by Alison Kent
“Get off me,” she said, her words clawing the scant space between them.
But Casper had other ideas, settling his palms at her sides. “You are one tasty woman.”
“Tasty? What does that even mean?” She moved her heels to his hipbones and pushed. “Get off.”
“I could do that. Or I could just pick you up like this and carry you up the stairs.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Then, since he wasn’t moving, she did, scuttling like a crab across the table, missing the feel of his cock inside her the moment he was gone. She rolled from the tabletop to her feet, found her panties across the room, felt Casper’s semen tickling the tops of her thighs. Reaching for a paper towel, she glanced at him and said, “Don’t just stand there.”
Because his standing there was bothering her. His jeans and briefs were bunched around his knees, her juices and his glistening on his cock that was still half hard. It hung between his thighs, thick and tempting as it bobbed above his balls. His hands were at his hips, his white T-shirt bunched up to reveal well-defined abs bisected by a trail of dark hair.
He nodded toward the towel she held in her hand. “Bring me one of those. Wet. Warm water, not cold.”
What was she now, his concubine? But she did as he asked because it gave her a reason to look away and time to find some semblance of sanity. And she thought she had. Her breathing had calmed. Her heart had stopped trying to beat its way out of her chest.
When she reached him, however, she realized she wasn’t herself at all. He didn’t move more than an eyebrow, then told her, “Clean me up.”
She waited—one heartbeat, a second, a third—weighing her pleasure against his, her acquiescence against his demand, then wrapped the damp towel around the tip of his cock to swipe away his cum. He shifted in her hand, lifting, hardening, going stiff and full as she held him, as she cleaned him, stroked him, her own hold tighter, feeling him throb.
He grinned, a slow, lazy move that grooved his dimples deep into his cheeks and brought a twinkle to his eyes. That had her heart pounding again, her blood rushing to pool low in her center the way his had done. She stilled her hand. He was clean enough for leaving. And that’s what they both had to do. Now.
Or so she’d decided. Casper had other plans, hitching up his pants with one hand while he cupped the other at the base of her skull and brought her head to his, their cheeks together, his mouth lingering at the edge of hers. “Thank you.”
“For what?” she whispered, the wash of her breath damp between them.
“The towel. The table. The countertop.”
She pulled back far enough to meet his gaze. “You’re thanking me for the kitchen?”
“I’m thanking you for making sure I’ll smile every time I walk into this room from now on.”
SEVEN
“SHH,” FAITH SHUSHED from where she lay naked beneath him.
Casper’s only response was to smile against her skin because he wasn’t the one making the noise. He swirled his tongue in and around her navel, his hands against her inner thighs spreading her open. She wiggled and squirmed and her hands at her sides clenched his sheets in need of changing.
She groaned as he nipped at the cute pooch of her tummy, making his way lower and breathing deeply of her scent that was salty and warm. Whatever door she’d opened in the kitchen, he didn’t want her to change her mind and lock it down tight. He’d waited half his life to get her here. He did not want her up and running.
“We can’t do this,” she was saying. “Not here. Risking it downstairs was bad enough, but now Boone’s right down the hall.”
He bit the soft flesh of her knee. “His door’s shut. My door’s shut. And locked. He sleeps like a dead man. So as long as you don’t start praising the Lord when I slide my tongue inside you—”
“Shh,” she shushed again, moaning as he slid his tongue inside her. “Don’t say things like that.”
He stopped the fun he was having and looked up at her from between her legs. “Faith Mitchell. Are you embarrassed?”
“No, I’m not embarrassed,” she said, though he swore he heard that very thing in her voice, saw it in the denying slant of her brows.
He came at the problem from a different angle. “You’re not much for sex talk then?”
She pushed onto her elbows and gave him a deserved glare. “Have I not been shushing you? I don’t want Boone to wake up and find us.”
Casper closed his eyes, dropped his head. They were going to have to deal with this now or their affair would be over before he ever had the chance to properly start it.
And boy did he want to start it. In all sorts of improper ways. To show her exactly what they could do together, be together—and to do so before she decided they’d made an epic mistake hooking up.
And that would happen sooner than Casper would like. Faith was too uppity, too straight and narrow for it not to. But since he knew to be forewarned and forearmed and all that…
He crawled up her body, braced his elbows on her pillow, and brushed her hair from her eyes. “And what if he does wake up and find us? What do you think he’s going to do?”
“Besides beat the living shit out of you?” she asked, wiggling beneath him to settle his hips to hers.
His cock jumped when she moved, and he grinned when she sucked back a sharp breath. “Really? Is that what you think? That I can’t handle myself with Boone?”
“I didn’t say that—”
“Then you must be afraid that you can’t handle yourself—”
“I can handle myself just fine, thank you.”
Yeah. She could. “Then what’s the big deal. You’re, what? Thirty? Thirty-one?”
She nodded, but didn’t pick door number one or two.
Though he was pretty sure he knew, he’d get the exact number later just because it bugged her so. “Okay. That makes you all grown up.”
“I know that.”
“Then why are you letting Boone kill the mood?”
“He’s my brother. I don’t want…”
And here it comes. Casper rolled away to his back, less pissed off than he was surprised it had taken them this long to get into class warfare. “You don’t want to disappoint him by sleeping around beneath you.”
Faith was still for a long moment, then she barked out a laugh loud enough for the dogs in the barn to hear. Raising up on one elbow, she stared down at him with the fire of a brand headed for his ass. “Sleeping around beneath me? Is that what I’m doing here? Sleeping around?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, what exactly did you mean, Mr. Jayne, because I want to be sure before I say anything else.”
Feisty little filly, wasn’t she? He propped his head on one forearm, tweaked her nipple with his other hand. “You’re sleeping with me. Having sex with me.”
She batted him away. “I know that.”
“I’m not done,” he said, and tweaked again.
This time she let him, pressing her lips tight and waiting him out.
He let her go because it seemed the thing to do with this conversation looming, and tucked his other arm beneath his head. “You’re a Mitchell. I’m a Jayne. There’s something about never the twain meeting here.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, the tone of the question curious rather than patronizing, as if she hadn’t heard all the stories told about the Jaynes through the years. “Just because I had a more comfortable life growing up than you did?”
“A more comfortable life?” That made him want to laugh. Or hit something with a chair. “Is that what you call it?”
“Sure. Why not? My parents both had”—she stopped, corrected herself—“both have good jobs working for the school district. Boone and I were well provided for. We didn’t have to go without.”
“Like I did.”
“It wasn’t a big secret, Casper,” she said, her voice softer, her coffee-dark hair falling forward over her shoulder as she
shook her head. “Everyone knew your father wasn’t around for long after y’all moved here. And that your moth—”
“That my mother was a whore who put food on our table by selling sex at Bokeem’s Truck Stop.”
And fuck his big, fat mouth.
He sure as hell hadn’t meant to say that, but without giving him a chance to haul them back, the words had fallen into a silence so complete he could hear his hair growing. But he had to give it to Faith. She held his gaze, no sympathy in hers, no poor baby tears or even words designed to soothe away the pain of his past.
Instead, she stayed true and no-nonsense. “I didn’t know that, about your mother.”
Really? She’d been that sheltered? That naive? “Everybody knew that about my mother, Faith.”
“I didn’t.” She shifted beside him, reaching for the sheet and pulling it to her chest. “I knew she worked as a waitress at the truck stop, but that’s all.”
“Well, now you know the rest.”
Thing was, he didn’t really care that she knew. He was who he was. He’d gone through a lot to get here. What he didn’t want was sorrow, or pity, or an emotional attachment that required he explain more than he wanted to, or share parts of himself he didn’t let go of for anyone.
She wasn’t like the women he’d had in the past, women like Angie Whitman who’d been a good time but no more a part of his life than he’d been of hers.
Faith, on the other hand, had been with him since his family had moved to Crow Hill. She hadn’t been struck starry-eyed by any of his eight-second rides. She’d known him as a hell-raiser, as her brother’s friend. As the extra kid at the supper table.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said, turning to look at her.
She buried her nose in the sheet she held, grimaced. “How long have these sheets been on your bed?”
He snorted, and then said instead, “I’m a big boy, Faith. I’m not afraid of Boone.”
“I’m not afraid of him either.”
“Then what’s the problem here?”
“I don’t know. His being in the house…things changing between the two of you should he find out I’m here. I don’t want the ranch partnership to go rocky.”
“It won’t.”
“You say that like you’re sure.”
“We’ve been through a lot. And we’re all still here.”
“I suppose.”
Her shrug had him wondering if she’d thought things through. “But if change worries you, you gotta know things would be different between you two as well.”
“I know. We’ve had issues before.”
Huh. “Anything I need to worry about?”
She shook her head, ran the tip of one finger down the center of his chest. “Just that I’m not a big fan of taking risks.”
And risks had been Casper’s whole life. “Sounds like I need to show you there’s nothing to it.”
He brought his mouth hard to hers, forcing his tongue inside to dance with hers, to slide along hers, stroking hers before coaxing hers into his mouth. The intimacy had his cock thickening along her bare thigh. And then he pulled away, moving his mouth to her jaw, her ear, breathing deeply of her scent that brought to mind the sort of soft summer he’d rarely seen.
He knew harsh conditions. His life had been nothing but. That made being here with Faith seem like something that should belong to someone else—even as he told himself he deserved every bit of what the woman beside him was ready to give up. Faith Mitchell. His for the night. No matter what she thought of him.
Tonight was about the slope of her neck to her shoulder, and the way her whole body shuddered when he kissed his way from her ear to her collarbone, then made his way lower to the rise of her tits that were lifting and falling with her efforts to breathe.
He tugged one nipple into his mouth. She gasped, and he bit down. She gasped again, and he leaned to the side, sliding the heel of his palm to the bone above her clit and pushing against it. This time her gasp became a groan, and her fight became less about breathing than about what he sensed was going on in her head.
“What do you want, Faith? From me. What do you want?”
“What you’re doing. More of it. All of it. Everything.”
He liked having a door thrown wide, but needed her to be aware of what she was saying. “Are you sure? Because I’ve had a lot of years to think about what I want to do to you. I don’t know if you’re ready to go everywhere I am.”
She opened her eyes, met his gaze, wet her lips. “You think I’m sheltered, don’t you? Because of the way I grew up. Because I haven’t gone through the things you have. You think I have no experience at…this.”
“This? You mean fucking?” Because if she couldn’t even say it…
“Yes. Fucking. Is that better?”
“I tell you what would be better.” He scooted up her body, hooked a leg around hers, and rolled to his back, taking her with him, ending up with her straddling his hips as planned. “This is better.”
“Why?” was her only response. She just sat there, balancing, as if afraid to move more than the muscles it took to do that.
“Why?” he echoed, lifting his knees, a chair at her back, and moving his hands to her thighs where they created a vee on either side of his thick, jutting cock. “Well, from here I can see all the best parts of you at the same time.”
Her shoulders had been hunched forward as if to hide her bare breasts, but the motion only served to plump them together, and when she hid her chest behind crossed arms, he tucked his beneath his head and sighed.
“This isn’t going to be any good if you go into hiding.”
She stared at him a long, hot moment, then flung her arms to the side before reaching for her hair and twisting it up against the back of her head. “Is this better? Is this what you want?”
“I want you to have fun. I don’t want you to be nervous.” He was surprised after the kitchen she would be.
“I’m not nervous. Not about the sex.”
“About what then?”
“Everything that goes with it.”
Did she mean all the emotional baggage he’d managed to keep out of his sexual encounters? “Like?”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“More sex?”
She hesitated, chewed at the corner of her lip, then, “And nothing else?”
Fuck. “Do you want there to be something else?”
“No, but I don’t want things to get awkward.”
He was beginning to regret the question. “Awkward how?”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, opening them once she’d found what looked like courage. “I don’t want you thinking I’ll plead your case at the bank because of this.”
The thought hadn’t crossed his mind. The fact it had crossed hers had him feeling mean. “Then this was a big, fat waste of time, wasn’t it?”
Her eyes went wide like a newborn calf’s. “Are you kidding me?”
Jesus H. Christ. “Give me some credit here, Faith. I haven’t thought about money once since you climbed up there and started struttin’ your stuff. But now that you mention it…”
She slapped at his hand as he reached for her tit. “Stop it.”
“Stop touching you?”
“No. Stop making light of something that’s serious.”
“I’m always serious about sex.”
“I’m not talking about sex.” She gathered her thoughts, blowing out a breath once she had. “I just don’t want things to get weird.”
“Weird how?” he asked as she covered his hands with hers.
“I want to be able to sit down to supper with you and Boone, and Dax and Arwen, even Darcy and Josh, and not have you look at me or say something that gives us away.”
He thought about that. Decided he could live with it. “So you want to keep us a secret?”
She nodded, the ends of her layered hair brushing her chin and shoulders.
“A
nd you’re not going to blab to your girlfriends?”
Her face colored at that.
“Uh-huh. See. The secret’s already out.”
“I told Arwen and Everly that I wanted to sleep with you, yes,” she said, her gaze falling from his eyes to his chest, his abs, the trail of hair that led to his treasure currently winking at her. “But they won’t know that we have.”
He laughed because she couldn’t be serious. “Until they get a good look at you all drunk on Casper Jayne, you mean.”
“Really?” she asked, cocking her head. “That’s what we’re doing now? You’re that full of yourself?”
“Being full of me feels pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”
She didn’t say anything after that, just rose to her knees, aligned their bodies, and lowered herself onto his cock. Then she moved her hands to his thighs and leaned into them as she began to ride. She closed her eyes, lifted her chin. Her hair fell down her back, brushing his hands at her waist, teasing, tickling, the ends of the strands like bristles passing over his skin.
He shuddered at the contact, bucked up into her, shuddered again when she laughed, a sound he would never have thought to hear from Faith Mitchell. It was guttural and wicked, and said all sorts of things about the very naughty girl who wore tight suits and no-nonsense heels and kept a hand wrapped around his purse strings as if strangling his balls.
He was strangling now, watching her tits bounce, her nipples puckered and peached. Watching her teeth holding her lower lip one second, the tip of her tongue the next. Watching her pussy stretch around his cock, her clit bold and aroused where she ground it to the base of his shaft. He couldn’t look away. She was the hottest thing he’d ever had his cock in. And he was in so much trouble because of it.
His balls and his bank account were one thing, but he’d broken the no-sisters rule. And he’d lied to Faith when he’d told her he wasn’t worried about how things would shake out with Boone. But he couldn’t think about that now. Right now was all about his cock and her cunt and the look on her face that had him tightening his abs and thrusting.
She took him and squeezed him, pulling him with her as she lifted her hips, then letting him go until she held nothing inside her but his very full tip. He was ripe to bursting, and every move she made worsened the urge he was fighting not to let go. He wanted to flip her to her back and slam into her, pounding her until neither one of them could breathe.
