“Uh! Oh!” she called out in need, pleasuring herself with fast, urgent fingers. Tossing her head to the side, she played with the aroused, erect point of her nipple while she turned her face into my pillow. She breathed deep, taking in my scent.
I thought I might explode. I stood there, unable to move, not believing what I was seeing, my cock as hard as a rock.
“Declan,” she exhaled, eyes closed, completely unaware that I stood there watching. Her fingers feverishly circled her clit and she moaned. She was getting close. So was I, standing there watching my deepest fantasy coming to life right before my eyes.
It couldn’t be happening. That was the bed I touched myself on, the bed I’d spent long nights with my hard dick in my hand wanting her. I couldn’t be watching her pleasuring herself on that same bed, my bed. Kara, the untouchable, innocent farm girl, the one I’d want but never have, playing with her own tits and gliding her fingers in and out of her slick, needy pussy while she fantasized about me. Holy shit.
She writhed on my bed, arching her back up. Her fingers worked in and out of her slit, fast, urgent, rubbing her slippery clit like she’d die if she didn’t come. Then she jammed her fingers up inside of her, deep. And she called out my name. “Declan!” Her body jerked and shuddered, her fingers way up inside of her, milking herself as she sighed and shivered, coming down from what looked like a spectacular orgasm.
“Kara.” I stepped into the room.
Flushed, breathless, she looked up at me. Then she panicked. She jackknifed up, pulling her shirt down and starting to button her jeans.
“What are you doing here?” she choked out.
“I live here.” I strode over to her on the bed.
“I didn’t think you were back. I just came in to—”
I was on top of her before she could say anymore, nervous excuses tumbling out of her gorgeous mouth. I grabbed her wrists and stretched them out above her head, trapping her hot little body beneath mine. She gasped under my assault.
Taking my time now, I wrapped her fingers through my own, twining myself around her.
“If I smell these fingers,” I asked her, low and secret, just between us, “will I smell that sweet pussy of yours?”
She gasped and twisted beneath me, caught.
I breathed deeply, inhaling her scent, the strawberry mixed with musky need. “I can smell you right now.” My head down, along her neck, under her chin, I scented her like an animal savoring its prey. Sweet, hot, juicy.
“I know what you’ve been doing, Kara. I watched you. I heard you call out my name.”
“No,” she protested, struggling beneath me. Her breath came hard, her eyes half-closed with desire. The war within her raged.
“You know what happens when you play with fire, Princess. You get burned.” Still pinning her wrists with one hand, I trailed my fingers down her side, searing a path along her curves, stopping at her waist. I parted her legs with my large, powerful thigh and pressed the full, steel length of my cock down against her sex. She bucked underneath me, half trying to escape but also wanting more. A throaty groan escaped from her parted lips. Right after an orgasm, she still had to be so swollen and sensitive.
“Worst thing is,” I continued, rocking my hardness against her, knowing she’d be wet and slick for me. “I’m going to make you love it.”
“Oh!” she cried out, tossing her head to the side, nearly wild with it already.
“Declan. I need you,” Harlan called from outside.
I need you. Got that right. Panting, we looked at each other. I cursed and rolled off of her. I ran a hand through my hair, pulled my shirt down and headed out to be of service.
Of course when I got back she was gone.
Now
5 a.m. I’d spent the night tossing and turning on my looked-good but hard-as-a rock black leather couch. Kara was sleeping soundly, alone in my sumptuous king size bed.
She’d been a virgin. A fucking virgin, like in medieval tales of chastity. Were there even 24-year-old virgins in the world anymore? Apparently I’d found the one and only. Like a unicorn.
Crazy thing was, last night had felt like my first time, too. That sounded like bullshit, but taking a woman had never felt like that before. My mind had this funny way of keeping going all the time, at night, while I worked, even during sex. I always had 10,000 things milling around up in there. But not with Kara. With her, all I did was feel. I’d been 100% locked-in on her and her alone, completely mesmerized by the heat of her, the sounds she made, the way she fit me so tight and perfect.
She hadn’t told me she was a virgin. She should have told me. But would it have made a difference? A beast like me? The animal in me liked that I’d been her first. No one else, I’d taken her. It satisfied something deep and primal inside of me, to claim her and mark her as my own. I never wanted her with anyone else. Now she was mine.
Only she wasn’t, not really, just for the week. And this wasn’t a medieval tale of a knight and his lady. I was just the guy with a large bank account, large enough to lure the one that got away into playing out every dark fantasy on my list. I had a long list.
I tossed on the hard leather, that sofa not giving an inch. I’d never been a big sleeper, the kind of guy who got his regular eight or nine hours every night. But I’d learned over time how to force sleep to come to me. Body-breaking physical exertion worked pretty well, first as a ranch hand and then, after I’d gone from hired help to bossman, I’d taken up working out. The adrenaline, the full-body discipline, the soaked with sweat exhaustion I felt after an intense workout, that usually got me down for the night. And if that didn’t do it, some raw, nasty sex did the trick. Sometimes it took both.
Yesterday, I’d done both. The sex had been through the roof. With Kara Brooks. I wasn’t big on nostalgia. Honestly, I’d devoted way more time to erasing my past than dwelling on it. Who wanted to sit there crying into your soup about how your daddy had run off and your mom…well. It wasn’t right to badmouth the dead, now was it? The addictions that had hounded her her whole life had finally caught up to her a couple of years ago in an overdose. So, no, the past wasn’t something I liked to think about all that much.
But Kara Fucking Brooks. She’d been a difficult one to forget. And now she was back.
Sleep wasn’t going to happen. I finally gave up and headed to my home office. I glanced through the day’s news, watched a couple of market analysts’ podcasts, replied, filed and mostly deleted emails.
6 a.m. Time to hit the gym. I grabbed my bag from the closet. Sleeping beauty didn’t move a muscle. After pounding it out for two hours, sweat dripping off of every pore, every muscle in my body screaming out, I returned to my penthouse. She was still asleep.
She lay perfect in my bed, her long golden hair splayed out across the pillows, her pink, full lips slightly parted, the ultimate Disney princess awaiting her prince to kiss her awake. Only I was the beast who didn’t become a prince. I stayed lurking in the darkness, fucked her senseless for a week, then turned her out again into the cold, harsh forest.
I stepped out of the room. What was going on? Was I having some sort of problem with my conscience? Was that guilt rising up inside of me? I didn’t do that.
That was the fun of being the guy in the black hat in the classic Western. You didn’t worry about all that right and wrong crap. You grabbed what you wanted, drank booze, screwed lots of women, piled up whatever money you could get your hands on and didn’t worry about the rest of it. You knew it didn’t matter because either way it was all going to end the same. You were going to die bleeding out in a gutter somewhere one day. The only person crying over you would be whatever girl you happened to currently be paying for her services. She’d miss the money.
That’s all this was with Kara, anyway. I shook off the rest of it. I hadn’t come that far in life being a worrier. I went after what I wanted and I got it, simple as that. Right now I wanted Kara Brooks. I wanted her so bad my teeth hurt. So, I was going to ha
ve her, every way I could come up with and then some. For one week.
Because I didn’t do more than that. More simply wasn’t an option. If she was a more-than-a-week type of girl, that was her problem. She knew enough about me to know I wasn’t playing around. I didn’t actually have a ring under the pillow, about to shout “surprise!” and release the doves with a marriage proposal. She wasn’t 18 anymore, the child circled by the wolf. She was 24, a full-grown woman, walking into this with her eyes open.
But the question remained—if I could have any woman I wanted, why would I mess with the one who could mess with me? Kara was the one woman who’d ever gotten under my skin. And she’d been a goddamned virgin. I should avoid her like the fucking plague.
I took a shower, hot water pounding over my strained muscles. Clean and dry, I dressed in fresh laundered sweatpants and a crisp, white t-shirt. And I got my head screwed on right.
This was a transaction, nothing more. Kara was just like the rest of them. She was into me for the money, like every other girl. I was a cold, calculating bastard and I knew how the world worked. Kara needed something and I had it. I wanted something that she had. That’s how bargains went down.
So what that Kara made it feel different? It didn’t matter that she still smelled of honeysuckle and strawberries and her smile lit me up. Six years later she made me feel like a 21-year-old kid again, tough on the outside, but yearning and hopeful within. I hated that shit. It was a waste of time and it was weak. And it was 100% on me if I fell for that roses and rainbows shit.
I needed to keep this clean. Simple. Clear-cut. I was taking a girl with me on a business trip to New York. We were going to have a week of hot, nasty BDSM sex. I’d get the rush of training a neophyte, a woman with a body for sin and the mind of an innocent, bringing out the sub within her responding to my dom. And then I’d say goodbye.
My bedroom door stood open. I walked back in.
Kara still reclined against a mountain of pillows, her hair framing her face in a mess of golden wisps and tendrils. Her bare shoulders peeked out at the top of the covers, hinting at the creamy paradise below.
With a yawn, she turned to me, her eyes fluttering open. “Morning.” She gave me a slow grin, looking as content as a cat in a patch of sun.
“If you can still call it that,” I had to tease.
Her eyes widened. “What time is it?”
“Don’t worry about it, there’s no reason to be up early.”
“But you’re up and I never sleep in,” she protested, still sleepy. “Except for yesterday.” I loved the flush that stole across her face. I wondered if she was thinking about how well she slept after the orgasms I’d given her. I grinned with pride.
Back in the living room I called room service and ordered most of the menu. I didn’t know what she liked and I was starving. Then I made some coffee. Carrying two mugs into the bedroom, I told myself it wasn’t strange that I still remembered how she took her coffee six years later.
“Thanks.” She gave me a shy and grateful smile, taking a sip.