Mustang Sassy

by Daire St. Denis

  Dex removed the cigarette and tapped it against his palm. “You’re a terrible liar, Sass.”

  She angled her head. “You think I’m lying?” She laughed. “You know what? I don’t care.” With that she turned and tugged Jordan down the hall toward the rooms at the back.

  “Sass?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m on the second floor.”

  “Oh.”

  They took the stairwell at the end of the hall up to Jordan’s room. Once inside, she sat down on the end of the bed resting her head in her hands.

  “You okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “So that’s Dex Whelan, huh?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Kind of an asshole.”

  “Kind of.”

  The mattress buckled beneath her as Jordan sat down beside her. He took her hand and held it in his lap.

  She glanced at him. “I’m not really in the mood anymore.”

  “Okay.” He continued to caress the back of her hand.

  “Sorry about all that stuff I said back there.” She drew her hand away. “About being in love and you being my boyfriend and all that? I mean, this is really our first official date. I know you don’t feel that way about me and…I just hated the way he was talking to me and—”

  “Sass?” He took her chin and turned her toward him. “Shh. It’s okay.”

  Then he kissed her. Softly. Sweetly. Without any of the crazy lust that had driven every single one of their kisses in the past.

  Resting his head against hers, he said, “Stay as long as you like. We can just talk or watch another movie. Then, when you’re ready, I’ll give you a ride home.”

  …

  True to his word, Jordan drove her home after they watched The Fast and the Furious 6 on pay-per-view. However, once home, Sass barely slept. She couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said about Jordan being her boyfriend. About being in love.

  Was she?

  Maybe. Kind of.

  What about Jordan?

  The guy might have been extra considerate tonight, but it wasn’t like he made any proclamations about his feelings for her. In fact, apart from that chaste kiss, he’d barely touched her. Had she freaked him out?

  Finally, after dozing off for a few hours, she got up, ate one of Mary-Lynn’s muffins, and then headed over to the shop, where she threw all her energy into the car. Everything was better when she was working on the car. There was a certain magic to its creation, maybe because it was like nothing she’d ever built before. Or because it had been conceived by the two of them, her and Jordan.

  Her sleepless night and the incident with Dex became a distant memory as she concentrated on welding pieces of steel together. In fact, Sass was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t even hear Jordan come in.

  It wasn’t until she turned off the MIG welder and removed her welding helmet that she saw him sitting there. She jumped, “How long have you been there, Carlyle?”

  “A while.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Watching you.”

  Her stomach flip-flopped. “You want to get up off your ass and give me a hand?” She teased.

  He bowed with exaggeration. “Absolutely. I’m at your disposal.”

  Despite the fact she’d had no sleep, Sass had never felt more energized. Working with Jordan all day was…she couldn’t describe it. The just fit like two pieces of metal custom-made for each other. Today, the banter, the teasing, the purposeful inadvertent touches all took on a new meaning, like they’d agreed to something that neither was quite ready to talk about.

  While she was at the utility sink, washing her hands, Jordan came up behind her, swept her hair away from the side of her face, and leaned close. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” His voice was warm in her ear. So was his tongue.

  She laughed and pulled away. “Five thirty?”

  “Seven thirty.”

  “No way.”

  “Mmhmm. I’m going to pick up some pizza. I’ll be back in half an hour, sound good?”

  Before Jordan could walk away, she grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged him to her. Going up on tiptoes, she kissed him full on the mouth. She backed away, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “Hurry back.”

  The minute she heard the shop door close behind him, Sass sprinted for Buck’s office, sat herself down in the chair and picked up his phone. She could hardly contain what was happening between her and Jordan and she realized she needed to share it.

  Libby answered after the third ring and before Sass unloaded on her, she made sure to ask after Libby and her mom. Once Libby assured her everything was okay on her end, she asked, “So, what’s up, Sass?”

  “I need to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “You know,” she cleared her throat, “about a guy. A relationship.”

  Libby was quiet for a moment. Then, “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Sass could practically hear her smile through the phone line.

  She unloaded everything that had happened since the night of her infamous one night stand. Everything. She even told her about her drunken sleepover in Denver and about seeing Dex last night at the hotel.

  “So where’s Jordan now?”

  “Gone for pizza. He’ll be back soon.”

  “So, what does it feel like to be in love?”

  “I didn’t say I was in love.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Covering her face, Sass laughed, feeling strangely buoyant.

  When she heard the bells over the front entrance ring, she said good-bye to Libby and turned Buck’s chair around, craning her neck to see out through the open door of his office. By the way her pulse zinged and her tummy did somersaults at Jordan’s return, she figured Libby was right. Holy hell. She loved Jordan Carlyle.

  “You’re back,” she called with a silly grin plastered to her face. “That was quick.”

  “Sass Hogan, working late on a Monday night. Predictable, predictable, predictable.”

  Sass went from hot to completely cold in less than two seconds. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Dex laughed and came closer with that rolling, ambling gait of his. “Damn, girl. Do we have to start every conversation the same way? How about, ‘Hey Dex, nice to see you’?”

  “You need to leave.”

  “Leave? But I just got here.”

  He walked up so close that Sass could smell him. The whiskey, the cheap cologne, the cigarette smoke. “I don’t know what you think—”

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” he said rubbing the side of his mouth. “I think that ever since seeing you last night, I can’t stop thinking about you. I think there isn’t anyone who appreciates you the way I do and I think there’s something special between us that is nowhere near over.” He trailed a calloused finger down her cheek.

  Sass was in such a state of shock that she didn’t get out of the way before Dex swooped down and kissed her. By the time her reactions kicked in, he had his left arm around her waist, holding her tight, and his right hand in her hair, holding her head so that he could kiss her with more thoroughness.

  “Fuck,” he said against her lips, “I know you feel it, too. Don’t lie.”

  If he was talking about the boner he had tucked in his pocket, hell yeah, Sass could feel it and it terrified her. She tried to get her hands up between them, to push him away, but their bodies were so enmeshed that he must have mistaken her movement for consent because he backed her up against the filing cabinet and kissed her harder than before. Somehow she managed to wrench her face away from his lips. “Stop.”

  “Stop?” He twisted her head back to face him. “You don’t want me to stop. You never did.” He bent down and bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted blood. With his knee he forced her legs apart so that he could step between them and shove his pelvis against hers. “You used to beg me,” he whispered hotly in her ear. “Harder, Dex. Faster, Dex
. Don’t stop, Dex.” Suddenly his rough hands were under her shirt squeezing and Sass grunted in pain. “You always liked it rough, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

  “Let me go,” she insisted, but panic made her voice waver in her throat.

  “We were made for each other.”

  “No.” She moaned, shaking her head in denial. “No!” She tried to twist out of his grasp again, but to no avail. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed at him with all her might. But he was too big, too rough, too intent on what he wanted.

  Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Dex was gone.

  Sass opened her eyes to the sound of fists on flesh and the low grunt of pain. Jordan had Dex by the scruff of his neck and was wheeling him out of the shop as if he was a big bag of garbage. Sass chased after them, out the front doors, and found the two men tumbling on the pavement with Jordan having the upper hand as he shouted obscenities at Dex while his fists plowed into his face.

  “Jordan!” she shouted once she noticed Dex wasn’t defending himself anymore. “That’s enough!”

  With a feral gleam in his eyes, Jordan looked up at her. Then his expression softened and he released his death grip on Dex’s shirt, dropping him onto the pavement. He moaned, and Jordan nudged him with his boot. “Get the hell out of here.”

  Slowly, Dex pushed himself to his feet. He wavered like a drunk as he regarded Jordan and then spit blood on the pavement by his boot. “Jumping a guy from behind, bad form, buddy,” he said with a muffled voice.

  “Attacking a woman? That makes you a sorry sack of shit.”

  Dex stumbled toward his car, chuckling. “Attack Sass? Impossible. I know her better than you. She likes it that way.” He waved and shouted, “See you later, darlin’.” He got in his car, revved it, and pulled away from the shop.

  Sass picked up a rock and threw it after the car. It thunked satisfactorily off the bumper but Dex didn’t stop. It wasn’t until the car was out of sight that she glanced up at Jordan. He was watching her with some weird, intense gaze.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded and looked away.

  “You sure?” Taking her chin, he turned her face up to his.

  That was it. She lost all control of her features, her lips and chin quivered, and tears sprang hot and hard. Wrapping her in his big, strong arms, he held her tight against his chest, whispering, “Oh, baby.”

  She’d never cried in front of a man. Not like this, hard and noisy, sobs ripping out of her chest in ragged bursts. Strangely, she wasn’t embarrassed or trying to hold back. She didn’t care because this was Jordan, the man who’d seen her at her worst and best.

  That’s how she wanted things. She wanted him to know exactly who she was, tears and all. While she cried, he stroked her hair and murmured soft words of comfort and once the sobs died down, he said, “Let me take you home. You shouldn’t drive.”

  “I don’t want to go home.”

  His grip tightened. “Do you want to stay with me at the Inn?”

  Sass swallowed hard. “No. The cabin. I want to go to the cabin. With you. Only you.”

  …

  Jordan’s plan was to take Sass to the cabin, get a fire burning in the fireplace, wrap her up in a blanket, and hold her all night long. That was his plan. But this was Sass he was talking about and he should have known from the start that any plan he’d concocted would be completely torn apart by Sass Hogan. He did manage to get the fire lit, but the minute he pulled her onto his lap, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.

  Her kisses had none of her usual impatience. Tonight, she was all soft and warm and sweet and when Jordan tried to slip his hand up under her shirt to touch her, she stopped him.

  Shit. What was he thinking? After what she’d just been through, of course she didn’t want sex. He removed his hand from beneath her shirt and pulled her head tight against his chest. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Why?”

  “After what happened with Dex? I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “No, it’s okay.” She said, pulling out of his embrace. Then she plucked at a corner of her T-shirt and sniffed it. She wrinkled her nose. “It’s just, I’ve been in the shop all day. I need to wash.”

  “Can I draw you a bath?”

  She wrinkled her nose some more, this time at him. “A bath? Seriously, Carlyle? What do I look like?”

  Laughing, he stood and held out his hand to pull her to her feet. He lead her to the bathroom but didn’t turn the light on, he just left the door open so that the room was lit by flickering firelight. He turned the shower on—hot—and started taking Sass’s clothes off.

  She swatted at his hands. “I can manage. Thanks.” She turned her back to him, pulled off her shirt, and wriggled out of her jeans and panties. After stepping into the tub, she pulled the shower curtain shut behind her.

  It took Jordan two seconds to get his shirt off and he was unbuttoning his fly when Sass poked her head out from behind the curtain. “Um, what the hell are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” He stepped out of his jeans, grinning at her wide-eyed appreciation of his arousal.

  “You can’t come in here with that.” She pointed.

  “Why not?”

  Whipping the curtain closed she hollered from beneath the spray, “I need to get clean, Carlyle. Not dirty. Wait until I’m done.”

  Ignoring her completely, Jordan tugged on the shower curtain and stepped into the tub. “Haven’t you ever showered with anyone before?”

  She shook her head so hard that droplets of water from her hair sprayed him in the chest. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because…” Instead of finishing, Jordan opted to show Sass why one person might want to shower with another. He found a bar of soap and lathered it up between his hands, then began to wash her, starting with her back and tummy, purposefully keeping his touch chaste in the hopes of driving her crazy, because heaven help him, there was nothing he enjoyed more than making Sass crazy. He lathered up each arm and leg before carefully rinsing her off. With soaped hands, he circled her breasts, barely brushing her nipples.

  “You’re doing this to tease me,” she whispered huskily.

  “It’s my sworn duty to teach you patience.” His soapy hands slid lower, over her hips and around her thighs, stopping for only a second to graze her clit before moving away.

  “You’re evil.”

  “Mmhmm.” He lifted one of Sass’s small hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, sucking each one into his warm mouth until she pulled her hand away to trace his jaw and draw a line down his throat, to the hollow at the juncture of his collarbones.

  She took the soap out of his hands and forced him to play his own game, teasing him with suds. Did she have any clue what she was doing to him, tracing the outline of the muscles of his chest with her calloused fingertips? She must; his straining cock couldn’t lie. Jordan leaned against the wall, watching the progression of her hands down his chest, crisscrossing over his abdomen.

  “Keep going lower,” he urged.

  She gave him a coy glance and then dragged her short nails up his inner thigh, sliding her hand around his extended cock, so close, but never touching. Kneeling in front of him and holding onto his ankles, she kissed the backs of his knees. “Is this what you want?” She licked her lips.

  Fuck, she was gorgeous, kneeling there between his legs, the water cascading over the top of her, and peering up at him with that lust-filled gaze.

  So much for wanting to teach Sass about going slow. Maybe he’d be the one to learn a lesson in restraint tonight, because when Sass sucked his cock into that warm, impertinent mouth of hers, he nearly lost it. Clenching his teeth to keep from exploding, Jordan threaded his fingers through Sass’s wet hair, mesmerized by the sight of the head of his cock disappearing inside her mouth while water rained down on them.

  “God, that’s good.”

  She eased up on him, circling him with her tong
ue, around and around until he cried out. Before he could pull her away, she opened her mouth again, tilted her head back and somehow, miraculously, took him deeper than any other woman had ever taken him before.

  “Fuck, Sass.” He held her in place so she could continue to subject him to the most exquisite torture. A flash of sweet electricity sliced through his abdomen, tightening his sex for release. Grasping her shoulders, he hauled her to her feet. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” he growled into her mouth.

  She kissed him back and then pulled away. In the near darkness, he could just make out her sinfully seductive smile. Yep. She knew.

  “You’re a witch, you know that?”

  She nipped at his lips and opened her naughty, wet mouth so that their tongues could tangle. Sliding his hand beneath one of her knees he lifted her bent leg up around his hip, opening her so that he could move between her legs and ease his slippery wet hips in position to impale her. Sass ground forward to meet him.

  But Jordan wasn’t about to give her what she wanted. Not without a condom. Even though stopping was agony, teaching Sass a lesson in patience was worth it. He teased her with his steely cock, rubbing it back and forth between her legs, his gut churning with need as she begged him to fuck her.

  “Patience, Sass. Patience.” Jordan whispered, really more for his own benefit than for hers.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Sass’s skin was on fire as Jordan’s hands explored every inch of her while water rained over them. She had no idea how long she stood there. How long Jordan slid his cock between her legs without actually entering her, how long he turned her around within his reach, stroking her. Lapping at her. Fondling her. Kissing her. Sass closed her eyes, swept away in the glorious sensation of water and hands and lips and cock. Then it stopped.

  She opened her eyes to protest but found Jordan on his knees looking up at her in the dim light. “Spread your legs.”

  “You don’t have to do that you know.”

  “But I want to.”

  Her heart reared up in her chest, and she did as he asked.

  Slinging one of her legs over his back, he held her hip tight with one hand and spread her with the other. And then—holy hell!—he touched her clit with the tip of his tongue and Sass’s whole body bucked in response to the fire licking up from her core to her extremities. She leaned into him as he wrapped his hands around her backside, his fingers biting into her flesh as he penetrated her with his tongue.