blue-green waters.
CHAPTER SEVEN
&
nbsp; I never had to dust the Romance section of Howell’s Bookstore. Philosophy gathered the most dust. New Age was so…old age. It came in second for the most dust bunnies. Cars and Mechanics never took, not in this neighborhood. Romance thrived along with Self-Help and its sister shelves, Marriage/Relationships, Personal Growth, and Sexuality. Every section told a story about the books and the readers who browsed them. The History shelves were as solid as the hardbound tomes stacked side by side. But, Sexuality was an island unlike any other in the store. Pull out one of those trade paperbacks and you’ll find curled front covers from browsers who read several chapters yet couldn’t bring themselves to actually buy the book. Paying for something was a commitment, a statement of what you wanted and valued.
Hadn’t I learned that last night when a man paid to handcuff me to a hook?
I should buy one of those well-thumbed books. It’d get my co-workers buzzing.
Smiling ruefully, I lifted a handful of mass market paperbacks from a box. “Do readers ever question how many hot billionaires there are in the world?” I held up a book featuring the latest billionaire with washboard abs. “I’ve googled them and none look like this guy.”
Jill’s head poked up from the other side of the shelf. It’s Friday. We’re filling the new shoulder high romance shelves the store owners bought to meet reader demand. Job number one on Friday is prep all hot zones for weekend shoppers. Moms in need of a romance novel fix. Kids in search of book report material. Dad’s hunting down the latest sports or business magazine. We knew the drill.
Pushing her glasses up her nose, Jill scanned the cover. “That looks good.”
“This is not real life.” I waggled the book with the enthusiasm of a TV show lawyer holding hot evidence. “We should shelve these in Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Finding a billionaire who looks like this is about as realistic as living on Mars.”
“Nasa’s working on that. So’s that billionaire car guy.” She gave me a cheeky grin and reached for the book. “Let me see it.”
I handed it over, wincing at my aching shoulder. Jill thought I’d tweaked a muscle lifting heavy boxes this morning. Rubbing the pain away, I wasn’t about to tell her I’d been chained to a ceiling hook last night.
“I’d like to see a realistic romance novel for a change.”
“Love happens all kinds of ways. You’re just jaded because of your mom.”
I paused my shoulder rubbing. “Ouch. That’s hitting below the belt.”
“You know what I mean,” Jill said, her nose buried in the book. “You’ve said yourself you wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t gotten mixed up with Mr. Wonderful.”
Here. As in Howell’s Bookstore. Probably not. I’d have finished my psychology degree and been on my way to, to…well something else. Five years ago I was your average third year college student at CSU Northridge in LA. Life was classes, crazy dance clubs on Friday nights, and living on ramen noodles in an overcrowded apartment with friends until my grandma called to say my mom had been indicted on several counts of check fraud. Even worse, mom had skipped bail.
Jill knew my story. I’d confided in her because she was the comfortable friend, the one you could hang out with sans make-up, no shower, and gorge on junk food on a Saturday night. I’d long ago told her everything. How my mom asked my grandma to put her clapboard house up for collateral with a bail bondsman and disappeared when her court date came. The whole thing shocked me. Growing up, we were the Three Musketeers—Grandma, Mom, and me. If one of us hurt, the other two cried.
I’d packed up and drove my car as fast as it would go to St. Louis, arriving in time to see Mom slink through Grandma’s front door. She’d been taken in by Mr. Wonderful as I’d named him, a sleazy con-man who promised love but tricked her into a “little check scheme” sure to set them up for good. Buy clothes, electronics, small appliances, you name it, then turn around and sell the goods at swap meets. Money to cover the checks was a minor detail. He’d convinced her if they kept their purchases under a certain dollar amount, they’d slide under the radar. Unlike California, lots of mid-western stores accepted checks. Mr. Wonderful’s garage was crammed with stuff some of it legit, some not, but Mom’s name was on the checks.
We didn’t grow up rich, but Rutledge women weren’t stupid.
My mom sat on my grandma’s plaid sofa, crying her eyes out, mascara streaking down her cheeks. I couldn’t believe she knowingly broke the law, or that she left Grandma high and dry. When the shock wore off, I looked deeper and saw my mom’s vulnerability, her loneliness and the need to be with a man. Mom was trying to escape her own life, but in the process she hurt the two who mattered most.
I grew up in that little house. It was the three of us against the world. Grandma was the original, single working mom in the neighborhood. My mom followed, having gotten pregnant before finishing a few courses at the community college. All through my growing up, she dated a string of bad men, one after the other. I swore I’d stop the cycle, get my college degree, and not get sucked into the pattern.
After last night, doubts plagued me. Was I falling into my own pattern of bad choices?
I was always the practical one. That day in St. Louis I’d gathered the three of us at the table, my hysterical mom and close-to-a-heart-attack grandma, and we hammered out a plan. A good lawyer financed by an ugly high interest five year loan saved the day, thanks to Grandma’s sterling credit. All of us agreed to split the payment three ways. My mom faced two months in minimum security prison and years of probation. I spent a life-draining year in St. Louis, working my butt off until my mom found employment as a receptionist. Then I came back to California.
As long as I sent my monthly check, life was good. I could live anywhere that wasn’t St. Louis. Finishing my degree would come. Reading self-medicated me, made the grind of these past few years livable. Holding the latest romance in my hand, I faced facts. Books weren’t filling the void so much anymore. I wanted more.
What more was, I couldn’t say.
I stacked a popular Viking romance author’s newest book face out. Now those were men with abs. I held up another man candy cover when Jill covered her face with the billionaire book.
Her eyes slanted sideways at me. “Pssst. Don’t look but there’s a hawt surfer in Cookbooks. By Foreign Cuisine.”
My gaze collided with sardonic blue-grey eyes glinting at me over an absurdly expensive coffee table style cookbook.
“And she looks,” Jill sighed. “That was subtle.”
My shoes rooted to the floor. Mark lowered the book, his smile somewhere between hard shell and aren’t you happy to see me?
Without breaking eye contact with Mark, I set the Viking book on the shelf. “I know him.”
“You do?”
“And he needs to leave.”
With all the assistant manager authority I could muster, I marched into the Cookbook section. “What are you doing here?”
“Good morning to you too.”
I gritted my teeth at the shiver his voice sent down my back. Last night rushed through me…the headiness of our bodies mashed together, the long erotic kisses, his hips swaying with mine as if we were at a high school dance before I had the most intense sex of my life. Today I was fully dressed, having nothing in common with last night’s sensual woman.
Swallowing my awkwardness, I tried a stiff, “Why are you here?”
“Looking for a book,” he said matter-of-fact. “Do you always greet your customers like that? No wonder these places are going out of business.”
“You’re stalking me,” I hissed. “I should call the police.”
“And tell them what? ‘Arrest this man. He’s buying a book.’”
“Really? The Art of Israeli Cuisine.” I angled my head to read the table of contents. “You have a thing for Twenty Ways to Prepare Lentils.”
“My tastes aren’t main stream.” Mark’s pa
nty-melting smile hinted at his sexual appetite.
It rocked me back on my heels. Mark appeared to be enjoying himself. I didn’t know what to do with his disarming humor. Last night he was Mr. Sex. Now? We stood close with bland Muzak piping overhead and me feeling like I was hit square in the chest. I smelled every little thing about him. The laundry detergent on his T-shirt, the spicy shampoo he’d used to wash his still slightly wet hair, and him. My nipples tingled inside my bra. This was crazy animal behavior.
“How did you find me? And why?” I glared at the cookbook. “And don’t tell me you came looking for a cookbook. You wouldn’t know a sieve from a sifter.”
Mark tucked the book under his arm, acting put out. “Oh, I know my way around a kitchen.”
“You cook?”
“Rather well,” he said smoothly.
Light played in his eyes. He enjoyed our little exchange. Or maybe he enjoyed throwing me off kilter? Howell’s sturdy low pile blue carpet was as steady as ocean water under my flats, and that made me grumpy.
“I don’t believe you,” I muttered, backing into a shelf. His smell and unshaven jaw made me want to crawl all over him. That’s hormones for you.
“Did somebody skip breakfast this morning?”
“I’m waiting.” Butt planted on the shelf edge, I clamped both arms across my chest.
Leaning on the shelf facing me, Mark hooked a thumb in his jeans’ pocket. He took a deep breath, his plain black T-shirt stretching across the same pecs I’d smashed my boobs against last night. The contempt line at the side of his mouth was more prominent under fluorescent light.
“Let’s start with how I found you. Last night you mentioned working at a book store. I saw a car in Mrs. Smith’s parking lot with a Howell’s Bookstore bumper sticker. It wasn’t hard to figure out.” His eyes widened ready to drive home a point. “And there’s an Abbie Rutledge listed on the website as the contact for book signings and store events.”
