She made a noise of approval and glanced up at him. “You’ve got a nice cock,” she said, sliding her hand along it.
Tom couldn’t speak. If he’d thought he was going to get more from her than he gave, he was wrong, because at that moment, he would’ve begged if she’d asked him to. But she didn’t ask.
Still smiling, she pressed a small, nearly chaste kiss to the head of his cock. Then a more lingering one, just her pursed lips, brushing gently against him. He held his breath. Another picture he’d like to take, this one for himself, so he’d never forget the sight of her soft lips parting for him.
And then her tongue licked at him, sliding beneath the crown of his cock and stealing the air from his lungs. He managed not to gasp, but just barely.
Her hold on the base of his shaft tightened, and she stroked up and then back down as she swirled her tongue around him. It was torture. Perfect, delicious torture. His hips shifted forward of their own accord, and Isabelle chuckled.
“Greedy,” she murmured just before she slid her mouth over him.
Oh, shit. Yes, he was greedy. He wanted her mouth like this a hundred times. A thousand. Because she was pure heat and wetness as she closed her lips around him. And then she sucked, and his world turned to pleasure.
She worked her way slowly down his cock, each draw of her mouth making a promise that there would be more soon. A half an inch more, and then another, until she was halfway down his cock, and he was panting. He couldn’t get enough air to feed his thundering pulse, but somehow he didn’t feel weak from the airlessness. He felt solid and strong and feral.
She drew away from him with a slow, maddening slide of her mouth. “God, you’re delicious,” she whispered. “I like you on my tongue.”
He said her name, a crazed sound of need that was begging even if he didn’t form the words. Because she liked him on her tongue. Because he loved everything about that. Because he needed someone just like her, and there was already too much between them.
But she didn’t know any of that. She just took him into her mouth again. Deeper this time, and all at once, and Tom couldn’t stop the tortured groan that tore from his throat.
She used her fist then, sliding up and down in time with her mouth, sending waves of sensation through his whole body. His knees shook a little. His heart shook a lot.
He reached back and curled his hands over the edge of the counter, squeezing hard.
She’d made him vulnerable again, but this time it was good, as if she were kissing all of him at once. He watched her sucking his cock, and he let himself fall completely under her spell. It didn’t matter who was lying to whom. This was so fucking good.
“Isabelle,” he growled. She quickened her strokes in response, and it felt as if every nerve in his body had congregated right there. Right where her mouth sucked and her hand squeezed and his balls tightened.
He managed to mutter something about coming, a warning, but she didn’t stop. Thank God she didn’t stop, because he wanted to come like this, engulfed by her. He wanted her to want it. And she did.
The orgasm slammed through him, the release so great he groaned in relief as he pulsed into her mouth over and over again. She slowed. Her touch gentled. His arms shook from the tight hold he had on the counter, and he was damn relieved that his knees didn’t buckle.
Isabelle sat back on her legs and looked up at him.
“You’re fucking amazing,” he rasped. She sat there, naked and wet-mouthed, and she laughed up at him, and Tom fell a little further into her.
* * *
HE COULDN’T STAY. He knew he couldn’t. But they still collapsed onto the couch together. He’d fastened his pants, and Isabelle had pulled on her sweater to keep the chill off, and now they were cuddled close in the darkness of her living room.
Her ex-lover hovered over them. At least the man was turned away.
Tom smoothed a hand over her hair and tried one last time to get her to talk. “I’m glad you didn’t stay with that guy who made you feel bad about sex.”
“Me, too. We were engaged, but I can’t imagine things would’ve worked out in the long run. In two years with him, he never made me come.”
That shocked the hell out of him. “And you still wanted to marry him?”
“I was young and stupid. And I didn’t know my worth.”
“Clearly. Because you’re worth a lot.”
He felt her cheek tighten against his shoulder when she smiled. “Must’ve been a good blow job.”
“It was, but it’s not even about that. You just seem really...comfortable. With sex. With yourself. It’s attractive.”
“Yeah?” She went quiet for a long moment, and he was afraid he’d insulted her just when she was beginning to open up. But she finally spoke. “It’s really hard for a woman to like sex.”
“Because guys are terrible at it?”
“No,” she laughed. “Even aside from that. We’re taught from day one that we’re supposed to resist it. That we’ll eventually be talked into it. That we don’t want it as much, and we definitely don’t need it. Not like boys do. I believed that. So much so that I wasn’t the least concerned that I’d never had an orgasm. Because lots of women don’t.”
He nodded.
“Can you imagine that? I mean really. Think about that. What if you had sex your whole life and never came?”
Tom frowned. “That’s awful.”
“It is awful!” she shouted, laughing again. “And that was almost my life! But then when I figured out how much I liked sex and exactly how I liked it... Jesus, that’s even more confusing. To be a woman and like sex. To want things just as much as the man does and still be treated as if you’ve given in and given something away. It’s no wonder women hit their sexual peak later in life. It takes decades to find the confidence to have good sex.”
Tom was frowning harder now. “How so?”
She shook her head. “Some men can make it hard to feel good about it afterward, no matter how much you liked it. Men say things like ‘I got some’ or ‘She put out,’ or whatever that dialogue is. Girls are stupid cows giving the milk away for free. And suddenly you feel like you were conquered.”
“Oh.” Tom had never heard anything like that before.
“It takes a lot of self-possession to know that a man’s attitude doesn’t change what you wanted. It doesn’t change what you got out of it.”
He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. Hadn’t he had those thoughts when he was younger? That sex was a game, and he was the winner if he could get some?
And just tonight, he’d been wanting her to give in. He’d wanted to take. The difference being that she’d taken, too.
“How did it end with him?” he asked, thinking he knew but wanting her to say it.
She didn’t, of course, but she didn’t go rigid in his arms, either. “We broke up over something else. A few weeks later, I got drunk and slept with a stranger. And it was great.”
Tom smiled at her laughter. “And a new you was born?”
“You know what? It kind of was. I’d spent my whole life doing what I was told, and it took waking up in a stranger’s bed to realize I could do whatever I wanted. I could be who I wanted to be, instead of—” She cut herself off. “Anyway, it all worked out. And here we are.”
“Yes,” he said, “I’m glad.” He was glad. He wanted her to know that. He was glad she’d run, and he could help her. “Was your mom strong like you?” he asked.
She let out a long breath but didn’t push away. Didn’t get up. Eventually, she answered. “No. My mom was timid and quiet. She deferred to my dad. I loved her, but I wish she’d been stronger.”
“And your dad?”
She shrugged. “He left one day. That’s all.”
“Isabelle—” he started, but she interrupted him by stroking a hand over his chest.
“You’re pretty great, you know,” she said. “You make me comfortable. It’s easy to trust you.”
The ple
asure that had melted through his body turned cool. She trusted him. Obviously. She’d let him into her home and her body. Hell, he’d encouraged her to trust him so she’d open up.
She must’ve felt him stiffen. “Hey, don’t freak out. A girl in every port, right?”
“No,” he said. His phone buzzed, and he was embarrassed to feel relieved, because it wasn’t that he wanted an excuse to leave; he just couldn’t stay and lie to her anymore.
She kissed his cheek and moved off him, letting him sit up. “I’m glad you came by again.”
“Not as glad as I am.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“After what you said tonight, no. Were you using me?”
“Absolutely.” She was giving him an out. Keeping it light so he could retreat with grace. The worst part was that he was about to take full advantage of that and get the hell out of her house as if he really wanted away from her.
He cleared his throat and headed back to her kitchen for the rest of his clothes. She followed and started doing dishes as if she were totally comfortable wearing nothing but a sweater that fell just short of covering her bare ass.
Fuck, she was cute.
He strapped on his gun and shrugged on his jacket, feeling guilty as hell. “When I’m done with all this, I’d love to do this right.”
“If what we just did was wrong...”
Right. Keep it light. “I meant we could go out. Dinner or a movie or skiing.”
She stopped washing dishes and turned to look at him. He tried to keep his eyes above her waist, but failed several times. “I’m not much of a skier,” she said. “I love the part where you get to the top of the mountain, and it’s so quiet and solitary. But all the lift lines and the crowds at the bottom... That’s not for me.”
“Rock climbing is more my thing,” he admitted.
“Oh! I’d love to try that! Would you teach me?” She shook her head before he could speak. “Not in the winter, I guess.”
“No, but in the summer, I’d love to.” He ignored the awkward pause. “Anyway, I wish I had more time right now.”
“It’s okay. That was fun.”
It had been fun, but he wanted to stay. Wanted to wake up in the morning and slide his hand over her naked body, and find out if she was a morning person. He was pretty sure she wasn’t, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be horny.
“Keep your curtains drawn,” he said. “And be careful. Things are getting tense.”
She nodded, and even as he wondered if he should, Tom walked over and gave her a kiss goodbye. She kissed him back, stroking a hand down his jaw with a murmur of pleasure. When she kissed him again, Tom cupped her ass in his hands and pulled her tightly against him, surprised to realize he was getting hard again already.
“Damn, you’re sexy,” he whispered.
She dropped back to flat feet and smiled. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Good.”
She smiled so sweetly up at him that he couldn’t resist one more kiss, because it might be the only time she looked so sweet for him. It might even be the last kiss. Every lie they told each other made it more likely.
He pulled reluctantly away, lingering over the taste, but once he got to the front door, he put it from his mind completely.
He had to do his job, whether he wanted to or not. And then the call came through.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ISABELLE WAS GLAD she’d had trouble sleeping that morning when she saw the black sedan climb up her driveway. Glad, because she’d decided to get out of bed early and go for a snowshoe hike through the trees, and she wasn’t inside to answer the door when the man knocked.
She’d ducked behind a tree when she saw the unfamiliar vehicle, thanks to instincts honed from years of avoiding strangers. But as soon as the man stepped out, she knew he was one of Tom’s guys. There was no mistaking the dark suit and the flash of a shoulder holster when he reached up to shield his eyes from the sun.
Isabelle watched as he knocked on her door. He was impatient and obviously on a long shift. This wasn’t the first time he’d run his hand through his short hair. It stuck up in odd angles. But whatever assignment Tom had given the guy, she wasn’t going to help out. He could keep on canvassing the area without her input. She didn’t want to interact with more law enforcement than she needed to. She was being stupid enough with Tom as it was.
She frowned when the man cupped his hands around his eyes and tried to look into her window. She considered shouting at him and telling him to get the fuck off her porch, but he gave up quickly and headed back to his car.
“Dick,” she muttered, before turning to trudge into the fresh snow. She might let Mary into her house and Tom into her bed, but that was the end of her cooperation with the feds. If that Stevenson guy had been spotted in the area, Tom would’ve called her himself.
She stopped for a moment when her heart tripped over itself, wondering if she was actually in danger. She held her breath and listened to the forest around her. It was as still as ever. But not quiet. Not if you really listened.
Birds called to each other. Pine boughs shushed in the wind. Branches creaked. Water trickled into tiny streams beneath the snow. Everything was normal.
And the guy hadn’t looked worried about her or even alarmed. He’d just looked irritated.
Still, when her phone rang, Isabelle jumped. The fronts of her snowshoes sank into the snow, and she pinwheeled her arms, desperately trying to keep upright. She’d done this before, and she didn’t relish falling face-first in the deep snow; it always took a remarkably long time to get upright again.
She finally shifted her weight backward and breathed a sigh of relief before digging her phone out of the pocket of her jacket.
“Hey,” she said when she saw it was Lauren.
“Oh, my God, your new boyfriend is so sexy!”
“Yes,” she agreed immediately, before realizing she shouldn’t. “I mean, what?”
Lauren laughed. “I knew it. Anyway, congratulations on boning a hero.”
“What?” she asked with genuine surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“You are so disconnected,” Lauren groaned. “Have you seriously not heard?”
“Tell me!” Isabelle shrieked, suddenly alarmed about what that guy in the suit might have wanted. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. But he raided a motel in Jackson this morning and caught one of those survivalist guys.”
Isabelle almost fell over again and had to sit down on her butt to stop from teetering. “Really?”
“Yes, really!”
“God,” she breathed, “that is sexy.” She imagined him kicking down a door with his gun drawn and actually sighed with lust. An awfully sick reaction considering her own ambiguous legal status and hatred of cops. But some things soaked into you from birth.
“Is he really your boyfriend?” Lauren asked in a lower tone.
“No.” She heard the note of regret in her voice and shook it off. “Definitely not my boyfriend.”
“Uh-huh. So just a boy toy? God, you get the best deliveries.”
Isabelle laughed and tried to push up to her feet. “So he caught the guy?”
“Not the guy. Someone from their group, I guess. But Ephraim’s brother is still out there.”
That must have been what that marshal was spreading the word about earlier.
“Be careful,” Lauren said. “Really. Maybe you should come stay with me.”
“And leave Jill alone up here? No way. Anyway, he’s after the judge, not me. And I have Bear.”
“Are you locking your doors?”
“Tom insists.”
“Oh, Tom,” Lauren said with a laugh.
Isabelle finally pushed to her feet and smiled at the way her stomach fluttered. It was nice to feel that after so many years. “You’re sure he’s okay, right?”
“You can read it yourself on the paper’s website. The story is only
three paragraphs long at this point, but it specifically says that no shots were fired, and the guy was taken into custody.”
“I guess he’s going to have a busy day,” Isabelle said, already thinking selfishly of the night to come and whether he’d have time to stop by. Probably not.
“Why don’t you come down and have lunch with me and Sophie? You can tell us more about Marshal Tom.”
Isabelle snorted. “You’ve both met him. What is there to tell?”
“You know what we want to hear.”
“Pervert,” she said on a laugh. “But I can’t. Too much work.” That wasn’t exactly true, but Lauren probably understood that Isabelle had reached her limit of socializing for the week. She needed time to not speak to anyone for a while. Except Tom. That she could handle, but only because it led to other forms of relaxation.
They said goodbye, and Isabelle tucked her phone away.
If he’d raided a motel at 6:00 a.m., he’d probably been up nearly all night getting ready for it. And he had a full day at the courthouse. There was no way he’d come by tonight.
“That’s fine,” she said aloud. It was casual. He’d be gone in a few days. Better not to get used to seeing him every day. What if she was lonely when he left?
A strange thought.
Not that she’d never been lonely in her little cabin, but it had only been isolation, never actually missing a specific man. Normally, she was relieved to get back to her routine and forget about the whole world once a fling was done. But her day felt a little emptier now that she knew she wouldn’t see Tom at the end of it. Even this snowshoe hike through the forest felt muted now, but she trudged on.
The sound of a car carried through the trees from the east. The car wasn’t visible, but the distant sound of the engine meant that young deputy had headed farther down their road. Clearly a guy assigned a mindless task, because there were only summer cabins up that way. Maybe he’d get stuck.
Flirting with Disaster & Fanning the Flames Page 15
