“I can’t believe how good you feel,” she said weakly, still panting. “I thought you said you wouldn’t last long.”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a wicked smirk. “I guess you give me renewed vigor.”
“You said anything I want, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Right now I want more than anything to watch you come. I want to see it all.” She stroked his cheek. “I want to see your face.” She kissed his ear, tugging his earlobe with her teeth. “And I want to hear you.” Then she lifted her hips, letting her pussy give his cock one long stroke from base to tip as his entire body jerked underneath her. “And I want to watch your come shoot all over me.”
He swallowed thickly. “Damn, woman.”
“I don’t care how you do it, or how you want me to do it for you. But do it. Where I can see.”
He grabbed both cheeks of her ass, giving her back the entire length of him as her head rolled back on her shoulders and her eyes rolled back in their sockets in pure bliss. “Here,” he growled. With one seemingly effortless twitch of his body, she was under him again, legs splayed over his shoulders. Like this, he plucked a chord of something almost like pain deep inside, and she cried out. But she loved it. Men in the past had needed adornments to reach every part of her…piercings, toys, etcetera…and oh yes, there was something to be said for all of it. He sought out her pleasure spots and devastated them with nothing but his natural talents.
“Let me see,” she said desperately, clawing her way to a semi-sitting position and interlocking her fingers behind his neck so she could watch him disappear into her over and over. It was better than any fucking porno. He was still except for his hips, pistoning his cock into her on their power alone until she began to think she might climax again before he did. Oh God, she was. That spot, that spot, he kept hitting it and every time was like a shock to her system. “I’m gonna come,” she told him helplessly, half in wonder. But it wasn’t so much a peak as a plateau, a long, slow, rolling tidal wave of pleasure washing her under and keeping her there, tumbling her deeper and deeper until she finally emerged wet and exhausted just in time to see him jerk out of her and strip the condom off with one hurried upward sweep of his fist.
And it was as beautiful as she’d hoped. His fingers bit into her thigh, his head arched back, and muscles corded in his neck. Drops of him scattered across her chest and belly, and his groans were rough and guttural and so fucking sexy, she had to pull him down to kiss him, to taste those sounds.
At last, he exhaled, lowering his forehead to hers, and she chuckled. “Mmm. Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty
They talked and dozed and laughed and caressed and talked more until the sun came up. Jared must have explored every inch of her by then, every tattoo, every color. He must have tasted every inch of her too, and he couldn’t get enough. But if he didn’t get his ass to work today, his own dad was going to fire him. So, reluctantly, he dragged his aching, pleasantly exhausted body from the bed to shower and feed his animals while Starla made breakfast. The sight of her when he joined her in the kitchen—her rumpled platinum, pink, and turquoise hair with her three-sizes-too-big Misfits shirt, long inked legs, and the knowledge she wasn’t wearing panties—was something he could get used to. Her skin still wore the sultry musk of their lovemaking, and he breathed it deep when she gave him a coffee-flavored kiss, hoping he would carry it with him all day.
Naturally, the kiss turned into a groping session, and he damn near bent her over the island right there, but he didn’t have a condom, and he was already so damn late. The little mew of disappointment she gave when he told her broke his heart and warmed it at the same time. “See,” she said. “Hardest man to fuck I’ve ever met.”
“Hey.” Gently grasping her chin, he made her look him directly in the eye. “I’ll show you hard when I get home tonight.” Then he released her to wrench up the back of her shirt and smack her bare ass, and she squealed happily. Once he’d shoveled down her spectacular food and headed for the door with his truck keys, she trailed after him uncertainly.
“Is there anything you need me to do while you’re gone?”
It was the first day he’d gone to work since she’d been here. He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “No, not that I can think of. I don’t want you to sit around bored all day, though.”
“What about dinner?”
“We can worry about that later.”
“I know what it’s like to have a slug on the couch, and I don’t want—”
“Hey.” He took her shoulders. For all her flirting a few moments ago, she suddenly looked miserable, brown eyes searching his for…something. He wished he knew what. “This is different. This isn’t some situation where you have to, I don’t know, earn your keep. I don’t care if you do sit on the couch all day, as long as that’s what you want to do. But I don’t want you to feel like you’re stuck. If you want to go out, go, and let me know where you are, and be careful.”
“Okay. I’ll probably go to the hospital for a little while.”
“Good. Keep everything locked up, and I’ll check in with you throughout the day. Call me if you need anything. I mean it.” For a moment, staring down at her, he considered giving her the combination to the gun safe. If he did so, she would be the only other person on earth who had it. People he’d known and trusted his entire life weren’t able to get into that safe, not his parents, not his brother—there had never been much reason to give it to them, but still, it was something to consider in case anything ever happened to him.
Surely she would be fine; he would feel much better knowing she was protected, but he doubted she would take it anyway.
“Have a good day,” she told him. He gave her another kiss, savoring her scent and taste, the softness of her hair, the sound of her sigh. It was so hard to let go of her, but he did at last.
“See you tonight, beautiful girl.” Her eyes softened, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her bottom lip trembled a bit.
She stood at the door and watched him drive away. He would have told her to get her lovely ass back in the house, and he would rather she not leave all day, but dammit, she wasn’t a captive here. As her figure became smaller and smaller in his rearview mirror, his chest grew fuller and fuller. His foot ached to slam on the brake. Fuck. Was he doing the right thing? He had a bad feeling leaving her, but at what point did you stop listening to paranoia and get on with life? If she wanted to hide out with him from now on, he would be fine with it.
And last night… Jesus. If he started thinking about it, he would be hard again in no time. Incredible. Just friggin’ incredible. So sweet and dirty, and that had only been a taste.
Jared supposed he should be thankful his dad took that moment to send him a text—that is, if he wanted to get anything at all accomplished today before thinking about Starla derailed him entirely. Since he was still bumping along the dirt road and not yet on the highway, he sent an affirmative when his dad asked if he was coming to work today.
Entering the Stanton Electric building, he traded jokes about his absenteeism with the receptionist who had been with the company for fifteen years and headed for his dad’s office, not quite sure how he was going to answer the inevitable questions. Better to face the music and get it over with. At least he could get up and leave his dad’s office when he was ready, but getting the man out of his office was another matter entirely. Of course, Bill Stanton was on the phone with his big booming voice as usual, so Jared helped himself to a cup of the freshly brewed pot of coffee in the corner of the room. He was just adding cream when his dad hung up.
“So are you over it yet?” he asked Jared, leaning back in his big executive chair.
“Over what?”
“Whatever knocked you on your ass so that you couldn’t work. If you’re contagious or anything, get out.”
Jared laughed, stirred, and sat, suddenly feeling the weight of all those missed hours o
f sleep the night before. He rubbed his bleary eyes and wondered if tossing the hot liquid directly into them might wake him up faster. “No. I’m not contagious.”
His dad scrutinized him a little more than Jared was comfortable with. “You look like shit, boy.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s going on?”
Hell. He didn’t want to lie to his dad. But not lying to his dad guaranteed that his dad wouldn’t lie to his mom, and then all hell would really break loose. He was surprised he hadn’t already received a dozen phone calls from her after the storm. “I’m helping out a friend.”
“Uh-huh. Wouldn’t happen to be the friend Jack and I met the other night, would it?” The old man was a sharp one, he could give him that.
“The very one.”
“Starla, was it? Cute girl. Seems nice.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty terrific.” He sipped his coffee, eyeing his dad cautiously over the cup rim.
“What’s her trouble that you missed two days of work to help her out?”
Jared shifted in his chair, feeling trapped. Getting up and running wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be. Already, he knew what was coming. You don’t need this. And Lord, didn’t he know it. “She’s having some trouble with an ex. We’re seeing each other, and I’m letting her stay with me until he’s caught.”
“Caught? Wait. This guy is wanted?”
“He’s most likely the guy who attacked Brian Ross.”
“Jared—”
“Dad—”
“Think about the girls, son.”
“I am. They’re with Shelly. They haven’t been to the house since all this started.”
“Does she know about this?”
“Not all of it, no.”
His dad had been fiddling with a pen; now he tossed it down with a frustrated exhale. “If you’re not running headfirst into some kind of shit storm, you’re not satisfied, are you?”
Jared fought to take slow, measured breaths so that he wouldn’t give the entire office something to talk about before it was even nine a.m. Yeah, he got it, he was in many ways a disappointment. Losing his head over a girl, knocking up a different girl out of wedlock, and now being a divorced father. He’d heard the we’re-a-pillar-of-the-community-and-we-don’t-behave-this-way lectures; he’d endured them all mostly in silence. His family had had plans for him from the time he was a teenager: he would marry Macy Rodgers, take over the family business, and continue to be the bright shining beacon of integrity this town was used to seeing from his family for generations. They loved him. He had no illusions that they didn’t. But they felt like he didn’t have his shit together, and he hadn’t since Macy had dumped him.
In many ways, he guessed, they would be right. But he was fucking tired of it.
“So you don’t think it’s the right thing to help out a friend,” he ground out, making it a statement instead of a question. “You don’t think I should protect someone I care about who could possibly be in danger.”
“I’m only thinking of the danger to you, to the girls. Let the police handle this girl’s problems.”
“The police won’t do shit. We saw that with Shelly.”
“This is different. This guy tried to kill Alexander Ross’s son. I promise you, they are all over this.”
And that was bullshit too. Not that Brian’s life was worth less than anyone else’s, but no one else’s life was worth more than his either. Starla’s was important too, but she didn’t have a powerful name behind her, and if she’d been the one stabbed and bleeding in the Dermamania parking lot, she’d probably get half the manpower on the case. It was unfair, it was wrong, but Max had picked the wrong person to fuck with. He wondered if the idiot even realized.
“Let them do their jobs,” his dad went on. “They can protect her better than you can.”
“No, they can’t. They can’t be with her as much as I can. I know I’m here now, but I’ll be checking on her all day, and fair warning: any time she doesn’t answer her phone, I’m out of here.”
“Your mother is going to lose her mind over this. It was hard enough on her when you and Shelly were dealing with that fool who wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“You could, you know, not tell her. And it’ll all blow over, the police will do their jobs like you say they will, and Starla will go back home. But I like her, and I’m going to keep seeing her.”
He could tell by the way his dad pursed his lips that he had more to say on that, but he maintained his silence. For approximately ten seconds. “I don’t want you with someone who’s going to bring chaos like this into your life, into our family. I don’t want it to touch my granddaughters.” He grabbed a silver-framed picture of Ashley and Mia hugging and set it directly in front of Jared so he could see their sweet, innocent faces smiling in the sunlight in front of the rose bushes outside his parents’ house. “They are the only things you should be thinking about. They are who matter. They are who you keep safe. What in the hell are you thinking?”
Somehow, Jared managed to tear his eyes from his daughters’ beautiful, mischievous grins and speak around the lump suddenly wedged in his throat. He locked eyes with his father, who was glaring mercilessly at him over the picture, his face going red with fury. “All right,” he told him, worried the man was about to pop a blood vessel. “I’ll make it right, Dad.”
He hoped that was the end of it, but he had a feeling it was far from it. His dad snatched the picture up and put it back in its usual spot. “That doesn’t make me feel any better,” he said, almost sadly. “I don’t think your ‘right’ and mine line up very much.”
***
To pour salt in an already open wound, his dad told him to head out to the Rodgers ranch and look at the new workshop Macy’s dad was having built on the property. He tried to refuse, until he was told he was requested specifically, and even though he’d been gone for a couple of days, they were willing to wait for his return. So he made the familiar drive while grinding his teeth, pulled up to the all-too-familiar house, and had to endure Macy’s mom shoving refreshments at him and chatting him up about everything under the sun, and wasn’t it terrible about Brian Ross, and she so hoped they caught whoever did it soon, because Macy and Seth were so torn up about it, and she knew Candace was just devastated, and…
Jared really loved Macy’s parents. He did. He’d known them since he was a kid, and they loved him like the son they’d never had, and they’d done their best to champion his cause when he’d tried to win Macy back. After his bleak and dismal failure, they’d become more guarded about what they told him. He could see it every time he visited, though (which wasn’t too often)—Ghost had become a fixture in their lives. He was in family pictures now, he was brought up a little more often in conversation where Macy was concerned, and today, of all days, Mrs. Rodgers finally revealed what Jared had known was coming for a long time.
“…and, well, Seth finally asked her to marry him a few weeks ago.”
He waited for the kick-in-the-gut feeling, amazed when it never really came. He sipped his sweet tea and nodded, realizing this was something Starla had to have known but hadn’t wanted to tell him. “Congratulations.”
Jennifer Rodgers looked pained. “I know it’s hard for you, and we care so much about you—”
“It’s happy news. Don’t worry about me.” He thought about Starla waiting for him at home. He thought about last night, and he thought about tonight. And he genuinely smiled. “I’m doing great.”
Jennifer’s face brightened considerably, looking so much like her daughter. “I’m glad to hear that. We like him a lot, Jared. She’s so happy. I don’t think a couple ever made less sense on paper, but together…” She gave a “what are you gonna do?” shrug. “They make sense.”
“Hey, you can’t beat that.”
“But what about you? Have you met someone?”
“Might just be I have.” Yeah, he still couldn’t stop grinning like an idiot.
“Anyone I might know?”
“Macy knows her. I’m trying to keep it on the down-low right now.”
Now she was totally intrigued, but that was the way he left it, because Daryl Rodgers came in at that moment eager to show him his new workshop. “It’s a twenty-four by thirty-six,” Macy’s dad said happily as the two of them went out the back door. It was really beginning to heat up outside, and it would be twice as hot in that big metal shop, so Jared was glad he still had the remnants of his iced tea in his hand.
“Do you want to run it off the house breaker or the pole?”
“I don’t think we have the open space in the house.” Daryl pointed to the pole standing thirty or so feet away. “Pole’s just right there. Might as well do that. I’ll have my welder and table saw in there. And an air conditioner too. Lighting, of course. Those are the main things.”
“All right.” The two stepped up into the building—yep, sweltering hot—as Daryl showed him where he wanted his equipment placed, and Jared looked around appreciatively at the construction. He had a workshop of his own, but not nearly this big. “I think I need one of these. Did you do it all yourself?”
Daryl chuckled, wiping sweat off his brow under the bill of his ball cap. “Yeah. Tell you what, there’ve been days I might have said you could have it.” He gave Jared an inquisitive look. “Did Jennifer talk your ear off?”
“Nah. She gave me tea.” Everyone knew Macy’s mom’s sweet tea was famous.
“Did she tell you, or did you already know?”
Jared didn’t have to ask his meaning. “She told me.”
“She’s been worried how you would take it.” The man had never pulled any punches, unlike his wife, but what the hell did they think? That he would go screaming into madness? Cry on their shoulders? Hatch a plot to kidnap Macy from the altar?