More Than Meets the Ink (13 page)

She pleasured him with her hands and mouth. Several times he moved his hands to her head to make her stop, but it was as if his hands were free agents and he had no control over them. Panting and sweating, he found himself on the brink. Abruptly he pushed her away. “Not yet, princess. I want to come inside you, with your pussy clenched around me.”

“But—”

“No buts.” He flipped her on her back and settled between her legs and prodded her gently with his fingers. She was ready, but he didn’t want to risk it again. She needed to come a couple of times more to be soft and wet and needy enough for what he had in mind. Besides, he had to redeem himself. Then he got sidetracked by her breasts, so cute and small and nicely shaped, rising and falling fast, the red nipples beckoning him. Yes, his time of being a hardcore fan of big boobs was gone. He raked his teeth over one nipple and then sucked—hard.

Tate’s back bowed, and her pussy convulsed around his finger. He sucked again, and she convulsed again.

“God, James, I don’t know how you do that, but every time you get close to my nipples, I feel it between my legs.”

“Funny,” he whispered, lavishing her other nipple, making it wet and hard, getting her inner muscles to jerk around his finger and greedily clasp it. “Every time I kiss your nipples, I feel it all the way down to my groin too.”

He kissed his way down from her tits to her stomach until he pressed his mouth to her bare pussy, needing to taste her again. With a moan on her lips, she opened her legs wider. He ate at her folds, kissing and petting them, making them flush a deeper red, and then suckled her clit gently, humming against it while Tate arched her back and lifted her hips to him, begging for more. He loved her taste. Like hot honey melting around his taste buds. It was sweetly addictive. He could lap at her all day long and never tire. Keeping her wide open, with his hands under her ass, he fucked her with his tongue and was rewarded by a deep, ragged moan. She was madly bucking beneath him, willing his tongue to fuck her deeper. Desperate. So damn responsive—like she was made for him.

He moved to lick her clit, rubbing at it with the flat part of his tongue while two fingers filled her. A little more pressure on her clit and there she went, screaming into orgasm. He rode it out, petting her until all that was left were tremors. Then he went at it again. And again. Until she was whipped-cream soft and limp in his arms. Now she was ready. She whimpered, but he flipped her on her stomach, lifted her ass up, and forced her onto her hands and knees.

“I told you this is one of my favorite positions.”

She turned her face to him, insecurity written all over her.

“I’ll make it work for you. I promise. I can get very deep inside you like this; you’ll come so hard you’ll pass out.”

He rolled a condom on, and in one stroke, he drove into her to the hilt. She gasped but took all of him. She was scalding hot and fucking tight, her muscles fluttering around him, grabbing him. He backed out slowly and pushed in again, feeling her flesh yielding to him, her heat bathing all of him.

“Man, look at you,” he whispered into her ear while he kept still. James reached over, brushed her clit, and slid his fingers down. He touched her folds, feeling how wide open she was for him, for his penetration. “You’re so fucking sexy.” He licked and petted the back of her neck, her throat, her ear, until she was moaning and pushing against him, urging him to get on with it. Harder. Faster. He loomed over her, gripping her hip with one hand while his other continued to gently rub her clit. And then he snapped again.

Soon the slamming thrusts were rocking her whole body.

“Do you like it, Tate? Do you?” he said insistently while she released a ragged “yes.”

He didn’t recognize himself. So needy, so out of control. No detachment, no distance. He was letting this girl get to him…get inside him.

James felt his orgasm rising in his head and in his balls at the same time, his sac drawing tighter to the base of his dick, but when it hit him, he was totally unprepared. It was like free falling. The world exploded around him as he tensed, and his semen furiously spurted out of him. In between his haze, he noticed her falling apart with another of her earth-shattering screams. Good. He’d made her come. Again. The number of orgasms he brought to a woman was always a matter of pride, but now it was also a matter of survival; the more limp and satiated he kept her, the less she would try to ditch him. Plus he had that episode against the door to make up for, the intensity of which had startled him. Startled him? No, scratch that, it’d scared him to death. He didn’t do intense. Sexually intense, yes, but that was pretty much the extent of his involvement. He’d always prided himself on remaining a bit detached, even during the hottest of fucks. Not anymore. He was thinking with his dick, he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. She was blowing his mind away, nothing else left but his glands to dictate the rules. What a poor state of affairs for a guy who always ran the show with a cool head.

He rolled off her and gathered her in his arms, hiding his face in her hair.

His throat was swollen shut.

“Jesus, you’re fantastic. You fried my brain. Again,” he murmured after reassuring himself his voice wasn’t shaky anymore. She was dismantling him, true, but at least he was going to go a happy man.

* * *

One extremely well-used condom later and Tate was totally limp. She opened her eyes and licked her dry lips. James had one arm over her waist, holding her tight. Slowly she rolled onto her back. Feeling boneless, glowing, and adrift, like she’d float up to the ceiling if James moved his arm.

She lowered her eyes to his still half-erect cock and groaned. “I don’t know what it’d take to lay that beast down. Probably nothing I should be contemplating right now seeing as how I can barely move.”

“Two or three rounds more with my pirate princess and it’ll calm down.”

Tate laughed. “Then I better raid the minibar. Get myself some sustenance.” Although she doubted nuts and chips would be enough to get her through this bout of sex. Maybe she’d get lucky and hit pay dirt, find some high-power energy drink there—or some go-all-night amphetamines, for that matter. Then again, raiding the minibar would imply her walking to it, so she decided to pass. At the moment, her legs were too wobbly for such a colossal effort. The spiked heels she still had on would ensure she broke her neck.

As James reached for her, the chime of her cell startled them both. She looked around, trying to remember where she’d left her bag. Ah, yes, near the door, with the rest of her clothes. And her brain.

Scurrying from James’s embrace, she decided to brave neck injury and went to fetch the cell. She flipped it open and read the message.

“What’s it?”

Her airline putting a crush on the best sex of her life, that’s what it was.

“My flight has been rescheduled. It leaves at one p.m., not in the evening.”

“Ask them to book you a seat for a later flight.”

She shook her head. “No, I better confirm my seat for the one o’clock flight,” she said, quickly composing a message.

He propped his back against the headboard, the sheet bunching around his hips. “You know, I’ll be leaving in two days. You could travel back with me. We could stop along the way for some sightseeing. Check in to a different motel every night and hump like crazed rabbits all the way to Boston.”

“Tempting, but I can’t wait that long before arriving home.”

“Pretty please?”

She avoided his gaze. “Sorry, no. I’m really in a hurry. I can’t afford to cruise around the country.”
Without a care in the world, while her personal world was falling to pieces.

“What is it that you’re in such hurry to go back to? Or should I say who?”

She gave him a “duh” look. “There’s no one back home, I told you already. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Don’t be mistaken. You’re in my bed. It is my business.”

“For now.”

He looked at her as if she was kidding herself but didn’t press the matter. “It’s the restaurant then, right? The reason you’re so twitchy to go back? Why, Tate? And why is Rosita’s not turning a profit?”

She stiffened. She remembered telling him that and not elaborating further. “It does turn a profit, it’s just that…”

“What? Spit it out, will ya?”

She sighed and sat on the corner of the bed. What the heck; in several hours, she’d be gone anyway. “Well, a couple of months after the car accident, we had a fire in the restaurant. It started in the kitchen; apparently, someone left a stove on. There was a rag nearby, and, well, the place went up like a torch in the middle of the night. By the time the firemen got it under control, the damage was considerable. The insurance policy my parents had was old and full of loopholes, as it turned out. Dad was planning to update it before passing the restaurant to my brother, but he never got around to it. So as the fire was our fault, the money for repairing the damage had to come basically from our own pocket.”

“Are you sure it was an accident? Maybe someone broke in. A prank from kids, maybe.”

“The police ruled that out. According to the arson expert, the fire was an accident caused by negligence. The firemen pinpointed the origin. The stove had been on. And there were no signs of breaking and entering.” She was dead sure it hadn’t been an accident, though. She had her e-mail in-box full of threatening messages, for Christ’s sake. How clearer could that get? Those had begun a week after the fire, threatening her, among other unpleasant things, with torching the place up for real this time if she didn’t sell out. But the police said there was no evidence of foul play, that for all they knew she could be the one sending those e-mails in the hopes of getting the insurance money. She wasn’t telling James any of that, though. She wanted to; it would feel nice to unload onto someone, but she didn’t even want to utter the words. Besides, no one wanted to hear them. Her mom would freak out about the e-mails, Elle too. The police weren’t taking her seriously. Aidan had bailed out. She barely had time for her friends, who would actually also flip about the threats. James wouldn’t freak, she was sure, but it wasn’t his problem.

“So cutting a long story short, I got stuck with the bill.” She smiled, trying to play it down, but it came out as a grimace. Her mouth didn’t seem to be able to stop now that she’d opened Pandora’s box. “Rosita’s lost not only my dad and Jonah, but my mom too. They were the heart of the place, irreplaceable. I’m a lousy cook, can’t help in the kitchen but for the basics, and I suck as a hostess. It’s difficult to smile and make people feel welcome and have a good time when you’re broken inside.”

He reached for her. “Jesus, Tate. You don’t have any close family that could help you?”

She shook her head. “There’s only the three of us: me, Mom, and Elle. If I give up, Rosita’s is as good as gone. Elle and Mom won’t set foot in it, won’t fight for it. I’m sure after they’ve had some time to heal, they’ll relish the place and all the memories that it holds, but now they can’t see it. Hell, most times I can’t either. But if I give up now and sell out, then Rosita’s will be truly lost to us. We won’t be able to revisit those memories in the future when Mom and Elle are ready for them.”

His face tightened. “You’re putting too much responsibility on your head.”

She shrugged. “It’s the only head around.”

“You need a vacation, a real one. Take the road trip back with me.”

She snorted. Was he kidding? “Please don’t make me laugh. My gut cramps every time my cell rings. I need to be there. I’m already scared shitless the place has gone to hell during this week I’ve been away.” Or up in flames.

He waved at her dismissively. “Don’t dramatize. In my experience, most employees work better when the pressure is off somehow, when they’re given some space. Give them another week to show they can come through.”

Yeah right
. “I can’t afford it.”

“You need to disconnect. We could leave tomorrow if you don’t want to wait two days. I don’t think my dad will mind, and I’m flexible that way.”

“I bet you are,” she said ironically.

His tone hardened. “What does that mean?”

“Tell me one thing; how can you run a business if you’re absent whenever you feel like hitting the road and coming to Florida, or feel like inviting a girl to a sex marathon while crossing a bunch of states?”

“I’m there when I need to be, which is more than most people can say. Besides, I have time to spare.”

“Sure you have.”

“I don’t like what you’re implying, princess.”

She dismissed him. “I’m just saying I can’t go with you. I’m a grown-up, have grown-up things to do.” Ouch, that had come out too snotty, even for her ears.

“And I’m just a brainless, irresponsible stud that turns wherever the wind blows, is that it?”

“No, it isn’t like that. You talk too much.”

He stood up. “True, this was just sex, after all. Better use our time efficiently,” he said, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her out of the bed. “Get the stockings off.”

“Don’t bully me,” she snapped at him, straightening her back.

He gave her that devilishly sexy grin and palmed himself. At the sight of his fully erect cock, throbbing and pulsing, her own body began melting. Maybe she could use a bit of bullying after all.

She strode to the chair, lifted her leg up, and, offering him a back view he’d surely appreciate, rolled one stocking down slowly, taking her sweet time fussing with it and unbuckling the high heels. She’d never stripped in front of anyone, was probably sadly lacking in form and technique, but if his deep groan was anything to go by, or the way he stared at her, she was doing just fine.

“Now the other,” she heard him say and kept going. Lifting the other leg, dragging down the stocking, and fussing a little with the shoe. When she lifted her eyes to him, he had his gaze fixed on her, a condom dangling from his free hand.

“Roll it on me.”

“Let me touch you first,” she said, moving toward him. She wanted to explore his body, kiss him all over in the same way he’d done to her.