“It’s ’cause I’m such a slut, Master Shep. I’m always wet for you.”
“Always talking so much shit.” She laughs, but I turn that chuckle of hers right into a moan as I slide my cock inside her tight slit. I push in and out a few times, then slap her hands away. She braces herself on the back of the couch.
“You were fucking up my leverage,” I say. She laughs some more, but she can barely catch her breath. I pick up my pace. This is why I can’t stand regular sex. I like the anticipation. I like drawing things out. The suffering, the begging. I like to see my submissive driven crazy by the need to come before I even get started. But Claudia, fuck, her pussy feels so good and the sight of her ass as it bounces against my hips. I reach forward and slide my hand up over her tits. I pinch her nipples.
“Wait, Shep. Shep! Stop.”
I freeze. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. Do you hear that?” I hear it, but before I realize I’m hearing footsteps outside my front door, there’s a loud knock.
“The fuck,” I say under my breath.
“Know you’re home, Shepard. It’s Jad!”
“Ah, fuck. Not a good time, Jad!”
“Who the fuck is Jad?” Claudia asks.
“May-Bell’s husband.”
He knocks again. He knocks louder. I know Jad is getting on in years, but now he’s just fucking with me. “Hold on! Sorry, baby.” I pull out and nudge her over on the couch cushions. She groans and shoves her hand between her legs.
“Here. Hide.” I toss a blanket on top of her and go crack the front door open. It’s fucking freezing, and the air feels like it’s about to snow and there’s Jad standing on my porch.
“Afternoon, Jad. This is a really bad time. A little occupied at the moment.”
He can only see my face and about half of my shoulder, but he still looks me up and down. He makes a face. “I thought she was just visiting.”
“Jad. Please.”
“There’s a tree down over at our place and my chainsaw is busted. I need to borrow yours.”
I’m tempted to chuck the keys to my shed at Jad’s head, but he helped raise me and he knows I was raised with better manners than that. He’s also a man of the mountain who’s almost my size. I’ve never tested him before, but I’m not sure he can’t take me.
“One second.” I try to close the door, but he walks right in. “Christ, Jad.”
“Oh I’ve seen your bare ass before, boy. Hurry up.” It’s not my ass I’m worried about. It’s my half deflated cock and the condom I’m still wearing. And the naked woman on my couch.
I grab my pants off the floor and dig up my shirt. I do something I’ve never wanted to do and pull the condom off and shove it in my pocket. It takes me a second to find my keys on the table, then stomp into my boots. “Come on. It’s out in the shed.”
He follows me outside, but I catch him trying to look around me to get a glimpse of the couch.
“Did you really come by for the chainsaw?” I ask once we’re outside.
“I did, you smartass. Unlike my wife, I don’t need to pry into your business. You’ve got a lady in there, you got a lady in there. It’s good. Glad your pecker’s working and I was little worried you’d gone insane after the thing with Sarah.”
“Don’t need to talk about her, Jad. It’s been a while, but I’m fine.”
“Yeah. That’s what Egil used to say.”
I unlock the shed door and grab my chainsaw off the shelf.
“Thank you.” Jad reaches for it, but I shake my head.
“I got it.” We walk down the driveway and I set it in the bed of his truck. “Hold on to that as long as you want.”
“I’m gonna replace mine next week. Just needed something in a hurry.” He turns to me with his hands on his hips. “Bring her on by tonight. May-Bell’s cooking. Like always. You two come by.”
“Alrighty.”
“People love you, Shepard. I know it’s a hardship. We just want to meet the woman you love.”
“Whoa. Who said anything about that?”
Jad’s eyebrow goes up. “Just like Egil. Dinner’s at seven. We’ll see you then.”
Jad gets in his truck and I stand there and wait until he’s back down the drive and headed on his way. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second before I head back inside. Claudia is sitting up on the couch wrapped in the blanket when I walk through the door.
“Is the coast clear?” she asks.
“Yeah, he’s gone.”
“Great.” She stands and tosses the blanket off. “Where were we?”
I laugh a little at the huge smile on her face. “Give me a second. Conversations with Jad are a bit of a boner killer.”
Her expression drops. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. He just invited us over for dinner tonight.”
“Oh.” She sounds about as excited as I am. “Are we going?”
“We’re going.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“I can think of better ways to spend a Saturday night. With you.”
“And we can’t get out of this?”
“No.” I pull off my shirt and head back into my bedroom to grab another condom. Claudia dumped them out on my shelf so I don’t have to keep asking where she’s keeping her little pink pouch thing. I drop my pants and start stroking myself. “They will come back. Both of them.”
“Let me help you with this and then we’ll go and have dinner with your very interesting neighbors.” She scoots to the edge of the couch and opens her mouth.
“Thanks. You’re really looking out for number one right now.”
“I know. Me. I want sex. In. Now.” She points to her lips. I walk over and slide right in. I should probably warn her about how intense May-Bell and Jad can be, but that’ll have to wait until later. Claudia’s mouth feels too good.
Twelve
Jad’s surprise visit almost fucks up my whole afternoon, but Claudia helps me get back on track. I fuck her until I can’t stand anymore. She comes on my cock a few times, begging me not to stop even though she can barely lift her head. After we catch our breath she gets in the shower and comes back to the great room wearing the red long john one-piece pajamas Sarah got me one year as a gag gift. I never even tried them on, but they look a shitload better on Claudia than they would have on me, especially since she hasn’t buttoned the top all the way and her perfect tits are hanging out.
I ask her where she found them. She casually says she found them in my closet. I want to ask her what she was doing in my closet, but she starts telling me that she’s my guest and it was “super” rude of me to interrupt her in the middle of her streaming television program. She flops back down on the couch and grabs the remote. I give her a minute to get comfortable. I pull on my pants and check Titus’s food and water situation. Then I stroll back over to the couch and sweep Claudia up into my arms.
She screeches but doesn’t try to fight me when I pick her up and fall on top of her on the couch. I tickle her, bite at her neck and tits until she’s wheezing from laughter and then I kiss her until I feel myself hitting that point. I need to pull back. I swing us both upright and pull her into my lap and watch three episodes of this weird ass show with her.
She has the nerve to say she would make the perfect vampire and I tell her she clearly isn’t patient enough for immortality and that launches us into a whole discussion about how she’s pretty sure I’m actually a werewolf and my remote mountain home is all just an elaborate cover. She’s pretty deep into how she thinks Titus is actually my cousin who can’t change back to his human form when I realize how much I like listening to her talk about this kind of nonsensical shit. I can listen to her talk about just about anything.
We call it quits on the paranormal primetime drama when she tells me she needs at least an hour to get ready for a formal dinner. I remind her that it isn’t formal and she tells me to mind my business when it comes to her business. She indirectly shames me into putting on a de
cent shirt and running a comb through my hair even though I put my hat right back on.
She takes more than an hour to get ready. I give her shit for it when she comes out of my bedroom, but not before I look her up and down. She’s wearing another pair of skin tight jeans and different pair of tan boots that come up to her thighs. She has on a long sleeved sweater that’s dark red and makes her tits look almost obscene. She’s put on makeup. I realize she hasn’t been wearing much or any since she got here. She doesn’t need it, but she looks amazing.
“Took you fucking long enough,” I say as I stand. I want to cancel this stupid dinner and spend the rest of the night worshipping her body on my own dining room table.
She fluffs her hair out and puts a hand on her hip. “Phsst whatever, bitch. You cannot rush perfection and you know I look good.”
I walk over to her and pull her into my arms. “You look amazing.”
“I would be a jerk and say something smart about how you’re not that cute, but you’re sexy as hell and I want you to do all kinds of things to me right now.”
“When we get back. I’ll do things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Kind of fucked up things.”
“I like that.” She lightly kisses me on the lips. I can still smell that pineapple but she’s added something glossy and sticky. “Sorry,” she laughs when she catches me wiping my mouth. “I’ll make sure I take it off when we do the kinda fucked up things later tonight.”
I grab her ass and nudge her toward the door. “If you’re good. Come on, T!” Titus comes sprinting out of the kitchen and joins us as we head out to the truck. I have to wrestle him into the back of the cab, but he’s still happy to be coming along.
“Okay. Is there anything I need to know before I go into this lion’s den?” Claudia asks when we pull back out to the main road.
“It’s not much of a lion’s den. It’s just The Tierneys. Jad and May-Bell will both try to grill you in their own way. Just be upfront. That’s the only advice I can give you. Jad is a walking lie detector. He used to be the county sheriff, and May-Bell is just nosy as hell. Tell them what they want to know in the simplest terms up front and they’ll get off your back and move on to something else.”
“So don’t tell them how I’m an ex-Las Vegas showgirl turned investigative reporter turned treasure hunter who heard there was gold up in these hills?”
“You can certainly try that. They might ask me if there’s something really fucking wrong with you. I think the truth will work.”
“Fine.” She sighs.
When we pull up to May-Bell and Jad’s I’m glad to see that Jad wasn’t bullshitting about needing my chainsaw. One of the pines in their yard went over and luckily missed the roof. It’s in freshly cut pieces up against the side of the house and there’s sawdust and wood chips all over the place.
I pull up behind May-Bell’s SUV and turn to Claudia. “Ready?”
“Is this the closest I’ll ever get to meeting your parents?”
“Yes,” I said. No need to bullshit her. Even if we did something nuts like get married, she’d never meet my real parents.
“Okay.” She lets out a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
We survive introductions. May-Bell, always the proper hostess, places dinner on the table and Jad offers us our choice of beers from his two favorite kinds of ale. May-Bell seats me across from Claudia. I don't like it, but Claudia seems comfortable when she takes her seat. She smiles and winks at me.
“Claudia, honey, you ever had venison stew? It's Shep’s favorite,” May-Bell says.
“No I haven't, but it smells delicious. Thank you so much.” She passes her bowl and lets May-Bell serve her a healthy portion.
“I made a tart too. Jad’s watching his sugar so you can take the rest of it back over to Shep’s with you tonight.”
“That’s so kind. Thank you,” Claudia says.
“So tell us a little bit about yourself, Claudia. Where ya from?” Jad asks.
“Um, New York. I live in Manhattan.”
“Oh, quite the difference from our small mountain town. How do you like it out here so far?”
“I actually haven’t gotten to see much of the town yet, but the people down at the Light Grass Lodges were great and Connie?”
“Oh yeah, Connie’s a good friend of mine.”
“She’s underselling it. Connie’s her BFF. They text each other all day long,” I say. May-Bell frowns at me.
“My uh—my brother and I didn’t explore the town much last time I was here,” Claudia says. “But I would like to see more of it. I’ve been by the diner a couple times and Connie was very sweet to me.”
“She knows how to do service with a smile. It's how we say welcome around here.” I almost roll my eyes. May-Bell is laying it on a little thick.
“Well we’re glad you’re back, after your brother passed,” Jad says. He realizes his fuck up immediately and looks up, his eyes darting between me and Claudia. “’Pologies. I didn’t mean to bring it up that way.”
“It’s okay. Really. It’s not something that can’t be taken back and it’s kind of the reason I’m here now.”
“Not many people would send a thank-you note, but I saw Jerry—Sheriff Bingham—this morning and he said it was nice to see you again. We’re all glad you made it out alive. We’re glad Shep was there,” Jad says.
“Jad,” May-Bell warns.
“No, it's okay. It was…a bad situation. A thank-you note didn't seem sufficient. I'm just glad I'm alive to say thank you. Especially to Shep,” Claudia says.
“What do you do in New York City?” May-Bell asks.
“Um, I’m actually in between jobs right now. I was a buyer in women's apparel for Kleinman’s, but I resigned about a month ago. I’ll be looking for the next gig soon.”
“Oh what happened? Why’d you resign?” May-Bell asks.
“Just wasn't the right fit anymore, but we’ll see what else is out there.”
“You looking around here?” Jad asks. “I heard they are still looking for a new children's librarian back in town.”
“Oh no, I—I’m just visiting. I have to head back at the end of the week.”
I'm fine with this answer. This answer is in line with my expectations. I know she’s going. This isn’t a shock or a surprise to me, but Jad responds with another one of his meaningful looks. I can feel the cloud passing over my own face as I stare back at him. I know he has more sense than to go there, but he can't help himself.
“Well nice of Shep to give you someplace to stay while you're in town.”
“I invited her to stay with me,” I say. “Didn't make much sense for her to pay to stay at the Lodges when there are perfectly good accommodations right up here.”
“Mhmm. How long are you staying?”
“Just until Friday?”
“Well hopefully you get back to see us. Shep hasn’t had many visitors in a while.”
I sigh and put down my fork. “She knows Jad.”
Jad’s nails me with a look. “Does she know how long it’s been since you’ve had visitors? Does she know why?”
“Yes. She knows. She knows about Sarah and she knows I’m an anti-social prick.”
“Does she know Sarah’s the one who took care of her during the day shift?” He looks at Claudia who has now gone a little pale. “Did he tell you about the trips he takes so he can get over her?”
“Jad. Enough,” May-Bell’s voice is calm, but deadly. It's enough to shut Jad up, but only for a minute. He's been holding this shit in for years, but we can't do this now. Not in front of Claudia. And it’s also none of Jad’s business.
“May, thank you for a lovely dinner,” I say as I start to stand. My chest is pounding and I can hear water rushing in my ears, but I have to keep it together long enough to get Claudia and Titus back to the house. Then I can channel this shit somewhere else.
“Shepard, sit down,” Jad says. The authority in his voice makes
me want to punch him clean in his throat. He doesn’t run this mountain anymore.
I keep standing, but I don't leave. I know what I have to say or else I might punch Jad. “You think I'm just as screwed up as Egil. You can say it. You think I'm just as screwed up as my mother. Probably worse, but I will never understand what you want from me, Jad. I’m fine. I’m employed. I’m taking care of my property and my dog. I’m not doing anything wrong.
“Sarah spreads my business all over this mountain, then splits with some other dude and somehow I'm the monster. You know Julia Tompkin’s kid told me there's a rumor going around the high school that I kill women up at my place and Jerry protects me? I shared something about myself with the woman I loved almost three years ago and people were afraid to look at me. All it took was stopping a serial killer and finally people start treating me like a person again. But not quite. Right? I'm sorry if I invited a friend to stay at my place.”
“But she's not your friend, Shep. She doesn’t know you and you barely know her. No offense,” he says to Claudia. I almost tell him not to speak to her but he barrels right through. “You two were thrown together by something terrible and months later she's back so you can shack up for a few days?”
“You’re out of line, Jad. You know nothing about us. And even if you did, I'm allowed to have guests up to my house!”
Jad shoots out of his chair, but knows not to get in my face. “And no one says you're not! But you don't have guests over to your place and you haven't in years and I'm sorry if it raises a little concern when Claudia here is the first in some time. I told Egil it wasn't good for him to keep you up here that way. He used the mountain as an excuse after Letta passed and now—”
“And now what? Just say it, Jad. I turned out just like him, but worse because I'm some sort of danger to the delicate women of Paluma County.”
“No. You deserve something healthy and happy and this is not how it starts. Again no offense, Claudia. But you can’t keep doing this, Shepard and you know it.”
HAVEN: Beards & Bondage Page 13
