“Good,” he says. “Fuck me angry. We always did have epic make-up sex.”
“Because even angry, you used to ask me what I wanted. Then you decided you could just read my mind. You decided what I could, or could not, handle for me. Stop making decisions for me, Rick.” The air between us crackles and burns, driving me back to my reason for pushing him toward this spanking.
“All right then,” he says, “I’ll ask what you want in the future, starting now.” He turns me to face the bed and leans in close, his lips pressing to my ear. “Do you want my hand on your backside?” He doesn’t give me time to answer. He softens his voice, the light touch, and his warm breath sending shivers down my neck as he adds, “Of course, if you’re afraid—”
That’s it. I go down on my knees on the mattress, daring to present him with my naked ass. Because the only thing I fear from Rick Savage is the moment he leaves again and takes my shredded heart with him. He doesn’t immediately move, but I can feel his hot stare on my body. I can feel his hunger. I can feel his emotions. Goosebumps lift on my skin. My nipples pucker. My sex clenches. Seconds tick by, seconds meant to make me wait, seconds of anticipation. That’s the way this works. Anticipation is everything. And I learned a long time ago, thanks to this man, that anticipation requires trust. And I realize now, in this moment, that he always needed my trust.
Emotion rushes over me, unnamed and bittersweet, a collage of random intimate memories, of his hands and mouth all over me, tingling through my body. In contrast to the heat burning in my belly, cool air rushes over my skin, goosebumps lifting again, my sex clenching, nipples aching. His hand, his strong, gifted hand settles on my lower back, fingers splaying possessively, and then stilling. A hand that I know can both heal and kill, please and punish. A hand meant as a silent command: Don’t move. He waits for my understanding that I never speak, but I don’t have to, not with Rick. It’s comforting to know this, to feel this. Years might have passed but I know him and he knows me in a way that requires no words to communicate.
A few more seconds tick by, quite literally, with the sound of a second hand ticking on a nearby clock. It’s not just any clock, either. It’s a grand wall clock that we bought together. We chose it to signify one year together and many more to follow. I wonder if he hears it, too. I wonder if he remembers what it meant to me and us. I suspect he does. I suspect his long pause is all about that clock because one thing I know about Rick is that he does nothing without purpose.
Including leaving.
I arch my back with that painful thought and Rick seems to respond. His hands are suddenly on my hips, then gently caressing over my hips and backside. A rush of arousal overcomes me. I’m tingling everywhere, and sensory overload takes over. My mind is appreciative mush while every physical part of me burns for this man. He slips a finger inside me, then another. I gasp and he leans over me, one hand covering my breast while his mouth presses to my spine. Sensations overwhelm me. He overwhelms me in a good way. When I think I can take no more without coming, his fingers slide from inside me, his teeth scraping my shoulder, a rough nip, followed by the salve of his tongue.
His fingers begin to tap my sex, my muscles clench, seeking his fingers that are not there. He rolls me then, and we’re both on our sides, him at my back, his cock pressed thickly between my thighs in the slick heat he’s created. His lips find my neck and then my ear. “Now, baby. Ready?”
“Yes,” I whisper and I’ve barely spoken the word before his hand comes down on my backside. I arch into the sting, and he rolls me again, onto my stomach, him over me. His fingers slide under me to my sex, while that other palm finds my backside again. But this time when the sting comes, his fingers slide inside me, and all around my clit and sex. His palm comes again and this time, when I arch, my sex clenches around his fingers. I gasp with the sudden, shockingly quick orgasm, the world spinning around me. My body quakes and trembles, riding a pleasure high that steals my breath, all sense of reality fading.
The next thing I remember is us on our sides again, Rick spooning me, his hand on my breast. His cock presses inside me, stretching me. And then we’re lost, lost in this place that is all-consuming, raw and real, in that way that only two people completely lost in one another can be raw and real. Right now, the past is present in all the right ways. The ways that pull us closer. We sway, we grind, press into each other. Fast. Slow. Fast. Slow again. A wicked need erupts between us. The world fades into this man, into his touch, his lips, his hands. His body. He thrusts hard, and I’m over the edge, in that sweet blissful place only he can bring with this kind of intensity. My sex tenses and then spasms hard and fast around him. A low guttural sound escapes his lips, and then he’s shuddering around me. Time sways and collapses with the stillness of our bodies and for long moments, neither of us move or speak.
It’s as if we’re holding onto a fragile moment that we fear is about to shatter into a million pieces, and us with it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Candace
Rick is the one who breaks that fragile silence, nuzzling my neck and murmuring, “God, woman, I missed being like this with you.”
Emotion swells in my chest, and I whisper, “Me, too,” because I did. So very much. My world was never right without this man.
“Good,” he says, his tone roughened up, low and vibrating. “Then you won’t be eager to get rid of me.” He kisses my neck, a tender, quick kiss that shifts the mood, light piercing the shadows of our past. “Don’t move or I’ll have to spank you again,” he teases. “That’s an order.” He pulls out of me, the sensation more than physical. It’s a divide, and divides have not been good to us. I’m still reeling from that sensation when he’s off the bed, walking away.
I lay there and watch him and his perfect ass disappear into the bathroom, his words replaying in my head: Then you won’t be eager to get rid of me. What could be taken as a joke is so much more. He really believes I’ll be the one to walk away from us, instead of him. We need to talk, really talk and then start anew. We can’t keep rehashing everything over and over, and find a better future. I’ve barely had time to think about how to start that conversation, and already Rick is returning, closing the unbearable space between us, and pressing a towel between my legs. I try to sit up, but that never happens. Rick rolls me onto my back and settles half on top of me and half off, staring down at me.
“Was that just sex?” he challenges.
“Was it? You tell me.”
“No. That was not just sex because you’re wrong,” he declares. “I didn’t have to come back. Walker is resourceful. There were ways to handle this without me showing up.”
“Why now, then?”
“Wrong question. Ask another.”
I blink. “I don’t know the right question,” I say.
He shifts and I shift with him. We end up on our sides again, but this time, we’re facing each other. I reach up and trace his goatee. “What’s the right question, Rick?”
His watch buzzes with a phone call and he curses. “Damn it, baby, you know—”
“That you have to get that,” I say. “Yes, and your phone is probably in your pants in the garage or kitchen. I can’t remember where they were left.”
“I remember. Everything.” And it’s clear he’s not just talking about where we undressed. He gives my cheek a tender stroke. “I’ll be fast. Climb under the covers, and I’ll meet you there and let you lick me anywhere you like.
“After you shower off that mud.”
“You have a problem with mud?”
“Only when it’s dirtier than you are,” I assure him.
He laughs. I laugh, warm with the idea of a shared shower and bed. Warm with the knowledge that tonight, we’ll sleep together for the first time in eight years. I kiss him and this earns me a smile before he pushes off the bed. He walks out of the bedroom, giving me a nice view as he does. He returns quickly, tossing his bag on the floor by the bed, his phone already ringing again, and quickly at t
his ear. “What’s cooking, asshole?” he asks, listening to his caller.
I’d like to take this moment to appreciate the fact that he is naked and talking on the phone, but there’s a subtle tensing of his body that smashes that idea. Apprehensive now, I grab the throw blanket we’ve somehow shoved to the floor and wrap it around myself.
“Now?” Rick snaps at his caller, which has me glancing at the clock that reads one in the morning. Now is not good. Now means trouble.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rick says. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, little girl. I’ll be right there.” He disconnects.
“Now?” I ask, watching him grab a clean pair of pants from his bag and start pulling them on, encouraged that he’s sans underwear. It means he doesn’t intend to keep his pants on or kill anyone before we sleep. That’s always good. “What’s happening now?” He sits down and pulls on his boots. “Adam has some data that he wants me to look at. He’ll be here in five.”
“It must be important for him to come over now.” I sound nervous. I am nervous. “Did they hint at what might be wrong?”
He stands, tugs his T-shirt over the hard wall of his chest, and then goes down on a knee in front of me, setting his phone on the mattress. “Everything is time-sensitive, baby. You know that. We need to end this.” He kisses my hands. “Nothing more. I promise.”
“My father—”
“If they knew something about your father, they’d warn me. We’re doing this in person because we’re dealing with the CIA and the government. Conversations are better held in person, not on the phone.” His phone buzzes with a text and he glances at the message. “Adam’s here. I’ll only be a few minutes. All is well. Or it will be when I’m in bed with you again.” He kisses my hands again and pushes to his feet, walking toward the bedroom door.
I watch him disappear into the hallway, all too aware of the fact that I don’t know what the right question was and he didn’t ask me to join him and Adam. All is not well.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Savage
I exit the bedroom with the sweet floral scent of Candace’s perfume clinging to my muddied skin, while my mood is decidedly edgy and with good reason. Adam wouldn’t be here, asking to see me in the garage, out of Candace’s hearing range, if there wasn’t yet another problem. I have an excess of damn problems. And the only thing I like in excess is Candace, guns, pizza, and tacos, no side order of more fucking problems.
Eager to get this over with, I cross through the kitchen and exit to the garage. Adam pushes off the hood of the Porsche where he’s sitting, arms crossed.
“You’re not bleeding,” I say, pulling the door shut and closing the space between us. “I assume you wanted me to fix that problem.”
“Two things,” he says when I step in front of him, close enough to keep our voices low and between us. “The good news first,” he continues. “Gabriel told his side chick that he’d stay in Austin for a few more days to ‘fuck her brains out.’ That’s a quote. To fuck her brains out. He’s a real romantic. I’m not sure what Candace is doing with a dud like you.”
As far as I’m concerned, he just told me I have more time alone with Candace, to win her back, and convince her to come back to New York with me. “What’s the bad, aside from the fact that he’s still breathing on the same planet?”
“Smith trailed Tag and his men to a house on the south side.”
“And that’s bad news why? Come on, man,” I add in frustration. “It’s like you want me to pull teeth and unless I’m torturing you and hate you, I don’t pull your fucking teeth. You’re getting close to that level, though. You’ve been warned.”
His hands settle on his hips and he studies me a moment before he says, “Apparently, you hurt Tag.”
“What’s he a sensitive emotional little bitch now?”
“Physically hurt Tag,” he clarifies.
“He needed a doctor. A doctor came to visit him.”
I’m not stupid. I know where this is going. I scrub my jaw, give him my back and then turn back around. “It was my father.”
“Yes. Your father.”
“I didn’t shoot that fucker. He didn’t need a surgeon. Where is my father now?”
“Still with Tag.”
“Of course, he is,” I say flatly. “I should go pull him out by his damn ear. What else?”
“If your father’s working with Tag, Tag knows you searched the general’s office.”
“Tag doesn’t give a fuck what we do as long as this ends his way. And as for my father, of course, he’s working for Tag. Where do you see an ‘if’ to any of this?”
“You tell me,” Adam says. “Would Tag blackmail your father?”
My lips press together, my way of holding back choice words, before I settle on a simple, “I doubt he’d have to.”
“What are you going to do?” Adam asks. “Or should I say, what are we going to do?”
“I alone am going back inside to get naked with Candace and play Twister. Or maybe Operation with my tongue. I’d invite you, but you’re not invited.” I turn to walk away.
“Damn it, Savage,” he bites out. “Stop.”
I pause and cut him a stare. “If I go get my father, I’ll kill everyone in that house. It’s not that time yet. I get it. I’m not stupid.”
“We have eyes on the house. We need some time to make sure we know how many and who is involved. Don’t go after Tag yet or without me.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say, but I’ve already thought about it and Tag and my father are as personal as it can get for me. They’re my problems. They’re mine to deal with.
Feeling the dark pulse of something long-suppressed rising to my surface, something my father stirs inside of me, I end our conversation without another word. I walk back to the house and shut the door solidly behind me, an act meant to leave Adam and that dark pulse in the garage. Candace is waiting on me, standing in the entryway, her long dark hair in a sexy disarray. Her sweet ass now draped in a pink robe, the thin silk teasing her nipples and now my cock. I shut the door behind me.
“What happened?” she asks, her brow furrowed, her tone apprehensive.
I close the space between us and pull her close, stroking her hair from her face, inhaling her sweet scent. The feel of her, the smell of her, a balm that soothes the wound that is my father’s eternal presence in my life. “Nothing that just happened was important,” I say, “but you are.” My mouth closes down on hers, that dark pulse still present, and the only way I know to vanish it is with her. Or vodka, which apparently also leads back to her.
She resists for all of ten seconds before she slides her arms around me and sinks into the kiss. It takes me all of about thirty seconds and I have her on the counter, with me buried inside her, driving as deep and hard as I can. She’s right there with me, grabbing the sink and lifting into my thrusts. Her robe drapes open, her breasts exposed, mine for the taking. She’s mine, and that’s what all of this is about. She’s mine to protect and I fucked up when I opened my mouth to Tag. I spoke her name. I put her in danger.
I catch her hair with my fingers, her mouth with my mouth, and I get lost in the taste and feel of her. It’s the pulse of my body, not my emotions. Of the edge of arousal that is now a full-blown blast.
Candace gasps into my mouth. “Rick,” she murmurs. “Rick.” And then she’s shuddering in my arms, her sex spasming around my cock and that’s all she wrote. I’m there with her, my body jerking with my release.
It’s over too soon, and I set her back down on the counter, my eyes finding hers, and what is left of that dark pulse, evaporates. I stayed away from her to protect her from that part of me. It seems, she’s the one who protects everyone else from that part of me. Except for Tag and Gabriel. They’re dead. I just haven’t made it happen yet.
CHAPTER NINE
Savage
Candace’s hand settles on my face. “You want to talk about what just happened?”
“Want to fuck again?” I co
unter.
“Not even you, Rick Savage, are capable of that,” she chides.
“Is that a challenge? Because you know, I’m still inside you. Not a good time to underestimate me.”
“I’m just stating facts,” she assures me. “You need half an hour. I need a lot longer,” she adds, “and no, I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about it with you. Talk to me, Rick. You used to talk to me. You used to let me inside.”
She’s right. I did, but what was inside me back then was rainbows and unicorns compared to now. But I did tell her that I was going to try to scare her away and hope to fail. I meant it. I need to know she can handle what I’ve become, and clearly, based on current events, cannot unbecome. “Grab my neck,” I order.
She reaches for her robe where it drapes at her waist, pulls it up her body, and then grabs hold of me. I lift her and carry her through the house and bedroom, to the bathroom, where I set her on the counter. I grab a hand towel, one of the now-worn blue towels we’d bought together years ago, and hand it off to her. That towel is just another way she’s telling me that she never let me go. It also brings back a fuck load of memories. I pull out of her and turn away. Giving her a moment. Okay, I might be a tough guy, but I need a minute, too, but I’m not admitting that shit to anyone.
I walk to the wall of cabinets to my right, the white cabinets I painted myself, open the eye-level door and find more of those damn blue towels. Holy fuck, seeing them punches me in the chest. This house was our house. It was our life. I left it all behind. I left her behind. I’m not sure how I can come back from that with her. I’m not sure it’s fair for me to try, but bastard that I am, I don’t seem to care about fair. I want her back.
I grab a couple of towels, shut the cabinet and rotate to find her still on the sink, robe primly back in place. Her hair is even finger-combed into a more orderly fashion. You’d never know I’d just fucked the hell out of her, and I don’t like it. I want the world to know I fucked the hell out of her and that I’m going to do it over and over for the rest of her life. Well, if she lets me. If I don’t scare her away.
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