by Cara McKenna
She could imagine them fucking, so easily. And she could grant the permission to make it happen just as readily.
He let her hear him, a flurry of groans and grunts and whimpers, animal sounds. As surely as he withheld his words outside this room, here on this bed he denied her nothing. These dark noises told her everything he felt, if not the thoughts running through that guarded mind. His eyes were shut, brows drawn.
“Rob?”
His eyes opened. “Yes.”
“I have condoms, if you want to . . .”
He slowed and ultimately stopped, catching his breath. “Is that what you want?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
After the briefest pause, he moved aside to let her up. Merry bit back a smile as she crouched to dig through her pack for the three linked squares she’d tucked in her toiletry bag, never really having expected she’d find occasion to use them.
She joined him again on the covers, and he shed his shorts as she ripped one of the packets open.
“You’re sure?” he asked, eyes on her busy hands.
“So sure.”
They watched together as she slid the rubber down his ready, beading cock, the room perfectly still and silent, neither daring to breathe. They were moving quickly. But it felt so incredibly urgent, and so right. There wasn’t a sliver of misgiving telling her to slow down. There was nothing in this world she wanted more than to give herself to this man. To know him in this way.
“Okay,” she said.
He knelt between her legs, seeming edgier, wound up. She felt just the same inside her own skin, so agitated it was as though she’d never come.
She tugged at his hips. “Please.”
He groaned, bringing himself to her lips. “It’s been so long.” Fucking hell, that voice.
Just his weight against her thighs had Merry panting, but then came the thrilling pressure, the reality of Rob’s size and her own incriminating slickness. She said it again. “Please.”
She watched him in the lamplight—his disbelieving face, clenched muscles, the slow slide as his cock disappeared inside her. She ran her palms along his roped arms, savoring every inch of the penetration. When their pubic bones touched, Rob shuddered, eyes closing.
“You feel awesome,” she whispered.
“So do you.” He eased out a little, slid back inside, strokes building until he found a steady pace. Their eyes met, the intimacy there just as raw as the joining of their bodies.
Picking up speed, he fisted the blanket at her sides. Merry put her hands to his chest, admiring the muscles flexing, then his waist, his hips. Letting her gaze slip between them, her hand followed, stealing a swipe of wetness from his cock as it withdrew, slicking her clit.
His eyes opened, finding her hand. Was that arousal straining his face? It looked nearly like alarm.
She slowed her hand. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shook his head, but seeing her touch herself had knocked him for an unmistakable loop. His hips lost the beat.
“Keep going, how you were,” she murmured.
He did, but the motions had turned unmistakably mechanical.
He doesn’t want to lose it, that’s all.
He shut his eyes, kept them closed tight, deep in concentration. Maybe he was trying to think about anything aside from sex, to keep from coming too soon.
“You mind if I got on top?” Oh God, why had she offered that? She hated being on top . . . or had. When she’d been heavy, she’d avoided it like the plague, always feeling like she was crushing a guy, or jiggling for all the world to see. But she’d come out with it now, so fuck those insecurities.
Rob seemed eager. He eased out and lay down. With a glimmer of self-consciousness, Merry straddled him. Worry was gone in a flash, replaced by a new kind of pride. Pride in this body she’d earned for herself, these muscles under this skin, bathed in the flattering glow of the lantern. Pride in imagining that perhaps Rob couldn’t believe his luck, finding himself in this position—that was what those blue eyes told her. They drank her in as they might the starriest sky, made her feel powerful. She grasped his cock and angled it to her lips, then slowly led him inside. He moaned.
She shut her eyes with a smile and savored.
“I’m just going to do what feels good,” she murmured. “But tell me if it’s not working for you.”
Still he didn’t speak. She felt his palms on her thighs, a warm weight, fingertips gently rubbing. She sought the perfect angle, locking her ankles under his calves, finding the motion that brushed her clit against the base of his cock whenever she eased back. Damn, she’d been missing out all these years.
He’s been missing out, too. Spoil him.
“You feel amazing,” she whispered, getting lost in the mounting tension, the hot friction, the wicked feeling she got just knowing he was watching her. As the pleasure grew, her fantasies turned coarser, her attention focused on Rob. On the thick, hard length of his arousal, and the thought that she’d done this to him. On selfish thoughts, too—imagining how he’d look lying in this bed and stroking himself, remembering this night. It had to be like lightning striking, for sex to have found him all the way out here in his place of exile.
She opened her eyes, finding his locked on her, lips parted, brows drawn. He was plugged in again, in a way he hadn’t been before she’d taken over. And his hands had moved. They were grasping the tangled blanket at the head of the bed, pinching it between his wrists.
Realization dawned.
The passivity. His eagerness to be on the bottom, the way his body seemed to grow more electrified the tighter he twisted the blanket.
And the rope, dummy. The way he’d watched her toying with it in his garden, mesmerized.
She grinned, unseen, and slowed her hips, waiting patiently for Rob’s eyes to open. After a moment, his lids fluttered, lifting to reveal that blue gaze, dark now with excitement. She smiled down at him and bit her lip, working up the nerve to say the words. She nodded to his hands, twisted in the covers.
“You wishing you were tied up?”
His eyes widened, a criminal caught in the act. She let her smile deepen, not wanting him to think it was a judgment.
She rolled her hips lavishly, digging this role. She’d never been with a guy who wanted to be dominated. The old Merry hadn’t exactly oozed confidence or aggression and attracted such lovers. But the new Merry could get into that.
“I don’t mind if you are,” she said. “You can tell me what you’re thinking about, if you want.”
Apparently, Rob minded.
He froze. She couldn’t tell for sure in the scant light, but that had to be a blush accompanying his obvious dismay.
“Rob?”
His mouth opened and closed, and inside her, she felt his excitement retreating, wilting.
Had she just totally squicked him out, reading way too much into that friction? Looked like it. Or was this the panic of a man who’d been caught in the act?
She moved, kneeling between his legs, stroking his thighs. No sense making a referendum of the development. After a minute’s flirtatious touching, she inched her way back to his cock, careful to keep the condom in place, tracing him softly through the latex. Again, his eyes shut. But . . . nothing.
His throat worked in taut, anxious swallows, his unspoken words so clearly desperate to escape, Merry’s own throat ached. Say it. Whatever it is, I’m prepared to listen.
Still nothing.
“What is it, Rob?”
Another swallow. He wanted to share something—she could taste it. But more than that, he wanted it to stay hidden.
Maybe whatever he couldn’t bring himself to articulate, he could show her with his body. She let him go, moving to the side. She drew him into slow, sensual kisses, and wai
ted patiently for him to find his way back into the moment.
He didn’t.
She waited instead for him to offer to get her off some other way, thinking her excitement might rekindle his. But he’d gone stiff as a board—every inch of him except his cock. Whatever he needed to tell her, the words had fallen short of her ears, and now heaped between them like bricks. A tenuous wall, begging to be torn down. She put her palm to his chest, took a breath, but before she could speak—
“I should let you rest.” And he was in motion.
“Um . . .” She watched him stand, strip the condom and tug on his shorts. She sat up. “Don’t feel like you have to sleep on the floor, after . . . you know. I’m happy to share.”
Rob, clearly, was not.
She’d never seen a man so frazzled—and so poor at hiding it. He had some kind of trigger, and she’d plainly stomped right on it. Maybe she’d said something—something reminiscent of a woman he’d hurt once. Or who’d hurt him. Or left him.
“You’ll want your space,” he said, zipping his pants. He grabbed his shirt and socks from the floor, muttering, “Good night,” as he fled to the den, closing the door behind him.
“Good night,” Merry told the empty room, and hugged the blankets tight.
Chapter Eight
Rob woke at dawn in a shame-fevered panic.
It dogged him through his morning ablutions and first cup of tea, surged each time he thought he detected Merry moving behind his closed bedroom door, setting his heart racing.
He avoided her, tidying corners of the garden he’d never noticed before, restacking the wood in the shed into obsessive, size-based piles, checking the water line all the way to the creek and back—though he’d done the same thing only two days ago. But as the pale autumn sun rose and lunchtime approached, he knew he couldn’t put off the inevitable. He had to face her sooner or later.
If only she felt as wretched as he did—she’d have snuck off without a good-bye in his absence. Maybe scribbled a note to let them each move on with only private embarrassment to suffer.
You wishing you were tied up?
Blood burned his cheeks at the mere memory of those words, more of the same bringing a heavy warmth to his cock.
Yes, he had wished that.
But more than he might wish for such a thing, he yearned to keep the cravings secret. That Merry could’ve read something in his actions or the look on his face, and reached inside his brain to extract those desires . . .
She scared him.
She scared him for knowing, but she scared him more for the way she’d smiled when she’d asked it. That she could read Rob’s thoughts, the ones that came second only to the urge for a drink in their ability to unnerve him, the ones that had haunted him his entire life, and . . . and smile. That she could find some measure of delight and curiosity in it, when all it had ever brought Rob was shame and rejection.
I gave you my bed, he thought, stripping root strands from the spent carrot plot. My bed, my food, my fire, my patience, scraps of my past, and the most vulnerable parts of my bare body. She’d wheedled all those things from him, yet she’d still wanted more. Wanted to open up his head and play tourist in there as well, in places Rob worked so hard to keep hidden. He was fucking lucky he hadn’t woken with a funnel between his lips, Merry cheerfully emptying a bottle of whiskey down it, grinning like she was doing him a favor.
“Rob?”
He jumped—as much as a man could on his knees—and found her only paces away, his blanket hugged around her shoulders against the chill.
He forced a tight smile. “Good morning.” Or was it already afternoon? He met her eyes for the thinnest second. Could she feel his face burning from where she stood?
“I was going to boil some water for tea,” she said. “Would you like a cup?”
“No, thank you.” Though he did want that. He wanted the warmth and sweetness and the comfort of such a familiar thing, but not by those hands. Not those soft hands, accompanied by that clear, kind voice. The voice that had taken this one place nearly untainted by Rob’s stupid, hateful appetites, and wrecked it with six little words.
“I’ve got too much to be getting on with,” he said, eyes on his work. “Do you think you could find your own lunch?”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
“Can I help with anything?”
“No,” he said, too curtly, and tacked on a “Thank you.”
“I’m feeling pretty strong today. I may . . . you know. Be on my way. This afternoon.”
He gnawed on his reply for a few breaths, not wishing to be rude, despite his angst. His pride wanted her gone, but he felt a sharp tug inside, some primitive desire protesting.
She smiled when she asked it, the desire whispered. And you ran. Ran like a coward when she might’ve given you that thing you want most.
But Rob didn’t trust his wants. Drink had ruined his life and damaged more than a few others’. And this thing . . . he craved it as deeply in his body and his mind as he did the gin, so why should it reap anything but more destruction?
“If you think you’re ready,” he finally answered, still avoiding her eyes.
“I’ve lost two days already. Plus, you’re busy. I can’t keep saddling you with host duties forever.”
He was struck in that moment by a thought, one that hoisted him out of his selfish fears.
Last night, she’d offered herself to him. Trusted him—a near-stranger in a position of physical power—with her body.
A different sort of shame burned. He’d opened his home, and she’d opened her arms. Opened her legs and welcomed him with none of the distrust he felt toward her now. Given him a taste of something he’d thought he’d shut out of his life for good, even if it had ended in disaster.
And she was warm; so warm. And she wanted me.
“Maybe I’ll just eat something and get scrubbed up a final time,” she said. “And be on my way.”
He nodded. “I’ll bring you the basin in a few minutes. No sense testing your strength sooner than you need to.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure I can manage.”
She wanted me. And here he was, letting fear poison him with its propaganda. Believing this woman wanted anything more than to know him.
He stood, propelled by a need to make up for some of his shit hospitality . . . and, indeed, his flight the night before.
“No, let me.”
She nodded and disappeared inside the cottage. Rob followed, fetching the basin from the back shelf.
As he filled it, however, a glance down the hillside told him nature might be bent on forcing the thing Rob wanted deep down.
Deep down, he could hear his own voice whispering, Don’t go. Deep down, he wondered which hurt more—shame or loneliness.
Once it was full, he carried the basin inside. As he set it on the stove he told Merry, “There’s a fog rolling in.”
She turned to look out the window at the thick white mist creeping up from the vale. “Oh, yes.”
“Rain’ll be on its feet.” Rob stoked the fire. “Cold rain, and heavy. You shouldn’t go until it’s past. Not even if you were feeling a hundred percent.”
For the first time, he saw uncertainty on that pretty face. She gnawed her lip before saying, “No, probably not.”
“Right.” With that settled, Rob uncovered the truth of what he was feeling. He’d buggered everything up, rejected the most exciting and unexpected gift that had been handed to him in the past few years. He’d wanted her so much, felt more for her than he could recall feeling for anyone in ages. He’d wanted so badly for that to somehow be enough, and for a few minutes, he’d thought it was. But no. His sexuality had intruded as it always did, demanding dynamics he didn’t dare ask for. Ones that had no place i
n such an impulsive encounter, with such a relative stranger, no matter how kind and lovely that stranger might be.
Maybe he could find some way to apologize, if not explain, so at least Merry might not leave with hurt feelings. Rob didn’t want to believe he was still capable of hurting a woman, not out here. Certainly not this woman, the last person in the world who deserved it.
Merry had returned the blanket to the bedroom and settled in the rocker. She was uncharacteristically quiet, as though her happy yellow petals had gone brown overnight. The rain would keep Rob inside, keep the two of them close all day, and though part of him wished he could hide away in his chores, perhaps this was best. Perhaps the confinement would drive him to an apology sooner, and fix this gloom he’d cast over his formerly sunny guest.
“I’ll make that tea,” he announced.
She met his eyes, her brown ones so like the dark, lacquered bar of his old pub. No wonder she spurred those appetites.
He delivered her tea when it was steeped and made a second cup for himself. With a deep breath, he mustered the courage to drag the kitchen chair over, sitting kitty-corner from the rocker. For a long time they watched the misty mountains in silence, Rob trying and failing to find the knackers to mention what had happened. As it turned out, Merry had a readier pair than he.
“Last night,” she began.
Rob’s stomach filled with lead, his cheeks with fire. He clutched his mug tight. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” There. He’d done it. Acknowledged it. Now he just had to absolve her. “It’s been a long time, that’s all. Nothing to do with you, or anything you did.”
“Was it because of what I said, about you getting tied up?”
If he hadn’t been blushing already, he sure as fuck was now.
“I didn’t mean to hit a nerve,” she went on. “And I don’t need to, like, have a big talk about it. But I wanted to say I’m sorry. If I weirded you out.” She scooted to the edge of her seat. Rob wanted to take her hand in his and make her stay. Tell her things. Tell her he’d been wrong, not her. But he didn’t have the first clue how.
