That would probably have been a deterrent to a lot of guys. Her refusal to accept what was right in front of her. Her need to pretend that she wasn’t at least curious and at most enthralled with the notion of the two of them. There were plenty of women out there who didn’t need any convincing.
But unfortunately, ever since she’d gotten in his head, he didn’t want other women. He wanted this one, and she wanted him.
Maybe it was because his nature wouldn’t allow him to leave a gauntlet unretrieved on the ground between them. Maybe it was because he knew he had the key to unlocking something that had clearly been trapped in her for so long. Hell, maybe it was because she was so fucking beautiful and the thought of her on her knees in front of him, begging for more of whatever he had to give, made his cock hard enough to cut glass. Whatever the case, he sure as hell couldn’t bring himself to walk away.
Not yet.
His intent must have shown on his face because her self-satisfied smirk slid away, and her eyes went wide.
“Rafe, listen, I—”
“I think I’ve done enough listening,” he murmured, pressing closer until he could feel her breath on his jaw. “Now it’s your turn.” He cupped her hips and flipped her around roughly, pressing her into the hood of the car, using his thighs as leverage. He bent low, curling his body over hers until his mouth was a scant inch from her ear.
“Make no mistake,” he breathed, letting his lips brush the soft skin of her jaw, exulting in her full-body shudder. “I might not be in the market for love, but any woman who wants to sleep with me will absolutely and unequivocally be my woman in the bedroom. If she’s not? If she can’t trust me to give her everything she needs…everything she could possibly want? Then I’ve failed her.”
The breath sawed in and out of her lungs, but she didn’t struggle. In fact, she didn’t move at all. She seemed to be waiting for something. His pulse accelerated as he kneaded her hips gently. Then he felt it. Pressure against his groin as she flexed her ass ever so slightly back against him. His balls drew tight and his cock thickened.
She might be too stubborn to say it, but her body told him everything he needed to know. She wanted more, and far be it from him to deny her.
He flexed forward, grinding his erection against her bottom as his hands traveled up her rib cage to skate over the sides of her full breasts. He didn’t stop, lacing her fingers with his and dragging her hands up the hood of the car until they were high over her head.
She let out a catchy moan. “Rafe—”
It was scary, how bad he wanted her. Scary enough that he was starting to have second thoughts himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull the plug. She had to be the one to stop this, or there would be no stopping.
A warm summer breeze kicked up as he clamped his fingers tight around her wrists and pinned her to the hood with his hips, hard enough to make her gasp.
“Say the word, Court. Tell me no, and we both walk away, no harm, no foul.” He pressed his chest against her back until her torso and cheek were flush against the car and she let out a squeak. The blood rushed to his ears as a dozen scenarios ran through his head, each more erotic than the last.
“Tell me no,” he murmured against the soft shell of her ear, “and I won’t slide my hands up that little dress and work that pussy until you scream.”
Her legs began to tremble against his, but still she stayed silent. A roar of masculine satisfaction built in his chest, but he beat it back, intent on making sure he offered one final out before he allowed the shit to truly hit the fan.
“Last warning, cupcake.” He trailed his hand down her bare arm, snaking it between the hood and her breast, before teasing the pebbled nipple that jutted against his fingers. “Tell me no, or I’m going to make you come. And then when it’s over? I’ll do it again.”
Chapter Three
The silence remained, but this time it was filled with a promise, as clear and true as a song.
She wasn’t going to stop him.
Elation rolled through him like a drug, clouding his senses. He tugged the peak of her breast again then, hard enough that she felt it. She tensed and moaned, making it impossible to hear anything over the blood pounding in his ears. She might not know it yet, but she was ripe for this. For someone—no, not someone, he thought fiercely, for him—to teach her what her body already knew.
She craved it. The pleasure and the pain. The ability to give herself over completely.
Now if only he could impart her first lesson without coming in his pants, they’d be golden. He refused to think about tomorrow.
He wedged his knee between her thighs, spreading them wide enough that he could press his cock in the cleft between her ass cheeks. He thrust hard against her, letting her feel his need, before pulling back. With a deliberateness that had him shaking with the effort, he straightened and traced his hands down her sides until he reached her full hips again.
He loved that about her. She was fit for sure, but her curves were luscious; he couldn’t wait to get his hands on them. He stepped back and, with a flick of his wrists, he flipped up her skirt, baring her smooth, round ass cheeks to his hungry gaze, interrupted only by the peach lace thong nestled between them.
The red and blue flashing lights from his police siren dappled her ivory skin, and the urge to replace those marks with some of his own gripped him like a boa constrictor. If he was home, he’d use a mini-deerskin…start slow. Easy. Let her get used to the sting. Then he’d work his way up.
He traced the scrap of panties with his fingertips, lower and lower still until he reached her core. Fuck, she was soaked. He growled low in his throat and she let out a hiss as he stroked her, hard and deep, through the wet satin.
“That’s good, Court. Really good. Scoot up now, until your feet are off the ground.” It wasn’t a suggestion. In spite of his praise, his tone was all demand, and again, he waited with bated breath for her reaction, well aware that at any time, something could trigger her to call it quits.
She didn’t hesitate, shimmying forward, skin squeaking against the hood as she did his bidding. He dragged his gaze from her glorious ass because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself from freeing his cock from his pants and plunging into her until they both saw stars.
Instead, he took a long, slow breath and stared down at her. Ass up, lips parted, eyes squeezed closed as her fingers scrabbled at the gleaming silver of the hood while he stroked her hot slit.
“Please,” she whispered, her hips pulsing now, urging him to dip his fingers deeper. The motion brought the garter he’d placed high on her thigh into view and his stomach tightened. “I need—”
He sent one long digit past the soaked scrap between her thighs and thrust it into her. She bucked back against him, but it was the way that her walls gripped him so perfectly that made his balls ache with pressure to finish the deed. It was exactly that grinding need that made him pull back and return to low, teasing thrusts.
She protested, wriggling and making soft, pleading sounds in the back of her throat, but he didn’t give in. He couldn’t be trusted with her orgasms if he couldn’t manage his own.
“Rafe, I can’t wait.” She sounded close to tears and it jarred him from his thoughts. “Please, just…”
He didn’t waste time contemplating the hows or whys of it. Courtney had reached her tipping point. He was a hard man, but he wasn’t a monster.
He closed his fist around the offending scrap between them and yanked. Her panties came away with a snap, and he shoved them in his pocket before sliding his fingers back between her legs, coating them in her silky wetness. Calling on every ounce of restraint, he focused on her body’s response to his touch, adjusting the pressure, massaging her clit until she couldn’t keep from moving with him.
“I want you to come now, Court. Make it hard. Make it loud. Make it pretty for me.” He tucked one finger inside her, hard and deep, curling it until it butted against her G-spot with every thrust.
“Oh my God, Rafe, please, f—” She jammed her knuckles into her mouth and muttered incoherently as he worked his finger in and out, harder and faster. Her body quaked and shook.
“Move your hand. I want to hear you.” His words were clear but mustn’t have registered, so he repeated them with an accompanying firm slap on the ass to get her attention.
The crack resounded through the trees and echoed back. She froze, but not before shudders racked her from head to toe. He waited for a long moment, and his patience was rewarded as she flexed her ass up higher in the universal sign for “Please sir, can I have some more.”
Even the forest seemed to hold its breath as he raised his hand high, and sent it screaming down to connect with the smooth flesh of her ass a second time. Her juices soaked his hand and he thrust a second finger to join the first, plunging them deep and deeper still as a low, keening sound built in her throat. Then she exploded, her tight pussy clenching and releasing over his fingers as she screamed. His cock leaped, heaving against its confines with the need to join her, but he managed to regain his focus, working her through her climax, keeping his strokes long and steady until she finally stopped bucking.
The sounds of their combined harsh breathing reached his ears as she quieted and he slid his hand from her still-molten core. He hadn’t worked out any plan past this moment, and his brain had ceased to function due to lack of blood flow anywhere but south.
He patted her gently on the ass and stepped back, every nerve in his body straining against the need to finish it. To pound into her until he came so hard, he couldn’t see straight.
She stirred, slowly at first, then with clear intent, scrabbling backward toward him until her feet touched the ground. Eyes still glassy as she drifted downward, nearly to her knees.
It went against every instinct to stop her when he wanted nothing more than to let her take him in her mouth right now. But if they went further, it would be because she’d had the time and the mental awareness to think it through, not because she was still addled by their unquestionably mind-boggling chemistry. “No.”
She blinked up at him, seeming to come back into herself, and her cheeks reddened. “I want…”
He tugged her to her feet, wondering how much to say. He needn’t have worried because a shrill sound came from inside the car, saving him the immediate trouble.
“That’s…” She cleared her throat and tried again, righting her dress with a fluttering hand. “That’s my phone.”
She shouldered past him without meeting his gaze and yanked open the passenger’s-side door.
A second later, she answered the call with a shrill, “Hello?”
He adjusted himself in his pants, even the utilitarian touch adding to his ache, as she replied to the person on the other end of the line.
“Thank you so much, I’ll keep an eye out.” Her gratitude was so effusive, her body language so stiff and standoffish, he didn’t need her to tell him that her automotive guardian angel was on the way, and that she could hardly wait to be rescued from the big bad wolf now that she’d regained her senses. A pang of disappointment hit him harder than he was comfortable with.
She disconnected and squared her shoulders before facing him.
“Well, that was good timing, I guess.” It took him a second to get the words out past the thickness in his throat, and when he did, they were less casual-sounding than he’d hoped. In fact, he sounded like he’d swallowed a cactus.
Luckily—or not, depending on how he chose to look at it—she was too caught up in her own regret and desire to get rid of him to notice. “A minute sooner, and that would have been a damned shame.”
Although, he was still pretty pissed off that he’d been forced to break a promise. He’d told her he’d make her come and then come again. She wasn’t his woman, but if she was, that phone would’ve gone unanswered until he’d made good on his vow.
She looked away, giving him her profile in the moonlight. Her lips were swollen, probably from biting them, or maybe from her knuckles mashing the tender flesh against her teeth. Either way, he couldn’t take the credit no matter how much he wanted to. They’d never even kissed, a fact that annoyed him now as he stared at her.
Tousled honey curls and heaving breasts derailed his thoughts. The grinding need to press her to her knees into the soft grass and fuck that sweet mouth until he exploded against the back of her throat and she sucked him dry. His cock pulsed, and he felt a thick, salty tear escape the swollen head as he ran his still-damp index finger over her bottom lip.
“That”—he gestured to the hood of the car—“was beautiful. I don’t know why you’ve chosen to be without a man for so long, and I’m not going to ask you to tell me. But know this. We could be great together.”
He took a step forward and she took a step back, holding him off with a hand on his chest that would have been much more convincing if she hadn’t caressed his pectoral muscle for an instant before stilling.
“I’m not in a good place right now,” she admitted softly. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. I feel so lost. I can’t be in a relationship until I figure out how I went so wrong in the last one.”
He knew what it was to be lost. He’d felt that way since the day Monica died. The only difference between him and Courtney was that she wanted to be found again someday. Not him. He’d been in love before and knew one thing for sure. That would be the first and last time. Nothing was worth going through that kind of pain again.
He pushed away the bitter sadness that always came with thoughts of his past and focused on the now. “I don’t do relationships either, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to live like a priest.”
She shook her head slowly. “Don’t you feel bad doing that to the women you’re with?”
“Bad about what? A mutually pleasurable exchange? The rules are set out front so everybody’s eyes are open. I keep it to four scenes, max, with the understanding before we ever start that it will never be more. We’re all adults. I don’t see the victim here.”
Curiosity seemed to pull her from the melancholy and she blinked up at him. “Why four scenes?”
“Any more than that, things tend to get…sticky, no matter how clearly expectations are laid out.” It had taken him a few tries and one set of slashed tires to get the formula exactly right, but since then, his partners had been content, and so had he.
But right now, he was the furthest thing from content. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he needed to know that he’d be able to touch this woman again more than he needed air.
“I believe we can help each other, Courtney. You can help me get you out of my head, and I can help give you back your confidence, teach you to trust again, in the purest sense. That’s the beauty of a power exchange. It’s all about trust on both sides.”
He could see her wavering, taking his words in and letting them settle.
“A contract. Four scenes. Sex only.”
“It all seems so clinical,” she murmured, but she didn’t say no.
“Believe me, it will be anything but that. You want to trust yourself again? Start now. Go with your gut. I dare you.” He’d wondered if she’d been friends with Cat and Lacey long enough for the gravity of those three words to hit home, but her gasp answered his question. His crew took dares very seriously and so, apparently, did she. “Four scenes,” he pressed. “Me and you.”
She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.
“Don’t decide now. Think about it. The next time I see you, I’ll expect an answer. Know this, though. If you pass, I won’t ask again.”
The sound of an engine echoed, and lights flashed in the distance. The tow truck had made good time. Too good. He could sense her pulling away from him already.
Her now-focused hazel eyes were as pleading as her tone, and she backed away from him.
“You need to go now.” Her voice was muffled as she turned. “This was a mistake. That girl? That’s not me.”
He walked back to his car, her final words settling over him like dank smog. If they were true, it would’ve been a damned shame. Because that girl?
He’d walk through hell to have her in his bed.
Chapter Four
“So wait, first and most importantly, is it huge?”
Courtney couldn’t stop her crack of laughter as she met Cat’s lively green gaze in the bathroom mirror. The release of tension felt good. She’d been a walking ball of nerves for the past ten days, terrified of running into Rafe somewhere with no idea what she’d say to him when she did. Add to that a shit day at the hospital with her new boss, and a girl’s night out with Cat was exactly what she needed.
They’d been at Sully’s for less than an hour when a couple beers had loosened her tongue, and Cat had all but dragged her into the restroom to get the dirty details on Rafe.
“Well, spill it, woman!”
The apples of her cheeks grew pink and she shrugged. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see much of anything. I was…” She lowered her voice to whisper and peered around before continuing, “…facedown on the car most of the time the good stuff was happening.”
Cat’s delighted guffaw echoed through the room, and Courtney shushed her furiously.
“We’re the only ones here, doofus. So what’s this about facedown?” Cat swept a paper towel over the sink area to dry off a spot and hoisted her trim frame up to perch there, legs folded crisscross. “There is literally no possibility of you leaving this bathroom until you elaborate.” Her eyes narrowed as Courtney’s gaze flickered to the door. “You feeling froggy, then jump, but I’ll tell you right now, you’ll never make it. You’re in espadrilles, I’m in flat sandals. I’ll take you down like a fucking gazelle if I have to.”
Courtney didn’t doubt it, but she was still weighing her options, unsure whether reliving the encounter out loud would be more or less painful than the gazelle thing, when a knock sounded at the door.
“Someone in there?” a high-pitched voice called.
The relief must have been evident on her face because Cat slashed her hand across her own throat in warning before calling back, “Yes. And sorry, it’s going to be a while. Bad Thai food.” She added a long, loud groan for good measure. “There’s another single-stall bathroom behind the dance floor.”
Her declaration was met with silence and then the retreating clickety-click of heels on hardwood. After a few seconds, she beckoned Courtney with a hand before propping her chin on her fists like a child waiting for a bedtime story. “Continue.”
Courtney sank into the tiny vanity chair in the corner with a resigned sigh. There had been a time, before she’d moved to New England last year and met Shane and his friends, that a conversation like this would have been impossible. A time where she didn’t have one friend left to go out for drinks or gossip about guys with. Because of Wes.
Her stomach churned as she remembered those days, and she shoved the dark thoughts aside. She was here now, and she had four great friends and one…whatever the hell Rafe was. The point was, she wanted to share the good stuff with Cat. Maybe talking it through would give her some previously unattainable clarity.
“Okay, so what did I already tell you?”
“Nothing,” Cat said with a snort of disgust. “You said you had an ‘uncomfortable conversation,’ and then things got weird and you stopped coming around like a butt-face.”
She deserved that jab. She’d skipped last Friday’s happy hour and a day trip to the lake in an effort to avoid Rafe, and Cat was rightfully irritated by the blow-offs. Hopefully, once she laid it all out for her, she’d understand. Act one of learning to trust again was starting now. She took a slug of her beer and settled more deeply into her dainty seat. This was going to take a while.
“It really started at the reception,” she began slowly, trying not to give any credence to the bubbly sensation rising in her chest as she told the story. So strange that she’d expected being dominated would remind her of what it was like to feel weak, because in those moments with Rafe, she’d never felt sexier or stronger.
By the time she got to the part where he tore off her underwear, she was grinning like a teenage girl with her first major crush, and Cat was gaping at her, wide-eyed.
“So. Hot,” she whispered, her fingers fluttering at her throat.
“You don’t know the half of it. The things he said.” Courtney fanned her heated face and shook her head, at a loss as to how to put her feelings into words. “The way he said them…”
“He made you feel like you were the sexiest, most desirable woman on earth,” Cat whispered reverently, a secret smile tugging at her lips. “Shane does that too, although maybe not quite the same way. But it’s awesome.”
Cat’s drawing correlations between her relationship with her husband-to-be and Courtney’s own one-night not-quite fling with Rafe served as a much-needed slap back to reality.
“Not the same thing,” she said, clearing her throat and springing to her feet. “Anyway,” she chirped brightly. “You wanted to know why I’ve been scarce. That’s the reason. We parted ways, but not before he issued a challenge of sorts. Next time I see him, I’m supposed to tell him whether I want to do a few scenes with him, or forget it ever happened.” As if.
Cat nodded, but looked a little green around the gills. “Wow. That’s big.”
“Are you okay? You look nauseous.”
“Nope, I’m good. So, um, have you thought about what you’re going to do? You know, if you, like, run into him?”
The better question was, had she thought of anything else? She shrugged and led the way out the door, back into the bar, and Cat followed. “Of course. But I’m trying to keep a clear head. It’s sucked not being able to come around, and if we hook up, I’m nervous things will get weird between us after it’s over, and it will screw up the group dynamic more than it already has.” And because I’m scared shitless of how he makes me feel, she stopped herself from adding. Trust