Sweet Charity (7 page)

This thing with Gabriel had been in the making for twenty years and even if he wanted to pretend not to see it, it was there. The way he looked at her was certainly there. Like she was the most beautiful woman in the room. He even blushed when she’d done small things for him like getting him a cup of coffee or a slice of cake. Silly little things. Goodness knew their mother spoiled Raphael and Gabriel shamelessly so it wasn’t like he was unaccustomed to women doing things for him. But that he reacted so strongly when
she
did it just made her shivery all the way down to her toes.

She helped clean the kitchen with the other women as they sipped wine and swapped gossip about the people they knew. She fit there as easily as she did in her own family.

Still, she was surprised when he came up behind her and encircled her waist with his arms and rested his chin on her shoulder. “You look beautiful tonight.”

“Thank you. So do you. Or, handsome I suppose.”

“Do you have the time to stop by my place for a bit?” he asked quietly.

“I do. I don’t have anywhere to be first thing.” Not that he’d asked her to sleep over but she thought she’d put it out there anyway.

He turned with her, taking her hand. “Good night, all. I’m going to steal Charity now.”

“Are you going to have your wicked way with me?” she asked as he drove her car back to his place.

“I was considering it. You have any problems with that plan?” He grinned as he pulled her car to a stop.

“Depends on how well you do it.” She grinned back.

“Stay right there.” He got out and came to open her door. Normally she’d do it herself but with him, she found she liked that he wanted to do little things for her.

He pulled her to his body as she stood to get out and crushed her mouth with his own for a kiss. She melted against him, savoring his taste, loving how hot he was against her body while the air outside was so cold.

The kiss was easy, but deepened the longer he held her. She opened to it, to him, loving the way he felt. He’d kissed her, he’d sought her out, he’d been affectionate and even possessive at dinner.

He looked into her eyes for long, tense moments after he broke the kiss.

“You ready?”

She nodded.

“Trust me?”

“I’ve known you for nearly thirty years. You’ve never done anything untrustworthy in all that time. Yes, I trust you or I wouldn’t be here right now.” She wished she could say everything she felt about him but she knew it would spook him.

He took her hand and drew her toward the house and into the front door. He locked it and turned back to her. “You know which one my bedroom is. I want you undressed and on the bed. On all fours. I’ll join you in a moment.” He paused, looking her up and down and her entire body seemed to vibrate at the blatantly sexual perusal. “Take your hair down. I like it against your bare skin. You’re so beautiful.”

She smiled, feeling shy all the sudden.

In his bedroom, breathless at being surrounded by his scent, she undressed and let her hair loose from the barrette. She got on his bed as he’d instructed and waited. The air caressed her bare skin as anticipation zinged through her veins.

In the guestroom, where Gabriel kept his toys, he removed his shoes and socks and went to the chest at the end of the bed and unlocked it. The scent of leather wafted up at him as he reached down and grabbed the crop and a blindfold.

The crop had the perfect amount of give to it, bending easily but not too easily. Springing back into place with a nice whoosh of air. The sound, the creak of the leather made his cock twitch as he walked back to his room.

He rarely used the crop. It wasn’t something you could break out on a first date and he didn’t tend to keep woman around for longer than a month or two. But when he’d bought it two years before, it had been Charity he’d thought of. It was getting harder and harder to ignore how it all came back to her, over and over. She was what he’d wanted for his entire adult life.

His pulse sped as he caught sight of her on his bed.
Mine.

He put the crop down on the edge of the bed, where she could see it. He wanted to give her a chance to back out. Hope she would warred with hope she wouldn’t. She froze and sucked in a breath.

“You okay?” He petted down the curve of her ass and his cock throbbed.

“Uh. Yes. I’ve never…”

“We can forgo it.” He moved to pick it up but she shook her head.

“No. I want to. I want you to use it on me.” Her voice was breathless but sure. She got to him, damn it. Truth was, she always had.

“Sure?”

“Show me, Gabriel. I’ve never done anything like this before. Show me more.”

“You can
feel
. I’m going to cover your eyes.”

“Okay,” she breathed out in a barely audible whisper. Not a scared whisper.

He groaned and slid the blindfold over her eyes, making sure it was light tight and comfortable. Her skin immediately broke out in gooseflesh and she breathed out slowly.

“You look so fucking beautiful here on your hands and knees.” She did. It made every cell within him yearn to have this all the time. Instead he picked the crop up and drew a line down her spine with the tip. Around to her breasts and those nipples that made his mouth water and his hands itch to touch. “The curve of your breasts, your nipples so dark and hard—so gorgeous. And your ass, oh that pretty ass of yours.” He smoothed his palms over the solid, rounded muscle of her cheeks, giving each one a crack of his opened hand.

She wriggled back against him and he smiled. Maybe they could enjoy each other more than he first thought.

He traced the tip of the crop over the seam of her ass. He wasn’t a stranger to crops, having grown up in rural America and all. But it was a skill that needed practice and honing.

A quick switch of his wrist and he landed a sharp snap against her thighs, just below the curve of her ass.

“Oh!” She squirmed and he couldn’t tear his eyes from the red line he’d made on her flesh.

Oh indeed.

Again and again, he landed the crop against her butt and her thighs. More for the sound than the actual strike, although he did love the webwork of red lines from the crop. He watched her carefully, noting her reactions, making sure to keep her on the right side of the pleasure/pain divide. Creating a heat but not a burn. He loved the careful creation of the experience for her, wanted her first time to be something she’d always remember after she’d married a guy like Brian and thought back to the wild fling she’d had with that very bad boy back in the day.

Her head drooped and her breathing deepened as she slowly became drunk with the sum of everything he did. Could it be possible that she’d gone into subspace? Surely not her first time out?

He tossed the crop aside and blew over the heated, reddened skin. She moaned, low and deep. Her thighs glistened, she was so wet. He traced a fingertip over engorged, juicy labia and she thrust her ass back to him.

Anything else he could have handled. But this? The way she’d submitted and liked it, really liked it given the state of her thighs, had broken him down. He needed her with an intensity he didn’t quite know how to process.

Making sure she was all right and still on board with the program, he quickly got rid of his shirt and pants and positioned himself behind her. Rolling a condom on his cock nearly sent him over the damned edge he was so turned on.

Fighting against the urge to slam into her, instead he took his time, pressing and retreating, getting a bit deeper each time until he was buried to the root.

Her skin was still hot from where he’d used the crop, the feel of it against his thighs created a delicious contrast. The inner walls of her body clutched at him even as she fit him like she was made just for his cock.

Charity swam through the depth of pleasure she was swamped in, surfacing to feel every bit of him as he thrust into her slowly, his fingertips tracing over the knobs of her spine.

He was so unexpected on every level. He’d just used a riding crop on her! And yet, he’d given her such an intensity of pleasure and sensation she’d never have been able to imagine.
This
was BDSM? She’d always thought of it like dudes in leather pants using face masks and chaining up their women in the corner and stuff. Come to think of it, Gabriel in leather pants would work and the idea of him tying her up wasn’t one she was opposed to at all. Masks? Not so much. Or those gags with the rubber balls. So not for her.

But he seemed to be able to anticipate just what she’d like and he gave it to her. The blindfold thing really worked too. With her eyes still covered, she felt with more intensity. His touch, the way he fucked her, so gentle after the crop. Such sweetness after such raw sexual energy made her want to cry.

“So beautiful, you’re so beautiful, baby,” he whispered and she heard desire threading his voice.

He made her feel it, feel beautiful and adored. She didn’t need to see his face just then to know how he looked at her. No one had ever looked at her that way. Why he seemed to fear it, when he was so good at it, when he seemed to
feel
it too made her sort of pissed off.

Tears pricked the back of her eyes. She wanted him to love her, to be okay with being with her. How would she get past his reserve?

On he went until she fell under the sway of whatever personal magic they made, just the two of them. His slow digs into her pussy built her up inexorably, filling her cells bit by bit with so much pleasure she wanted to explode from it even as she never wanted it to end.

“I’m coming…you too,” he urged. “Make yourself come.”

She braced her head down and levered one hand up to her clit, catching it between her middle and forefinger. Three slippery squeezes and she rocketed into climax with a gasped cry of his name and he shoved into her so deep she felt him tap her cervix as he followed.

“Be right back,” he said, removing her blindfold and kissing her shoulder.

She collapsed on her belly, the cool sheets beneath her soothing as she caught her breath.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sliding into bed next to her. “I didn’t hurt you?”

She turned her head to face him, smiling at his concern. “I’m more than okay. I feel lovely. You didn’t hurt me. I had no idea at all. If someone had told me yesterday that being whipped with a crop could make me feel like that I wouldn’t have believed them. I liked it, a lot. The blindfold gave me so much more sensation.”

He returned her smile, lying on his side and she took a risk, snuggling into him and happily, he took her into his arms, kissing the top of her head.

“When can we do it again?”

Charity helped her mother do dishes and tried not to overanalyze the night before. Which was impossible.

She’d stayed until about 3 am and then had left. Charity had decent manners, she’d waited for him to ask her to stay but he hadn’t and in the end, she’d gotten up and dressed. Instead he’d walked her to her car and watched her drive away.

It wasn’t the first time she’d worked at the shop with less than four hours’ sleep but her frustration had kept her awake until they’d closed up at one. Brunch at her house was more like a late lunch. Why they’d never started calling it lunch she didn’t know but Sunday brunches were eaten at two pm. Period.

She hadn’t bothered to ask Gabriel to join them, he’d pissed her off so much. More than that, it hurt a bit that she
knew
he felt something for her but ran from it so hard. Charity needed some space from him to lick her wounds and re-fortify herself for another round.

“So what’s the deal between you and Gabriel?” Jason asked, taking the plate from her and drying it.

“According to him? Or a
ccording to me?”

Jason handed the towel to Jeremy and took her hand. “Let’s go for a walk. Jer, take over.”

Once they’d gotten a bit away from the house, the quiet of the day hit her, calming her slightly.

“I’ve known Gabriel as long as you have. I’ve seen him with a lot of women. A lot of them. They come and they go without much of an impression in his life.” Jason looked out over the horizon.

She took a deep breath. “Are you telling me it’s hopeless? That he’ll never settle down?”

“Is that what you want? To settle down?”

“I’ve spent pretty much every waking moment of the last week or so thinking about my feelings for Gabriel. And before that, I thought about it every few days and tried not to. Gabriel has been in my thoughts in some way or another pretty much since I was sixteen years old. You know what I realized last night?”

Her brother leaned against one of the almond trees in their yard and waited for her to speak.

“I’m in love with him. Yes I want to settle down. With Gabriel Bettencourt. So if you think it’s hopeless tell me. If I keep this up and he pushes me away it’s going to really hurt.”

He reached out to squeeze her hand. “I don’t think it’s hopeless. You’re already close to him. It’s clear to anyone with eyes you two have major chemistry. I took a grain delivery out to the dairy today for dad. Gabriel, Rafe and I had coffee. You know what he talked about the whole time?”

“Me?” She knew she had all sorts of wistful hope in her voice but she couldn’t help it.

“You’re something else, you know that? And yeah, you. He tried not to. Told me he was all wrong for you. But when Gabe is done with a woman, he’s done. There’s no pillow talk, there’s no sharing of funny anecdotes with his friends. Today he talked about how you were at dinner with his family. He talked about stuff we all did growing up. I want to tell you I don’t think you should give up. He’d be a fool not to love you. But I need to know and you need to really ask yourself,
is
he the wrong guy for you? If yes, then let him go. Being unhappy isn’t worth it. If he’s the right guy, then fight for him and convince him he’s precisely the
right
guy for you.”

“You’d die from TMI if I told you what the issue is and I’m pretty sure I would too. But he’s being so dumb about this
not right for you
thing.”

Her brother looked uncomfortable for a moment and then sighed. “Is this a sex thing? Like he’s into something super weird like diapers or something?”