Flawlessly Broken (Broken #2)

by Anna Paige

  He plucked the packet from his shirt and started to slip it in his pocket before his head whipped in my direction. “Wait,” he eyed me suspiciously. “This isn’t the same brand I gave you.”

  I met his eye, unblinking. “So?”

  He put the condom in his pocket and studied me. “Where did you say you were spending next week?”

  “I told you, I’m helping out a friend. They need someone to oversee some work being done and I volunteered. Better than sitting around the house all week, right?”

  His expression remained wary. “And which friend is it again?”

  “Why does it matter? And since when do you take such an interest, anyway? You’ve been awfully chatty and inquisitive lately.” I gave him the same suspicious stare.

  Our non-verbal standoff was interrupted a minute or two later when the waitress walked by and pointedly cleared her throat, drawing Brant’s attention.

  She nodded toward the back of the club, never breaking stride.

  He returned his gaze to me and pursed his mouth, debating what to do. Clearly, he was expected in that storage room but he was so damned curious about what I was up to that he looked torn. I nearly laughed at the look on his face. To fuck or not to fuck?

  What a stupid question.

  A second later he realized that himself and stood to follow our overeager server. “Fine. Keep your secrets. I’ll hear about it eventually.” He patted his pocket. “Time to take this thing for a spin.”

  I just shook my head, refilled my glass, and settled back in to the couch to wonder how Talia’s night was going.

  Talia

  MY NIGHT HAD officially gone to shit.

  First, the register drawer had gotten stuck and we had to spend nearly an hour trying to get the bitch to open, then Neil came out to announce that only one side of the damn grill would hold heat.

  As if that weren’t stressful enough, Gina had been hounding me all night about Derek and Spencer. If she asked me one more time which one I was going to throw her way, I would choke the piss out of her. I was not in the mood for her antics.

  The bartender had noticed the missing bar chair early in the evening and I managed to choke out a quick lie before excusing myself to the office to make sure nothing had been caught by the security cameras. How humiliating would that be?

  I didn’t bother checking the footage, the angle of the cameras shouldn’t have caught anything but I deleted everything from the night before just in case. Better safe than Kardashianed.

  I sat at my desk and tried to relax my shoulders, which were so tense they were practically touching my ears. The restaurant rarely had nights like these; everything was usually smooth sailing, which had spoiled me, I suppose. This was my safe haven, my place to get away from stress and the pull of sadness that often threatened to overtake me.

  My thoughts turned to Spencer for what felt like the millionth time that night, remembering the look on his face when he’d shown me the photo on my phone. He’d been near tears.

  A man didn’t react that way to a woman with whom he wasn’t emotionally invested.

  The thought made my heart drop and soar at the same time.

  I was terrified to let someone in again, I knew what could happen—what had happened in the past—but I so wanted to take this chance with him. It felt like maybe, just maybe, this time might be different, this man might be different.

  Or I might be in over my head.

  Despite my shitty evening, I couldn’t help but smile when I pulled out my phone for the hundredth time to look at the photo Spencer had taken of my leg. And it was my leg, not my ass. He could have included the rounded area of skin just above the stretch mark but had zoomed in far enough to save my modesty.

  Though modesty wasn’t really an issue for a woman bent over a stolen—okay, borrowed—bar stool with her bare ass in the air.

  I’d left our wonderful prop right where he put it, front and center in the living room so that it would be one of the first things he saw when he got back tomorrow night. We’d gotten a lot of use out of it already, but I was betting he’d be ready to bend me over it again promptly upon his return.

  It was bizarre how excited I was for our week-long cohabitation.

  From the time we were kids, Ali had been the only person I could tolerate first thing in the morning, and yet Spencer had managed to drag several early-morning conversations out of me without significant injury.

  I’d even smiled a time or two before having even one sip of coffee. It was nothing short of miraculous.

  Since the restaurant wasn’t open for lunch on Sundays and only had limited openings for the dessert tasting, I had plenty of time in the afternoon to grocery shop and plan meals for the week. It would be nice to cook for someone other than myself for a change.

  Okay, technically I cooked for hundreds of people every week but preparing a meal in my own kitchen was something different. Without Ali there the last six months, I’d taken to throwing together small snacks at home and eating at the restaurant. It was convenient but I’d grown bored with it long ago. Spencer’s visit gave me an excuse to exercise my culinary skills with dishes that couldn’t be served at the restaurant.

  Of course, the opportunity to cook wasn’t the only reason I was excited but I chose to focus on that aspect of the situation so that I had less time to over think everything else. Like how much I loved waking up with him in my bed...

  I smiled down at the photo one last time and pulled up my notebook app, making a quick note to hit the market after visiting Amelia and mentally adding one of her favorite desserts to the week’s menu.

  The last thing I did before going back to work was set the photo as my wallpaper on both my lock and home screens to make it easier to see whenever the mood struck, which would probably be every five minutes for the foreseeable future.

  Spencer

  WHEN I WALKED into Talia’s apartment Sunday night, my mouth started to water.

  The amazing smells coming from the kitchen weren’t entirely to blame, either.

  She stood with her back to me, pulling hunks of dough from a large ball and masterfully shaping them into small roll-sized circles that she placed neatly on the baking sheet beside her.

  I closed the door quietly, tucking the spare key she’d insisted I keep back into my pocket as I announced, “Honey, I’m home!” in my best fifties sitcom voice.

  She spun to face me, a smudge of flour on her cheek and a light dusting on her floral apron. “I’m in the kitchen, dear,” she replied, keeping the joke going even though I could clearly see where she was. “Your pipe and slippers are in the living room and I opened the paper to the sports section for you.”

  By the time we went through several rounds of clichéd exchanges, we were both laughing. It was the best greeting I’d gotten in ages. Generally, Clay’s greeting was ‘Hey, fucker’ and Brant’s was no better. Years of working on construction sites had dulled our adherence to the standard social niceties.

  Hearing the genuine fondness in her sweet voice as she greeted me was flattering.

  She looked me over and gestured to the hallway. “Go ahead and take your stuff into the bedroom. I compressed everything in the closet to make some room and cleared you out a drawer in the dresser so you won’t have to live out of your suitcase all week.”

  I sat my stuff down in the hall and went back to the kitchen, stepping behind her as she worked and kissing the back of her neck. She turned to smile at me and I captured her mouth for a long slow kiss. Afterward, she turned back to what she was doing and allowed me a few uninterrupted moments with that gorgeous neck of hers.

  I could kiss the valley between her neck and shoulder all damn night. Especially since I knew how much it drove her crazy.

  Twenty minutes of sucking at her tits didn’t get her nearly as aroused as twenty seconds of neck kisses.

  I was nothing if not observant. Learning what she liked was priority number one, so extra attention was paid to her every reaction
to my touch. It was like a really fascinating puzzle and, if you solved it, you got to hear her screaming your name while she writhed in ecstasy.

  Best. Puzzle. Ever.

  Suck on that makers of Rubik’s Cube!

  When she was practically melting into a puddle on the marbled tile, I stopped and turned to go put away my things. Her squawk of indignation as I left the kitchen was enough to make me chuckle.

  Apparently, she didn’t find humor in being teased, because I was two steps from her bedroom door when a hunk of flying bread dough smacked me in the back of the head.

  I turned to her with a deadly glare, trying my level best not to smile as I picked bits of dough out of my hair. “Sweetheart, you’re going to pay for that.”

  “Bring it on, baby. I can handle whatever you throw at me.” She smirked at me before turning on her heel and walking back into the kitchen.

  She was going to regret that statement. Yes, she was.

  “SPENCER, PLEASE!” She wiggled beneath me, trying to cheat her way to the orgasm I’d been teasing her with for over an hour.

  “Be still or I’ll stop completely,” I told her, my cock barely inside her as I took an excruciatingly long time with my strokes, giving her the friction she needed but not the speed. She stilled, brow pinched in a surprisingly sexy scowl as she refused to look at me.

  I had her laying over the edge of the couch, her ass propped on the arm rest and head on the cushions. This was our third position of the night and I had yet to let her come. First, I’d bent her over the bar stool and pounded into her until I knew she was close. Just when she was about to achieve orgasm, I pulled out and swept her into my arms so I could take her to the couch and pleasure her with my mouth.

  The great thing about withholding her orgasm while eating her pussy was that I could actually feel when she was about to come. Her clit would swell and tighten under my tongue just as she was about to explode... giving me plenty of time to change my technique or stop all together.

  Sweet torture.

  She wasn’t nearly as feisty now as she had been when she launched that sticky yeast dough at me before dinner.

  The time between that little mistake and when I stripped her bare was almost as much fun as the actual punishment. She’d been nervous all through dinner, I could tell by the way she chewed her bottom lip and did her best to appear unaffected by the rising tension.

  She wasn’t fooling anyone, though, and she knew it. So, when we finished rinsing our dishes and I turned to tell her to strip down and bend over the bar stool, she didn’t bother acting surprised. If anything, she seemed eager.

  At first.

  Now, she’d resorted to pitiful pleas in an effort to gain my forgiveness. It was sexy as fuck.

  Truth was, I wasn’t mad about being pelted with bread dough. I was just keeping the status quo. If I let her get away with what was clearly a test to gauge my level of control, things would be out of balance between us. She’d done what she did to land herself right where she was. She’d wanted to hand control over to me and tried to force my hand by testing my limits.

  Not letting her come was my way of punishing her for forcing me into a situation. Granted, I likely would have chosen it anyway. But by making me assert my control, she was in fact robbing me of it.

  Unacceptable.

  I licked my thumb and lowered it over her clit, rubbing in smooth circles. “You like that, Talia? If I keep doing that will you come all over my cock?”

  “Yes, please don’t stop.” She could barely get the words out she was panting so hard.

  I stopped, lifting my hand and watching her juices glisten on my finger. “Maybe I should taste you again. There’s nothing I like better than the flavor of you on my tongue.” I turned my gaze on her, drawing back until just the tip of my dick was inside her. “What do you think? Would you like my tongue in your pussy again?”

  She wasn’t stupid. She knew I had more of an advantage when my mouth was on her, but instead of pleading for me to just let her come she simply said, “Do whatever you want. Eat me, fuck me, make me suck you off. I’m yours, do with me what you wish.”

  Good answer.

  I slammed my cock into her so hard she yelped, then again.

  And again.

  I replaced my thumb over her clit as I pounded into her mercilessly, transfixed by the erratic bouncing of her full breasts. I tore my gaze away and met her eye, she was watching me, waiting. I rotated my hips until her eyes closed and she groaned in appreciation. “I thought you wanted to come, sweetheart. What are you waiting for?”

  She opened her eyes and breathlessly said, “I’m waiting for you to tell me I can.”

  I pulled her toward me so that her ass was a bit further over the edge of the armrest and ground my cock deep into her, a familiar pressure building low in my stomach. “Not yet, almost. I want to come with you.”

  She looked as if she were going to say something like ‘hurry up’ but in the end all she said was, “Okay, baby.”

  I ground hard into her again, shallow pumps that kept me deep inside. A moment later the pressure built toward the tipping point and I pulled all the way back, slamming myself deep. Once. Twice. On the third thrust I held her eye and breathed out my command. “Come, Talia.”

  My balls tightened so hard it was a razor’s edge between pleasure and pain, the first waves of her orgasm drawing my orgasm from me in series of deep pulses that radiated from my head to my toes. I kept pumping into her as I came and she cried out again, a second orgasm starting almost before the first subsided.

  I rode it out with her until the last of her spasms subsided, softening my touch in deference to her extreme post-orgasmic sensitivity.

  Nothing ruins afterglow quicker than being tickled and Talia was extremely ticklish right after she came.

  Another observation I’d filed away.

  After cleaning up our mess, we ended up laying together on the couch, her body draped across mine and her head in the crook of my neck. I lightly stroked her back in long sweeping passes and kissed the top of her head. “You ready to tell me what brought that on?”

  She barely acknowledged my question, responding simply with a sigh.

  I tried again. “I know something happened, so you might as well tell me. There has to be a reason you were so eager to force my hand. You wanted to give up your control and you made damn sure I took it from you. I would have indulged you without the little show you put on but you weren’t satisfied until you’d egged me on. That tells me something is up. Now, let’s hear it.”

  She blew out a breath, the expelled air warm on my skin. “Just a bad day at the restaurant. One of those times when everything goes wrong at once. I handled it, though, so it’s no big deal.”

  “What else?” I pressed. “That wasn’t everything. I could hear it in your voice.”

  She was silent for so long I started to think she’d fallen asleep. I was about to pull the throw blanket down over us when she whispered against my chest. “Cameron called yesterday. He sounded awful. His mom says it’s just a cold, nothing to worry about but I can’t get this feeling of dread to go away. It scares me that he’s sick.”

  I brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her forehead. She kept her head on my chest and didn’t look up at me, hiding her expression.

  “Sweetheart, it’s normal for you to be protective. It’s part of who you are. You’re a very nurturing and maternal person, even with virtual strangers. I can only imagine how fiercely protective you must be of that little boy. Kids get colds all the time, Talia. Not every sniffle is a symptom of something horrible; sometimes it’s just a sniffle. If his mom says there is nothing to worry about, you have to trust that. I would imagine the first thing she did was take him to the doctor, right?”

  She nodded. Her arm was slung across my abdomen, hand absently tracing my ribs one by one. Good thing I wasn’t ticklish after sex because that would have gotten me. “I know you’re right. I guess I panicked a little.�
� She sighed long and loud. “It’s hard not to worry after what I’ve seen him go through.”

  “And after what you’ve gone through yourself,” I added.

  Her voice was low and shaky when she said, “I dreamed about them both last night. Cameron and Amelia. In the dream, they were both healthy, playing in the backyard of my parents’ house, laughing and running through the sprinklers like Ali and I used to.”

  I gripped her more firmly, pulling her into my side. “Sounds like a good dream. Happy.”

  She blew out a breath. “It was, at first.” She lifted her hand and began swirling her fingers through my chest hair, an unconscious habit of hers that I truly enjoyed. “After a while, the dream shifted. Suddenly it was one long string of moments, memories of times when she wanted something and I told her no or times when I’d been distracted and not given her the attention she wanted. Things like telling her she couldn’t have ice cream before dinner or waving her off because I was on the phone with my mom and she was chattering on about going to the park. Stupid things, small things, things that I can never take back, never fix or apologize for.”

  Her whole body shuddered under the weight of her regret and I felt her tears dripping onto my chest. “Sweetheart…” I began, not knowing how to continue but feeling certain that she needed more than comforting hugs.

  She tightened her grip on my torso and her body shook with the force of her sobs. Her sweet voice cracked as she muttered against my bare chest. “I didn’t know. If I’d known she had so little time, I would have been better, made her happier.” She lifted her head and met my eye, her face so filled with anguish that I could barely stand to look at her as she said, “I should have given her the ice cream. I should have let her play in the mud. I should have given her every bit of joy I could.” Her expression pleaded with me to understand. “I didn’t know… and now she’s gone.”