“Okay, Mom.”
After the door closed again, April leaned back in her chair and stared at the work in front of her.
One more hour, then I’m done for the day.
Mustang was coming over for dinner, and she wanted it to be special. To have time to prepare both the food and herself. And maybe to figure out what the invisible wall between them was.
****
“That was incredible.” Mustang leaned back in his chair and smiled at April.
His smile was always her undoing, hitting right at the center of her being. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Are you kidding?” He lifted his wine glass. “Lasagna’s one of my all-time favorite comfort foods.”
“Why don’t you finish your wine, and I’ll clear everything away here.”
She’d spent too much time during the meal staring at him, but holy cow! In his jeans, polo shirt, and western boots, he was a mouthwatering mouthful. He had told her about the couple that took him in after the death of his parents. At night sometimes, lying in bed, she could imagine him astride a horse, riding with the wind, as totally in control as he was with everything else.
She needed something to do with her hands. Something to occupy herself. They had both been on edge during dinner, although they had done their best to conceal it. Every so often, she had looked up and caught him watching her with a look in his eyes she couldn’t quite define. It was obvious each of them was holding something back. But if he was trying to figure out the easiest way to break it off with her, she was going to get in her licks about sex first. At least, she’d go out in a blaze of glory.
More than a dozen times, she started to say something to him, then changed her mind. No, she’d wait until they were in bed. She’d been so nervous all day, mentally rehearsing what she could say to him. How she could say it. Trying to figure out what his reaction would be and how she’d handle things if it all went sour.
She had a plan already in her head. Once they were in bed, naked, she’d go to work on him with her mouth and her hands the way he loved. Then, when she had him hanging on the edge, she’d pry it out of him. Because she really wanted answers.
She could hardly concentrate while she put away the leftovers and loaded the plates and silverware in the dishwasher. She had taken great care showering and dressing for tonight. And naughtily left off any panties. When she bent over the dishwasher, the skirt rode up and she knew he could see her bare flesh.
“Jesus, April.” His breath hissed through his teeth. “Are you deliberately trying to drive me nuts?”
She turned and gave him what she hoped was a sexy smile. “Maybe.”
He rose from his chair, all six foot four of him. She looked at him over her shoulder and saw heat burning unmistakably in his slate grey eyes. The muscles in his rough-jawed face were tight with hunger. One large hand cupped her chin, tilting it up so he could brush his mouth over hers. “I’ve only satisfied one kind of hunger so far tonight. I need to feed the other.”
“Someone’s in a hurry tonight,” she teased, but she was glad. It made her plan that much easier to put into play.
“Someone can hardly ever keep his hands off you,” he whispered, nipping the place where her neck and shoulder joined. His hand reached beneath her top and lifted it over her head, tossing it to the counter.
“No bra, either.” His voice was tight with control. “Naughty girl.”
“I like being naughty,” she told him. Maybe that would give him a hint.
His tongue danced over the upper swell of her breasts, pausing to trace a line in the valley between them. When he pulled a nipple into his mouth, she felt the tug all the way to her cunt and had to clutch his upper arms to steady herself.
“What do you say we take this out of the kitchen?” he murmured in her ear, his voice husky.
“O-okay.”
She started to push away from him, but he swept her up in his arms and strode with determined steps to her bedroom. Standing her next to the bed, he took a moment to rake his eyes over her. Her skin prickled with the hunger in his gaze, the intensity of it warming her entire body. Just the caress of his eyes always made her liquid and weak. She stood there, powerless as he began to remove the rest of her clothing. And when she was completely naked, her body quivering with desire, he took her mouth in another kiss, this one so ravenous and claiming it actually made her shake.
She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the feelings sweeping over her, feeling Fletch’s big hands as they lifted her to the bed. When she opened them, he was removing the last of his own clothing, kicking his boots to the side and climbing onto the bed with her. When he pulled her into his arms, his body vibrated with tension, the same coiled energy that was always there when they made love.
Holding something back.
No! Not this time.
She wrestled herself from his grasp and pushed him onto his back. He stared up at her, a quizzical expression on his face. “What’s up, sweet thing?”
April took a deep breath, pulled her thoughts together, and shifted so she was straddling him. “Listen to me.”
“I’d loved to.” He gave a shaky laugh. “But you’re making it damn near impossible. Could you just lower those sweet breasts a little for me? Or slide that delicious pussy a little closer to my mouth?” He licked his lips. “You make me hungry. And not for more lasagna.”
“No. I don’t think so. I’m in charge right now. So pay attention.”
His hands tightened on her thighs. “Sugar, I don’t think I could do anything else right now. But can we make it quick?”
“We’ll make it as quick or as slow as I decide,” she told him as she slid down his body to kneel between his thighs. “I’m calling the shots.”
A thrill of power shimmied through her. Maybe she should have shown this side of herself before.
She leaned down and trailed the tip of her tongue up one side of his shaft and down the other.
“Don’t move,” she ordered, as she cupped his sac with one hand and wrapped the fingers of the other around his thick, swollen cock.
“That’s a promise,” he told her in a strangled voice. “What are you doing?”
She looked up at him. “If you have to ask, I must not be doing it right.”
April licked her lips slowly, pleased to feel his cock twitch against her body. Tonight she was going to take Fletch—Mustang—right to the point of no return, then yank his pass to move forward until he gave her some answers.
What was he hiding? What did he want that he was so afraid to tell her? Show her? She worked his shaft expertly, licking the soft skin covering hard steel and moving her fingers up and down in a slow cadence. The head was now a dark purple, with a bead of fluid sitting on the slit. She flicked it with her tongue, then delved into the slit itself and rasped against the sensitive nerve endings there.
“Jesus!” Mustang whistled the word through his teeth. “April—”
“Mmm.” He tasted delicious as he always did, his musk a mixture of essence of male and some spicy, earthy cologne. She licked him like a lollipop, sucked him deep into her mouth, then slid her wet lips all the way to the root, just the way she’d learned he liked it. One of her hands continued to squeeze and fondle his balls, her fingernails lightly scraping across the sensitive surface.
When his balls tightened in her palm and the pulse in the vein around his cock throbbed harder, she released her hold on him and moved up his body.
Mustang reached for her, but she brushed him aside.
“Hands beside you,” she ordered. “No touching until I say so.”
Something flared in his eyes, something unfamiliar and dangerous. Then it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
April drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. So far so good.
Avoiding his mouth, she sucked at the hollow of his throat the way he did hers, knowing how it affected the rest of the body. Then, oh so slowly, she slid lower, a tiny little bit at a time, nipping at his skin and soothing the little bites with her tongue. When she reached his nipples, she took each one in her teeth in turn, biting down on them. He groaned as she swirled the tip of her tongue around them.
Languorously, she trailed her tongue down his body, stopping to trace the indentation of his navel before returning to lap at his cock. Stroking from root to tip and back again, she followed the trail of her fingers with her tongue, pausing intermittently to take the entire length of him in her mouth. She wanted him right on the ragged edge, and he was getting there.
“You know what I want, Fletch?” She hummed against his flesh, closing her lips around the furled crown of the head before slowly drawing them back.
“What?” She heard the edge in his voice and knew he was fighting for control. “Better tell me quick because I think in ten seconds I’m going to explode.”
“I want you to take me from behind,” she whispered. “Make me wet and fuck me that way.”
He nearly came up off the bed.
April tightened her grip on his cock and evaded his hands. “I want to suck you dry, and then, when you have a chance to catch your breath, I want you to fuck me in the ass.”
His cock jumped in her hand and bumped against her lower lip. Another bead of fluid seeped from the slit, and she dragged her tongue over it deliberately, slowly drawing it into her mouth.
“Damn, April.” He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back, one hand still wrapped around his hot shaft. “Come on, sugar. You can’t say things like that and expect me to just lie here.” His voice was thick with need. “And my cock is so ready to explode in that sweet, sweet mouth of yours.”
She released his cock and sat back on her heels. “But not until we talk.”
She almost laughed at the look on his face.
“You want to talk?” He swallowed. Hard. “Now? Are you crazy?”
“Uh uh.” She shook her head. “Every time we get into bed, I have the distinct feeling you’re holding something back. There are things you want that you think might, oh, I don’t know, offend me? Freak me out? Or something else? I don’t know what. So unless you want to go home in this condition, time to fess up.”
He stared at her for a long time, as if trying to actually see inside her. His chest heaved with the effort at control, and he swallowed again. At the very moment she feared he’d tell her never mind, he grabbed her arms and hauled her up so her face was practically touching his. “Be very careful what you ask for, April. Very, very careful.”
The heat blazing in his eyes was so intense it scorched her. For a moment, she was tempted to tell him never mind. Maybe she had over calculated, bitten off more than she could chew. She really had no idea what she was asking for. But she trusted this man, and that was the important thing. She ran her tongue carefully over her lower lip, a tiny thread of excitement wriggling through her body.
“Bring it on,” she told him in what she hoped was her best sexpot voice. “Give me all you’ve got, or I’m sending you home like this.”
He took so long to answer her she was afraid of what he’d finally say. The twitch of a cheek muscle was the only other indication of a battle he was obviously fighting with himself. At the moment she was ready to admit this was a lost cause, he pulled her against him and took her mouth in a kiss that was almost brutal in its possession. His tongue swept in, a flame igniting fires wherever it touched. Skating over every interior surface, sliding over her teeth and her inner lips. The intensity of it nearly made her heart stop.
When he pulled back at last, she was stunned, completely shaken, her bones liquefied. What was going on here?
“I’ve argued with myself about this almost since we met.” His words came out on a rasp of breath. “You’re right. I have been holding back.”
“Why—”
He touched his fingertip to her lips. “Let me finish. Letting you in to the things I really like is a big step for me in a lot of ways. It could be…very dicey.”
“In what way? I don’t understand. Tell me.”
Again, there was a long pause. April had to dig her nails into her fists to stay silent. She sensed that whatever came next would be a major turning point in their relationship.
“There are so many reasons not to do this, April. But damn. I’m not sure I have the strength or desire to get up and walk out of here.”
“Do you want to?”
“I should.” The muscles twitched again. “I damn sure should. But I’m not going to.” He took her in another of those all-consuming kisses again, then pulled back. “All right. Just remember, you wanted this. Do you have any scarves?”
She stared at him. “What? Scarves?”
“Yeah. You know. Silk squares. Jesus, I thought all women had them.”
“I do. Yes. Absolutely,” she stammered, scrambling off the bed. “I’ll get them right now.”
Chapter Three
Lay down, damn it.
Mustang gave a silent command to his very independent cock, which, after April’s hot mouth, wanted to take control of the situation. April had worked magic with her mouth, and now the appendage was doing its damndest to be the focus of his attention. He had other things he needed to concentrate on. And not just April Coe’s lush, naked body.
She had certainly shocked the shit out of him with her demands. That was the last thing he expected from her. He’d been so sure he did a good job of hiding his real needs from her, but apparently either he was bad at it or she was even smarter than he gave her credit for.
And hadn’t he just battled with himself about this very thing? Walk away before he let her into the secret places of his life?
All
the secret places, physical and emotional.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with a new sub, never mind one who’d never been instructed or trained. The fact that April Coe affected him so strongly didn’t help one bit. He was torn between raging desire and the uneasy feeling that he was making a huge mistake.
Should have just walked away, asshole.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I didn’t want to. What does that say about the condition of my brain?
But holy fuck! Just thinking of the hard ride he could give her had him almost to the point of orgasm again.