What Happens After Dark (6 page)

His breath ruffled the hair at her ear. Through the thin curtains, the light pink of sunrise pushed back against the bedroom’s shadows.

She’d never thought of telling him she cooked. Because she lived alone, most people thought she didn’t cook for herself. Even her mother asked her if she ate ramen out of a cup for dinner. She wondered at the other things she could do for Luke, things that would make her special to him.

His hand suddenly slid up her abdomen to cup her breast. A thumb flicked her nipple. Then he pinched her. Bree sighed. She didn’t have incredibly sensitive nipples. But when he pinched hard enough, she could feel it all the way down to her belly.

Maybe he’d like her to get breast enhancements. She had a bit of money in the bank, and she didn’t think it cost as much as it used to. “Do you wish my breasts were bigger?”

He was silent a long moment, his hand unmoving on her, then finally he ran his fingers in a circle around her breast. “You’re perfect.”

Like her cocksucking and her cooking.

“Don’t change yourself. I want a real woman.” He slipped down to palm her pussy. He’d made her sleep naked, and she was already wet. His morning woody throbbed at the base of her spine. “I want everything to be real.

She knew he meant her orgasms. “What do you want me to do to you this morning?” she whispered, her gaze on the sun rising outside the window.

“Spread your legs and masturbate for me. I want to watch.”

Masturbation was dirty and naughty, and Luke loved watching. He made her feel beautiful and precious when he watched her.

They shifted almost synchronously in the bed as Luke threw back the covers. His cock, turgid, cast a long shadow. He stroked himself as she spread her legs and tunneled down to her pussy, finding her clit and circling.

“I can see how wet you are.”

“It’s too dark,” she murmured, her body already starting to move against her fingers, an unconscious matching of rhythms. She could come easily this way for him, without guilt, because he wasn’t touching her.

“There’s enough light. I love the way you masturbate. Close your eyes and pretend I’m not here.”

She obeyed, feeling the shift on the mattress as he propped himself on an elbow. Then she slid a finger straight into her channel, gathering her moisture and moving back to her clit. “I’m such a dirty slut,” she said, willing him to pick up on her needs.

“You’re a filthy slut, and I have a fantasy that will show just how much of a slut you are,” he whispered as if he were part of a dream. “I will take you to a club, lay you down on a clean bed, and have you masturbate for strangers. So they’ll all see what a slut you are.”

She felt something cut loose inside her with his words, his desire. She was suddenly a thousand feet higher on the precipice, her breath puffing through her lips.

“You want to do it because you’re a dirty bitch. I need to see how hard my filthy slut will make them. I want them to salivate for a taste of your pretty, naughty cunt, knowing that you’re mine and they can never have you.”

The names he called her were like endearments, and she moaned to the vision he created. All those men craving her, touching themselves because they wanted her so badly. She thrashed her head on the pillow, his words surrounding her like a chant.

“They will beg me to let them fuck my little whore. I want to know how much they’ll pay me to let them have you. Then I’ll slam them down, tell them you’re mine and they can never have you, not at any price. My slut isn’t for sale. She belongs to me alone.”

How did he do that, make her crazy? From anxious upon waking up with him in her bed to mindless with desire. He knew that she needed to be desired and special.

“They’ll try to fight me for you. But I’ll beat them back. Can you hear them, my sweet little whore?” he whispered his seduction.

She could. In that state, above herself, just a body, just sensation, wholly sexual, she could hear men clamoring for her.

“Fuck her, they beg. Let us see you fuck the bitch. And I’ll fuck you harder than I ever have while they watch.”

She was wet, her clit hard beneath her fingers, her heart racing in her chest. His fantasy, his story, his words went on and on. Her own touch made her fly higher with him, until she reached a pinnacle far above herself. She cried out, plunging into orgasm as if he’d actually entered her in front of a hundred men who desired her, who would pay a million dollars for just one night with her.

When she came back to herself, the room was almost light and tears streaked her temples.

Luke lay beside her, idly stroking his cock. “That was fucking hot,” he murmured, holding her with the magnetic pull of his gaze. “I want to do it.”

CHRIST. WATCHING HER MAKE HERSELF COME HAD BEEN A RELIGIOUS experience. He’d loved it almost as much as he loved the way she sucked him. Afterward, Luke had taken her into the bathroom, shoved her down in the tub as the showerhead shot water hard against her, hair streaming down her back, and forced her to suck his cock until he lost himself in the feel of her mouth.

She’d made him breakfast, French toast with powdered sugar and maple syrup, and now they sat at her kitchen table. “We’re going to spend the day together,” he said blithely. Step one, getting in her house, step two, forcing her to give him more time.

Her head snapped up as if he’d zapped her with a cattle prod. “I can’t.”

Such a quick denial. It hit him as if she’d denied everything they’d done in the last twelve hours. “I’m not asking you to play out the fantasy I made up while you were masturbating,” he said dryly, although the idea did appeal to him. “I’m merely ordering you to spend the day with me.”

He wasn’t a prude by any means. He’d had two lovers before his wife Beth, and though he’d never cheated while he was married, he’d done a lot in the five years since the divorce. A couple of years ago, he’d met a woman who loved it kinky, and she was totally into the club scene. She’d introduced him to it, and for a while he’d been like a kid in a toy store, trying everything. By the time he’d found Bree, his lady friend had moved on, and he was starting to lose his taste for clubs. The sex lacked any sort of emotional connection. But if he went back with Bree now . . .

Against the backdrop of her black hair, Bree’s skin was pale, almost ethereal in the morning light. “I’ll do that scenario if you want me to.”

It sounded as if she’d be happier granting his fantasy, masturbating for a bunch of horny men, than frittering away her day off with him. Then he almost laughed out loud. He sounded like a teenager who’d been tossed aside for the football hunk. Or a wife who had to deal with Sunday sporting events. He was becoming a bit of a pantywaist.

He guessed he’d been silent so long, she felt forced to add, “I have to see my parents.”

So her parents weren’t dead. The information felt almost like a victory. She’d revealed something of her own accord.

He grabbed on to the trophy and said, “I’ll grant you that. We’ll have our day together another time.”

She didn’t smile, didn’t acknowledge, but reiterated what she’d said earlier. “I will do that if you want.”

“What?” He’d make her repeat it, to state her intentions.

She watched him, streamers of sunlight falling across the table between them and reflecting back up to beam on her face. “Masturbate for you. In front of strangers.”

The fantasy set something ablaze inside him, and he’d certainly been hard as a rock while he’d watched her and made up the story. He imagined showing her off, but at the same time holding all the cards. It would be like laying claim to her. And having her accept that claim. It would be as good as having her fall asleep in his arms last night. A first. But this was still the strangest relationship he’d ever had.

“We’re not normal, you and I, are we.” He didn’t ask it as question.

Yet she answered. “No. We’re not.”

“Most men would hate for another man to see their woman.” He found the idea exciting, and his cock was hard again. He wanted her to lay in his arms, to make love with him, spend the night, yet he wouldn’t give up the other things they did, the cuffs, blindfolding her, slapping her ass. Most men wouldn’t like that either, but he wasn’t most men. She wasn’t most women. They sure as hell weren’t normal, but they were fucking good together.

“You want it, don’t you?” she said, fork aloft, the French toast going cold on her plate.

“I want Dickhead to see you’re mine.” Derek, the dickhead bruiser. But really it was every man out there who’d had her, every man who’d touched her and screwed her over.

“I’d like that,” she whispered.

He felt the tightness of need in his chest. If any man had tried to exercise such power over one of his daughters, he’d have beaten the guy to a bloody pulp. But for Bree, for him, this was right. This was some strange step forward for them. “Someday,” he said. It was a promise of so many things to come.

She put her fork down and gave up all pretense of finishing her breakfast. “I don’t know how often I’ll be able to take care of your needs over the next few weeks.”

She’d let him into her house, into her bed, allowed him to spend the night, and now she was backing off again? As if saying she’d do things for him at a sex club was like a bone she’d thrown him before she slammed him down. “Here I was thinking we were mutually meeting each other’s needs.” He heard the acid in his tone.

She stared at her plate, her lips pursed, her hair falling forward to cast a shadow over one side of her face. “I have to move in with my parents over in Saratoga.”

He was an ass for the relief he felt that she wasn’t going beyond his reach. “Is something wrong? Are you having financial problems?” Without question, he would help.

She shook her head, breathed deeply and exhaled, not with a sigh but as if the air fortified her. “My father’s ill.”

Her words sent a chill across his skin. He was always misinterpreting her, but then he knew so little about her that he couldn’t make accurate assessments. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s dying.” She spoke to her plate.

Luke wanted to touch her, hold her hand, give her his warmth, yet in that moment, she was further away than ever. Still, she’d told him, and that meant a measure of closeness. “I’m a phone call away when you need me,” he told her.

For the first time, she looked up at him, her gaze stark, pained. “I don’t want to go, Luke.”

Something trembled inside him. He rose, rounded the table, hunkered down by the side of her chair and put his hand on her thigh. “No one wants to face losing their parents.” He had lost his. He understood.

The next breath Bree took was shaky. “Do you think I’m an awful person?”

“No,” he murmured soothingly. “I don’t.” He suddenly had a glimmer of why she’d called him yesterday. She needed him; he was her panacea, and that touched him deeply. “I’m here, baby.”

She rolled her lips between her teeth, held them a long moment. “What if I call you up in the middle of the night for phone sex?”

“That will be fucking hot.” He had the sense to realize that the phone sex would be less about sex and more about comfort.

“What if I say I need to see you and suck you and nothing else?”

He smiled. “That won’t be a problem.” Though true, he’d made it a problem in the past, wanting more. “Suck me anytime.”

She laughed, choked it off. “I just don’t feel right about anything.”

He soothed her with a hand down her arm. “That’s normal.”

She snorted, a touch of derision mixed with pain. “I am so not normal.”

He wanted to pull her down into his arms and tell her he didn’t care about
normal
. He didn’t know what stopped him except that she had never wanted coddling from him. He felt like an ass for pushing so hard for what
he
wanted when she was going through such a painful time. But then she hadn’t given him a clue. “Screw normal,” he offered. “We just decided we’re great at not being normal.”

“Sex with you makes me feel better,” she said, her gaze once again on the table in front of her.

She was trying to explain herself to him. She’d never done that before. She could be seductive and manipulative even as she was submissive. He always had to read between the lines. Now, she was trying to communicate how she felt. They never called what they did
making love
, but she was acknowledging the importance of what he gave her.

“Sex makes me feel better, too,” he said, as if somehow he was validating her. It was the oddest conversation, saying little, yet holding so much meaning.
This
was intimacy. “We’ll do quickies at lunch, too.”

She laughed, sniffed. “I should have thought of that.”

“Yes, definitely. You’ll suck me in my office.” There were all sorts of possibilities he hadn’t considered before.

“We could get caught.” She smiled, put her hand on top of his as it rested on her thigh.

He felt her mood rising. “I have a lock on my door.”

She squeezed his hand. “It would be kinkier to do it with the door unlocked.”

Kinkier. And riskier. Yeah. Perfect. She was giving him so much more than she’d ever offered before.
More
than sex. Finally, here was something he could actually
do
for her; offer his shoulder, his strength, his comfort. And a little cocksucking, too.

 

 

BREE FELT LIKE SHE’D ENTERED A DUNGEON. EVERYTHING WAS SO dark. Her parents’ house had been built in the late sixties. It was a T-shape, with living room, dining room, breakfast nook and kitchen facing the street, and the bedrooms and den along the center part of the T. Though her mother kept the house meticulously clean, dark paneling still covered its walls and the faux-brick kitchen linoleum went too well with the root beer appliances. Bree hated this house, hated its reminders. When would they break down and update, for God’s sake? At least if it was modernized, it wouldn’t carry such a punch every time she walked in the door.