“My mom had two settings: either she was desperately on the make, or trying desperately to keep the guy. Either way I was scared shitless every time I went home. You never knew what you’d find there, a war zone or a tomb. It was not very soothing, let me tell you.”
“Shit, sweetheart. That must have been hard.”
She shrugged. “You get used to it. I was born in a circus. I spent all my childhood riding a hell of a roller coaster, walking the tightrope. Trying not to be squashed by the stampeding horses.”
“Come here, baby,” he said, dragging her onto his lap. “No wonder you comforted yourself with food. It’s actually a miracle you didn’t take up drugs or alcohol.”
She snorted. “I started young. At age four the only mood-altering substances available to me were doughnuts and peanut butter sandwiches.”
Food was around, and given the right amount, it worked. It took the edge off. And thank God for that; if she hadn’t had food, she didn’t know how she would have survived. She probably wouldn’t have.
“Although you don’t know how much shit I took at the AA meetings Lora made me drive her and the other old-timers to. As addictions go, being hooked on food is not that…glamorous. Or recognized. When you talk about other addictions, the image you have of addicts is of rough guys in bars getting drunk, getting into fights, driving away from the cops, getting into trouble… What did I do? Sit on the coach and stuff my face until I passed out. So not cool.”
Cole laughed. “I wouldn't say getting into fights and driving away from cops is cool.”
She waved dismissively. “You know what I mean.” Others battled big bad evils. She battled candy bars!
It figured she’d end up with the dorky disease.
“Nevertheless it was my way to cope with life. Sugar just did it for me. My mom, for example, is wired differently; she needs men for coping. Every time my mother was dumped, she went totally off the deep end. If living with her and her losers was hard, living alone with her was even harder, even more scary. It was like going through a train wreck in slow motion. She was hysterical. Out of control. If she didn’t have a man with her, nothing was good enough in her life. Not her, and certainly not me. Every time a relationship went to hell, she would be out there, in full-blown psycho-queen act, screaming and buying compulsively, adding financial angst into the mix. She did her thing, and I did mine—eating. I could do anything on food. Roll over me with an 18-wheeler and I’d swing it. As long as I had some pizza and some chocolate set aside, I was okay, I could handle it.”
And as her weight piled on, her mother had been horrified by it, lecturing her about how men didn’t like fat women. She scolded her and embarrassed her, as if that would have done anything to solve Christy's problem. Then she’d get a man and her focus would shift. When it came to concern for her own daughter, Martha had a short memory.
“You’re tense, baby,” Cole said, massaging her neck.
“Of course I’m tense. We’re talking about my mother.” Lora used to say that family knew how to push your buttons because they had installed them all, and boy was she right. “Nothing in the world can make me tenser than that. Except for having her near me or getting a phone call from her.”
“That’s easy to solve, sweetheart. Block her calls.”
Christy laughed. “Oh, you don’t know her. That would definitely make things worse.”
“What about disconnecting your cell for a few hours a day?”
“No, I can’t do that. I take a lot of calls from friends in the program. I need to be reachable. For better or for worse, I can’t get rid of my mother, so I’m learning to live with her. Besides, things are much better now with Fred around.” In fact, the only thing that was keeping her mother from coming to Alden to make Christy “see reason” was probably him.
“Tell me about him.”
“Fred is great. She really lucked out with him. Don’t get me wrong; the men that my mom used to hook up with weren’t always losers. Some of them were quite nice, but she always ended up freaking those out and sending them packing by being her old self, making scenes and being too needy. Normal men have a sixth sense for crazy women, and she always managed to get all the alarms ringing in their heads. Desperation has its own smell. Fred seems to be immune to all her craziness. The man is a total saint. They’ve been married for three years—a miracle, I assure you. I really thought that would never ever happen.” Martha had been married three times before, but she never lasted more than a handful of months. Once she made it to a record of only three weeks. They hadn’t yet taken Martha’s maiden name off the mailbox and changed it for her married name when the guy was gone and she was divorced again.
“Fred is the manager of a small bank, a widower with no kids, which is perfect for her, because she needs to be number-one priority. She’d go into hysterics if she had to share him with kids or ex-wives. She has to be the prima donna of her own opera, and nobody should overshadow her.”
“Quite a character, your mother.”
“You could say that. It’s a miracle that with such a role model I’ve managed to survive only slightly damaged.”
“You aren’t damaged, babe. In spite of such an influence in your life, you’ve turned out quite gorgeous.”
“You think?”
He flicked the tip of her nose. “I know.”
She encircled his neck with her arms, threading her fingers into his hair. The sun had bleached some strands, turning them almost white. “Your hair is getting long, soldier.”
“Yes, it looks kind of sloppy. It’s just that these last months I’ve been too preoccupied with a certain spitfire.”
“I doubt the buzz cut would be any good for holding on to you when you fuck me with that talented mouth of yours.”
A snort escaped him. “As if you’d need to hold me by my hair to keep me between your legs.”
“True,” she assented with a half smile while he brushed his thumb over her lower lip. Unable to stop herself, she licked the pad of his finger, and he let out a hoarse growl that sent shivers of excitement all over her body.
“Have I told you how much I love your mouth? These red, glistening lips alone are responsible for more lost time on the job than I care to count. The library would have been finished weeks ago if I could have managed to stop daydreaming about them. About you. You’re too damn distracting.” His warm eyes looked at her with such a mixture of tenderness and hunger it startled her.
He softly kissed the corner of her mouth, then trailed his lips down to torment her throat, moving his hands all over her upper body. By the time he’d finished licking and sucking her nipples, she was shaking with need. Not that he was in better shape. His massive erection was wedged between her folds, pulsing and twitching, his expression tight with lust.
Suddenly he moved aside, got out of the water, and spread his gorgeous body on the wooden deck.
His eyes glittered with desire. “Come here and ride me, sweet thing.”
She looked around. “You want me to jump out of the tub and come ride you?” He nodded. “Why don’t you come back in here and fuck me?”
“Feeling shy?”
“You bet. Anyone could be watching us,” she replied.
“This place is secluded. No one can see us,” he said as he motioned with a very arrogant finger for her to come to him.
Christy so didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of her coming to him, but she was burning up, her pussy flexing, her nipples so hard they hurt. She stood up. “I guess you should know. You must fuck all your dates in the tub, so of course you must have checked that your intimacy is protected.”
His gaze never left hers. “I never bring women to my place. Too complicated.”
That froze her. “And me?”
“You?” He shrugged. “Not complicated.”
And that said it all. She felt a small pang in her stomach. She didn’t even count as a fling. Not that she wanted to, she reminded herself. This was meaningless sex, nothing more, nothing less, and she should keep that in mind before things got out of hand and the man broke her heart.
“Come on, babe,” he continued, seeming totally unaware of the implications of his little comment.
She forced herself to shake his words out of her head. He was right. They had an agreement, and everyone here was getting what they wanted. She was getting sex. He was getting a no-groupies buffer zone around him.
As she straddled him, he rolled them over. “On a second thought,” he said, trailing down and forcing her legs open. “You didn’t let me eat earlier and I’m hungry.”
He kissed her core as if it were her mouth, deeply and thoroughly, claiming every inch of it with his talented tongue and lips, holding her by her ass and lifting her up to grant him more access while she sobbed and writhed and he held her tight, making appreciative sounds, driving her desire higher and higher. When he fastened his lips around her clit and began sucking, she was as good as gone. Her back arched, and with a ragged cry she came in his mouth.
“Yum,” he said against her lips, the smell of her all over him, and then rolled them over again, grinning at her. “Now you can ride me.”
Cole took himself in hand and rubbed the tip of his dick on her tender folds as she lowered herself onto him.
“You feel like heaven, baby. I’m addicted to having your bare flesh around me. I can’t get enough.”
Her hands on his pecs, she began riding him slowly while her depths accommodated his massive presence. She could feel the blood pulsing in his cock, shooting arrows of need all over her, and soon her desire was reignited.
She might be on top, but as always, Cole was the one fucking her, thrusting up, gripping her thighs to ensure he set the pace. And she loved it.
She opened her eyes and saw his hungry gaze on her body.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he said, reaching for her, his fingers trailing over her chest and teasing her nipples. Caressing her as if he…cared for her.
For some reason that ticked her off. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know what I am.”
He stilled. “And what’s that, sweetheart?”
Defective.
“Not totally up to standards.”
Slap!
She felt the sting of his hand on her ass, radiating straight to her clit, actually. “I told you not to do that again.”
Trying to ignore the way her clit throbbed, she snorted. “Do what? I know what I—”
Another slap. This one harder. She sucked her breath in.
He jolted upward against her, his eyes blazing with some emotion she couldn’t decipher. He pulled at her hair, tilting her head back, forcing her to meet his stare. “Don’t you dare. I won’t let you put yourself down, you hear me? Next time I’ll turn you over my knee and spank that pretty ass. And it won’t be a spanking you’ll enjoy. Are we clear?” His hips slammed against her, harder and faster than before. Dazzled from the pleasure and his forcefulness, she could do nothing but nod.
“Now that we understand each other, I want you to come. Now,” he ordered as he plunged inside her and, arms wrapped around her torso, ground his pelvis against her. She lost it on the spot, as if her body could not
not
follow his commands.
Before she’d come down from that powerful release, Cole had stood and was walking toward the house, still painfully hard inside her.
“What—”
“You managed to piss me off, sweetheart. Be ready to work out all this anger on your knees.”
* * * *
He went searching for her and found her sitting on his outer deck, chin on her knees. She was wearing one of his old pajama tops, and his chest clenched at the sight. He liked her naked, but if she insisted on dressing, seeing her in his clothes was the next best thing.
Christy hadn’t noticed him closing in, for she was looking into the distance across the lake.
As he sat on the chair near her, she turned to him but didn’t say anything.
“Did I already weird you out?” After all, not everyone went for his special brand of sex. Most women didn’t appreciate being pounded into a bed for hours, much less restrained or overpowered. Not to mention that before they got to the bed part last night, he’d fucked her bent over the sofa, hard, sideways from a mirror, her hair wrapped around his fist to force her to watch the show. Then he’d pushed her to her knees and come, shoved deep in her throat. He’d been so mad hearing her derisive comments about herself that he’d needed to show her how she affected him. How he went insane with lust for her.
He’d let himself go, and he’d been rough. She’d enjoyed the sex, coming apart in his arms many times, but now he found himself…uncertain. He searched her face. Was this too much for her? Did he have to tone his sex drive down? Because he’d hate it, but for her he’d do it. He loved unapologetic sex, but crazy as it might sound, he loved pleasing her more.
She smiled softly. “No, you didn’t, soldier. You exhausted me, but you didn’t weird me out.”
Relief spread over him. “Good to hear.”
They’d been fucking for over a week. He’d hoped that by giving in to Christy he would regain control of the situation. Fuck her out of his system and move on, but no dice; this insane attraction hadn’t worn off. If anything, it had gotten worse. Not only did he still want to screw her at every chance he got, but now he also wanted to spend time with her with their clothes on. It was frigging scary.
“Why aren’t you in bed?”
“Can’t sleep,” she offered with a shrug. “So I decided to read a bit.”
He glanced at the table nearby where her iPod, her iPhone, and her e-reader were—Christy and her gadgets. It was a miracle she hadn’t fussed with them.
“I think I haven’t seen you reading a real book yet.” He could appreciate gadgetry—he was after all a man—but sometimes the simplicity of the traditional couldn’t be beaten.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance. “This is a real book. Hell, it’s better because there are three thousand books in it. It doesn’t kill trees, it doesn’t create storage problems, and it doesn’t grow old and get damaged as fast as paper.”
“True, but you have to recognize that that screen can’t compete with the real thing. The smell of a book, how it feels in your hands.”