Hard Man (2 page)

“Yes.”
Harry’s
mouth dropped down to her breasts and he tongued her nipples.

Ashbea’s
hands held his head close and she moaned softly as he sucked one then the other inside his mouth, pulling on each until her body was shaking from the sensation. Her body was on fire with need. An unknown man knew more about what she wanted than she did.

“Bumblebee?”
Harry asked when he finally lifted her head. “What do you need from me?”

“Cock, now.” Why lie? It was what she needed. It was what she had to have to fill the ache between her legs.

“Where?”

Ashbea
looked him in the eyes.
Dare I ask? Oh what the hell.
She was never going to see him again and the chances of a fantasy ever happening like this again in her life were limited.
“From behind…in my ass.”
She knew she was turning twelve shades of red and that somewhere a big, black mark was being struck through her name on the list of possible good girls bound for heaven but there it was. Warm temperatures suited her better anyway. Harry leaned in once more and kissed her hard. It was the kind of kiss that declared possession and the promise of more.

“Take off your panties.” Harry rummaged in his pocket for a condom. He saw her hesitate. “Do you want to be fucked in the ass?”

His words were so crude and yet
Ashbea
felt hotter hearing them. She wanted to be told what to do, to be made to do things she’d never done before. She lifted her skirt and hooked her finger under the side of the lace underwear she wore. She knew Harry was watching so she slid them slowly down her legs. And then she did something she had never contemplated doing in front of a man.
Ashbea
put one hand between her legs and stroked her clit. “I want to see your cock now.” This would never happen to her again and she was going to take advantage of the moment.
Ashbea
knew his eyes were on her pussy and that he would do anything to get inside.

“My, my, you are naughty.” Harry pulled his thick, erect cock out.

Ashbea
almost swallowed her tongue. This was the best fantasy of her life.
“Condom.”

“Here, you put it on.” Harry handed it to her.

Ashbea
had never actually done this before. She usually waited for the guy to do it. She pulled her hand up from between her legs and reached for his cock. She closed her eyes momentarily as she imagined the hard heat of his shaft driving up inside her.

“Your hand is wet.”

“You made me like that.”
Ashbea
began rolling the rubber down his cock. The long thick vein that pulsed through the flesh made her
want
to stop and trace it from its point of origin up.

“I think you’d better hurry, bumblebee.”

“A bit needy, Harry boy?”
She refrained from following her desire and continued at her task.

“I need to fuck your ass.”

Ashbea
jumped at the sound of his words. She pulled the last piece of latex in place. She looked up at him wondering what to do next. Fantasy was one thing but she had never dreamed the whole scenario before. “Um…”
What do I do now?

“Turn around.” Harry waited until she was facing the door. He moved in, his cock probing between the cheeks of her ass. “Ever been ass fucked?”

“No, but—”

“You wanted to be.” His hands massaged her butt. “You have a great ass.”

What did she say?
Thank you? Do you think so? Are you blind and cannot see the cellulite?
She felt Harry pull away from her suddenly. “Where are you going?”

“I’m thinking I’m going to have to improvise here.”

“Huh?”

“Fear not, bumblebee. I’m trying to think how to make this the least painful on you.”

Right.
Ashbea
hadn’t thought about that. Large cock meets small hole. Comfortable was the difference between sitting down and standing up at the dinner table and not having to explain to people why her ass was sore. Telling them it had been pounded by a cock was not polite table conversation.

“Ah, perfect,” Harry declared as he came back toward her.

Ashbea
turned her head and laughed. “That’s foot cream.”

Harry nodded and flicked the cap off the tube.
“I know, I need lubricant.”

Princess Mitzi shoes had sent boxes of it down for the convention. Their logo was on the side.
Ashbea
could just imagine Mitzi’s wailings if she knew what Harry was going to use it for. “He did what with it? That’s not a foot!” No, it most definitely wasn’t. “Can I do that?” She licked her lips and watched as he slathered the cream over his rubber-covered cock.

“If you touch me now I will explode. Now face the door and spread those lovely legs.”

When he came to her, Harry gently pushed her back against the door with his body.
Ashbea
jumped as he squirted some of the lotion inside her anus. One, then two of his fingers soon followed. “Oh…” She whimpered and closed her eyes. It was a strange feeling yet not unpleasant. Harry was gentle yet firm as he pushed his fingers in and out of her ass.

“Okay?” he whispered against her ear as he slipped a third one inside.

When his lips grazed her neck, placing light kisses,
Ashbea
sighed. When his other hand snaked between her legs and found her clit, she shrieked.

“Does it feel good, bumblebee?”

“Unbelievable.”
Dear Diary, I had the most amazing day…

“Better than you imagined?” His fingers did not stop moving.

Ashbea
started to pant. Two sets of fingers were pushing her toward orgasm. The only problem was she wanted cock and not digits doing the work. “I need you inside.”

“Hmmm?”

“I need your cock now.” Suddenly the fingers in her ass were out but those at her clit remained. “Harry?”

“Yes, bumblebee?”

“Please.”

“My pleasure.”

Ashbea
clutched at the door as the head of his cock pushed into the tight ring of her anus. Three fingers did not even come close to a full cock. “Um, Harry, is this going to work?”

“Oh yeah, just relax.” He put his free hand around her waist and held her tight as he surged forward.

It was painful but it wasn’t.
The more of his cock that pushed inside the more she wanted.
What does that make me? Oh who cares?
“I need more.”

The man behind her chuckled.
“Whatever you need.”
Harry pushed the last couple of inches inside her then stopped.

“Bloody hell.”
His balls rested against her ass and his chest was plastered against her back.
Ashbea
felt so tight and full and incredibly sexy.
This man was all the way inside her because she asked him to do exactly this.

“You need to move.”

“Am I hurting you?” Harry started to withdraw.

“Leave me now and I will howl this room down. Now move.”

Harry laughed and slapped her ass. “Yes ma’am.”

“Do that again.” The sting of his hand made her whole body tingle. She moaned when he delivered two more blows. And then he started moving and
Ashbea
held her breath as the most exquisite sensations spiraled up her spine. His slow, deep, lazy thrusts and the fingers on her clit were teasing yet deliberate and
Ashbea
never wanted it to stop.

“I don’t care if we can only go into the goodies room between two and four in the afternoon,” a loud, drunken voice declared as someone banged on the door. “I want in now.”

“You’ll get in trouble,” another equally drunken voice announced.

“Oh great,”
Ashbea
muttered, noticing that the outsiders were not slowing Harry down one little bit. In fact he had sped up.

“Ignore them,” he told her, as he kissed her shoulders.

“I’m going in,” Drunk Number One barked out.

“Me too then,” responded Drunk Number Two.

Two sets of hands pushed at the door. “Intruder alert. You are being photographed,”
Ashbea
droned out in the most officious voice she had. “Move back from the door and be on your way.” A sober person wouldn’t have bought it but a drunk might just be dumb enough to believe it.

“Did you hear that?”

“Must be like a warning alarm they have. Maybe we should come back tomorrow.” The voices walked off.

“Atta girl.”
Harry pulled out and slammed back in again.

Ashbea
jumped, screaming, and slammed her foot down on the floor, making the heel shatter. Her whole body was shaking as a wild surge of heat shot through her. She would have fallen if Harry had not been holding her up.
Ashbea
gave a low keening wail as the every thrust from Harry intensified the feeling. “Oh Harry…” she moaned as his last thrust pushed her over the edge and she slumped against the door.

Harry held on to her, his body jerking and shaking as his own release hit.

“Damn shame we’ll never see each other again,”
Ashbea
said as they both came back to earth.

“Oh, you never know,” Harry mumbled quietly.

Chapter Two

“You broke a heel?” Mitzi screeched as she glared at
Ashbea
. They were in one of the side rooms of the hotel trade center. It was on the second floor. There were a dozen rooms in a ring around the main convention area. Princess Mitzi shoes, like the rest of the companies, had been allocated a small office space and another room for their goods.

Ashbea
narrowed her eyes at the mousy Ida.
Jeez, get a life, will you?
Like I need this now.
Ashbea
had spent all last night tossing and turning and thinking about Harry. She still burned from his touch. That the sex had been fantastic was not the issue. That she had given in to a fantasy and allowed a stranger to have her was. Oh sure,
Ashbea
knew his name and that he was the manager of the center at the hotel but that was it. She also knew that Harry was polite. He had escorted her to her room afterward and taken her confused dismissal at the door calmly.
Polite and hot.
Was that an acceptable enough reason to have sex with someone?
Not that I am seeing him again anyway…

“Miss Marx has a right to know.”

Mitzi threw up her hands and started pacing back and forth, her six-inch heels clacking on the polished wooden floor. “I didn’t bring you down here to break all my shoes and ruin everything.”

And so it starts.
Break all her shoes? Mitzi was the world’s biggest drama queen.
Ashbea
defied anyone else to try to take that title from her. Only Mitzi could make one broken heel sound like the collapse of a business empire.
Ashbea
stood quietly, thinking of her mortgage and the bills awaiting her back home in Brisbane, as Mitzi yelled and flounced as only she could. It was quite an event to see Mitzi in full-blown hysteria. Anything could set her off—pink iced donuts in the office when she wanted lemon, the coffee machine being too loud and the elevator going too fast, or the staff wearing stripes. Mitzi hated stripes. But worst of all was a broken fingernail. She would be prostrate with grief for days.

Mitzi was the spoiled only child of a couple of corporate high fliers who bled their respective companies dry before retiring on massive payouts and annuities. There was nothing that they wouldn’t do for their daughter and Mitzi knew it. Problem was Mitzi hadn’t worked out, even at thirty-seven years of age, that others didn’t feel the same way. They saw the carefully maintained blonde Barbie look-alike, whose signature color was all things yellow, as a joke.

At five years her junior,
Ashbea
knew there was no point arguing with her employer and that eventually the woman would storm off declaring
Ashbea
and everyone else who even glanced sideways in her direction were fired, only to be yelling at them five minutes later for not working hard enough. It was what Mitzi did. She was never responsible for anything in her life. Her failed marriages—four of them—and her liquidated businesses—six of those—were always someone else’s fault.

“Listen, Amy, you need to get your act together and be professional or I will pack you off back to Brisbane.”

And that was another thing. Mitzi never bothered to learn people’s names, except that of Ida but then Ida was like a well-trained dog that comes running when called. The other Princess Mitzi
staff were
not. They were aware of the nature of their employer and most had their own agendas and were just marking time at their jobs until something better came along.

“Ida.” Mitzi looked at her assistant.

“Yes, Miss Marx?”

Suck up.
Ashbea
rolled her eyes at the obsequious tone.
Send me home. Get me away from the canary yellow hell of this woman.
At least in the office they only sporadically saw Mitzi. Spending days with her was torture. Not to mention the Harry thing.
Ashbea
wasn’t sure if she should feel more ashamed or embarrassed at what she had done.
What if I see him? What do I do?
It was all very well telling herself she would never see him but life had a way of sneaking up on her when she least expected it.
Ashbea
knew she wasn’t sophisticated enough to handle the ramifications of a one-night stand without getting tongue-tied.

“Should I send Annie home?”

Ida shook her head. “Oh no, who would carry all the merchandise?”

“Well, you would,” Mitzi responded as if that was obvious. She turned to assess
Ashbea
. “Maybe I’ll keep her here. She does help us to sell our shoes to the chunkier woman.”

Chunkier?
“Now wait just a damn second—”

Mitzi ignored her. “I have one of my migraines coming on. Ida, follow me to my room in case I faint from exhaustion.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,”
Ashbea
mumbled as she watched them go.

* * * * *

“She’s a piece of work,” Harry commented as he also watched them leave. He had listened to the conversation with interest. Why? He wasn’t sure. Normally he didn’t care what other people did but this woman was different. Maybe it was the sex, maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was she had him thinking about possibilities he hadn’t thought of in a while.
And her employer?
What a nightmare of a woman. Harry had not actually met the diva, Princess Mitzi, but what his staff was telling him had made him want to come and check out the woman. At least that was the reason Harry was telling himself he was there.

Ashbea
turned on him, hands on her hips as she looked him up and down in anger. “So are you.”

Interesting.
The pink blush that rose to her cheeks was cute and her defensive stance told him a lot. “Who are you upset at, bumblebee?
Me or you or her?”
And why would I care when I haven’t cared in such a long time?
That he was even calling her by a nickname confused him. That suggested longevity in their relationship and that was the last thing he wanted.

Earlier that morning, Harry had woken up in the worst mood. His whole body was a mass of aches and pains. He had contemplated not going to the Shoe-Me convention. It was a pretty stupid one anyway. Fuck-me shoes?
Seriously?
While he loved women and all their crazy ideas he had never understood the need to perch on high heels to impress anyone. “I am damn sure a man wouldn’t do it for a woman.” He swallowed three more aspirins, not caring that it was too soon since the last lot he had taken. “But I am not like mere mortals.” Harry had stopped and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. The dark circles under his eyes reflected the pain that felt like crushed glass in his hip. “Or maybe I am.” He ran his hand through his hair as he thought about
Ashbea
. She had been had been an unexpected treat and Harry wasn’t sure how to deal with that. In the last twelve months, the few women he had been with had been for convenience only. He never allowed himself to remember any of them. It was ill-mannered and ungallant but he did what he did for his own emotional survival.

Harry looked at
Ashbea
. He knew she was anything but convenient. In some ways he wanted to believe he had dreamed what had happened between them last night. But standing there beside her, Harry knew
Ashbea
was real, beautifully real and that was the problem. He had no place in his life for a woman. Sure, sex was one thing but this woman had the look of forever about her.
And I don’t do that.
His accident had taught him one thing. Nothing is forever and women cannot be trusted. He had seen that with Caitlyn—the woman he thought was the love of his life—who had casually announced there was another man and she wanted her things back. Harry could still remember the coldness of her voice. It was as if after a year he meant nothing to her. And yes, it was not the smartest thing to drive away heart pounding with anger as his foot stomped on the accelerator but then love was often a thoughtless emotion.

The tree
Harry’s
car hit was solid and unyielding. Everyone had been amazed he had not been killed.
As was Harry.
At the time he wished he was dead. Caitlyn’s careless betrayal and the pain he had inflicted on himself tore into him. The only saving grace was that he had not injured another person with his stupid behavior. That he had loved Caitlyn still pained him. What an idiot he had been, but back then Harry had been the kind who believed in love and gave himself wholeheartedly. It was a foolish thing to do and maybe it was more his pride that was hurt and not his heart.
I no longer possess one of those. It is safer this way.

“Look, about yesterday, it meant nothing.” It was a sentence Harry used a lot. It was designed to piss any woman off from wanting to see him again.

Ashbea
narrowed her eyes on him.
“Oh what?
You’re not going to marry me after that one quick fuck? Jeez, I had a dress picked out and everything.”

The eye roll she favored him with almost made Harry smile.
Almost.
He had forgotten how to do that. But he wanted to laugh out loud.
Ashbea
looked as ridiculous as she did cute in the dreadful shoes she was swaying back and forth in. Harry could not help staring at her legs and remembering last night. She had thighs that made his cock ache with need.
And her ass…
Harry shifted position to relieve the tension in his groin.
I want to be inside there again.
“I never planned to take someone like you.” They were terrible words to say to anyone but he wanted
Ashbea
to be so offended that she backed off from him. However, seeing the angry fire leap into her eyes, Harry could see
Ashbea
was going to do anything but. His heart pounded with anticipation.
What will this one do?

“Like me?”
Ashbea
snapped out as she stood her ground.

“Yeah.”
Harry wanted her but he also needed her to leave. Since the accident he hadn’t had sex more than once with any woman. Having sex twice would be a complication he didn’t want to deal with.

“You make me sound like a mistake.”

“You were.” He had to end it for both of them. Harry was not a man any woman could pin her hopes on.

Ashbea
reeled backward at his hard words. She would have fallen if his hand had not shot out to grab her arm. “What the hell is your problem?” And if she was so horrible why didn’t he let her fall?

“You.”

Wow, he was to the point. “So walk away.”
Ashbea
never walked away from anything in her life, especially not an argument.

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You’re not wearing ugly shoes. You’re not going to fall on your ass.”
Ashbea
had thought with the amount of flab she had there it would have cushioned the pain but nope, it didn’t work that way. She noticed bony-assed, thin women in spiked heels never fell on their backside.
Must be a genetic thing.

“How is your ass?”

That was not a question she got asked every day but then Harry didn’t strike
Ashbea
as the “everyday” kind of guy. Was this even the same man she had been with in the goodies room? “Do you care?” On the whole it felt pretty damn good after the banging it got last night.
Not that I will ever tell you, you pompous twerp.

Harry raked a hand through his hair. “I was kind of rough last night and—”

And I liked it.
“I’m not made of spun sugar you know. I’m responsible for my actions be they a ‘mistake’ or not. I have to wonder though why you are here with me if you feel the way you do.”

“I came to check out your boss.”

“Well, bimbo brain is not here so there’s no reason to stay, is there?”

“Bimbo brain?”

“It’s a pet name.”
Ashbea
wanted him to leave. She told herself it was because he annoyed her but that wasn’t exactly the truth. The more he stood there looking at her the more she remembered what happened last night. It was giving her the thigh sweats. “Leave.”

“I was thinking about last night, bumblebee.”

Ashbea
held her hands up. “Don’t go there.”

“We were pretty good together.” Harry started to move toward her.

We were fantastic.
“We were okay.” If she backed away then he would know he had gotten to her.
Ashbea
couldn’t have that. She needed to be in control.

Harry had a skeptical look on his face.
“Just okay?”

“Yes.”
Ashbea
breathed deeply. The smell of him was making her heart pound in excitement. She had read somewhere that a woman always knew her mate by his smell.

“I could do better.”
Harry’s
hands settled on her shoulders.

Oh damn, he was touching her.
Ashbea’s
body heated up in response as she once more remembered his body plastered against hers as his hips thrust against her ass. “I do not believe that for a second.” Better would kill her. “I’m sure you have
work
to do.”

“Yeah.”
Harry didn’t move.

Ashbea
noticed that. She could have moved but her feet refused to budge and it had nothing to do with the light pressure of his hands on her shoulders. “Harry?”

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”
And why am I even asking when I want him gone?

“You and what other fantasies you have.”
Harry’s
eyes left
Ashbea’s
.

Oh
lordy
.
“I have none,” she lied to save her sanity. The man said she was a mistake. There was no point being with him again.
Unless I prove him wrong…

“Liar.”

Ashbea
jumped at the sound of that single word. “What? You want to sleep with a mistake?”

“No.” Harry pulled her close to his body. “I want to have sex with you, bumblebee.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Between her legs was wet just thinking about it.