Was she letting the past influence the present in such a way that she could be harming the hopes she had for her future? Of course she was, wasn’t that what she was good at? She had already proved it.
Seven years before, she hadn’t demanded the commitment, or the words of love. She hadn’t pressed the issue and she had learned the error of it. She’d been used by the man she’d thought she loved. Ross Mason had used her and her heart to get close to her father and to secure a military position that only Douglas Rutledge could assign.
Thankfully, her father had been smart enough to see what she hadn’t, and had managed to turn Ross’s game against him. When Ross had been given that position, he’d suddenly had no use for her. He’d even smiled at her and told her she had to have been aware of what he had wanted. She had just been a means to acquire it.
Not that she believed Casey was using her, because she couldn’t imagine what he could want from her. But she hadn’t imagined what Ross could want either, until the night he had broken off the relationship.
She wasn’t going to allow that to happen to her again. She couldn’t allow it, not with Casey. Already he meant too much to her.
She hadn’t loved Ross, not really. She had liked him. He had been safe, or she had thought he was safe. She would have never loved him to the point that losing him could destroy her. Not like she loved Casey.
Kicking the blankets from her legs and blowing out a hard, deep breath, Sheila realized she was going to end up making herself crazy. She was already aroused. That was all the crazy she needed.
Lifting her arm from the mattress beside her, she let her fingers trail along the flesh exposed between the elastic of her low-rise panties and the white silk-and-lace cami tank top she wore to sleep in.
She missed his touch, the warmth of his arms around her, and his kiss.
Her eyes drifted closed and she saw Casey watching her. His expression heavy with lust, his gaze darkening with whatever emotion he kept hidden within his silence. The way he licked his lips the few times she had touched herself as he watched. It turned him on, made him so dominant and hungry for her that his possession stole her breath.
Innocent touches.
When she had smoothed lotion over her arms, stomach, and legs after showering, she would see his eyes narrow, his cock hardening beneath his jeans, or if he was naked, his unashamed hunger for her.
What would he have done if she had touched herself in front of him, as she did when she was alone? How intense and dominant would he have become if he had seen her touching herself when she missed him?
Or even now?
Would he enjoy watching her masturbate?
The tips of her nails rasped against the sensitive flesh of her lower stomach as she remembered his touch. His kiss. The way he would use his versatile, wicked tongue to lick and taste her skin.
She wanted to moan at the excitement that suddenly rushed through her. The silent thought that she could tease him in such a way. That the next time she saw him she would have the nerve to be the seductress she always imagined being, but hadn’t yet garnered the courage to be.
Or the chance. The chance to watch his gaze darken and narrow as she touched her nipples or ran her fingers through her juices before circling her clit.
His sensuality overwhelmed her. Once he touched her, all thoughts of anything but being possessed by him, taken and ridden to exhaustion, flew from her mind. She hadn’t remembered to tease him by touching herself, even though she had promised herself she would.
Her fingers trailed to the band of her panties, pushed beneath it slowly, then feathered over the short, soft curls at the top of her mound.
Below, the slick, waxed flesh felt flushed and swollen, her juices easing over it as arousal began to build within her. She could feel the inner flesh of her pussy heating, aching, needing him.
She knew better than to go further. The sheer frustration she had found over the months in masturbating was becoming ridiculous. She could never satisfy herself as she once had. She was always left aching, wanting, her pussy and her clit still throbbing despite the release she found.
Satisfaction could only be found with Casey and she knew it.
With his touch, his kiss, or the heavy, throbbing length of his cock pushing inside her, penetrating her with a slow, measured surge. Each thrust would draw a cry from her lips and stretch her to her limits. It would burn. Pleasure-pain would fill her, then ecstasy would overtake her.
She bit her lip, a surge of sexual need flooding her system and tightening through her womb.
Her fingers slid lower. Any touch would be better than none, she told herself desperately. Any release better than no release at all.
Her fingers stroked over her clit as her breath caught at the wave of sensation that rushed through her senses. Swollen and slick, the little bud throbbed in desperation as she let her fingers ease through the wet, slickened folds of her pussy.
Her hips lifted to her own touch, her fingers slid lower.
“Keep that up and I’ll come in my damned jeans before I can get them off.”
Sheila’s eyes flew open, a gasp leaving her lips as she stared at the end of the bed where Casey stood watching her. Chocolate brown eyes looked black in the darkness as he finished unbuttoning the shirt he wore, moving slowly, giving her all the time she needed to tell him to go to hell. And that was exactly what she should do. She should never let herself weaken. She should throw him out until he decided he loved her and couldn’t live without her. That was what she should do.
Instead, she let her fingers reach further, one dipping into the clenched, heated entrance of her pussy. Delicate muscles gripped her fingers, spasmed, and clenched as pleasure shot through her.
His jaw tightened and a second later he was shrugging the shirt from the powerful width of his shoulders.
Muscles rippled beneath the tough, hardened flesh. Random scars, nicks, and marks covered the broad expanse, and she knew he carried even more on his left hip and ankle from the wound that had forced his discharge from the army.
Lips parting to drag in a ragged breath, Sheila pushed her finger in deeper, aware that Casey had yet to take his eyes from where her fingers worked between her thighs. Electric sensation shot through her nerve endings as a gasp left her lips. Casey tore at the metal tab and zipper of his jeans, releasing them before pushing them from his long, powerful legs. Casey didn’t wear underwear. His cock sprang free, eager to join the fun.
When he straightened, his erection stood out from his body, thick and erect, the flared crest darkened and shining with moisture.
He palmed the heavy shaft. Long, broad fingers stroked his erection as he watched her with narrowed eyes, lust gleaming in naked demand.
“Take off your panties.” His voice was guttural and rough, the command heavy with hungry male intent. “Let me watch you fuck yourself with your fingers.”
A chill tore up her spine before a fist clenched her womb and tightened through her pussy. A wash of juices saturated her cunt and the sizzling ache of pure sensual hunger washed through it.
Oh God, she wanted him so desperately. She needed him inside her pussy, thrusting, pushing in with the heavy thrusts she knew would throw her headfirst into ecstasy.
Feeling dazed, as though she were living in a fantasy, Sheila shed her panties, tossing them carelessly to the floor as her legs spread, giving him a clear view of her fingers sliding between the swollen lips of her pussy once again.
Sensation swept through her as he watched, sending excitement racing through her.
“Ah yes, baby,” he rasped. “Let me see how pretty you are. How fucking sweet as you fuck yourself.”
Stroking the hard flesh of his cock, he watched as her fingers slid once again to the snug entrance of her pussy.
She wanted him to watch. She needed him to watch. Never had her own touch filled her with such intense pleasure, such hunger.
She wanted him to ache as she ached. She wanted him as ensnare
d in the web created by whatever it was that flowed between them as she was. She needed him to ache, to want, to need just as badly as she needed him. In every way.
Her fingers slid back, slick and hot, her juices coating them and glistening on the curves of her pussy.
Watching him, Sheila touched, pleasured, and knew she would never be able to touch herself again without him watching. Never would she be able to find even the smallest satisfaction without Casey.
The sensations were sharper, more exciting than they had ever been without him. They sizzled through her body, burned through her clit, and tightened her womb with spasms of her approaching orgasm.
Casey licked his lips, a slow, hungry movement that mesmerized her as she circled her clit with her fingers, causing the little bud to swell harder, tighter.
Her breathing was rougher now, as though she couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs.
Excitement whipped through her. As though her nerve endings were live wires, exposed and spilling their energy sensation over her flesh. And if the look on Casey’s face was any indication, he was feeling it as well.
His eyes were almost black. She had only seen that when he was at his most aroused. His lips were fuller, heavier, his hard chest gleaming with sweat as he stroked the length of his cock with slow, easy strokes.
The heavily veined, pulsing erection held her attention as she slid two fingers inside the gripping, saturated flesh between her thighs once more.
It wasn’t her fingers she felt.
It wasn’t her own touch that held her enraptured.
It was the remembered feel, the remembered pleasure of Casey’s possession that made her insane. That made her come apart at the seams.
As her fingers penetrated her pussy, it was his cock she felt. It was his possession. The echoes of it. The remembered feel of him stretching her as she parted her fingers and scissored them against the clenched muscles surrounding them.
“Casey,” she whispered his name, her voice rough, filled with need as she realized her eyes had closed.
They jerked open, staring back at him in surprise as she realized he was much closer. He was kneeling between her spread knees, sitting back on his heels as he stroked his cock and watched her.
“Don’t stop,” he growled. “Fuck yourself, Sheila. Let me see you. Let me see how much you want me to touch you.”
She wanted him to touch her bad.
Her hips lifted. A moan tore from her.
His expression tightened.
Kneeling between her knees, his gaze focused on the flesh between her thighs as she penetrated herself, her fingers gleaming with her juices as she tried to hold back her release.
“I dream of you,” she gasped, feeling the release racing to her.
“What do you dream, baby?”
“Of this, sometimes,” she whispered desperately. “Of you taking me, making me cry out for you, because the pleasure is so intense I can barely stand it.”
She wasn’t going to scream in need for it. She was going to demand he take her, that he possess her. She was going to beg him for it.
Her fingers slid back, finding her clit as his gaze lifted to hers once again.
“Fuck me, Casey,” she whispered. “Please. I need you. I need you inside me so bad I don’t think I can bear it.”
He moved closer.
“Keep touching yourself.”
He lifted her thigh, moving in, bending over her, positioning the wide head of his cock at the greedy, saturated entrance to her sex.
She caressed her clit, arching, her breasts lifting as his lips descended to one hard, tight nipple.
Sharp, ecstatic sensation tore through the sensitive tip, streaking through her body to slam into the responsive depths of her womb, then into her pussy.
He sucked the tip into his mouth as the flared head began to part the snug entrance of her pussy.
Sliding her fingers into the cool, thick strands of his hair, Sheila could only gasp his name. Sensation swirled through her senses, pleasure tore through her body. Stretching, burning, his cock worked inside her, separating her flesh as her fingers moved erratically on the swollen bud of her clit.
The intensity of the pleasure whipping through her had her senses expanding with nearing ecstasy. Sensation began to jerk through her body, to race just beneath her flesh faster.
His cock stroked inside her in short, hard thrusts, raking along the exquisitely sensitive nerve endings as she began to gasp with the sensations.
His lips, tongue, and mouth caressed her nipple, drawing on the tiny bud, tormenting it. He rasped it with his teeth as she arched to him. Her muscles tightened, clenching on his cock as it slowly invaded her.
She was dying from the pleasure.
Sensation ballooned inside her, tearing through her senses until she was arching tight beneath him. Her hips writhed on the impalement as Casey sank fully inside her. He seated himself to the hilt with one firm, possessive penetration. The thrust speared through the gripping, milking muscles of her pussy, drawing a harsh cry from her lips.
No sooner than he sank inside her, he was moving.
If pleasure was a whirlwind before, it became a cyclone. The hard, rapid motions of his hips, the heavy, deep thrusts inside her, the caress of the velvet over iron flesh impaling her was like riding a starburst.
Sensations swelled and detonated through her nerve endings, yet the release that seemed so near never seemed so far away. Moving her fingers over her clit in short, rapid motions as he shafted inside her, Sheila only increased the torturous pleasure. She couldn’t stop. She was so close.
“Casey,” she cried out, panting for air. “Oh God, it’s killing me. Please.”
His head lifted from her nipple.
“Please what, baby?” he groaned, his lips moving against the mound of her breast, his tongue licking over the damp skin he found. “Tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you. You only have to ask.”
“I need to come,” she gasped, staring up at him, dazed, watching as a trail of sweat ran slowly down the side of his hard face. “Make me come, Casey. Make me come all over your cock. It’s so thick and hard inside me…” she moaned.
As though she had struck a match to fuel, Casey gave a tortured moan before he began moving harder, faster.
Thrusting, shafting inside her with hard, quick strokes, his cock shuttling in and out of the tight confines of her sex, he gave her what she begged for.
Within seconds Sheila was exploding. Tossed headlong into a rapture she couldn’t control and had no desire to rein in. It began in the very depths of her pussy, radiating outward to attack her clit as she stroked it in time to the hard strokes filling her cunt, and the brutal shudders that began tearing through her.
The little bud swelled quickly, harder, more sensitive than ever as she gave a wild, fractured moan and let it fling her into an ecstasy she was certain Casey had never given her before.
This one was brighter, hotter, it tore past her mind, completely obliterated thought or any belief that she could ever be the same once reality returned.
Because as that explosion ripped through her, it did more than fill her body with the most exquisite rapture she had ever known. It did more than simply satisfy that feminine ache as no other man had ever been able to do. As she exploded around the hard, fiery erection filling her, she felt him bury in deep once again, then felt his release tear through him as well.
She felt the hard, heavy spurts of his release filling her.
She felt his arms wrapping around her.
She felt his wide, muscular chest scraping against her nipples, his powerful thighs tightening.
She felt the white-hot center of her release tear a hole through the defenses she had built against him as well.
As his release jetted inside her, she swore she felt a part of him sink inside her soul.
He had finally possessed her.
And she knew she hadn’t managed the same with him.
She knew
. And she swore she felt it breaking her heart.
chapter 5
sheila remembered what it felt like when she was nineteen and she learned the man she thought she loved had only been using her to get to her father. That it hadn’t been her he wanted, it had been a position that her father controlled. One that, once he’d acquired it, Douglas Rutledge couldn’t take from him.
But, as her father had said, it wasn’t worth taking back. It had been worth it to know he’d wanted the job rather than the daughter. And better she’d known before Sheila had messed up her life and married the man.
At the time, she hadn’t seen it that way. She understood the reason he had tested the relationship by assigning the position before the proposal, but the knowledge that she’d been wanted for anything more than what her father could provide still managed to hurt.
She had never taken a love interest to meet her father since. Dates picked her up at her house, a small cottage a half mile from her father’s main house. She never told her father who she was seeing, or when she was seeing them.
It was easier that way.
If anyone mentioned wanting to meet her father, it spelled the end of whatever relationship they had.
She never dated anyone her father knew.
Until Casey.
But, she excused herself, she wasn’t exactly dating Casey. She was only sleeping with him, wasn’t she?
Still, she was breaking one of her own rules and she knew it.
Then she had compounded that error by falling in love with him.
Yes, she was in love with him, and she knew it.
Sitting in her car outside the bar two nights later, she knew she had made that drastic mistake. A horrendous mistake. One guaranteed to break her heart in half.
Breathing out roughly, she tested the feel of the boots she wore before opening the door of her small car and stepping out.
The hollow heel still felt a little strange.