Slide Down on Me (3 page)

The arrogance, however, made her shiver with uncertainty. “Travis?”

“Sleep with me.”

Bella wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. She wanted to think she had, but… “I’m sorry?”

“Sleep with me. You owe me over two thousand dollars. You can’t pay it, not by Friday at least. You said you don’t have ready access to that kind of money anymore, so…” He left the words dangling, hanging in the air between them.

“So…? What exactly are you proposing?” she managed to ask while blood rushed in her ears. “Sex in exchange for having my car fixed?”

Travis shrugged at her questions, unrattled.

In truth, she wasn’t as bothered by the suggestion as she supposed she should’ve been. “That’s extortion.”

“Seems kind of ugly to look at it like that, don’t you think?”

Bella’s gaze raked his body, from the top of his head to the toes of his work boots. There was a light sheen of sweat on his inked arms and a bulge in his jeans. He might want her to think he was nonchalant, as though they were discussing the weather, but she’d bet every last dime she had that he wanted her to say yes as badly as she wanted to say it. “Then how should I look at it?”

“Proposition. Pleasure.” He swung his arms wide and grinned. Shivers of a different sort coasted through her. “Fantasy come true.”

Bella laughed and the sound wasn’t as strained as she thought it might be. “Whose fantasy? Whose pleasure?”

“Mine. Yours. Ours. Does it really matter? You want me.” His voice was full of cocky confidence and as much as she wanted to deny it, he was right. He took several steps forward until he was standing eye level with her, his breath fanning her face. “And I sure as hell want you.”

She might have wondered if he’d been drinking before coming to pick her up at the flower shop, but she knew now he hadn’t. He was serious. “How do you know? That I want you, I mean.”

“The way you’ve always looked at me. It wasn’t hard to get a clue.”

“Of course,” she said softly. “Like the secrets I thought I was keeping. I didn’t mean to be that transparent.” There was no need to be embarrassed about any of her high school transgressions now. It was ancient history, and the one good time she’d never had was standing in front of her, offering himself.

Travis stroked her cheek and she shuddered at the touch. Her nipples tingled and tightened. Her pussy drenched her panties. This was the first time he’d ever touched her and she wanted nothing more than to get down and dirty with him so he’d keep on touching.

“Transparent is good,” he muttered against her lips. The kiss was quick, barely there at all before his hand dropped away and he pulled back. He betrayed nothing he was thinking or feeling. She chanced looking down but he chuckled, drawing her gaze back to his. “Yeah, I’m hard.”

Bella flushed again and she whipped around and opened the porch door. She had to get herself under control, had to put a small bit of space between them, or he was going to be backed against the front wall of the house with her climbing up his body as though he were a ladder and she needed to get to the top.

After years of pent-up want, months of stress and frustration, she needed an outlet—and Travis was exactly that.

The lake house was cool, thanks to the repaired air conditioning unit, but it did nothing to quell the heat flowing through her.

Travis followed her inside and the door closed with a soft snick. Her belly flipped and flopped and she thought if she set about doing normal things, such as hanging her purse on its hook, toeing off her sensible loafers and grabbing a couple bottles of water from the fridge, she might feel as though she wasn’t walking around in a daze of sexual need and emotional confusion.

She set a bottle on the counter for Travis and walked toward the back of the big and bright combination living room/dining room/kitchen. Two bedrooms and one bathroom rounded out the house.

Despite the horrid shade of purple on the outside, the inside was soft tones of sea green and pale blue, with accents the color of sand and surf. With the sliding-glass doors on the far side of the room letting in lots of natural light, the home seemed at one with the outdoor surroundings. There was also a deck, off which was a path leading down to the lake.

She loved the cavernous feel of the common rooms, but Travis’ presence and unblinking stare made everything seem small and tight. “So…how long?”

“I’d say it’s negotiable.”

His footsteps echoed on the wood floor and her heartbeat kicked up a notch. His heat seeped through the back of her shirt as he came to stand behind her. She took an unsteady breath. Negotiable.
Is forever too long?
“C-can I think about it?”

Travis huffed out a laugh. The sound was followed by water sloshing in a bottle, and in her mind’s eye, his Adam’s apple worked in his throat as he swallowed the cold liquid, his tattoos moving with the motion.

“Seriously? Do you really need to think about it, Bella? Do you really need time to consider whether or not you want to fuck me?”

He certainly didn’t sugarcoat anything and damn, that was just how she liked it.

Travis was the one man who’d always been out of reach. Now he wasn’t. She turned. She wanted to see his face when she answered his question. He took another drink from the water bottle, his gaze boring into her, unreadable but heated.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know, because there’s really nothing to think about right this minute other than sex and if you’re going to take it.”

A split second passed and Bella gripped the front of Travis’ shirt. “Yeah. I’m going to take it.” She jerked him forward and their lips met halfway. He rewarded her enthusiasm with a gasp when she slipped her tongue into his mouth.

He backed her into the glass of the sliding doors and instantly had one of her legs hitched around his hips. Frenzied and hot, she was coming undone with a simple kiss. Nothing in her years of experience prepared her for the onslaught of feelings coursing through her body. He overwhelmed her. She’d intended for it to be a short meeting of lips and tongue, but it was so much more.

“Too many goddamn clothes,” he muttered against her lips. Using his free hand, he ripped the buttons on her shirt, the pinging sounds as they hit the floor filling the silence between them. Cool air breezed across her chest and she sighed into his mouth.

He lowered his head, sucking on the exposed skin of one breast above the bra cup. Heat suffused her. “Travis…”

“Want you, Bells.” He pushed her tits together and wedged his tongue into the tight valley he’d created. His hands slipped to her hips next and his mouth found the pulse in her throat. “Where’d your curves go, baby? God, so damn hot.”

“Life,” she said, confused, yet so turned-on that a man like Travis would have liked her with a few more pounds.

“You were like a pin-up, full and lush. Wanted you so bad. Still do. Right now.”

“Too many clothes.” She repeated his words, shoved up his shirt until he let her go enough to shed it. She barely had time to register the canvas that was his chest and torso covered in bright ink, and…

Dear God, his nipples were pierced. A ring. A barbell. The surprises kept coming. Exploring his body was going to be a treat. Tasting him, teasing him, trailing her fingers over the jut of his hipbones, the tattoos around his torso.

She leaned forward to indulge her desires, but Travis stopped her. “Later.”

He spun her around. Their reflections in the glass were cloudy, yet she could make out his darker, leaner shape behind her paler, full-figured one.

Travis’ fingers worked the eyelets free on her bra and she moaned when his scratchy hand slid up and down her bare spine before he reached under the cups. She didn’t dare breathe, but she couldn’t hold it in. Her stomach trembled and her thigh muscles clenched against her arousal. Sensations she never knew existed swamped her until she was feverish. Fulfillment at having him so close rocked her. Anticipation for what lay ahead soared through her body. Travis’ bare chest pressed hotly to her back, his palms coasted over her breasts and his fingers pinched the tips. She sucked air through her teeth and dropped her head back. It connected with his and he turned, burying his face in her hair. It had been so long for her, for sex in general, and for rough sex—and that edge-of-pain sex—even longer.

“Oh, you like that.” Travis muttered the words into her shoulder and she shivered, hips twitching in a suggestive manner that he could never mistake.

He wanted her for sex; sex in exchange for her car. She wanted him for sex too. But for no other reason beyond the fact that it was him, Travis.

Her parents and her ancestors would likely roll over in their graves if they could see who she was doing the nasty with. She’d kept her crush on him as secret as possible during her high school years but dear God, the feel of him so close…

“I’ll get you off soon enough, Bells. I promise. Damn, as hot as it’s going to be…summertime has nothing on us.”

As he talked, he pinched her nipples harder, grazed his teeth over the side of her neck and her shoulder. He licked the top of her arm before sinking into a bite. She wriggled against the glass door and grasped for purchase where there was none. He never let go of her nipples, and the suction of his mouth on her arm drove her mad. If he sucked her like that anywhere else there’d be nothing left of her but a puddle.

“P-please.” She couldn’t say more than that as he licked away the sting of his bite. A muted red mark would be visible by morning. Damn, she’d missed being marked. Her nipples smarted when he eased the pressure on them and drifted his rough mechanic’s hands down her stomach, to the button of her sensible khaki pants.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you like this, Bella?”

“Maybe as long as I’ve wanted you.” She rested her head against the cool glass of the door. The sooner he got inside her, the better. The sooner his warm hand got between her legs…

“Mmmm. I wanted to wait, to drag this out, take my time with you, but I think that’ll have to be saved for the next go round.” His arm circled her waist, firm, with the hair tickling her skin. “Bend over, baby,” he instructed softly.

He tugged her backward, her pants at her ankles. Her hands slid down the glass, squeaking along the surface. His fingers entered her then, testing her depths, stretching her tightness.

“Now, I remember hearing something about…” He slapped her pussy with the flat of his hand, the one that had been playing in her wetness. Bella jolted but Travis held her that much tighter. “Oh yes. I heard right. And fuck you’re smooth. You definitely know how to kill a man.”

He slapped her again and again until the flesh of her sex was tender, to the point the air blowing between her legs made her moan. Her clit was on fire and the razor’s edge of orgasm hovered. She’d never struggled to get or stay wet, but the spankings she’d always loved against her most sensitive parts only intensified the sex that usually followed. That she
was
smooth, waxed to perfection, making sure every inch could be touched, smacked, tugged and nibbled on? Well, there’d never been any complaints from her lovers before and she didn’t think there’d be any complaints from Travis either.

Travis pressed his chest against her back and feathered kisses down her spine. “You’ve got the hottest ass. I should take a belt to it.” To make his point, he dragged his hand up to one of the globes of her bottom and squeezed hard enough to make her gasp. “I’d like to see pretty red stripes on your pale skin.”

“H-how do you know I won’t be sunbathing naked?”

“I don’t, but I’ll have to find a way to convince you otherwise.” Travis’ hand disappeared from her ass and she heard the metal scrape of his zipper followed by a groan. Foil ripped and his grumbling about condoms being from the devil made her giggle. Though, when he pressed the head of his cock against her opening, the giggle died on a gasp.

“Shall we?”

He thrust inside her before she could say yes or no, but truth be told, she’d never considered resisting or asking him to wait.

He kept her steady with his strong, leanly muscled arm around her middle, but she still had a hard time staying on her feet with the power behind his fucking. He slapped her ass with his free hand, reached under her and pulled on an already tender nipple, then wrapped his fingers in her hair and twisted.

“Tight and so fucking hot, Bells. I think that reputation of respectability is going out the window.” He screwed his hips against her body. She couldn’t nod given his hold on her head, and she couldn’t speak given the dryness of her lips and tongue, so she did the next best thing. She tightened her cunt around his cock. She squeezed hard and the sensations that shot through her channel at his continued thrusting drove her mad.

And he was right. Respectability wasn’t nearly as important as the cock fucking her at that moment.

Her breasts swung with the force of him driving into her. She lifted her gaze and looked out at the lake. No one was on it as far as she could see, but she wouldn’t have cared. She had Travis. She finally had tattooed-and-pierced Travis, and though she didn’t want to draw any undue attention to herself or any negative attention to him, she wanted to shout it out over the water to anyone within hearing distance.

“I could stay inside you for a week, baby. God.” Travis pulled out and Bella whimpered in protest. He spun her around and forced her to her knees. “Take me,” he ground out. Lust fired in his eyes and flushed his skin. She raked her gaze up his body.

“W-water,” she croaked. It wasn’t a pretty or sexy sound but she couldn’t help it. Every ounce of moisture in her body was centered between her thighs.

Travis grinned, picked up the bottle and unscrewed the cap.

With fingers twisted in her hair again, he tilted her head back. She opened her mouth and he slanted the bottle to the side and water flowed. She swallowed what hit her tongue and shivered at what slid down over her throat, chest and belly.

“Fuck.” The one word, short and hard, had Bella meeting Travis’ stare. He stripped off the condom and pulled her forward. “Now. Suck me.”