by Maisey Yates
He didn’t mind. Not a damn bit.
He lifted his head, watching as she chewed on her lip, her eyes darting back and forth. “Because we’re stupid when we’re sober?” she suggested.
“Not good enough.”
“I want this,” she said. “I wanted it before I ever had a drink. There’s a reason that I stayed. There’s a reason that I keep pushing you. Yes, this might be pushing things faster. But I don’t care. I was being honest when I told you I’ve never...you know...climaxed with a man. But, I can’t honestly remember wanting a man the way that I want you. And it isn’t because I like you. I don’t like you.”
“That’s...nice.”
“What I mean is this has nothing to do with a crush, or feelings. And you aren’t suitable. Like, you aren’t a boyfriend that my dad would ever approve of. I don’t even want a boyfriend. I don’t want you to be my boyfriend.”
“Am I part of a rebellion against your father?”
She squinted. “Would you care if you were?”
“Hell, no.”
Then he released his hold on her wrist and she continued in her exploration, her delicate fingers traveling up the ridges of his ab muscles. Her soft lips were parted, rounded into a perfect little O.
“Oh, baby,” he said, his voice rough, “I’m gonna make you scream later.”
“I hope not too much later.”
“Not at all,” he said, unfastening her bra as she pushed his shirt up over his head. Their movements were a little clumsy, but that only made it hotter. Because they were both desperate. Desperate for this. All of it.
He took a moment to admire all the bare skin she had on display. “Damn,” he said, the word as reverent as a curse had ever been.
She was perfect. But then, he had known that before he ever took her top off. Not because of a particular shape to her body, the size of her breasts, the color of her nipples, although that was all good. He had already known she would be perfect. For the past week she’d been a specific craving for something he had never tasted before. But now that he was here, now that he was indulging in it, it was everything he’d needed and more.
He wrapped his hands around her slim waist, sliding them upward before teasing the underside of her breasts with his thumbs, just teasing the edges of her tightened nipples enough to make her gasp.
They were the same pale pink as her lips. And they reminded him of that sweet rosy wine. He looked to the side, saw that there was just a little bit lingering in the bottom of one of the glasses. “This was my favorite,” he said, picking it up, examining the rosy liquid inside. “I think I’d like to try it again.”
He tipped the glass, spilling it over her pale skin, the wine pouring over her tempting curves, trails of sweet temptation swirling around all that pink, perfect beauty.
He lowered his head, leaning in, drawing the tip of his tongue across her skin, taking a slow, indulgent sip of wine straight from her body.
She tasted better than any of the alcohol that had passed his lips during their sampling. He was determined to take more than a sample of her. He was going to indulge himself completely. Because why not. He had lost. Restraint had lost. Being a decent human being had lost. He was never very good at it anyway.
He was good at this. True to his word, drunk or sober, he was good at this. No, he could never give her anything beyond this moment, beyond this little bit of satisfaction for them both. But what he would give wasn’t nothing. That was for damn sure.
She said she had never come with a man before. Which meant she had only ever done it by herself. It was far too easy to picture those long slender fingers between her own legs, stroking herself, bringing herself pleasure.
He bit back a curse, lowering his head, his hands shaking. Dammit, what was wrong with him? He didn’t lose control like this.
But you’re committing to losing control tonight. Might as well embrace it.
Still, it didn’t matter how tempting an image that created in his mind’s eye. He wanted more for her than that. He was going to give her more.
Even as the thought crossed his mind he realized it was a dumbass justification for what he was doing. To pretend that he had some kind of altruistic motivation for sliding his tongue across her beautiful, perfect skin. To pretend he was being a hero for stripping her clothes off and laying her down on top of the bar.
He nearly laughed out loud. He wasn’t a hero.
He was nothing more than a damned lecherous villain. And these might as well be the railroad tracks he was laying her across.
He ignored that, too. Which was easy to do with his head fuzzy, and the arousal in his body sharp as a knife.
He lowered his head, closing his lips around her nipple and taking it into his mouth. He sucked hard, gratified by the low, throaty sound she made as he did. He allowed his teeth to graze her sensitive skin, just enough. Just enough to let her know who was in charge. He could tell that she liked that. Could tell by the way she wiggled against him. By the little begging sounds she made in the back of her throat.
He put his hands on the clasp on her shorts. It was one of those weird-ass metal clasps that wasn’t super intuitive. But, in his day, he’d seen about every kind of woman’s garment there was, and removed most of them.
He tugged the shorts down over her hips and she wiggled slightly, aiding him as he slipped them down her legs and threw them off the bar. That left her in nothing more than a pair of simple, black panties. Cotton, nothing spectacular. But, for a woman as beautiful as Sierra he felt like sexy underwear would be overkill. At least, from where he was at right now.
His restraint was at an all-time low. Black cotton was likely the only thing that stood between him and total insanity.
He drew his fingertips slowly down her rib cage, across her stomach, teasing the line where fabric met skin. She let her head fall back, her elbows resting on the bar, her back arched, thrusting her breasts into greater prominence.
He had the very distinctly unromantic thought that she looked a lot like those girls pervy country boys put on the mud flaps of their truck.
He was not going to say that out loud. He had enough sense left to reason that out, at least.
Instead, he dipped a fingertip beneath the fabric. “Good?”
She bit her lip, nodding her head.
He took that as an invitation to continue. His breath hissed through his teeth as his fingers came into contact with the wet heat between her thighs.
His mind was a total blank as he felt the evidence of her desire for him beneath his fingertips. Maybe he should feel guilty for this. She was his employee. She was under duress. Except, this did not feel like duress. And he did not feel guilty.
She parted her thighs, letting them fall open as he explored her deeper, sliding his finger deep inside of her as he drew his thumb across her clit. He felt her entire body shake beneath his touch. Her lips parted, her lids heavy as she watched him touch her. Her breath was coming in short, hard pants, a dark flushing creeping up her neck.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “It was them. I hope you know that, Sierra. You’re perfect. And if those bastards didn’t know how to touch you right, if they didn’t care to learn how to touch you, then they never deserved to be with you in the first place. You’re a gift.” He increased the rhythm of his movements, the pressure. He could feel her internal muscles tightening around his finger, could feel her getting closer to the edge. She shook her head, her blond curls cascading around her shoulders, but he kept going. Because he knew this was the point where you had to keep going, or you wouldn’t reach the end. She wouldn’t reach the end.
“You don’t know what this is like? Do you? To have all of this out of your control. To have someone else bringing you pleasure. You’re used to getting it for yourself. Does this
scare you, baby?”
She nodded, her chest rising and falling rapidly with the force of her breathing.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I just want to make you feel good.”
The words tasted strange on his lips. Not exactly a lie, but not strictly the truth. He wanted to make himself feel good. He wanted it all. He wanted her pleasure, he wanted her ecstasy. He was going to take it.
Yeah, he was a selfish bastard. In this moment, it had very little to do with her.
He added a second finger to the first, stretching her gently as he continued to stroke her clit.
She reached out, grabbing hold of his wrist with both hands, wrapping her fingers tightly around him, squeezing him as she went hurtling over the edge into oblivion. She let out a low, rough growl, and he could feel pleasure moving through her in wave after wave, her internal muscles pulsing hard around him as she came.
“There,” he said, his voice sounding like a stranger’s. Too rough. Too soft. “Now you can’t say you’ve never had an orgasm with a man before.”
She was breathing hard, the hair around her face damp from sweat, her cheeks flushed. “It’s your turn,” she said, the words shaky.
“Hell, yeah it is.” He leaned back, undoing the buckle on his jeans and shrugging them off along with his underwear and boots, kicking them down to the floor with the rest of their clothes.
He grabbed her panties, drawing them down her legs, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her stomach before lowering his head just a little more to get a taste of just how badly she wanted him.
She gasped, working her fingers through her hair. “Ace,” she gasped. “I can’t. Not again. Not so soon.”
He pressed a kiss to that most intimate part of her before raising his head. “You can. And you will. But no, not like this. Not today. Or at least, not right now. I’m pretty generous in bed, but I have my limits.”
“We’re on a counter,” she said, the words dazed, breathy.
“Well, you’ll have to tell me if I’m good on counter.” He moved up, kissing her stomach, the curve of her breast. Then he kissed her lips, deeply, sliding his tongue against hers as he braced his hands on either side of her arms, positioning himself between her legs and testing the slick entrance to her body with the head of his cock.
“Tell me you want this,” he said, his voice low, strained.
“Yes. Yes, I want it.” The last word was a whimper, her fingernails digging into his back, her petite frame arching beneath him.
“I said I’d make you beg,” he rasped, his voice strained. “I think this is the time.”
“Bastard,” she panted.
“Do you want it?”
He could tell she was considering telling him to go to hell. Then he rocked his hips forward, teasing them both.
“Please,” she said. “Please, Ace.”
And then his restraint was gone.
He lowered his head, kissing her neck and pressing more deeply inside of her as she urged him on.
He had the brief thought that he was forgetting something. That he’d skipped a step somewhere along the way. But he couldn’t think. The alcohol, combined with the intensity of being inside her body, took everything over in a flash of brilliant light.
There was nothing but her. Nothing but this.
She gasped as he began to fill her, stretch her slowly.
He gritted his teeth, closing his eyes as he tried to catch his breath. Tried to deal with the rush of blood in his ears, drowning out everything else. She was tight. So tight. Perfect.
He had to fight with everything he had in him to keep from coming right away. She was so hot. So perfect. And when he flexed his hips forward, seating himself deeply, perfectly inside of her, he nearly lost it altogether.
Complete the ride, cowboy.
He pulled away from her before thrusting back inside, gratified by the throaty sound of pleasure she made as he made contact with that sensitive bundle of nerves. Then repeated again, and again. Each and every movement drawing them closer toward ecstasy. Toward completion.
But he found he wasn’t really in a hurry. He wanted to delay it. Wanted to prolong it for as long as possible. Because this, she, was everything. The journey mattered more than the destination, and he couldn’t recall ever having thought about that before.
She gripped his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin as he established a hot and heavy rhythm, pounding them both to oblivion.
She buried her head in his neck, her lips pressed against his skin. He rocked against her and she shuddered, another release crashing over her. And once it did, he couldn’t hold back his own.
It was like an explosion going off behind his eyes, bursting down through his stomach, a release that threatened to destroy everything.
It was pleasure. Pure and simple. And complicated, too. Destructive, renewing.
It was the best damn sex of his life.
When it was over, he lay there, his forehead resting against her chest, his breathing slowly coming back to normal.
And then, he realized he was bare-ass naked on his own bar at four in the morning with a woman whose paychecks he signed.
Dammit.
* * *
SIERRA HAD NO IDEA what had just happened. Well, she knew exactly what had just happened, she just wasn’t sure why.
You aren’t?
She was lying to herself. Big-time. She knew what had happened, as sure as she knew they’d been leading up to this from that first night in his truck.
As sure as she knew she’d pushed him at every turn so that he would keep on pushing back. So that he would keep talking to her, looking at her, tempting her.
She had never done anything like this before. She waited three dates to let guys even get to second base. And she made sure she was in a relationship with someone before she ever let him make it all the way home.
But then, she’d never felt like this before. Had never wanted like this before. She had definitely never had an orgasm like that before.
One thing was for sure—though it had been ill-advised, it had been very, very good.
But the haze from the alcohol and her orgasm was starting to dissipate, and in its place came a hard slap from reality.
A ball of panic started to form in her chest, a looming cloud of doom overhead. This was wrong. It was so wrong, no matter how good it had felt.
He was her boss. And she had...
“I can’t... I can’t breathe,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said, rolling to the side, his withdrawal feeling more like a loss than it should. Feeling deeper than skin and sex and pleasure.
It wasn’t his weight that had made it hard to breathe. Suddenly, everything felt overwhelming. This had been wrong on so many levels she couldn’t even sort through them all.
What had she done?
She didn’t blame him, not at all. She had wanted it, big-time, and as for the drinking, he’d been just as impaired as she had. But she had not thought this through. Or thought at all.
“I don’t. I didn’t mean for it... This wasn’t my plan,” she stuttered.
She was so angry. Mostly with herself. Because she had been determined to do this waitressing job well. Determined to make it on her own merits. Now she’d slept with her boss. So now, no one, including Ace—including herself—was ever going to believe that she had kept her job on her own.
She was so angry at herself, and yet, it was difficult to be angry when she felt so good.
He was right, she could no longer say that she had never had an orgasm with a man. Not only had she had an orgasm with a man, he had effectively proven that she was multi-orgasmic. Who knew?
She was a jumbled up mess. And alcohol was only partly to blame.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why are you apologizing?” he asked, getting down from the bar and bending to pick up his jeans.
She watched him while he did, completely captivated by the sight of him. He was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. Possibly because he was the most man she had ever been with. Ace was tall, broad, with well-defined muscles and the perfect amount of hair sprinkled across his chest, across his stomach. Not to mention the most important piece of his male anatomy. That was impressive. The most impressive she had ever seen.
She felt her face getting hot.
She was trying to apologize for jumping on him, trying to chastise herself for her behavior, and she was checking him out while doing both.
“I just don’t want you to think that I did that because I wanted the job.”
He frowned. “Well, I don’t want you to think that you needed to do it to keep the job.” He pulled his pants on, and she moved her focus up to his chest.
“I don’t think that.”
“Good,” he said, tugging his black shirt over his head, covering up all his pretty muscles.
She was sober now. Her orgasms had effectively broken through the alcohol haze. She could see things too clearly now. The bar. The empty dining room. Her panties on the bar.
Dammit.
She reached out and snagged them, stepping into them. She felt hideously self-conscious dressing in front of him. But then, dressing in front of someone was always worse than undressing in front of them.
When you were taking clothes off you were turned on at least.
This was just awkward.
It was so quiet in the empty room. She could hear the faint sound of the waves crashing against the shore outside.
“I...”
“There’s a bed upstairs,” he said. “You can go sleep up there. I’m going to bunk down in my office.”
“There’s a...bed?”
“And a bathroom.”
Oh, crap. That was where he normally took women.
She closed her eyes, trying to deal with the rockslide of jealousy that tumbled through. “Fresh sheets on the bed?” she asked, clipped.
