With Extreme Pleasure

by Alison Kent

  “They teach you that in prison?” she shot back. “Being human? Or is that something you learned when drinking a six pack a day?”

  She was trying to piss him off, trying to get him to change his mind and send her on her way. That was what he’d learned in prison. How to hear meaning, not just what people said.

  He did his best to disarm her with a smile. “I’m old, chère. So old I can’t remember when I learned anything. Or how much of it I’ve already forgot.”

  “You’re not old,” she finally said, socking him in the chest, then slipping her arm through his as they walked back to their room.

  He didn’t for a minute think that was the end of the subject, but letting it go with an uneasy truce made for much better digestion.

  Since they were her only guests, Mrs. Wind had given them her largest room, a suite on the third floor of the hundred-year-old Victorian that took up a whole block of the township.

  They had a bedroom, a private bath, and a sitting room with a sofa and a Murphy bed stored in the wall.

  It was all very cozy. That word again.

  And then Cady said. “You take the bed. I’ll sleep in here.”

  She cut him off. Just like that. “If we’re not sharing, then no. I’ll sleep in here.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’re twice as big as me. You saw the bed I was sleeping on in the city. I don’t need as much room as you do.”

  Especially when you don’t want anyone else with you, eh?

  He shrugged, walked into the bedroom, pushed open both of the windows to let in the cool spring air. It would be a whole lot better to breathe whatever came in from outside than to breathe the air that smelled like Cady.

  “You’re not mad, are you?” she asked from behind him.

  He didn’t turn. “Why would I be mad?”

  “Because we slept together last night, and now we’re not.”

  “This is your party, boo. You call the shots.”

  “We didn’t sleep much. If we share a bed, I don’t think anything about that will change. And after all that food, not to mention, oh, being run off the road and slapped in the ass by an airbag, I want to sleep.”

  “Then sleep. I’m not going to stop you.”

  “King?”

  “Cady?”

  “I’m not going to be able to sleep if you’re mad.”

  He was being a bastard. A horny bastard. “I’m not mad.”

  “Then look at me?”

  Hands at his hips, he dropped his head, took a deep breath of the fresh air, then did exactly what she wanted because he wasn’t able to tell her no. And open windows or not, the room smelled like her anyway. He was doomed.

  “Thank you.”

  “N’cest pas.”

  “Okay. I guess I’ll see you in the morning? For breakfast?” she asked, her eyes wide and bright above her bruises.

  This woman. He swore. She was a black and blue bottomless pit. “You think you’ll have room on top of all that meatloaf by then?”

  “Are you kidding me? I have room now.” And then she blew him a kiss and whirled on her toes, leaving him aching like he’d taken a blow to the chest.

  Twenty-five

  “You’re not asleep, are you?”

  He’d been in bed for what felt like two hours at least, not tossing, not turning, but neither had he been sleeping. Instead, he’d been thinking too much…about the accident, the sex, prison, the sex, his son, the sex, his cousin, the sex, McKie, the sex.

  The sex he wasn’t getting. But yeah.

  The sex they’d had, and how he was still reeling. As taut and wired and pained as his body was, it was his head aching like the morning after Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street that was keeping him from getting to sleep.

  Cady being a room away didn’t help. He imagined her long legs tangled in the sheets instead of with his, her breasts pressed against the mattress instead of against his, her hands tucked beneath her cheek on the pillow when her fingers could be tugging at the hair on his belly if she were here.

  And now she was here.

  He didn’t answer, just watched as she climbed up to kneel at the opposite side and end of the bed from where he’d already planned to lie awake until morning.

  The bed springs squeaked. The mattress dipped. The two dormer windows on the opposite wall let in just enough light for him to see her. She grew still as if fearing that her whisper had stirred him awake.

  Her whisper had stirred him, but he kept that to himself. Until he knew what she had come for, he didn’t want to scare her away with his reaction to having her near. But he did decide to answer her.

  “I’m awake.”

  She sighed, her whole body rising up then deflating. “Good. I was afraid I was too late.”

  Curious, he propped his arms beneath his head where it lay on the pillow. She hadn’t been interested in being with him when she’d turned in for the night. Had something changed? “Too late for what?”

  She dipped her head, toyed with the hem of her sleeping shirt. He noticed then that she wasn’t wearing the sweatpants she slept in. He wondered if she’d taken them off before coming in here, a temptation, a tease, or if this time she hadn’t worn them to bed.

  She scooted farther onto the bed. “Will you do something for me?”

  “Will I give you money?” That had to be what she was doing here, partially dressed, coming close.

  “No, King. Money’s not what I want.”

  If not money…he pushed onto one elbow, his interest and other things piqued. “Ask me, chère. As hard as I’ve tried, I can’t read your mind.”

  “I didn’t know you’d tried.”

  “Since you seem to read mine so easily, I thought it would put us on a more equal footing.”

  “I didn’t know that I’d been reading yours.”

  He shut his mouth then, not wanting to dig this hole any deeper for fear he’d never be able to claw his way out. So rather than talking, he waited.

  Something had brought her here. Something she was going to have to cowboy up and admit, and the sooner she got around to doing it—

  “Will you please make me feel better?” she asked in a rush of words that zapped his heart.

  He hoped it didn’t short out right then and there, because he wanted to hear the rest.

  “Will you make me stop hurting? Make the fear go away? I’m so tired of being scared.”

  King had no idea if he could deliver what she was asking. He could give her physical relief, sexual satisfaction, but taking care of her emotions…he was no miracle worker, spiritual healer, Zen master.

  He was only a man, one no better than most broken-in secondhand models available from sleazy dealers on corner lots. But she’d come to him, not to any other. She wanted him to make her feel better? He’d die before he gave up trying.

  “Stay there,” he instructed her, rolling out of his side of the bed and coming around to hers.

  He wore nothing but his boxers. She wore the same T-shirt that she’d slept in last night. He found the hem where it grazed her hips and pulled the garment over her head.

  Standing pressed to her back, he lifted her arms, placed her hands around his neck, and told her to, “Hold on.”

  He started at her wrists, moved down her forearms to her elbows, savoring the softness of her skin against his palms that were work hard and callused.

  The skin between her elbows and her armpits was even softer, but none of it compared to her breasts.

  He cupped them, measured their weight in his palms, the fit of their curving shape to his hands. They were small, but he didn’t expect them to be anything but a match to the rest of her waiflike body.

  He brushed his thumbs up and felt her nipples pucker, felt the discs of her areolas pebble around them. He pinched and tugged, and her hands looped around his neck tightened as if telling him he’d better not even think of stopping, or of letting her go.

  He wondered if she had any idea how much pleasure he got from hers, how som
ething as insignificant as the urging of her hands stirred his blood. He was hard and he was ready, and by the time they got to the act most people called sex, he’d be long past ready to come.

  But this was sex, too, and making sure Cady knew that it was, that she knew he felt that way mattered as much—or more—as making his dick happy did.

  He leaned down, nuzzled the spot where her shoulder met her neck, kissed her there, bit her there, licked the spot to soothe it. She moaned, raised up on her knees, tried to pull him down to the bed. His dick would be getting happy way too soon if he let that happen, so he put her off, moving his hands to hold hers and keep her where she was.

  He continued to kiss and nibble, running his hands up and down her sides, skimming his fingertips along the elastic band of her bikini panties. She shivered, gooseflesh changing the texture of her skin. He leaned into her, his chest against her back, and again he was reminded of her size, how easily he covered her, how slender her body was.

  He’d loved a lot of women, and he’d never measured a one by her size, but the match he and Cady made in bed left him hurting, wanting, spring-loaded, and taut. She may have come to him softly, feeling vulnerable, even afraid, but he could take her away from all that.

  He wasn’t going to see her disappointed. Holding her breasts with one forearm, he nipped at the lobe of one ear and slid his free hand into her panties where she was already wet. He used his middle finger to spread her wetness around, toying with her clit and the rim of her hole.

  She pushed her mound against him, whimpering, and as easy as it would be to give her that quick release, he was selfish. He wanted to give her more, something she would remember, something that would be there to help her with the monsters, because he might not be around to drive them into their closets and back under their beds.

  He reached up, pulled her hands from around his neck, pushed her onto all fours, and tugged her panties to her knees. He palmed both cheeks of her bare ass, then moved lower, stroking the soft flesh between, teasing her with his thumbs that spread her open.

  Her whimper became a groan, and she lowered her face to the bed, the position giving him full access to her pussy and her ass, her surrender giving him the right to take her any way that he wanted.

  He was a kid in a candy store.

  He didn’t know where to start.

  The first thing he did was lose his boxers. The second thing he did was smell her. He leaned close, he breathed deep, he sighed with the pleasure of knowing she was his for as long as he wanted to use her.

  His hands on the mattress on either side of her legs, he leaned down and put his mouth to the inside of her thigh, and he kissed her there, licked her there, sucked on her skin and made his mark.

  He moved to the other leg, bit down and drew another bruise. Then he probed through her folds with his tongue, finding her center, and spearing her.

  She rolled her hips, and he pulled away to kiss her again, to tease her, to promise her things she had no idea were coming, things that done with her would be new even to him, he realized, climbing onto the bed behind her.

  He used his weight to lay both of them down, his front to her back, and angled them to the right, their arms on that side stretched above their heads and their joined hands hanging off the mattress.

  His left leg he cocked up beneath hers, a position that allowed him to ease his erection between her thighs and up against her pussy. She wiggled, letting him know she wanted him inside of her. For now he did no more than part her plumped up lips with his girth.

  “You’re making me feel worse, you know. Not better. Not better at all.”

  A laugh rumbled deep inside of him and vibrated loose. “You’re an impatient one, chère. Don’t you know that good things come to those who wait?”

  “But I’ve been waiting for this forever. I’ve never known any of it before.”

  He liked that. Liked knowing he was giving her a new experience, teaching her new things. It was a gift he hadn’t given often during his life, and he found her left hand with his to show her more, sliding their fingers low on her belly and into her sex.

  This time, he was the one impatient, sucking back a sharp breath as she toyed with the head of his cock. “If you don’t stop doing that, you’re not going to have to wait long for something good to come.”

  She laughed, less of a rumble, more a sound of girly conquest. “Oh, you think it’s good, do you?”

  “No question,” he said, grabbing her fingers and moving them from his juicy goodness to hers, and using both of their hands to masturbate her.

  He rubbed her clit, made her rub her clit, then pressed and pulled and rolled it around until her breath came in gasping pants, and her hips rocked rhythmically against the tangle of their hands.

  She came silently, the arm above her head straightening, her fingers stretching, before closing once more around his. She shuddered, stiffened, pushed his index fingers against the side of her clit, and shuddered again.

  She tucked her pelvis forward, pressing it into the bed. When she moved back against him, his cock slipped to her pussy’s entrance, and he did what she wanted, pushing inside.

  She was tight and wet and hot, and she closed around him like a greedy fist. Her hand continued to work her clit, but she played with him, too, teasing him with her fingers as he stroked. He moved his hand to her hip, then slipped it down to tease the tight bud of her ass.

  Her back arched. Her muscles contracted, squeezing, milking, tugging him deeper inside. She squirmed there beneath him, dug her fingers into the thick quilt as if needing something to ground her, then pushed back to increase the pressure from his hand, and groaned.

  “I can’t stand this,” she grumbled, the bedclothes swallowing half of the sound. “If I don’t come, I’m going to melt all over the sheets, and you’ll never explain all that girl goo to the maid.”

  The mess they were making? He wouldn’t doubt that they’d be the last people to ever sleep on these sheets. “Tell me, chère. What can’t you stand?”

  “Feeling all melty and gooey. Like I’m dissolving. Like I’m not even here.” A shiver ran the length of her body and pricked his skin where he lay against her.

  “Would you rather have your feet on the ground?” he asked, catching the skin beneath her ear with his lips, tongue, and teeth, marking her again.

  “God, no. Never again.”

  “Then I’d say I’ve made you feel better. And that would mean my job here is done.”

  “Like hell,” she said, pulling away, crawling to the pillows and lying down, inviting him between her spread legs. “You’re just getting started.”

  He grinned because he knew this woman was going to give him a hell of a sleepless night, and he couldn’t think of any way he’d rather spend it.

  He pushed onto his hands and knees and climbed on top of her, lowering himself slowly, fully, sinking into her until he had nothing left to sink but his balls.

  Cady wrapped her legs around his, dug her heels into his thighs, her fingers into the cheeks of his ass, pulling him against her, into her, as far up her body as he could get without slipping inside of her skin.

  Her need left him breathless, left his heartbeat stunted. His skin beneath her hands tingled when she cupped his face and brought his mouth to hers.

  Her lip was still swollen, and it had to hurt her to press her mouth to his, but he wouldn’t have known it from the way that she kissed him, from the way she made their mouths one.

  She slanted away from the damage and opened enough to slide her tongue against his, making love to him with slow slick thrusts that matched those of his cock, fucking his mouth while he did the same to her cunt.

  With his weight braced on his forearms on either side of her head, he rolled his body in and out and over her, and she mirrored every motion, going deep, shallow, hovering at the barrier of his teeth as he hovered between the lips of her pussy, plunging home when he did the same.

  He couldn’t take it anymore.
He groaned, pulled away, and buried his face in her pillow as he came, his balls drawing tight in their sac, his thighs clenching, his calves burning, the small of his back rock hard.

  She followed quickly, grinding against him and crying out, a copycat to the end. He felt a burst of laughter rising in his chest, and he couldn’t hold it back, collapsing on top of her as he finished.

  She was barely breathing when she growled and asked him, “What’s so funny?”

  He couldn’t tell her that he had a new appreciation for what it meant to be fucked, so he just shook his head and nuzzled his cheek close to hers. “Nothing’s funny. I was just tickled.”

  “Tickled? Like this?” And then she went after his ribs, gouging him right where it hurt.

  He scrambled away before she got more out of him than a yelp, then rolled back and pinned her down. There was something he needed to know. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “Change my mind?”

  He nodded. “About spending the night with me?”

  “That’s easy,” she said, reaching up to brush his hair from his forehead, her eyes glistening with as much moisture as emotion. “I said that I didn’t have anyone. You said I had you.”

  And just like that she broke his heart. He didn’t know what he was going to do about mending it. Or if there was anything at all to be done.

  Twenty-six

  “Do you think we’re ever going to see Fitz again?”

  King didn’t respond, so Cady asked the second thing she’d been thinking.

  “He stopped us almost as soon as he got us started. I don’t know if Cushing Township was where he wanted us holed up. I mean, he had to know it would take a day or two at least to replace the airbags, and that rental or not, we wouldn’t be going far.” Not that they’d done anything about a rental. So far they’d stuck to using their feet. “Why do you think he stranded us in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Why do you talk so much when I’m trying to sleep?”

  He was sprawled on his stomach, taking up most of the bed, leaving her a small corner near her pillow to sit cross-legged, the sheet draped over her lap, her top half whisker-scraped and bare. Either McKie had skimped on the razors, or King hadn’t cared enough to shave.