Hard Wood (Hard n' Dirty Book 3)

by Tara Crescent

  It’s so weird to be tied up, to be entirely dependent on Dom for my pleasure. I thought he’d thrust into me, and the sex would be hot and hard and explosive. But he’s taking his time exploring my body, as if I were a masterpiece that could only be studied at leisure.

  Please. Please fuck me.

  With torturous slowness, he makes his way down my body to my aching pussy. The mattress dips again as he shifts his weight, and finally, his tongue is at my slit.

  “Remember to keep still.”

  I whimper. I don’t want to keep still. I want to arch my back and thrust my hips into that talented mouth. I want to squirm on the bed as pleasure fills me, and I want to writhe when I feel his touch on my clit.

  He spreads me open with his fingers. I hold my breath as his tongue licks a long path up my seam. When he finally touches my clit, I exhale in sheer relief. I’ve been waiting so long for this.

  He pushes two fingers into my slick wetness, thrusting them in and out of me as his tongue skitters over my clit, over and over. I’m a panting, moaning mess. He twists his fingers inside me until he finds my g-spot, and he pushes up on it, his touch hard and intense. I cling to my bindings. I’m so close. I’m not going to last… I’m going to come…

  He stops. “Not so fast, little spitfire,” he says, an edge of amusement in his voice. “What’s your hurry?”

  What’s my hurry? Is he serious? He’s been teasing me for hours… Okay, not hours, but a quick glance at the clock by his bed confirms that he’s been torturing me with the sweetest of pleasure for well over an hour. To be completely blunt, I want his cock in me, and I want to come.

  He chuckles at my mutinous expression. “If I locked you up in the stocks,” he murmurs, “You’d have to hold still whether you liked it or not.” His fingers slide into me. “You wouldn’t be able to twist away.” They slide out, and his tongue dances over my clit. “Wouldn’t be able to escape. You’d feel your orgasm rushing toward you, but you’d have to hold it off.” Another quick flick over my clit, one that has my toes curling. “You’d have to wait for permission.”

  The tip of his thumb slides into my ass. I inhale sharply. I’ve never done anything anal before. Not even anal-adjacent. I should protest. Say something. Ask him to stop.

  I don’t. Dom pushes his finger into me, slow and steady, and I feel my muscles stretch to accommodate him. I moan as he plays with that tight ring, and my entire body tingles. My pussy feels heavy and achy. This is so naughty. I love it.

  “Do you like that, little spitfire?” His voice sounds hoarse. His iron control is slipping a little. It’s about time. I’ve been ready for hours.

  “Yes,” I confess, my cheeks flaming. “Fuck, yes.”

  “Such a naughty girl,” he growls. “I’m going to fuck you now, kitty cat.” He reaches for a condom and rolls it on.

  My heart is racing in my chest. Casual sex, I remind myself. This is a booty call. This is really hot sex and nothing else. Play by the rules, and you’ll be fine.

  Dom rubs the head of his cock up and down my slit. I stop breathing. I forget the rules. I forget everything but the promise of what is about to happen.

  Then he sinks into me. “Fuck, you’re wet. Hot and slick.”

  I want to wrap my legs around his hips, but the scarves hold me in place. Hold me open for him.

  He looms over me, his hands on the mattress on either side of me, caging me. “I’m going to fuck you, Cat. I’m going to fuck you good.”

  Oh God. He’s so hard. He pulls out almost completely, and then he slams into me again. My eyes close, and he growls in his throat. “Keep your eyes on me. I want to see every fucking expression, kitty cat.”

  Thrust after thrust. My orgasm builds in me, reaching a breaking point. “I can’t hold on,” I half-gasp, half-sob. “Please Dom, I want to come. I need to come.” I will die if he pulls away. I’m a balloon of need, and I’m stretched to the max. I’m seconds away from exploding with pent-up desire.

  His lips find mine. “Come for me, spitfire,” he whispers against my lips. I moan his name as I fall apart. I tremble and flail as my climax overtakes me. Sharp bursts of pleasure detonate in my brain.

  He pummels into me, harder and faster. “Look at what you do to me.” His voice is ragged. He thrusts deeper, and his face contorts. “Ah, fuck,” he groans as he comes. “Look at what you’re doing to me, kitty cat.” He collapses next to me, his body warm against mine. “Give me a second, and I’ll untie you.”

  “Okay.” Once I’m free, I’m going to want to snuggle into him. I’m going to want to cuddle. And there’s no cuddling in a booty call. In and out, that’s the rule. No hugging, no tenderness.

  Except he pulls me into his body once he unties the knots. And though I know I should pull away, I don’t. I stay in his arms, and I fall asleep.

  21

  Dom

  Damn Luke and his big fucking mouth. Cat’s pulling away from me, and it’s his fault.

  Not just his. I should have said something at the bar. I should have opened my mouth and made it clear that things with Cat are different. That I care about her. That I want to keep seeing her.

  My father used to say things like that all the time. I love you, son. You and Dakota are the best kids anyone could have. Then he’d left one day. Walked away without a backward glance. He lives in Vancouver now with his second wife and their three children, and we haven’t spoken since I was twelve.

  He taught me something important. Words mean nothing by themselves. It’s the action that matters.

  My dad promised the world and never delivered on any of it. I’m not going to be that person.

  I could make all kinds of pretty speeches. I’m not going to do that. Cat doesn’t want to hear it anyway. Her body language is closed off, and she’s drawn into herself.

  No. Instead, I’m going to show her she’s not one in an endless parade of women, as Luke made her believe. I’m going to show her how important she is.

  As soon as Cat leaves the next morning, I head downstairs to put the finishing touches on the Patterson cabinets. Gino’s already there. I nod in greeting and get to work.

  For the next two hours, both of us concentrate on our projects. At ten, I’m done. “You think you can deliver this?” I ask Gino, unable to resist busting his chops. There are five cabinets, each one light enough for my apprentice to be able to manage on his own.

  He looks up from his work on Zach and Penny’s bondage bed. “Dude,” he complains. “Low blow. Yeah, you want me to go now?”

  “Anytime today.” I put on my jacket and grab my truck keys. “If I’m not back before it’s time to go, lock up after yourself.”

  No longer is Gino distracted by his phone every second minute. He’s taken to carpentry like a duck to water. It’s a measure of how far he’s come that he has a key to my workspace. “Sure thing.”

  I get into my truck and drive to the nearest big-box hardware store and buy two toilets.

  Yup, that’s right. My big, romantic, gesture?

  I’m going to replace the two broken toilets in the brewpub.

  This isn’t as insane as it sounds. Cat’s been grumbling about the toilets all week. Her partner Vicki had found a plumber in Marmet—some guy I’d never heard of—but because of the storm, he never made it here. She’s been trying to reach him on the phone to see when he’s planning to come back out, but the guy either doesn’t check his voicemail, or he doesn’t believe in returning his messages.

  I’m not a plumber, but I’m handy enough to change a fucking toilet. And when I’m done with that, I’m going to help her with whatever else she needs.

  Actions speak louder than words, they say. Hopefully, they speak loud enough for Cat to get the message.

  Luke calls me as I pull up in front of Cat’s brewpub. “I’m sorry. Ruby tells me I was a dick yesterday.”

  I’m not going to let him off the hook. “Yeah, you were.”

  He sighs. “I know. I’m not using it as an excu
se, but I wasn’t really thinking clearly yesterday.”

  “What’s going on?” He’s drinking again. He was already halfway to wasted by the time he showed up at the Bull Horn. When he called and suggested drinks with Ruby and him, I thought they’d worked out their issues. Maybe I’m wrong.

  “I don’t know.” He sounds defeated. “Do you ever feel like your life isn’t on the right track? That you have no idea what you want?”

  “Not really.”

  He laughs grimly. “I envy the fuck out of you, man. Because I don’t have a clue. I look at Roger, and I look at you, and I’m jealous of your freedom. Then I remember that Roger is a dickwad who consistently cheats on his partners, and that you’ve never bothered to try to be with someone, and I think I have the better deal. Back and forth. I’m a mess.”

  My knuckles tighten on my phone. This shit needs to stop. This thought that I don’t get involved is exactly what got me into trouble with Cat last night. Yeah, I might have shied away from commitment in the past, but maybe it was because I just hadn’t met the right person.

  “I’m going to say something once, Luke. We’re friends, and I want you to be happy. But I’m getting pretty fucking tired of the passive-aggressive jabs.”

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Sorry, Dom. Won’t happen again.” He sighs heavily. “I had a big blowout with Roger over the weekend.”

  I have a pizza in the back that’s getting cold. Toilets to install. But despite Luke’s recent assholery, he has been a friend all my life. I was a groomsman in his fucking wedding, goddamnit. I run my hand over my face. “What happened?”

  “I confronted him about Ruby. Told him you told me what was really behind that Vegas invitation. Accused him of wanting my marriage to fail so he could make a move on my wife. He didn’t deny it.” His voice turns sheepish. “Then I punched him.”

  “If there’s anyone that goes through life begging to be punched, it’s Roger Wexler.”

  “True.” He sounds pretty morose. “I went back to Ruby, begged her to take me back. She did, but…” He lapses into a long silence. My pizza grows colder with each second. The price of friendship. “I’m afraid she’s going to leave me.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” I’m full of them nowadays. Giving Gino instructions in the shop, giving Cat advice about her difficulties with her business partner, even telling my mom that the rest of the cabins need to be fixed up before they fall apart. Although that last one backfired on me rather spectacularly, because I ended up volunteering to do the work myself. “Go see a marriage counselor.”

  “You think that’d help?”

  “Could it hurt?” I ask bluntly.

  “That’s true.” He exhales into the receiver. “Thanks, buddy. And sorry again about my dumb mouth.”

  His dumb mouth caused Cat to pull away from me. With a few careless words, the intimacy that had been building up between the two of us was torn down. These new toilets had better start repairing some of that damage.

  “Hello, kitty cat.” The toilet isn’t heavy, but the box is large enough to be awkward. I set it down in the back and go in search of Cat. I find her leaning against one of her brewing tanks, precariously balanced on a ladder, holding a hose in her hand.

  “Dom.” Cat’s clearly surprised to see me, and she sounds a little wary. “What are you doing here? And what’s in the box?”

  My lips twitch. “If a box has a picture of a toilet on the outside, kitty cat…”

  She gives me a dry look. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you wandering around with a toilet? Is this some bizarre Madison ritual I should know about? Wild Wednesdays, Toilet Thursdays?”

  She’s funny as hell, and the snark is a weapon and a shield. “You need two of them replaced, don’t you?” I smile at her. She has a smudge on her nose, and her hair is sticking out in every direction, and she’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. “Voila. I also brought pizza, in case you haven’t eaten lunch. I haven’t; I’m starving.”

  My little spitfire had bolted out of my place this morning without eating breakfast. Knowing her, she’s totally forgotten about lunch too. When Cat focuses on her to-do list, practical considerations like eating tend to fall by the wayside.

  “I should clean this.” She wavers and then relents, dropping the hose into the tank. “Oh, damn it, who am I kidding? This can wait.”

  We sit on the floor in the back and eat our slices. “What are you doing?” she asks quietly. “First the cottage. Now the toilets.”

  I don’t know how to answer her question. Not yet. “I’m just helping you out, Cat. You’ve been complaining about your toilets all week. I know how to replace them.”

  She gives me a sidelong look. I’m afraid she’s going to push, but to my everlasting gratitude, she drops it. “At this rate, I’m going to have to be on my knees constantly, giving you thank-you blowjobs.”

  My cock stirs as I remember the way she’d gone down on me yesterday. Her hands laced behind her back, her pretty mouth wrapped around my length, bobbing up and down, her eyes holding mine. “Don’t wake him up,” I groan. “You say blowjob, and my cock thinks you’re talking about him.”

  She laughs. “I am.” She finishes her slice of pizza and gets to her feet. “I really do need to clean that tank this afternoon.”

  Along with a hundred other things, I’m willing to bet. Cat really needs to talk to her friend Vicki soon, because this situation can’t last.

  I tell my cock there’s no playtime, not just yet, and get up too. Time to install a toilet.

  I sweet-talk Cat into coming back to my place afterward. “I worry about your knees,” I tell her with a straight face. “These concrete floors are hell on them, kitty cat. At my place, I’ll give you a pillow.”

  “How very generous of you,” she says, her lips twitching. “For the sake of my knees, I accept.”

  I exhale in relief. The wall between us last night seems to have disappeared. For the moment, at least. Hopefully, it’ll stay away.

  She locks up the brewery. I walk around the truck and open the passenger door for her. “I still haven’t slept in my new bed, you know?” she says as she buckles her seatbelt, her voice grumpy, her eyes dancing with merriment. “You built it for me, and I still haven’t tried it out.”

  I kiss her lips and then shut her door. Walking around the other side, I get in and turn the key in the ignition. “It’s not a bondage bed. There’s nothing to try out.”

  The sooner we get back home, the faster I can jump her. There was a moment this afternoon when I’d walked out to ask her a question and seen her wet t-shirt, plastered against her skin… It had taken me back to the first time I’d laid eyes on Catherine Milnick. It had taken all the self-control I’d possessed to keep from throwing her on the desk and slamming into her. Later, I’d told my aching cock. Work, then play. Not the other way around.

  She laughs out loud. “God, I hope not. Already, I’m wondering if Sandra’s judging me for sleeping with her son. Can you imagine her reaction if I were tied up in the cabin, and you were spanking me, and she walked in on that?”

  I shrug. “My mom might have been ten years out from the sixties and free love, but she’s a wild child at heart. I doubt if anything we do is going to faze her.”

  That’s not exactly true. She’d been pretty shocked when I’d shown up on Monday to fix Cat’s cabin. “Is this serious then?” she’d asked me with a sly grin on her face. I’d refused to answer, but I’m pretty sure she drew the obvious conclusion.

  We get back to my place. “You hungry? I have some leftover pasta.”

  She stands on tiptoe and brushes a kiss against my lips. “My gallant hero,” she purrs. “Toilets and leftovers. A girl could really get used to this kind of luxury.” Her arms wind around me, and she looks into my eyes. “Thank you, Dom. That was super thoughtful of you.”

  I kiss her back. “You know I’m just doing it for the blowjobs.”

  She rolls her eyes. “And you accuse me o
f not accepting help. For the record, the appropriate answer when someone thanks you is, ‘You’re welcome.’”

  “You’re welcome, little spitfire.”

  We drink beer with our pasta, one of Cat’s experiments. “I’ve been trying to brew a Berliner-style Weisse,” she says, her forehead furrowing as she tastes it. “I don’t think I’m quite there.”

  The beer is tart, and unlike anything I’ve tasted before. “I’m not sure what I think about it.”

  She smiles, her hand covering mine. “Don’t feel compelled to drink it. You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t like it. Your beer tastes tend to run solidly in the ESB and IPA direction.”

  “You know me well.”

  “Not even a little.” She takes another sip, still frowning at the beer. “Yeah, I need to tweak this. Probably use a slightly different yeast. I’ll get another batch going tomorrow.” Her brewing problems solved, she turns her attention to me. “Take BDSM, for example.”

  I’d tied her up last night, and she’d loved it. I’ve never seen her so wet, so flushed with desire. So gloriously uninhibited.

  “What about it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about Zach’s playroom. About you knowing the code for the door. But you don’t use it, do you? When was the last time you took a woman there?”

  “Am I in trouble?” I ask cautiously. “A year and a half ago.”

  “Exactly. You’re welcome there anytime—Zach made that clear—but you don’t belong. And then you work alone. Well, at least until Gino came along. You really are a loner, aren’t you?” Her eyes are steady. Seeing too much of what I’d prefer to keep hidden. “Where do you belong, Dom?”

  “Belonging is a complication,” I whisper harshly. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

  “Unlike your father.”

  That’s enough of that. Her words are too close. I pull her into my lap and kiss her thoroughly. “Don’t analyze me, spitfire,” I rasp into her ear. I tweak her nipples hard enough that she gasps, soft enough that she arches her back and asks for more. “Things don’t line up that neatly.”