Opening Up

  He pulled into the driveway and they got out to head into the house. Not a word about what had happened to PJ, only this other shit?

  Still, this was her family, so he attempted to keep his voice as neutral as possible. “Your mom okay? Do you want to go over there?”

  “Julie said she set herself up in the guest room and was pretty ticked at my dad. He’ll charm his way back, he always does. Whatever his flaws, she loves him. I’m done with it for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll decide when I’ll be ready to think about it again. For now, it’s me and you.”

  He wanted to let her change the subject. Wanted to bury himself in her, anchor her so she knew no matter what he was always there.

  But he needed to tell her a few things first. Not least of all because she’d been so brave and had told him all that stuff about her past. She’d given him trust even after he’d not told her about Ellen.

  Asa needed to be a man worthy of her. So he pulled her into the living room instead of the bedroom.

  “I do seem to recall you like the angle that couch gives you.” PJ gave him a look over her shoulder that weakened his resolve.

  “I do. But let’s talk for a bit.”

  Her frown was calculated and he laughed, swatting her ass on his way past.

  “Very nice try. I promise to show you just how nice in a bit.” Asa pointed at the couch. “Sit.”

  “This sounds ominous.”

  He settled in next to her. “No reason for that.” He took her hand. “Earlier tonight you told me Courtney had revealed some of the details from my childhood, but you wanted to hear them from me, so you waited.” Asa swallowed hard. “That meant something to me. Well, more than one thing. But let’s start with the trust you showed me, even when I didn’t show you the same. I apologize for that. Honestly.”

  There was no reason not to accept a genuine apology. She wanted him to know why it was particularly upsetting to her. “I accept your apology. But, Asa? This is a problem for me. I need for you to understand that.”

  “I’m not going to promise to never be an idiot again. I will. I’m fucked up in a hundred ways. But I can promise to do my very best not to hurt you.”

  That was a good answer.

  “Tell me one of those hundred ways then. Help me understand you.”

  “My mom was fifteen when she had me. She’d dropped out of school to follow this loser to Dallas. Estranged herself from her family. And then when my biological father got sent to prison for five years, his parents stole me from her. I lived with them until I was nearly seven. They punished her for her sins by keeping me away from her influence.”

  PJ shoved pity as far away as possible. If he saw any hint of it he’d close up. She didn’t dare move and spoil the moment. So she waited and hoped he continued. After he was finished, later, when she wasn’t in his presence, she’d have her full reaction to this story.

  “We both had to be reminded of our nature, you see. That was Mr. Jeter’s favorite. I needed to be beaten when I made the slightest infraction. It was the only way to cleanse me of the things my mother had done.”

  He shuddered, his gaze gone far away.

  “Their mistake was to underestimate my mom. They thought continuing to dangle time with me was a way to keep her in line. Figured her obedience to those dictates meant she’d given up. She was a teenage girl with no education and no resources, while they were respected in their church and community. But she never gave up. She just did what she needed to do to keep her visitation rights, to see me. All the while she worked multiple jobs, got her GED, and saved to get an attorney to fight back.”

  PJ was really beginning to love Pat Barrons.

  He licked his lips and she took a risk, linking her fingers with his. He let out a long, shuddering sigh and pulled her closer. She couldn’t see his face.

  Maybe that was easier for them both. She closed her eyes and leaned into the solid, comforting muscle of him.

  “I was seven by the time I came to live with her permanently. She had Lettie about five months after that. Their dad, Lettie and Courtney’s, stuck around awhile. He was okay at first. Or maybe he wasn’t, but what I’d been used to was being forced to kneel for hours at a time in a closet while I prayed to be forgiven for my sins. I guess most people would have been okay in comparison.”

  She couldn’t stop the snarl that ripped from her lips. There she was whining about her family and look at what he’d gone through.

  “When she was pregnant with Courtney he walked out and never came back. Lettie was right around five. It took her a week to notice her dad wasn’t around. That’s how involved he’d been in her life. The state tried to find him to get him to pay support, but they never did. So my mom just stepped up and handled it. There was nothing else to be done. She worked her ass off, to the point that her health suffered, and she did it because that’s what you do when you’re a parent and she couldn’t rely on anyone else to do it for her.”

  He buried his face at the nape of her neck, breathing her in and then biting hard enough to leave waves of goosepimples in his wake. “So when your father, who has every fucking privilege and opportunity handed to him, is a shitty, hateful creature to a child who only wants his affection, it really gets to me. And it gets to me because it’s you.”

  She turned to face him, taking his hand again.

  “There are a handful of people in the world I’m irrationally protective of. You’re one of them. I can’t shove it away when an asshole like Gary Weston humiliates you the way he did.”

  Uh-oh. “Tell me,” she said on a sigh.

  The war between sharing and keeping whatever he’d done quiet ran riot over his features.

  “I’m going to tell you something. Not because I am sorry for it, but because I heard what you said tonight and I want to live up to my promise.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him.

  “I punched him. Maybe twice. Not more than three times. But he said stuff, so there were mitigating circumstances.”

  “Elaborate.”

  He grinned and it lit his eyes. “I love it when you get mad. Goddamn.”

  “Don’t try to eye fuck me. Just tell me what happened.” But she couldn’t hide the way a smile threatened at the corner of her mouth.

  “I didn’t go to his shop. I went to a bar I heard he drank at. I tried to speak with him. It got emphatic. He tossed some insults. I’m a gentleman. I handled that. He won’t be speaking about you in public ever again. Trust that.”

  While she was horrified, at the same time it wasn’t so very hard to admit part of her was comforted and, yes, titillated. He’d protected her. In a very elemental way. It was flattering and silly. And yet, once she’d experienced it she’d begun to crave it.

  “You went there, he said I was a mouthy whore or whatever. No talent but a nice ass. You took exception and planted a fist in his face.”

  “The first was a kidney shot. Then he called you a whore and I popped him twice more, square in the face. He dropped like a stone. When he recovered, we discussed what his expected behavior was. He accepted how serious I was. I’m positive this won’t be an issue. You don’t need his shop anyway.”

  “No. I don’t.” PJ cupped his cheek and petted his beard. “But I do need you.”

  He stood, pulling her to her feet. “Thank god. Come upstairs with me.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-two

  He pulled her upstairs to his bedroom as the energy between them tautened, heated, zinging along her nerves. PJ couldn’t wait for whatever he had in store for her.

  “Strip.”

  He sat, caressing her with his gaze.

  Over the time they’d been together, she’d learned him. Taken cues from his reactions. Because she knew he liked to look at her, she took her time, meticulously stepping from her shoes and placing them in the corner.

  Then she pulled the pins from her hair and it cascaded down around her face in waves. Each button down the front of the dress she wore opened with a
twist of her fingers, exposing a little more of her skin until she shrugged from it, letting it slide off before stepping free.

  “I’m really glad I had no idea what you were working with under that dress. More than your normal gorgeous body, that is.”

  She looked up at him through her lashes with a smile. “Do you like? I saw this and thought it might hold appeal for you.”

  Appeal.

  “That’s a tame word for what it holds for me,” Asa said.

  It wasn’t just that she wore stockings. She’d already worn them when they started seeing each other, but once it was clear how much he liked them she wore them more often, making sure to buy the French heels he thought were so sexy.

  That night she wore an all-new ensemble. She tended to wear blues and pinks, which worked on her skin so well. Right then she was wrapped in black silk. The front of the garter belt laced up like a corset with deep green ribbons, echoed in the matching push-up bra with green accents.

  She took the bra off first and then moved to where he sat. She perched a foot at the edge of his seat and he watched, breath held, as she unhooked and then rolled down the right stocking, which she laid across his lap while she did the left.

  She revealed herself to him slowly, finally removing the belt, leaving her in nothing more than a pretty pair of black panties.

  “You usually like to do this part yourself.”

  He did indeed. Like unwrapping the best present he’d ever been given.

  He stood, looking down into her face, struck with the weight of his blessings. A good weight.

  He slid covetous hands all over her skin as he pulled the panties from her legs, loving the way she leaned on him as she stepped from them.

  “Now this is perfect. You’re perfect.”

  Her lips wobbled just a bit and he had to shove his anger at her father back yet again.

  He kissed across her forehead, easing away the stress, delighting in the way she relaxed a little more with each touch.

  “I’m going to have to insist all your attention be on me.” He set her back from his body, taking long moments to circle her, to stare at and touch all the fierce beauty she possessed.

  Of course she had all her attention on him. It humbled and incited him every time. But he wanted to underline that this was theirs. No bullshit from the outside would be acceptable in this space.

  He took her hand and pulled her toward his bed. “Sit.”

  She did.

  When he got this intense she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. He was so hot and sexy and bossy and in charge that it blew her mind.

  So she sat on the cool of his bed, on her side, and watched as he gathered things.

  This too was part of the show.

  He’d stay clothed until he was ready to be naked. Waiting for it only made her hotter. Having him touch her, his clothes against her naked skin, rendered her even more bare. Bare to everything he wanted.

  He approached her, holding a blindfold.

  “Been a very difficult day. I’m going to fuck all that away. But you need to let go totally.”

  He slid the blindfold on. Once the darkness took hold, she did indeed trust him and let go. Her skin came to life in ways it only did when her eyes were covered.

  “Since our last experience with a cane didn’t go so well, I got a new one.”

  She shivered. A crop was one thing, but a cane—well, a cane came close to her no thank you point. The last time they’d tried it he’d switched out to a flogger, which she preferred, loving the way the tails seemed to caress her even as they bit her skin.

  He kissed her neck and she sighed, melting into him. Needing him to take over and make her forget everything but Asa and PJ.

  It was one thing to make him hot, and most of the stuff he did made her hot too. But real pain wasn’t where she liked her sex to be. She trusted him to try a new angle. Trusted him to make it really good for both of them.

  She listened as he moved around. Things landed on the bed as he did. She wondered what each item was, which was probably why he did it.

  “Your lips just curved up into a smug smile.”

  Of course she was smiling!

  “So many other women could be right here, but they’re not. I am. What’s not to smile about?”

  He hummed his pleasure at that. “No one could be here right now. Not this way. Only you.”

  His hands, warm and strong, caressed along her body until he stopped at her upper arms, lifting her gently, helping her to stand.

  “Going to sit again, this time I want you over my lap.”

  He led her the few steps to where he’d been sitting before, where she’d come to him and removed her stockings and the rest of her lingerie.

  The times they’d done this he’d had her standing, braced on the bed or a chair. This time, though, she let herself fall into the way he pushed her to her knees. Gently, of course. The strangeness of the fact that he was going to use a cane on her but always touched her with reverence was something she’d accepted.

  But it still thrilled her.

  More rustling as he sat. “Come here.” He touched her again, helping her up, her belly across the steel of his thighs. “Palms flat on the floor.”

  She did as he said, arching as his fingertips traced down her spine, over the curve of her ass, tickling at the back of each thigh just below the swell of her butt cheeks.

  Then the bulge in his forearm, the one resting across her back, flexed, and the sound of the cane split the air.

  She jumped, but he didn’t touch her. He was just making that sound. Ramping them both up.

  Once she relaxed, he began again. Each new touch took a few moments as she puzzled over what he was doing. He rolled the cane down her back and over her ass, which was nearly a massage.

  Then nothing for long moments until a bright burst of sensation against her ass.

  Whack.

  She sucked in a breath and waited for the nope too much from the first time. He blew over the heat and it twisted through her. Not hurt, but delicious sensation.

  He did it again and then once more before pausing.

  “With me?”

  She found her will to speak and managed to mumble a yes.

  “Good. This cane is leather instead of rattan. Makes the prettiest welts on your skin, but it’s less rigid and takes more of the impact.”

  His cock pressed against her hip as she writhed when he struck several more times. It hurt, but for just a breath, and then her body took over, rushing to fill her with feel-good chemicals.

  Whatever it was, Asa was a master at it. He knew just where to hit and how hard. How often. He did it in a rhythm that seduced her nice and slow, the heat building but in a pleasant way. It seemed to flow straight through her right to her clit, and since that aligned with her interests, what did she have to do but enjoy it?

  There were always plusses to giving over to him.

  Asa liked this leather a lot. The creak as he held the cane was satisfying, and she seemed to like it far better than their last go.

  The thunk of it each time he made contact echoed up his arm and made him harder and harder with every sound of pleasure he wrenched from her lips.

  A pretty pink flush lived on her skin, and he put the cane aside to pet over her back and sides. She’d gone a little heavy and dreamy and he loved it.

  He pulled the blindfold off and continued to stroke her skin until she was ready to be led to the bed.

  “On your belly.”

  It’d be more comfortable for her that way, and it also gave him the chance to look at those welts as he pulled his clothes off.

  Her head was turned in his direction and she watched him, a smile on her lips. He wanted to bottle that moment.

  Instead he bent to blow over the heated skin on her ass and thighs, delighting in the way goosebumps rose. Her scent wafted to his nose and he licked a trail up the back of her thigh.

  “I like that,” she murmured.

&n
bsp; “I aim to please.”

  “You do. It’s a really lovely quality.”

  He slid her thighs apart, walking his fingers up to her pussy. He hissed as the heat of her greeted his touch. “So wet.”

  He wanted to shove his dick in her straight to his balls over and over, hard enough to knock pictures off the wall.

  She needed to come first, though. He needed to hear it.

  He moved up the bed, getting on his back. “PJ, come up here. I want you on my mouth.”

  He loved the way she roused, like a cat moving from a sunny spot. She stretched her back, arching with a knowing smile on her lips.

  “You know exactly what you do to me,” he murmured.

  She straddled his waist and slid herself over his cock. That hot, wet pussy he’d just been talking about surrounded him. She groaned and did it again.

  Magnificent.

  He looked up at this magic he’d been unbelievably lucky to have found.

  “Mmmm. I like this too.”

  He let her do it one last time and urged her up with a touch. “You have another task.”

  She hesitated just a moment in mid-grind, her gaze on his. The left corner of her mouth tipped up and she finished, making them both shiver a little.

  “You know you’re going to pay for that.”

  He scooted down and she moved up his body until she was where he’d told her to be.

  “I really hope so. Or else why would I do those things?”

  This part of what they had, it had been the best surprise of all. The humor and teasing back-and-forth had been unexpectedly hot. And totally unique to PJ. She wasn’t afraid of him. She didn’t do things because they were steps in a game. She wanted to please him. Wanted him to please her. But she genuinely gave herself over to their relationship on every level.

  There was a joy in her that he’d never thought he’d crave the way he did. Being around her made him content. Being around her like this?

  She knew what he wanted and bent forward to grip the headboard as he took the first lick.