Awakening Veronica (23 page)

“Nika, did I hurt you?”

She hiccupped again and turned her head to look at Travis and shook it negatively. “N–No, not at all.” She bit her lip, unsure how much to share, knowing that she was putting a damper on their first night together with her tears and emotionalism.

The two of them crowded in around her, sharing the space, and Hank said, “Tell us, Nika.”

“No. It’s just me being emotional. I don’t want to go into all that drama from years ago.”

“Tell us, Nika,” Travis murmured in a firmer tone as he clasped her hand with warm reassurance, and they waited.

She let it all out, fighting the urge to curl into a protective little ball. She knew she’d ruined the romantic mood when she saw Hank and Travis’s intense expressions. “See? I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I thought the teasing about me was isolated to just that day I came by,” Travis said, stroking her knuckles.

“No. It continued until I moved out and went to college in Wyoming. It was the reason I didn’t come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas that year or the next. One time I could forgive them for, maybe even twice. I’m not that thin-skinned. But time after time? Hell no. Fuck them.” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry. Subs probably don’t talk to Doms like that, do they?”

Hank’s smile was reassuring. “Our sub does, whenever she needs to, as long as she is being respectful. I’d like to see you expressing yourself more instead of holding everything in. And, Nika, the last thing I think you are is thin-skinned.”

“Thank you.”

Travis brushed his lips against her cheek and said, “I hope I get to meet these family members of yours someday.”

“You don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“They’ll tell you all about me when I was growing up and ruin your impression of me.”

Hank held her jaw in his hand as he said, “There’s not a fucking thing they can tell me that would change my opinion of you, Veronica. We know Veronica the woman, someone they missed out on because they didn’t know how to nurture relationships.”

Holding on to both of them, she looked up at Hank and said, “I’m sorry I messed up our first night together.”

He smiled at her and said, “Nika, you didn’t mess up anything. I hate seeing you upset, but I also gained pleasure from being here to help you work through all of that. That’s what being a Dom means to me. It’s not only the sexual pleasure that satisfies me. It’s also seeing you get what you need emotionally that cranks my tractor.”

She giggled at his metaphor and said, “Are you still in the mood to make love to me?”

Chapter Ten

Hank couldn’t resist the invitation in her tearstained eyes. The Dom in him knew the emotional catharsis she’d gone through in retelling what had happened was good for her. But the pain in her eyes, from a source he couldn’t fix for her, had been a hard to watch.

Clinical curiosity might’ve been her motivation to learn more about domination and submission, but Hank believed that her soul was crying out for it. She needed it as a means to work through some of her issues from her early life, pain and scarring that she’d sealed herself off from because she didn’t have a way to deal with it.

She stretched her arms out and smiled up at him. “I’m at your mercy, Hank.” The tension was gone from her and it showed in her face, which was no longer flushed and tense. Her full lips were slightly swollen and warm as he brushed his against hers.

“It’d please me if we left your legs bound, but I want your arms around me.” She obviously wanted to make him happy by volunteering to be bound again but he was more concerned with her having an anchor to hold on to. She’d had enough catharsis for one night. That didn’t mean that he didn’t plan to make love to her, though. His cock ached to be inside her, once he was sure she was really ready to move on.

She wiped the vestiges of tears from her face and nodded, her lips still trembling and her breathing a little shaky. “Sorry I let all of that get to me.”

“Never apologize for facing your issues. I’m glad we were here with you,” Travis murmured as he returned to the bed after disposing of his condom.

Hank quickly sheathed his cock while she watched him, her eyes growing rounder as he worked the latex condom onto his sizable girth. He grinned as he positioned himself in the cradle of her hips, rubbing his length against her hot, moist flesh and she jerked her legs as though she was trying to wrap them around his waist. She moaned softly and rubbed her mound against him. Bondage was her hot button. The first of many he hoped to find.

Reaching down, he lifted her hips gently, tugging until her legs were taut and spread-eagled, bound in the satin sashes he’d brought in his toy bag. With a simple knot she was bound, and with an easy tug, he could set her free. It was a good way to start with a novice.

Her eyes glittered with lust as she looked up at him and he watched her face as he brought the crown of his cock to her hot, wet pussy. She trapped her lip between her teeth and her eyes rolled back a little when he teased her as Travis had, sliding in the barest inch and pulling out. Watching her face, it was easy to see she was transported as she whispered, “Oh, yes.”

Bracing on an elbow, Hank slid his palm over her breast, squeezing gently and rolling her nipple with the side of his thumb before taking the hard peak in his mouth and sucking on it. She went limp, her head lolling back on the pillows and her heartbeat pounding against his temple as he tongued her. He held the reins of his self-control tightly, resisting the urge to rush, to thrust deep and finally feel the hot, tight squeeze of her cunt around his cock. He knew once he did, he’d not be able to slow down, and she needed time to adjust. He didn’t want her sore from rough handling, at least not too sore. He was Dom enough to admit to himself he wanted her to be reminded every time she moved that she’d had them both inside her tonight. He wanted to claim her, too. Claim her as his—theirs—so everyone would know it, but that was still only a fantasy.

Speaking of fantasies…

He laid a trail of kisses to her throat and whispered, “Nika, I have you right where I want you. You can’t get away from what I’m about to give you. Mine to play with. Mine to take.” He continued thrusting in and out just that tiny bit, delighting in the needy sounds she was making. She spread her legs even wider for him, obviously trying to take him deeper as she wiggled and squirmed against him. Her arms were still outstretched on the bed, her hands grasping handfuls of the bedding. Her snug walls fluttered around the head of his cock, enticing him. He reached down to finger her clit and found it slippery and swollen. Stroking it made her writhe beneath him until she finally slid her arms around his shoulders and stroked his back.

“Please, Hank,” she whispered as she lifted her head and looked up at him. “I want you.”

The desire in her voice, her siren’s call, finally surpassed his ability to resist, and he laid his lips against hers as he gave her a solid thrust, careful not to force his cock too hard inside her at once. She moaned and gasped as she wiggled against him, her voice taking on a keening sound. “You’re so big.”

“Hold still, Nika. Let me do the work. Hold still and relax. Look at me.”

She obeyed and he could see the turmoil swirling in her brown eyes as he moved back and forth taking more with each stroke. “Oh…oh, Hank, I’m coming! I can’t stop!” she cried out as she tightened her arms around him and held on, digging her fingernails into his back. She writhed beneath him, her hot little cunt squeezing and stroking him, taking more of him as she arched against him, growing hotter and more slippery by the second.

He increased the intensity of his thrusts as she came back to earth and kept stroking her clit, intent on taking her with him as he came.

“I could slide inside you and stay for hours, Nika. You feel so good, so tight and wet.”

His control was nearing the snapping point and all he wanted was to go deep and hard, over and over, inside her, to revel in her sweet warmth until he fell asleep.

“Hank! Oh, Hank, I’m coming again! Oh yes!” He leaned into her torso a bit, pinioning her and pulling the bindings around her ankles taut, increasing the feeling of helplessness until her eyes flashed open, unfocused and ecstatic, and she screamed in pleasure. Her tugging, clenching contractions on his cock finally severed his grasp on self-control.

Her cries grew louder as he pinned her to the bed and fucked her until every inch of his thick cock was planted deep inside her. His cum spurted in hot jets and his balls felt like they imploded from the pressure.

“Nika! Yes!”

Her panting mingled with his as they tried to catch their breath. He chuckled when he lifted his chest off of her so she could breathe and she lifted up with him because she was still holding on so tightly. Travis nodded at him and tugged the tail of the simple knot he’d used to restrain her at each ankle and her legs automatically wrapped around his waist.

“You okay, Nika?” he asked as he rolled, taking her with him, his pulsing cock still deep inside her. He wished the condoms weren’t necessary so he could stay inside her all night. To wake up with her during the night, his dick once again hard inside her, and to fuck her some more.

“Don’t leave yet. Please,” she murmured against his chest, her voice soft and sleepy. She sounded so dazed and satisfied and he looked over her shoulder at Travis and caught his nod and smile. She was one of a kind.

Travis stroked her back, using a light, ticklish stroke, judging by her soft shudders of delight and the occasional moan or giggle. She reacted to his touch with gentle squeezes around his cock as well and he knew he needed to pull out before she succeeded in making him hard again. She wasn’t used to his size yet and her body needed a rest before she took him again.

“How long can you stay?”

Travis caught his eyes and Hank said, “I have to work in the morning but Travis is on vacation.”

Travis said, “I can make breakfast for you if you’d like, Nika.”

“’Kay,” she mumbled. “Hank?”

Hank kissed her forehead as he slowly slid his already semierect cock from her and said, “I can stay but I’ll have to leave pretty early.”

“I understand. I have to get up in a minute and get some writing done so I can say good-bye to you when you go. Right now I’m gonna rest my eyes for a minute.”

Both men chuckled as she drifted off, softly mumbling to herself about what she needed to do. Concerned for her, he gently rolled her to her back, and before he covered her up, he checked her pussy. He’d tried his best to be careful but she was pink and swollen, and definitely going to be sore in the morning. She moaned sexily when Hank caressed her pussy lips and her clit, and droplets of her cum seeped from her opening onto his fingers. Travis echoed the rumble in his chest as Hank slid his fingers over his tongue and tasted her sweet honey again.

Hank smiled at Travis in sympathy, noting that he was granite hard again simply from watching Hank check her. Hank chuckled softly and pointed at his rapidly enlarging dick. “You’re on your own there, Fishcop.”

Travis flipped him the bird and grinned as he arranged a pillow and got comfortable with her while Hank went in the bathroom to ditch the condom. He stopped and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.

He saw this same face every morning when he shaved. Saw the silver that was rapidly gaining real estate at his temples, the most obvious sign that he was no longer a young buck in his prime. But what he saw in the gray eyes staring back at him got his attention. A fire burned there he hadn’t seen in a while. He might have snow on the roof before long but the fire in the furnace was burning bright as ever.

* * * *

Travis got up when Hank did and put on a pot of coffee for the two of them. As he was sitting at the table with him while they waited for the coffee to finish brewing, Travis asked, “Sleep much?”

“Like the dead. It was nice having her cuddled up between us.”

That was the thought ricocheting around in Travis’s head during the night. He was a light sleeper and he’d been aware of both of them in the bed with him, but especially Veronica. He’d had a hard time not reaching out and touching her to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He’d contented himself with burying his nose in her hair so he could breathe her in. “I could get used to sleeping with her every night.”

Hank ran his fingers through his hair and smiled. “Me, too. She’s really something.”

“I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t think I want her to go back to Montana either.”

“That’s not up to us.”

“I know. I also don’t want her to wake up one morning and think she’s bitten off more than she can chew with us and wind up hightailing it out of here.”

Hank nodded. “Seems like we all have irons in the fire that need tending. See what comes of your meeting later this week. I have a decision to make about running for another term. Let’s take it one day at a time and not push too hard. At least she’s staying for a bit longer.”

“Yeah, I’m glad Grandma Kate is, too. She’s a character. If she stays, Veronica is more likely to stay.”

“True,” Hank murmured as he got up and poured a mug of coffee for each of them and returned to the table. “After hearing what she told us last night, I’m inclined to think that family doesn’t mean the same thing to the Montana Benedicts as it does to the Lusty Benedicts. I can’t picture any of the men I’ve met who are from Lusty tolerating that kind of nonsense in their families. Just so you know, I’m going to sit down with Ace and Kemp at lunch today about those online chats.”