by Alison Kent
“I know you can, but tonight it’s on me. And not because I’m trying to get my way, but because you stink.”
At that, he laughed, pushing his chair away from the table and stripping out of his clothes as he left the room. Faith rolled her eyes and turned away to keep from seeing anything she shouldn’t. But he was right.
Hiring a maid for this uncouth bunch would be a very bad idea.
SIX
GOOD THING SHE hadn’t wasted her time deciding what sort of sign to give Casper, Faith mused, standing in the ranch house kitchen and staring into the fridge. It was almost midnight. She couldn’t sleep, so what was she doing? Looking for relief from her insomnia in food. Sad, when the refrigerator shelves were next to empty, much like the ones in the pantry were close to bare.
She hated seeing the boys struggle to feed themselves, much less make ends meet. She hated being responsible for their purse strings and being forced to keep said strings drawn tight. Hated most of all that Boone wouldn’t take any of the money she’d really never wanted, or any of the interest accrued in the ten years since she’d signed papers buying her silence.
He didn’t want to cash in on her stupidity any more than she did. He hadn’t used those words, but he hadn’t needed to. They were close. And they both knew the truth.
Too bad that closeness didn’t translate well to agreeing on their parents’ party plans. After she’d cleaned the kitchen and he’d cleaned himself, they’d talked for hours, yet had settled very little beyond serving barbecue and a variety of beer. Their father loved discovering new microbreweries, and barbecue was a Mitchell family mainstay.
Boone had grunted when accepting her suggestions, like the menu items, and grumbled when he hadn’t, like booking the Hellcat Saloon. The grunting and grumbling had only gotten louder until he’d headed upstairs at eleven. She hadn’t meant to keep him so late—she knew he had to be up with the sun—but she’d wanted to make what headway they could.
And she’d been waiting for Casper.
She reached for the basket of leftover strawberries and the bowl of cream she’d whipped for dessert. And why not? Junk food was how she dealt with all her unresolved issues, and her lust for Casper Jayne was as unresolved as it got. She wanted him. He wanted her. They couldn’t be worse for each other if they tried.
It had taken but a single, stupid incident in college to convince her she wasn’t cut out for a life of reckless, inappropriate behavior. Casper, on the other hand, thrived on risks like the parched Crow Hill earth absorbed water, as if his very existence depended on access to a never-ending source.
Was that what was driving his crazy attachment to the house he’d grown up in? His need to pour money into a losing proposition? Did he expect to come out on top the way he did when he mounted a ton of bucking beef?
And what was the point of that? The adulation? The big, fat middle finger to his naysayers? To his mother? Did he ever consider what might happen if things didn’t go his way? If a bull took his head off, or broke his back and left him bound to a wheelchair? If the house fell down around him and buried him in rubble so deep he literally—or metaphorically—couldn’t claw his way out?
How could he live with disaster lurking right around the corner? And how could she knowingly step into that life, even if only for the physical pleasure he promised?
They made for a horrible fit, and yet when the heavy strike of bootheels sounded on the back porch she didn’t move a muscle. She closed her eyes, frozen, the wait, and not the cold of the refrigerator, raising gooseflesh along her arms.
She swallowed at the whine of the screen door’s hinges, at the squeak as the doorknob turned. She was stuck between wanting to be invisible and wanting him to find her in the camisole and boy shorts she’d worn to bed in lieu of nothing.
She wanted him to see her naked legs, her barely clothed body, her hair a mess from tossing on her pillow as she’d tried to sleep, thinking of having him beside her. Of having him inside her, deep and full and demanding.
The door creaked closed, latched. The footsteps slowed, then stopped. The air in the room grew heavy and close before a low, throaty laugh reached her ears. “Something tells me I’m looking at a sign.”
God, what he did to her with just those few words. She was weak. He made her weak. Around him, she didn’t have it in her to be strong.
Still facing the fridge, she opened her eyes, lifted her chin, and turned, taking him in from hat to belt buckle to boots. Then wishing they weren’t going into this with this morning still fresh because she didn’t want her control of his money to come between them.
But bringing her gaze back to his wasn’t any better. He had some very naughty things on his mind. Things she couldn’t help but wonder about. Things making the back of her knees sweat, her inner thighs grow damp.
“You’re looking at someone who decided to spend the night and didn’t want to sleep in her work clothes.” She frowned, frustrated with herself, with him, with wanting him. “Where have you been?”
“I didn’t know I had a curfew,” he said, a look of surprise crossing his face.
She pointed at him with the strawberry she held. “I waited for you.”
He pushed his hat back on his head, gave her a thorough once-over. “Wearing that? Because I would’ve made sure to be here if I’d known.”
She doubted that. She was beginning to think he hadn’t thought of her all day. “No. I came over after work to talk to Boone. You were supposed to be here, too, remember?”
He crossed his arms, that same flitter of surprise appearing briefly, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of her, as if he didn’t want to make a wrong move, say the wrong thing. As if she was unexpected. “I had a couple of errands to run. Got tied up.”
“With what?” she asked, popping the strawberry into her mouth.
He tossed his hat to the table. “I went by the house.”
“Why?”
He stiffened, his eyes going dark. “It’s not going to go away just because you want it to.”
“It would if you sold it. Or signed it over to the city. Or something that wouldn’t cost you any money, and might even make you some.”
“Money I can then turn over to you.”
This morning’s phone call to the Harts was still heavy on her heart, and she was being a bitch because of it. No, she didn’t want to deal with Casper wanting money for something so totally out of the question. And she had no time to spend conjuring a solution because there was none. He had no money.
But she did. “It is what it is, Casper. I don’t make the rules.”
“It’s okay, Faith. We’re in debt up to our eyeballs. I got it.” He came close to her, stopped in front of her, reached into the basket behind her for a strawberry, dragged it through the bowl of whipped cream she held in her hand.
But he didn’t eat it. Instead, his gaze locked on hers, and he dotted the cold cream into the hollow of her throat. Then he leaned forward and licked it away.
His tongue was hot and deft, and her nipples tightened. Her camisole was thin, her arousal obvious, Casper too sharp not to see. But he held her gaze as he ate the fruit, saying nothing, waiting with her while the tension in the room grew thick and constricting, binding them.
She couldn’t move, and her skin burned, and she felt as if she could reach out and catch the dust motes floating in the moonlight where it streamed through the curtains covering the window over the sink.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice a painful whisper when she forced it out of her mouth.
“Having a snack,” was what he said, and she didn’t know if he was talking about the berries, or about her. She didn’t know if she cared, because he was here, and everything she’d wanted for ages was so close she could pull it around them like a cocoon.
He scooped two fingers through the cream then, his eyes on his hand as he brought it to her mouth. She licked her lips, swallowed, parted them and let him inside.
She swirled a
way the cream with her tongue, worked her way around his fingertips, in and out, sucking them, flicking them, watching his Adam’s apple bob, his nostrils flare. His pupils dilate. Then she dropped her gaze and saw the truth of his cock straining to be free of his jeans.
Is this what it felt like to be reckless? Sex and Casper? After all these years? And with her brother sleeping upstairs—a fact that put the verifying stamp on her insanity, though the runaway beat of her heart in her chest told her that on its own.
Was his pulse pounding, too? Was he aching?
She used the tip of her tongue to push him away, her nipples begging for his mouth, her pussy for his hand. He knew what she was thinking. The look in his eyes said so, but instead of giving her what she wanted, he ate another piece of fruit, teasing her, making her wait.
She didn’t want to wait, and she couldn’t let him think he was running the show. They had to do this as equals, or they couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. And so she looked away, intending to return the fruit and whipped cream to the fridge, then return herself to her bed.
But he blocked her before she’d taken a second step. She lingered one long beat, devouring his heat and his meaning before meeting his gaze. His sizzled, caught on hers, his chest laboring as it rose and fell, his heart and his lungs struggling.
And then he shook his head, laughed, and gave in to whatever fight he’d been waging. He came closer, came lower, taking his time now that he’d made his decision, his nose against hers, his mouth hovering, hovering, and years beyond when she’d been ready, finally claiming hers.
He tasted like fresh fruit, cold and sweet, and then he was hot, his strawberry tongue tangling with the cream still on hers. He kissed like the devil he was, holding nothing back, burning her up. Making her want everything and more and all of it now, without a single thought for the consequences.
She didn’t move. She couldn’t move. She let him do all the moving, taking the bowl from her hands and stepping into her, his belt buckle, his hips, his thighs. Oh, God, his thighs. Bold and full, and so, so powerful as he took charge of hers.
He was hard and strong and solid, like a tree, a brick wall, and he was heavy against her, making her feel small and precious and in more danger than she knew what to do with. Her chest shuddered with an unbearable ache, and her breasts tingled, as did her thighs, her belly, the core of her sex. His rose between them, full and thick and unapologetic, and moisture gathered at her entrance and wept from her folds.
He lifted her to sit on the counter, slid his hands down to her thighs, then draped her legs over his forearms as he leaned his weight into his palms on the tiled surface. He bent, his lips brushing the strip of skin above the elastic of her panties, the strip of skin bared by the hem of her cami that had risen up her rib cage to her breasts.
She let her head fall back on her shoulders. It hit the door of the cabinets behind her and she left it there, closed her eyes, covered Casper’s hands with her own and gripped him tight with trembling fingers. This was the stuff of her dreams, and she wasn’t even a dreamer, but oh, God, this couldn’t be real because real had never been anything like this.
This was magic, his mouth, his breath heating her, his lips kissing and nipping, his teeth biting just hard enough to make her wince and yelp. And then he bit lower, nudging beneath the fabric of her panties to her clit and the swollen lips of her sex.
“Mmm, yummy,” he said before he slid his tongue to separate her folds, licking and stroking until he reached her pussy’s entrance, pushing into her, then pulling out and letting her panties snap back into place.
Then he kissed her. He stood straight, leaned in, and covered her mouth with his, showing her what she tasted like—the saltiness, the strange hint of grapefruit and musky olives, the scent of marine air. But all of that disappeared then, because this was Casper and he was kissing her, his tongue sliding against hers, his lips pressing to hers, his teeth glancing off hers with an audible click.
She wanted to taste him, to know him and learn him, but she couldn’t think or focus. She tried so hard, but she found no purchase and could do nothing but let go and give in when he picked her up, when he turned her, when he walked them to the table where she’d shared dinner with Boone.
She couldn’t think about that now. Wouldn’t think about that now. Not when she was sitting where Boone’s plate had been, leaning back on her elbows, her heels tucked to her hips. Not with Casper’s hands moving to his belt buckle and zipper. Not with his jeans coming down, his briefs following, his cock jutting proudly, the tip ripe and red and wet.
“Lift up,” he said, and she did, and he tugged off her panties before he stepped between her legs.
“What?” she asked when he stopped, a frown marring the hunger in his eyes.
“I don’t have a condom, but I test clean. If we need to put this off—”
She shook her head. “I’m clean. I won’t get pregnant. And if we put this off, we may never be here again.”
He grunted, planting one hand at her hip, wrapping the other around his shaft and guiding himself into place. “Why’s that?”
“Because once we’re done, I swear I’m going to find my lost mind.”
His laugh cut through her, a scythe of wicked humor and grit. “Who says we’re ever going to be done?”
Then he pushed into her, and she closed her eyes, gasped because it had been so long, and it had never ever been like this. He stretched her and hit bottom, and still he wasn’t done filling her with the part of him she’d wanted for so long to know. She eased into having him, relaxing, adjusting, a smile tugging at her lips.
“What’s the smile for?” he asked, his voice cracking just enough and in a way that let her know he was more worried than he was teasing.
She never thought of doing anything but setting him at ease, and let her smile reach her eyes as she opened them. “I like you.”
“Good to know.” He pulled out, pushed in. They both gasped, and Casper said, “You know we need to get this one over with.”
Nodding, she bit down on her lower lip. The sooner they were out of the kitchen, the better, though she was well aware that wasn’t what he meant. They’d danced around this first time too long for it to be anything but a prelude.
“You ready?”
She nodded again. “Could you try not to break the table?”
“Oh, baby. The table’s not what I’m worried about breaking.”
“Hurry. Just hurry. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Music to my ears,” he said, leaning over her as she wrapped her legs around him and hooked her heels in the small of his back.
Then they fucked. There was no other word for the act between them. They did not make love, even though Faith’s heart swelled and ached from the emotional surge. They rutted like animals, coming together in the most primitive of matings Faith had ever known.
And she loved it. She loved it. Every pounding slide of Casper’s cock threatened to take her apart. She felt him in her pussy and she felt him in her head. Her toes tingled and her breasts beneath her camisole ached to feel his teeth and his hands.
But it wasn’t enough. None of it. She wanted, needed more. To see all of him naked. To know more than just his fingers and tongue and cock. To look down and see where their bodies joined, her pink flesh stretched to fit his that was similarly colored, and soft in as many ways as it was rigid.
And his abs. His ass. His thighs. She wanted to touch all of him, explore his muscles and his skin and the spots where he found the most pleasure. She wanted him to learn her. She wanted things that wouldn’t fit on an old kitchen table, in a ranch house where her brother was sleeping upstairs.
He was right. They had to get this one over with. And so she balanced precariously on one elbow, and hooked her other around his neck, bringing his head down to hers, his lips to hers, his tongue. He groaned into her mouth as he pushed deeper into her body, his weight pinning her, his movements rocking the table on old wooden legs Faith
could only pray were built to last.
With each stroke of his cock over her clit, her nipples hardened, and her blood rushed hot beneath the surface of her skin. The hair on her arms stood on end. The hair at her nape snapped, electricity popping in the air around them.
Gasping, Casper pulled away, needing to breathe as he stared into her eyes, his gaze fiery and focused and full of lust and insanity. She’d thought nothing could be as crazy as her need for him. What she must look like, half naked and full of Casper Jayne without so much as a locked door to save her.
And she didn’t even care. If that wasn’t the height of madness she didn’t know what was. She was soaring, so close to coming undone, and the things she read in Casper’s eyes pushed her to the brink. He knew it. He saw it. And he shoved hard against her, grinding and taking her over the edge.
She cried out, squeezing her eyes shut and gripping his cock, milking him, coming all over him, holding onto the table’s edges until she thought her fingers might break. Her release coursed through her and she shook and shivered and knew nothing but the thrill of surrender.
Above her, Casper grunted, rutting and grinding, shoving himself so hard against her, the table jumped. Her eyes popped open, and she watched his face, the deep grooves digging in around his closed eyes, the veins in his neck popped in relief. His mouth tight and grim as he strained, reached. His pulse ticking in his temple, a pounding drumbeat synced to his thrusts.
He slammed into her once more, then stopped, his upper body rising like a cobra from the place where his body was rooted to hers, and he came, juddering, quaking, his hands moving to her shoulders to hold her and anchor himself deep as he spilled his seed.
He finished quickly but with a force that alarmed her as she watched his orgasm play out in waves on his face, intense and vivid, muscles working around his eyes and his mouth, his nostrils flaring. Her heart pattered, her spine tingled, her sex ached and burned wanting him gone, wanting him always.
Finally, he looked at her, his eyes slowly opening, a smile sliding across his mouth and twinkling in his gaze. “Look at you. Faith Mitchell. All messed up.”
