Designated Hitter (Reedsville Roosters Book 4) (7 page)

His cock jerked attentively, but she avoided touching that. She had no plan to touch it just yet.

Standing at the other end of the bench, she moved to his shoulders and pressed and kneaded the knots and kinks.

He rolled his gaze back to her. Her face first, then downward to the opening of her robe. To her pussy, as she set one knee beside his head and then the other, and moved carefully over him.

His lips parted once more as she pulled her robe around her waist and settled her sex onto his face.

“Mmm.” His tongue sought her entrance, and having experienced his earlier attentions, she had no doubt he’d find it even without use of his hands.

He flicked the tip of his tongue in and out of her contracting opening and she bit down on her lip to control her sounds as she leaned forward. With slick hands, she massaged the creases between his legs again and worked inward slowly, teasingly. With each inch she gained, she pulled her hands away—frustrating him, judging by his erratic licks and suckles of her clit.

It didn’t matter, anyway. She didn’t plan on finding an orgasm straddled in that uncomfortable position. She’d merely wanted
him
uncomfortable—to see what he could endure in the name of pleasure. Crushing her breasts against his bound arms certainly wasn’t her idea of pleasurable.

She inched her fingertips toward his sac and at his hiss, pulled away.

He didn’t complain or beg, but his breath against her cunt was sharp before he resumed his tongue-only exploration.

She raked her nails up the insides of his legs to his belly and watched his delicious muscles clench and body bow toward, then draw away from her. If she had an hour to do nothing but look at him and touch him, she’d take it gladly. She wanted to memorize every inch of his Adonis body and plot out a litany of ways to drive him wild.

“Want to hear you beg,” she mused, grinding her sex over his seeking tongue. “Want you pleading for me to take care of you. That’s what you want, right, Quinn? You want someone to take care of you? Tell you what to do?”

She moved away from him and the bench so he could answer. Panting and rutting into nothing, he tipped his head back and met her gaze.

“Is that what you want, Quinn?”

He nodded.

“Poor thing.”

She left him there in that aroused state and retreated to the closet once again. She grabbed the lube she’d left behind and a condom, and walked to the foot of the bench.

She set the objects on the floor and pressed her hands against the triangle of bench fabric between his legs. “I just want to look at you for a moment. I like looking at you.”

He kept his mouth shut. Obviously, he knew the score. Someone had trained him well, and Marina didn’t particularly want to give much thought to who that might have been. Jealously had no place in short-term trysts.

She scanned down his torso and over his bound arms, let her gaze linger over his rippled abs, and happily tracked down the dark trail of hair between his navel and jutting cock.

His thighs were tan and hard, his calves toned and flexed from strain.

The only way she could have improved on the sight was if she’d bound his wrists behind his head. She wanted to see the stretch of his long torso and his chest open and broad.

Next time.

“I hope you don’t mind a ride.” She held up the condom packet. “Being one, I mean.”

“Take what you need from me.”

“Oh, I won’t go all that far tonight.” She leaned in to kiss down the insides of his thighs and grazed the tip of her tongue around his tight sac.

His startled breath spurred her on, made her drag her tongue up the length of his shaft and circle the head.

“
God
,” he whispered.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been touched recently, Quinn. I wouldn’t believe it was possible for a lusty guy like you.”

He kept his mouth shut, so in her mind, that was
exactly
what he wasn’t going to tell her.

“When’s the last time you came?” she asked, and wrapped her fist around the base of his cock. She squeezed and pumped, and eased off a bit so he could answer.

“Uh. Yesterday.”

“Oh?”

“Hard not to do something when I get so turned on. You’re fine as hell in those dresses.”

“Am I?”

“Mm-hmm. You know you are. That’s why you wear them, isn’t it? So people’ll look at you?”

She wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but she did like the way she felt when she wore them. Sometimes, feeling girly and pretty made her feel more powerful.

“I had to needed to get the edge off,” he said. “I was hurtin’ bad.”

“What’d you do?”

“I jerked off.”

“Where?”

He let out a breath and turned his face to the side, breaking their gaze. “Leaning against the door in my apartment. I barely got inside before I got my pants down.”

“You came all over your hand, leaning against the door like that?” If he had been as hard then as he was there with Marina, she could understand his need for release. He was like velvety steel in her hand. Hard enough to break her, maybe.

She pressed her palm against his weeping head and rubbed the wetness down his shaft.

He bucked into her fist. “Yeah. I…
fuck
, Marina. I did, even with my roommate watching.”

“Your roommate caught you?”

“Walked out to—to say hi, I guess, and I didn’t care that he was there. I didn’t want to stop. I was already so close and I didn’t care if he saw.”

“What’d he do? Did he walk away?”

“No. He watched me come and then got me a towel.”

“Dirty boy.”

“Yeah, he is. But…so am I.”

“Yes, I think you are.” She loosened her grip on his shaft only so she could teasingly lick the head. She’d wanted to taste him from the moment he’d walked into her apartment. A lick turned into a suck, because there was so much of him to taste all at once. Pulling the whole head into her mouth seemed logical.

“
Jesus
, Marina.” His control may have been unpracticed, but it was
excellent
. Aroused as he was, he didn’t try to thrust more of himself into her mouth. He wouldn’t take more than she was willing to give, and that seemed to be his modus operandi outside of the bedroom, too. She wished she’d know that about him sooner. All the time she spent avoiding him as if he were any other Rooster could have been used so much more productively.

Perhaps she would have been so much less lonely.

Sighing, she let him fall from her mouth and leaned back. She was getting carried away already. “Did he want to know what go you so hot?”

She started undoing the rope around his ankles.

“Yeah, he wanted to know, and I didn’t want to tell him. He’d want to share, and I don’t share.” He flexed his feet and tried to look down. “Um, what are you doing?”

“I’m gonna get you up so you can come, Quinn.”

“Pardon?”

“I changed my mind. Am I allowed to change my mind?”

“Of course you are, honey. Any time you want.”

“Good. I want you against the doorway with your fist around your dick. I want to watch the turmoil on your face as you come too hard and too fast.”

“I thought—”

She pressed her index finger against his lips and shushed him. “Okay?”

Brow furrowed, he nodded.

So trusting
.

She bent to kiss him, just a sweet, short peck, but a reward for his easy compliance all the same. She didn’t want to do anything to breach his trust, because he didn’t seem to be the kind of man who gave it up easily.

She undid the knots that secured his arms and rubbed his skin where the rope had pinched. Then she kissed each little spot of red, and few other swaths of his golden skin, too.

Judging by his indulgent little sighs, he liked it, and she liked pleasing him. He was easy, and she needed some things in her life to be easy.

She took his hands to get him to his feet, led him to the bedroom door, and put his back against it. “Stay right there, handsome.”

“If you’d like.”

“I’m going to like it a lot, I think.” She retreated to the bench and sat.

Curiosity tugged at his features as he stood waiting, and his hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly at his sides. He didn’t seem impatient so much as nervous. Having seen him play baseball so fearlessly, she would have never taken him for the nervous type. His hesitance humanized him and made him that much easier to want.

She already wanted him
very
much.

She shrugged her robe off her shoulders and opened her legs so he could see. He had a good view from where he was, even if the light was poor. He could see her parting herself, could see her fingers delving in and out of her slick folds.

Could see her putting her head back as she strummed at her clit with her thumb.

Maybe he’d been strung too tight and needed to slake off the edge, but she was there, too. She wanted him so badly, but wanted to see him pleasure himself more.

She wanted to learn what he needed so she could give it back to him later, because as gratified as she’d be by his easy compliance, she’d craved being at his mercy even more.

She was tired of being the one in charge.

“Show me,” Marina said breathily.

Her head was thrown back and fingers worked feverishly over her clit, dipping every so often into her sex.

Quinn could do that for her. He could get on his knees and fill her with a finger or two—put his tongue wherever she wanted it. She didn’t seem to want that at the moment, though.

“Look at me, then,” he whispered. He sounded so needy, and in his everyday life, he was unused to that. He was assertive and cocky and used to asking for what he wanted. Marina could tell him “no,” though, and that little word coming from her could break him. He hadn’t wanted to get entangled with another rich woman. The last one had vowed to give him everything he needed up until the first time he refused her for something. Then she’d taken everything she’d given him back and with interest.

He couldn’t go back to that place. Couldn’t
afford
to, financially or emotionally, but resisting Marina was too hard. She woke something up in him, and he liked feeling like he fucking mattered to someone.

Marina lifted her head and dragged her tongue across her lush, pink lips. “Show me, Quinn. Now.”

“Of course.” Taking his cock in hand, he nodded and improved his stance. He widened his legs and put his spine against the door.

“Let me see you come. Show me how you did it in front of your roommate.”

He knew it wouldn’t be very much of a show, but if she wanted to see him stroke his cock, he’d indulge her. If it’d make her happy, he’d show her.

Letting out a ragged breath, he lifted his sac with one hand and rolled his balls beneath his thumb. He gripped the base of his shaft and squeezed to the end and briefly brushed his palm over the head, gathering the bit of liquid beaded there.

“How does it feel, Quinn?”

“Good. Feels good.”

He much preferred Marina’s soft flesh against his, but if he wanted to come hard and fast, his rough, calloused hand on his cock would do just fine.

“Show me how you like it, Quinn. Do you like it gentle like that?”

He shook his head. Squeezing his fist around his dick tighter, he stroked faster. “No. Like…like it
rougher
.” His knees and thighs started to quiver and ass clenched as blood pooled in his lower core, and he could hardly draw in enough breath.

Marina’s sultry stare and wanton fingers dancing over her cleft teased him. He’d been so close to being inside her, and he didn’t even have the second-best thing of her just touching him anywhere she could reach. Still, that sight of her with legs spread wide and lips parted in bliss incited him to that can’t-help-but-to-come place, and so he did.

Right there in his hand and all over the fucking floor, too.

Shit.

Marina closed her eyes and put her head back again. Her hand worked faster—thumb over her clit and fingers of her other hand stuffed inside her—and she ground out through clenched teeth, “
Quinn
.”

“Yes?”

“Quinn.
Oh,
Quinn.” Her body shuddered and a shuddering laugh fell from her lips. “God. Do you know how sexy you are?”

“I—”
Yes? No?
He shifted his weight, his gaze locked on the wet spot on the floor. She’d already warned him about his pride. He failed at it a lot, but he tried hard not to make the same mistakes more than once.

Marina got to her feet slowly, and then padded toward the bathroom. “I should lock you in here and never let you leave, but that’d be contrary to my other needs, I suppose.”

“Fire me,” he said stupidly. “I’ll do what you want.”
Just keep me
.

He didn’t want to be fired. He just wanted Marina more than he wanted money. Maybe that sort of logic was how he’d ended up in the hole he was in at the moment. His feelings always got in the way of common sense. He didn’t even know what the sensible thing was at the moment.

She returned to the bedroom with two washcloths. The damp one, she handed to Quinn. He cleaned himself up with it and watched her mop up the mess on the floor with the dry one.

“Is that what you want?” She wadded the cloth and cast a dark gaze up to him. “Me to fire you?”

“No.”

“What do you want, then? You know, this…
thing
is getting complicated. Complicated scares me.”

It didn’t exactly make him feel warm and fuzzy, either. He knew one thing for sure, though, and he was going to say it even if it got him in trouble with her. “I want to be your lover, Marina. The only lover, not just one of them.”

She canted her head, eyes narrowed in mirth.

He shrugged. He wasn’t going to lie. “I don’t share, and I don’t like to be shared.” He wanted a one-and-only, not a sequence of part-time lovers. That was probably one of the few ways he was old-fashioned.

“Nor do I,” she said finally. “I’m greedy that way, I guess. I suppose when you’re selective about who you allow to be in your space, you crave that much more of those few people who make the cut.”

“Do I make the cut?”

She drew in a quiet breath, stood, and gently took the washcloth from him. “You…
surprise
me, Quinn. You’re not who I thought you were, and so far, I like what I know about you. I
want
to know more about you and what makes you tick.”

“Same here.”

She bobbed her eyebrows and shifted her weight. “Well, that puts me into a situation that has me questioning my ethics. There are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and I’ve been ignoring them since the moment I agreed to let you do the work.”

“So fire me. I always land on my feet. I’ll find something else.”

“That’s mighty reckless of you.” Her tone might have sounded scolding, but her expression was thoughtful. Her gaze fixed on nothing in particular as she worried at her bottom lip. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. Contrary to how some of your former clients behaved, the contract I signed for the agency expressly discouraged this kind of fraternization.”

“Does it feel dirty to you? Me being here?”

She gnawed on that lip some more, not answering.

“I’ll quit, Marina. Call the agency tomorrow,” he urged. “Tell them you’re all set and don’t need me anymore. I’ll go by the house and finish things up. I’ll make sure folks there know they’re not gonna be able to pull one over on ya. Let’s give this thing a go. If it doesn’t work?” He shrugged. “Fine. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Except his broken heart.

He had to try, though. He so badly needed to belong to someone—to
her
. She was the only woman he’d had anything more than a superficial relationship with in longer than he cared to recount.

I’m a fucking loser
.

She furrowed her brow. “You sure?”

He put on a smile for her, and it was probably weak. It was easier to smile big when he didn’t have shit at stake—when he didn’t give a damn. “I’ve never been surer about anything. It’s almost a relief.”

She pushed a swath of her long, curly hair behind her ear and swallowed. “Okay, Quinn. Let me think about it.”

He nodded and went to fetch his clothes. Before he got too far, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him back to her, flashing him that grin that made him want to prop a sword atop his shoulder and go out and conquer entire nations for her.

“I didn’t say you had to leave,” she said. “You can stay here while I’m doing my thinking. I’ll toss these cloths into the hamper and come right back.”

“If that’s what you want.” He’d tried to sound smooth, but he wanted it so bad that he couldn’t even swallow.

“I do,” she said.

He watched her saunter back into the bathroom, then scanned the bedroom around him.

The bench at the foot of the bed needed to be put back into place, so he did that, and then walked around to the right side of the king-sized bed. It might have been leased furniture, but it was nice. Solid, heavy stuff.
Expensive
.

Nothing he’d ever be able to afford.

It was hard to keep his mind from going back to that dollar sign place. Maybe in time he’d stop thinking about it or worrying that Marina would flip the script and start treating him like he was
less than
.

Get out of your fuckin’ head.
All that thinking was just going to make him more anxious.

He pulled back the covers on the bed and climbed in.

Marina stepped out of the bathroom, robe discarded and curly hair pulled up into a high bun. She turned off the remaining lights in the room and padded to the other side of the bed. “I never expected to hear myself saying such a thing, but I like seeing you in my bed, Quinn Hathaway.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.” She cuddled up next to him and tossed one smooth leg over his thighs, bumping his shameful erection in the process. “
Quinn
.” She laughed and brushed her lips down the slope of his neck.

“Can’t help it. Your bed feels nice and you walked out here naked as a jaybird. Even in the dark, you’re pretty.”

She laughed. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

“It’s definitely a compliment. Maybe not a good one, but I still mean it.” He tracked his palm down her back and she squirmed against him, letting out a little giggle. “Ticklish?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“I’ll try not to tickle you, then.” He put his face against the top of her head and inhaled her orange-and-clove scent and let his breath out in a slow exhalation. He couldn’t remember ever having been so comfortable with a woman. Usually, the heavy weight of expectation bogged him down and kept him from wanting to connect. People usually didn’t want to keep him. They just wanted something from him—generally one thing in particular, and maybe he’d trained them all to demand that from him. He’d set them all up to think that was all he wanted, when in truth, he simply hadn’t encountered anyone he’d wanted to give more to.

“How long are you going to be in Miami?” he asked. “I mean, where do you live when you’re not flipping houses? I want to know stuff about you.”

“Because you feel like you should?”

“Because I’m hungry to know, and curious about what’s going through your head when you make all those faces.”

“I don’t make faces.”

He chuckled. “Yes you do. Tell me everything about you.”

“Okay. Well. Where do I live?” She danced her fingers along the hair at his nape. “Nowhere in particular.”

“I don’t believe that. You’ve got to have a place somewhere. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”

“I’m not being coy, Quinn.” She sighed. “I had a place in New York up until last year. Someone loved the location so much that they made me an obscene offer on the unit, and I didn’t waste time thinking about it. I could afford to move out fast, so I did.”

“So, you’re sort of homeless?”

“I’ve got a roof over my head. Do I have anything permanent?” She rolled on top of him and propped her chin atop his chest. “No. I’m just…floating, I guess.”

“Makes two of us.” He tracked his palms carefully down her back, this time letting them settle at the curve above her ass. He wasn’t inviting anything, but if she wanted more, he certainly wasn’t going to say no.

He’d never say no to her if he could help it. Being able to say yes and
wanting
to made him feel formidable for a change. He wasn’t used to it.

She skipped her fingertips down the line of his nose and grazed them over his lips.

He took one of her hands and turned it over to kiss the back of it. “I’m not even on the lease where I’m staying right now.”

“How’d you end up there?”

“Shitty credit. No options. Old teammate is doing me a favor by taking me in and extorting me as much as he can.” Quinn chuckled. “And watching me jerk off on occasion.”

“Some favor.”

“Well, he
is
covering the utilities.” Quinn cupped a hand around her neck to bring her closer. He wanted a kiss, and she gave it, twining her fingers through his hair in the process and grinding herself against his cock.

Fuck.
Having come less than ten minutes ago, there was no reason he should have been that hard.

“I-I’ve stayed in worse places,” he said.

“And you’re so stoic about it. Is that cowboy practicality?”

“I guess it is. We’re brought up not to complain over petty shit because it rarely does any good.”

“Hmm.” She rocked her hips, dragging her wet sex along the top of his shaft.

Her moan made him thrust against her. Her tightening grip in his hair made his fingers notch into the flesh of her ass.

She ground against him, breath ragged and belly quivering against his, and pressed her lips to the side of her cheek.

She felt so good. She felt like…
his
.

God.

He hoped she had some idea of what she was doing to him, because he’d never be able to put it into words. He hoped she knew he wasn’t just playing. Players didn’t let themselves get attached, and he already was.

“Where should I live, Quinn?”

“Where do you
want
to live?”

She rocked again, and the tip of his dick grazed against her opening, and his soul seemed to shatter into a million little pieces. She was going to kill him—take the life from him by withholding her body from him. But if that was what she wanted…

“I don’t know,” she said. “I travel a lot. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

And he was inside her—at least the tip of him—and she was clenching him hard and making him gasp.

Don’t thrust. Don’t push.
Damned if he didn’t want to, though. Somehow, he managed to suck in some air, and he freed his hold on her pert ass so he could lift her chin and look at her.

“You do this to me,” she whispered. She sank a little more onto him.

Whatever he was going to say came out of his mouth as a wordless rattle.

“You…you make me crazy, Quinn.” Down a little more, and squeezing him so hard. “I want you around me. Do you know what I’m telling you? I want to see you.”

“Wanna see you, too. All the time.”

Down a little more. She took all of him that she could and, gasping, put her cheek to his chest.

“Is this weird?” she asked.

“What, you and me with the whole Roosters situation? Yeah, it’s weird.”