Break On Through

by Ridgway, Christie

  Reed fucking loved how she was heating up in his embrace.

  With the tip of his tongue, he followed the whirls and folds of her small ear, finally dipping in and out of it with a shallow penetration. “Reed,” Cleo whispered, her body shuddering.

  “Cleo,” he returned, smiling against her cheek.

  Then the oven timer dinged.

  She froze. Groaning, he hung his head, gently beating his brow against her shoulder. “I should let you go,” he said.

  The timer sounded again, answering for her.

  Reed dropped his hands. Without looking at her reflection or at him, Cleo scuttled into the kitchen. He followed more slowly, found his beer, and drained it with one long swallow. Probably screwing before dinner would not make her feel safe, he told himself, and half-turned so he could adjust the fit of the damn denim without her noticing.

  Eschewing further conversation, she served up two plates. Reed noticed her movements were jerky, as if she didn’t have complete control of all her muscles. That made two of them. His cock certainly had its own agenda.

  When she dropped a serving spoon and just stood looking at it, he took pity on her. “Darlin’,” he said, striding over to get it himself. “There’s nothing to get worked up about. It’s just me, Reed.”

  She looked at him. “Just you, Reed,” she repeated, as if that was the dumbest remark ever made.

  “Yes, Reed, who is ‘champion at the bit’ to eat this meal you prepared.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut and she groaned as if in pain. “That one is terrible.”

  “I know,” he said, swiping up the plates and walking them to the dining table. “They can’t all be a reference to a luxury car in need of constant repairs.”

  Following him, she asked, “What’s that?”

  He held out her chair. “A lemonzine.”

  She slipped into it. “I’m on pinsy needles that you’ll come up with something better than either of those.”

  Taking his own seat, he narrowed his eyes at her. “We need to quiet while we’re ahead.”

  Her mouth twitched. “I heartily agree.”

  And like that, the immediate tension abated.

  But it was still there, simmering, waiting to bubble over. When he offered her a choice piece of avocado from his salad, she leaned across the table to take it from his fork. Their eyes met as she pulled it into her mouth. Blood rushed from his head to his lap and he sucked in a deep breath.

  Cleo lowered her gaze as she re-settled against the back of her seat. “Let’s talk about…I don’t know. You mentioned you have a grandfather.”

  Thoughts of the old man should be able to wilt a flagpole. “He’s an unforgiving martinet. He drove his daughter out of his house when she was barely eighteen, tried to pluck me out of the compound and make my childhood his vision of ship-shape, and ultimately washed his hands of me, telling me I’d come to nothing.”

  She blinked. “He seems nice.”

  He laughed, maybe the first time ever when the specter of the SOB was in the room. “Yeah. Not.”

  “You’re lucky you have all the rest, then. Your brothers, Cilla, Ren…those that were raised with you. You seem close.”

  “I…” Reed shut his mouth on the instant denial. He’d considered himself—with the exception of Beck, who was physically absent—the most remote of the Rock Royalty. But he’d been joining in with them lately…and even reaching out. Hadn’t he gone to Alexa’s bridal salon for help?

  Now he’d agreed to a dinner with a beautiful, sexy woman, completely prepared to postpone the physical side of things indefinitely because she had kids…and doubts. He liked her just that much.

  That felt, if not dangerous, downright risky.

  Rising from the table, he grabbed up both empty plates. “I’ll get these in the dishwasher,” he said. Immediately after, perhaps he should go home.

  They worked together at the clean-up. It was nearly done when he caught her staring at the television again, worrying the dishrag she held in her hands. He glanced at the screen took another look at her face. She was transfixed by yet another commercial. This time a couple was dancing, the woman in a strappy sundress, the man in nothing but a pair of slacks. The male half of the pair nuzzled the woman’s neck.

  Reed touched Cleo’s shoulder. She jumped, and whirled away from the TV.

  “Are you all right?”

  Wetting her lips, she nodded. “Fine,” she said, but her color was high again.

  “Are you coming down with something?” he asked, placing the back of his hand against her forehead. She jerked again. Reed saw goose bumps break out on her neck. Though she crossed her arms over chest, it wasn’t before he noticed her nipples had once again pearled.

  With a frown, he checked out the screen again, but now a sleek car was racing through rainy streets. He didn’t think that was responsible for her stirred-up state. But that half-naked couple… A lightbulb went off and his lips twitched. It appeared his neighbor might be riding a sharper edge than he’d suspected…which was surprising and amusing and hellishly exciting, all at once.

  He cleared his throat. “Cleo, are the commercials, uh, bothering you?”

  She crossed to the counter where she made a great show of folding the dish towel.

  “Cleo?”

  “If you must know…” she mumbled.

  “I think I must.” When she was silent another long moment, he tried again. “Cleo—”

  “I see people doing—” Whirling around, she made a vague hand gesture, “—you know, everywhere.”

  Trying not to laugh, he rubbed his hand over his chin. “You mean doing, uh, it?”

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “No, darlin’.” Shaking his head, he took a small step closer. “I think you’re just wound a little…tight.” He took another step.

  Her eyes went wide.

  His hands came up, trying to soothe, remembering he’d promised himself he’d make her feel safe. “I’m not going to pounce.”

  She swallowed, all big eyes and flushed cheeks. “Maybe…maybe it would be better if you would.”

  Chapter Eight

  Any thought Reed had of going home evaporated in the sudden heat of the room. He stared at Cleo for a long moment, letting her obvious arousal wind him tight. Then, dying to touch her, and with that tacit approval she’d just given him, he reached out his hand and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip.

  She sucked in a breath, and when he made a reverse pass, her small tongue stole out to taste his skin. With his other hand on her shoulder, he drew her closer and then let his thumb slide over the wet surface of her tongue and into her mouth. He ducked his head to meet her gaze. “Suck,” he whispered.

  When she jolted, he tightened his hold on her. “I want to feel your mouth all around me. Suck.”

  When she complied, it was as if she held his cock in the heated cavern. Her gaze didn’t leave his as she worked on him, sucking and swirling, and he watched more color flag her cheekbones and cross the bridge of her nose.

  “Good job,” he said, praising her, then pulled free from her mouth with a pop.

  She gasped, as if the mere sound had stroked an erogenous zone. Bending over her, Reed drew the wet digit down the side of her neck. As he’d planned, she responded by turning her head to give him more access. He immediately took up the invitation, pressing his mouth to the sensitive space behind her ear. She clutched at him, her hands fisting in the sides of his shirt as he painted figure eights with his tongue. Her scent rose in the air, sweet, with that hint of spice.

  Sinking his fingers in the back of her hair, he drew back her head for his kiss. His lips pressed to her softer ones, and he gripped the lower with his teeth, drawing it down so his tongue then could slide inside.

  Against him, she trembled. He deepened the kiss, then found the hem of her T-shirt with his free hand. Avoiding touching her flesh with his skin, he drew it up, breaking their kiss to pull it over her head.

  She s
tood in the kitchen light, her skirt hanging low on her hipbones, her torso pebbling in reaction to his heated gaze. Over the cups of a lacy blue bra, her breasts quivered with each of her heaving breaths.

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  “Reed…”

  “Shh.” He drew his hand over her hair to calm her, then hooked his forefinger in one of the bra cups. Tugging, he pulled it lower to reveal the upper curve and then the turgid nipple. As he stared, it tightened further, and turned an even darker pink. With the minimum of contact, he tucked the material beneath her breast.

  Then he stepped back.

  Cleo looked down, her expression somewhere between dismay and desire.

  “Beautiful,” he said again. There was one way to distance her from her doubts and insecurities—by Reed taking over and taking her far above them. “I’m going to look how I like tonight. Play how I like. Taste how I like.” Make her fly high, high, high.

  She quivered. “What about…?”

  “You?” he asked. “I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

  “Reed—” she began.

  He pinched her nipple, and her next sound was a strangled moan.

  It made him want to taste it on his lips. He drew her in for another greedy kiss, his hands sliding over the smooth skin of her back. The taut nipple pressed into his chest and he worked at the buttons of his shirt as he continued kissing her.

  When he stepped back to strip off the garment, her mouth was puffy and red, her gaze slumberous. She swayed a little and he moved nearer, quickly baring her other breast by tucking the cup beneath it. Then he slid his arms around her again and kissed his way from her throat to one nipple. It only received a quick swipe of his tongue before he bent lower, nuzzling the underside and breathing in the fragrance of her.

  Her hands clutched at his back and the bite of her short nails caused him to revisit that sweet, hardened peak. He pulled it inside his mouth, sucking hard. She moaned, her fingers digging deep.

  His hands toyed with her other nipple, pinching and then strumming it with his thumb. “Please.” Her whisper was rough, her hands urgent as they moved over his back and then his chest. “Please, Reed.”

  “I’m taking care of it. Taking care of you,” he said, moving to her other nipple. Glancing up, he saw her gaze was fixed on him. She shivered, her eyes darkening as he worried the peak with his teeth. Then he sucked, and she cried out, arching over his arm.

  “I’m going to fall,” she said.

  “Then we take this to the bed.” He went for her mouth again, delving deep until they were both panting. His lips slid across her cheek and down her jaw as he ushered her the short distance to her bedroom.

  A single, low light glowed from the bedside table. He directed her toward the mattress and when he sat on it, he pulled her between his splayed thighs. Reaching around, he unhooked her bra. It fell to the floor and he began kissing her breasts again, sliding his tongue over her nipples and finally, down her torso. Her belly hollowed and he gave a wet kiss to her navel, blowing there until she moaned again.

  He caressed the globes of her ass over her skirt, sliding the fabric up and down. Then he caught the back of the hem and lifted to tuck it into the waistband. He stroked her ass over her panties now, pulling her closer so that the front of her skirt brushed the denim covering his cock. Primed as he was, it felt like the stroke of a hand and he groaned against her breast, his dick jerking.

  Her hands were in his hair, holding him close, but he broke away, rolling and tugging to take her down on the bed beside him. Then he loomed over her, an elbow on each side of her head as he licked her earlobes and nibbled at her mouth. When she tried lifting her head for a deeper kiss, he moved away.

  “Shh,” he said. “Be still.”

  At his direction, her body went rigid beneath his, her every panting breath making her lovely breasts quiver. He gave each nipple a brief, firm suck, then moved downward. With his knees on either side of hers, he pushed up her skirt to her hips.

  The triangle of her panties was the same pale blue as the discarded bra. He ran his finger over the low-cut elastic waistband, then along the edges where the fabric met her thighs. Her fingers spread, clenching at the bedspread.

  “Yeah, darlin’,” he said. “You hold tight there while I take good care of you.”

  Her next sound was part entreaty, part protest.

  “I am going to take care of you,” he promised. “I’m going to play with your pretty pussy and make it desperate.”

  “I’m desperate.”

  The slight pout in her voice made him grin and he leaned down to bite her lower lip. “You don’t want me to hurry this along, really you don’t.”

  Then, keeping her legs closed with firm pressure from his knees, he hooked his thumbs in her panties and began wiggling them down, halting when he’d revealed the pad of her sex and just the top inch of her pussy lips.

  “Reed,” she whispered on another moan.

  Sliding his legs behind him, he put an elbow on the side of each slender thigh, not allowing her to let them fall open. His mouth made a wet trail from hip bone to hip bone, then he flattened his tongue and took it to that closed groove of her pussy. Starting at the rolled panties, he wiggled it upward, delving into the seam and searching out her clit.

  He groaned, her sweet, creamy taste delicious. The tip of his tongue nudged the hard knot of nerves and she bucked, her movement hampered by his constricting elbows and the weight of him on her legs.

  He licked again, delicate and careful, and one of her hands clutched at his hair. “Yeah, baby,” he said, lifting his head. “Let’s get your panties the rest of the way off.”

  Her face was flushed. This was working for her, big time, he thought, satisfied and getting hornier by the second. Back on his knees, he yanked her panties down and tossed them to the floor. Instantly, her legs inched apart, but he pressed them together again, running his hands from her ankles to her thighs.

  With a leg on either side of hers, he went back to kissing and caressing her breasts. He plumped them in the cup of his hands and brought them to his mouth, where he washed them with the flat of his tongue, then lashed at the nipples, punishing them for being so damn tempting.

  “I’m going to make you come with my mouth,” he told Cleo. “Your juices are going to flow right onto my tongue and I’m going to spread all that wetness over your sweet, sweet pussy.”

  “Reed…the way you talk…”

  Yeah, the way he talked was turning her on even more. Let her hear what was going to happen, he thought, all the better to up her anticipation.

  Lifting one of her clutching hands from the bedspread, he kissed her fingers and sucked just the tips of them inside his mouth. “Unless you’d rather show me how you do it with these,” he said, and flicked his tongue in the center of her palm.

  She gasped, her body lifting up, pushing into the weight of his. “Oh, God,” she said. “Reed.”

  It was the strained and eager note he’d been waiting for. He began sliding down her body, one of his jean-clad knees finding the juncture of her thighs. He pushed it against the hot flesh there and she bucked against it, riding, riding.

  He licked her nipples a last time, feather light, and then moved again, until he was positioned between her thighs. He pushed them apart with his palms, splaying them wantonly, and she jolted in his grip, her hips rising.

  Her pussy lips unfurled as he watched, blossoming under his ardent gaze. Liquid glistened, making his mouth water. He glanced up to see her staring at him, her breaths coming hard and fast.

  “Oh, darlin’,” he murmured, and then he ran one hand between her swollen folds, using his thumb and forefinger to expose her to him fully. Her hips were lifting and falling and he drew close, breathing in the warm scent of her arousal. Careful not to start too strong, he licked at her wet, straining flesh, soft strokes with the flat of his tongue, then curling it to draw her taste into his mouth.

  He curled his hand around one of her th
ighs, a restraining pressure that made her growl, low and soft. He grinned to hear it, then kept up his steady ministrations, using up-and-down strokes with increasing pressure.

  She was getting close.

  With his nose, he nudged her clit, aware it had to be throbbing.

  “Hurt here, darlin’?” he asked, a wicked note in his voice. “Let Reed suck it all better.” And then he did just that, took her sweet nub into his mouth and sucked, beginning to nurse the orgasm right out of her body.

  She made a half-swallowed noise and then quivered in his hold. As her body began to really quake, he twined two fingers and slid them deep inside her channel. Her muscles instantly grabbed, pulling them deeper, and he closed his eyes, reveling in giving Cleo her climax.

  Just as her inner tremors were beginning to quiet, he released her clit and brushed kisses on the insides of her thighs. “I told you I’d take care of you.”

  One of her hands lifted, then languidly tangled in his hair. “Reed—”

  It was all she got out before a ring tone sounded.

  Her body jackknifed on the bed. “Reed.” Her wide eyes shot to his face.

  “Your phone,” he said, gently pulling his fingers free of her body.

  Another layer of color joined the pink cast orgasm had left on her skin. “Oh my God.”

  Still in his jeans, he made his way to the kitchen and brought her cell back to her. By the time he returned to the bed, she’d flung her skirt down. One arm was over her breasts as she reached for the device.

  Reed’s luck had run out.

  “I totally understand, Jeanette,” Cleo set into the phone. There was apology in the glance she sent him. “Tell Obie it’s fine he wants to come home. I’ll be there very soon.”

  Good mother that she was, in minutes she was dressed and out the door with her keys in hand. “Sorry,” she said over her shoulder. “I…”

  He waved away her concern, hoping like hell his raging hard-on would subside sometime soon. “I understand.”

  Once she left, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He supposed bed games were over, but perhaps he should wait to make sure she returned safely home? To occupy himself, he shrugged into his shirt then placed her clothes on the dresser in her room. Thanks to that one year as a cadet, he couldn’t leave the bed in its mussed state.