I propped my ankle up on the centre console, knowing that he would get a good view of my pussy up the leg of my shorts as I did so and sure enough, his eyes dropped down. “Default state, remember.”
“Oh no, something’s got you extra creamy, princess. I’d say it was soldier boy here, he sure looks stimulated, but that face. What’d you do? Tell him his dick isn’t as big as mine?”
“It was Jack,” Aaron said. “Hawk was with him, but he’s never been a problem.” I didn’t look at him, but I could hear the clench of his teeth as he said the words.
“Jack? Really, princess? Fucking outsider girls, they always fall for the bad boy schtick…”
“Enough!” Finn said, his tone pure iron. “Right now, we’re bringing Aaron back to the house for a trial, so he is the focus. As for any preferences Jules might or might not have, that’s for her to explore, as is her right.”
That killed all conversation. Finn drove us back to the compound, Slade jumping out when we got to the gate and punching in the combination. He looked calm enough when he climbed into the car, but he did not meet my eyes. We pulled u
p outside the house, Slade was out of the car the moment it stopped, ambling inside without a word. Finn paused with his hand on the door and looked at me through the mirror. “Take a moment, Jules, if you want. Bringing someone into the house, it has some meaning to it. Nothing for you to worry about, nothing that’s permanent, but it’s important to us. Take a minute, and see if this is something you really want to do.”
25
The silence grew inside the car, a living breathing thing that was all of a sudden competing with us for the available oxygen. Say something, I told myself, Something, anything, say something! But I didn’t want to. I was hit with a wave of resentment that made me think of being back home. Pursue who you want, Jules, but not him. Listen to guys plea for me to have sex with them to keep the peace, even when you don’t want to. Stay in this house, behind this fence, don’t go through this gate… It was tempting to view this place as some kind of hippy commune, but ‘love’ certainly wasn’t free of expectations, here or anywhere.
I looked over at Aaron, who sat there with an immovable stillness that almost made him seem inhuman. You would have thought being one of the few females in a tribe full of hot straight guys would be just heaven, but it only was if you didn’t give a shit about their feelings. This had to have been a big deal, getting picked, even if we didn’t work out, and then I turned around and showed interest in someone else. I flopped back against the seat and sighed. His feelings weren’t my responsibility, I reminded myself, but I couldn’t let go of the idea that I was being a bitch. Then I felt his hand cover mine. I looked up, meeting his steady gaze. He didn’t flinch away, but I could see in those golden depths, that he was holding himself somewhere safe, protecting himself from the threat I posed, of rejection.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing why I was apologising, but feeling like I needed to.
His breath came out as a hiss, then he nodded, “It’s OK, I’ll get one of the guys to drop me back.”
Did I want that? I felt a rush of relief and a pang of loss. I shook my head, as if that would somehow clear it. What the hell did I want?
You do not have to do anything, today or tomorrow, my Tirian said inside my head. You can return this man to his place, call on him another day. I could, but I didn’t want to. I looked over at him as I moved in my seat. There had been something quite nice going on there for a bit. So, have him, she said. What stops you? Yes, what did stop me? My Tirian sighed, You are used to being the prey, not the predator. You are used to a man pursuing you, persuading you to make your choice. With the men inside, I took control, I took them. This is the first man you have chosen yourself, and it makes you feel uncomfortable because it is different to what you are accustomed to.
Was that it? Evidently having had enough, my Tirian shifted within me, taking over as my mind whirled, unclicking my seat belt and moving so I straddled his lap, something that was considerably harder to do than I thought. The SUV was roomy, but he was a big guy. “Is this OK?” I asked, half of him, half of me.
“It’s a distinct improvement on before. Silence isn’t a turn on for me,” he replied, settling his hands lightly on my hips.
This man may be a good mate, so might the other ones, my Tirian said inside my head. An animal does not pick, pick, pick at the edges of a meal, looking for advice on whether to eat. An animal swallows it down and then sees how it sits. If he is poison to us, he goes, if he is pleasing, he stays. It does not require the mental work you are expending.
Yeah, but the rituals I would normally use to identify whether he’s good for me or not don’t work here.
They are mealy-mouthed and not worthy of you, she replied. Human women know not if a man is lover or danger, or both. You have constructed convoluted customs to try and ascertain this before, yet even with them, so many women are killed or harmed. You are stronger than this man, than any of these men. There is no risk here. He cannot force you, cannot obligate you to do anything, not unless you allow it.
So how do I figure out what I want, without those familiar tools?
Experience, whim. Touch this man. You wanted to beforehand. See if he pleases you. I will remove him if he doesn’t.
And suddenly, I was back in the moment. I had a big, hot looking guy under me and he was smiling slightly, his eyes dropping to my lips and lingering. I spread my legs further, feeling the tension in my thighs pull at my swollen folds. I could feel the cool air over my overheated skin, a precursor of the caresses that were sure to come.
He took a deep breath in and smiled, reaching up to cup my head, looking into my eyes. I nodded, my breath starting to come in fast now, watching his mouth as I drew closer and closer. He groaned as our lips touched, opening his mouth to pant slightly before pushing mine open with a persistent tongue. He yanked my hips down, hard against him, forcing a wiggle from me as the stretch deepened. His hands went to my hair, grasping great handfuls of it as he caught my lip in between his, sucking on it. I whimpered into his mouth as his hand went up my shirt, yelping as those fingers closed around a nipple. I thrust against him without meaning to as he rolled the sensitive point between his fingers, his grip shifting from gentle to a slight pinch that left me gasping. Finally, I pulled away, pushing his hand down and fighting to catch my breath. “I don’t know what this means, what it will lead to, but right now, I want you to come into the house and fuck me. That cool with you?”
He smiled, “I thought you’d never ask.”
I wasn’t 100% sure this was the right thing to do, but I walked up the steps with Aaron’s hand in mine. Brandon and Shaun looked up from where they sat at the kitchen table, but I brushed past. I looked down the hallway, not wanting to go into the big bedroom we all slept in. In my gut, I felt that that space needed to be kept for those I knew I wanted to stay around. I opened the door of a room I’d never gone into and found a slightly musty smelling bedroom with a large bed in the middle. I walked in, standing by it, running my hand over the nubby white raw cotton and heard the door click behind me.
He moved in against me, his body a wall of warm muscle at my back, and ran his fingers lightly up my arm. I shivered under the slightly ticklish caress, but felt an almost painful tightening in my nipples in response. I leaned harder into him, Aaron wrapping an arm around my waist, and arched as the caress wound its way up my neck and into my hair before floating past my collarbone. My heart rate began to pick up as his hand slid down the centre of my body, and I moved to try and direct the caress where I needed it. The arm at my waist tightened, holding me still as his teasing, slow hand curled across my ribcage, coming closer and closer to my aching breasts, but then veered off. I growled in frustration, and he laughed.
“Take it off,” I said, pulling free of him and turning around. “All of it, I want to see you.”
“What about you?” Aaron asked.
“What about me?” I snapped, though my clothes chafed at my skin. I stared him down, not letting my gaze fall, until he chuckled and began to yank his t-shirt off.
I felt no such ambivalence now. My nipples were tight and begging to be touched, my shorts damp from my weeping pussy. I wanted to throw myself on the bed and be attended to, have the desire coiling in my groin teased and provoked until I came around something unrelenting. I stepped closer as he unbuckled his belt, pushing his hands away and taking over. I unsnapped his pants and shoved them down, easing his underwear over his rigid length, pausing to watch it snap back hard against his belly. His cock jerked under my inspection.