How Cassie Got Her Grind Back (23 page)

She tried to turn to him, opening her mouth for a kiss, but he clutched her hair and turned her head away, not giving her what she wanted, and nipped her again. Not yet. She squeaked, and when he checked the mirror, her full lips were parted in pleasure and her eyes heavy lidded and unfocused. Need sank its teeth into him, the lust riding him insistently. She attempted to turn to him again, and he allowed her a few inches, wrapping his hand around her breast again, kneading her as he nosed her hair aside and kissed and nibbled at her other shoulder.

Her breathing changed, growing more erratic as he thumbed her nipple harder and then slid his hand in a slow trail down her abdomen. He gathered the hem of her top, and she keened softly when his fingertips made contact with the bare, hot skin above her waistband and he dipped beneath the denim.

“Ivan, oh my…oh, baby!” she yelped. “I’m so…”

“Tell me how it feels. Are you ready to come? Want me to touch you, feel how fucking hot you are right now?”

“Y-yes!”

“Let me give it to you, love,” he murmured as he released her wrists and wrapped his arm around her front, holding her trembling body to him, ignoring his trapped and throbbing dick as he skimmed his fingertips down the satiny flesh beneath her panties. Her curls were drenched, and he groaned deep when he encountered her delicate outer lips and his fingers slid into the sweetest, slickest pathway to Heaven he’d ever felt. She stopped moving, stopped breathing as he fingered her swollen clit and stroked up and down while sliding his middle finger to her opening and sinking to the first knuckle.

He looked up to the mirror as she drew in a deep breath and her swollen, silken flesh grew firmer around his digit. She held on to his arm with one hand, and her expression lit with rapture so glorious she seemed to glow with it. The trembling started deep in her core, rippling around his finger, and spread outward in a flash as her orgasm crested.

“Yes! I’m coming!” Her head fell back onto his chest, and she ground her drenched pussy against his hand and his fingers, flattening her other hand over his on the outside of her jeans, as if to hold him there until she was finished. He wouldn’t let her go until she made him.

“Take what you need. I’ve got you, baby.”

Her breathing grew shaky again as she relaxed, and he reluctantly slid his hand from her silken flesh. This time he let her turn to him, and he held her, still swaying. Her knees buckled, and he smiled as he whispered, “I still got you. It’s okay.”

She melted against him, curling her arms between them and letting him hold on to her. He’d never felt stronger. Felt as though this was right where he needed to be. And when she looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes still filled with such rapture, he wanted to pound his chest.

He didn’t do that, but he did lift her into his arms. Amused by her little squeak of surprise, he carried her down the hall to her bedroom. “Time for bed, love.”

In the bedroom, her hands shook as she held on to his forearms while he unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her hips. “Are you tired?” she asked in a dazed voice.

“No, I’m hungry,” he replied as he lifted the hem of her top. “Raise your arms.”

“Hungry?” She blinked at him.

“For you,” he replied, smiling at her sated confusion. He pulled back her dark blue comforter and the top sheet. “In you go.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Not until I see you.” She tugged the tail of his shirt from his slacks and then giggled as her hands shook while she tried to unbuckle his belt. He finally stopped her to remove his boots.

When he looked up, she seemed suddenly more self-conscious, and the gorgeous, dazed look had receded from her eyes. She placed a forearm across her chest.

We can’t be having that, love.

He sat on the bed, his shirt half untucked and his belt undone and zipper down, and pulled her between his thighs. “Are you okay?”

She looked down at the bulge in his slacks. “Are you?”

“Don’t worry about me right now. If you’re tired, I understand and I’ll let you sleep, after all you had a rough day, but I don’t want to be done. What happened earlier was just the beginning of what I want tonight, for you, and for me.”

“What can I do?” she asked, hesitating before kneeling and reaching for the plackets of his pants. “I can…”

He stopped her hands. “You can do anything you want, love. I’m all yours. But right now, I want to bury my face between your thighs and not come up for at least an hour.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, you’re not serious.” The doubt in her eyes told him she was.

“I’m completely serious. Yes, I’m hard as a rock, and it’s damned uncomfortable. I could probably fuck you into next week with what’s going on in my boxers, but that’s not what I want to give to you. I want you to know what it’s like to be with a man who is okay with giving to his woman. Giving and giving until she understands that it’s okay to take occasionally. I want you to take from me tonight.”

“But Samson…” The worry was obvious in her eyes.

“He would tell you the same thing, and might even be a bit pushier about it than I am. You seem nervous all of a sudden. I don’t want you to be, and neither would he. Lie on the bed,” he whispered, taking action because words were getting them nowhere. “I want to see you. I want to taste you.”

“But, Ivan…” She seemed to want to argue but then turned to do as he asked. “Really?” she asked, looking back at him with the gentle arch of her dark brows furrowed in confusion. “You want
that
? You’re not just saying it so you can…”

“So I can what?”

“You know,” she said, attempting to hide a smile. “You want to come too, I’m sure.”

Ivan laughed out loud. “Very much, love, but not as much as I want to know what you taste like, how hot you feel under my hands, and how tender and succulent your sweet pussy is as you come against my tongue.”

“Maybe I should take a quick shower.”

“Maybe you should trust your man.”

She gazed down at him for long seconds, warring with her own self-consciousness, most likely, and then gave a slight nod. Her breathing increased, and he reached behind her to unhook her bra. She stopped him. “Remember what we talked about, Ivan. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“I’ll only be disappointed if you won’t let me get you naked so I can feast on all your sweet flesh. Cassie”—he captured her chin so she would look into his eyes—“I’m not perfect either. My six-pack has been in hiding for years, though it’s still in there.”

Her hands eased their grasp on his as she giggled. “Okay, but you were warned.”

“Noted,” he growled as he slid the straps of her bra down her arms and inhaled as her bountiful breasts were released. He couldn’t understand why she worried so much. She was perfectly shaped, two lush teardrop globes filling his hands to just barely overflowing, with lovely, dark rose nipples peeking out and growing even tighter under his gaze.

* * * *

“Sir, please stay on the line with me. Help is on the way right now,” Samson said, listening to the background noise over the line as he talked with his most recent emergency caller.

It was times like this when Samson was thankful for having experience in law enforcement and military service. It helped him to maintain a calm and passive-
seeming
reserve. The man on the other end of his call was his next-door neighbor. He was so worried about his wife he hadn’t recognized Samson’s voice, but Samson had recognized Mr. Tarrington’s the moment the call came through, even before he identified himself.

“What? Yes, yes, I’m listening.”

“Mr. Tarrington, can the EMTs get into your house? Is the door unlocked?”

“Oh no, I never leave the door unlocked, sir. Too dangerous with my Sunny at home alone while I work.”

“Would you mind unlocking it? Can you leave her side for just a moment so they can get to her?”

“Of course,” he said before changing his tone and whispering, “Dove, I’ll be right back. Don’t you go
anywhere
.” His wavering tone held a gentle warning. His elderly neighbor had called in a minute before, saying his wife had collapsed on their living room floor. He’d already dispatched paramedics after determining no other emergency services were needed.

Samson was encouraged when he heard the soft female voice on the line. “Not on my life, handsome.”

Moments later, Mr. Tarrington picked his landline receiver back up and said, “All right. Doors unlocked now. Dove, how do you feel?”

Samson listened as she replied softly and nodded at one of his fellow workers when they motioned, asking if he was still on his call. “Sir, how are you feeling?” He needed to help Mr. Tarrington stay calm until help arrived.

“Oh, I’m fit as a fiddle, under the circumstances, sir. Name’s Casper, and my wife’s name is Sunny. She’s my sunshine. I just call her dove because of her lovely dove-gray eyes.” Samson smiled, hearing the timbre of love in Casper’s cracking voice.

“How’s Sunny doing, Casper? Is she awake?”

“Yes, sir. She’s got a cut on her forearm and a lump on her forehead. Sunny, that’s going to leave a bruise, I bet, but you’ll be fine, won’t you?”

A soft voice replied, but Samson couldn’t understand her. It might help for the EMTs who were en route to have possible causes for her fall, and Samson got his attention again, “Casper, may I speak with Sunny?”

“You sure can. Hang on just a minute.” There was a rustling as he put the phone down and the sound of Casper’s voice. “I got you, dove. You’re safe. The 911 operator wants to talk to you. Here you go.”

Sunny’s familiar voice, laced with a proper English accent, came on the line. “Hello?” Samson quickly introduced himself and grinned when she cut him off. “Samson? Is that you, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s me.”

He smiled at her pleasantries and, as she told Casper who he’d been talking to, noting she was able to communicate clearly. Before they could go off on a tangent about the smallness of the world, Samson said, “Mrs. Tarrington, your husband tells me you fell. Where are you now?”

“Well, that’s true enough,” she said with a chuckle. “I believe I tripped on the Oriental rug in the living room. I’ve been meaning to replace the thing. It has a rumpled edge, and I must’ve tripped on it while bringing Casper his hot Dr. Pepper. My head aches terribly from where I hit it on the floor, and I’m a bit embarrassed and flustered, but otherwise I think I’ll be fine. Now, Casper, don’t fuss. It’s just a scratch.”

While typing the information she’d given him, Samson said, “Sunny, are you still on the floor, or have you tried to move?”

She chuckled. “Oh no, that’s impossible at the moment.”

“Not possible?”

“No, not with my husband down on the floor, cradling me in his lap. You’d think I was dying or something. Silly man,” she added with a raspy chuckle. “I already told you I asked God for at least another fifty years with you.”

Casper’s muffled rasp came over the line. “I value every single day, dove.”

“The Almighty wouldn’t bring me through the London Blitz, and you through Omaha Beach, just to have me ‘kick it’ on our living room floor, now would He, darling?” The only response Samson could make out was a rumbling chuckle.

Still multi-tasking, to share information with the EMTs and for his report, Samson asked, “Sunny, have you experienced any lightheadedness or weakness on one side recently? Chest pains?”

“Well, once you get to my age, dear, you expect…” The phone clattered.

“Dove?” Casper asked, his voice wavering. “Open your eyes, dove.”

Samson called out to Mr. Tarrington and then looked over to his coworker, who was conversing on the two-way radio and said, “She may have lost consciousness.”

There was a flurry of back-and-forth conversation, and before the coworker could fill him in, Mr. Tarrington said, “Samson, I think Sunny has fainted. Are they coming?” Samson’s heart went out to him, hearing the panic in his voice. “I can’t lose her. She’s my whole world.”

The coworker waved at him and said, “They’re pulling up in front of the apartment building right now.”

“Casper, the paramedics should be coming through your door any second. They’ll do everything they can for her.” He continued on, speaking in calming tones. It was vital to maintain an impersonal distance in order to avoid worsening the caller’s agitation or fear.

Because of his training, he’d become an expert at it. For the first time ever, the lost tone in his elderly neighbor’s voice sent a kernel of fear to his own heart. This was what it was like when a couple lived together for so many years. They were paired halves, lost without each other. If he’d had the privilege of the last thirty years with Cassie, he’d feel the same way. He wanted it still.

Upon hearing the sound of activity and other voices over the line, Samson said, “Casper, are the EMTs there?”

“Yes, they are. They’re listening to Sunny’s heart right now. I thank you, Samson, for your help and support. You’re a good neighbor. I’m hanging up now because the EMT tells me I can ride to the hospital in the ambulance with him. See you when you’re home next time.”

“Good enough, Casper. I know they’ll take good care of you. I hope you and Sunny have many more happy years together.”