Taste of Lacey (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Lacey was so tired when she turned her car onto her street it was pathetic, but she embraced the exhaustion. After sleeping for just a handful of hours Monday and Tuesday nights combined, she hoped insomnia was catching up with her. Work was her solace, but sleep would be a welcome friend because it would keep her from thinking. She didn’t want to think. Especially about
him
, because
he’s fine.

Rye had sped off Sunday without a backward glance, and according to Paula, it was business as usual for him. Lacey couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and was on the verge of pulling the hairs from her forearms one by one, but Rye was just fine. Christ, if those words ran through her head one more time, she really would start plucking.

It was almost ten o’clock at night, and she wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and conk out on her living room sofa. Her beloved bed wasn’t very appealing these days. Changing the linens twice hadn’t helped. Rye’s potent scent still lingered in the air, suffocating her, mocking her. Reminding her he wasn’t here. Making her feel—

What in the heck?
Her jaw unhinged when she neared her house and saw Rye’s vehicle in the driveway. Not a word from him since Sunday, and now he was chilling at her place?
Oh, no
. He could go right back where he came from, because she was done. Done. For a moment, she closed her eyes to gather strength not to do something stupid—like beg him to hold her. Even through her pain and anger, she longed to feel him against her, inside her. She was a fool.

She sat in the car and watched the numbers on the digital clock in the dashboard change shape several more times. She didn’t want to go in, didn’t want to see him at all, but since it was her house, she couldn’t very well sit in the driveway all night. Sighing, she pressed the garage door opener and waited until it was safe to pull inside.

In the office space off the kitchen, she took her time and unpacked the accounting records she’d been working on. She had maybe three more reports to evaluate before she could make the final revisions to the Thymes budget—three months ahead of schedule, thanks to her recent sleeplessness.

Braced and ready, she walked through her compact kitchen to the living room, but Rye wasn’t there. She made her way to her bedroom and paused in the doorway. The lamps were off. Slivers of moonlight through the half-open blinds illuminated the room. He sat in the armchair near her bed with his elbows on his knees.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice came out devoid of inflection or emotion. No way would she let the hurt she felt dominate her. If she let her guard down even for a minute, the pain might overwhelm her, and as it was, her fingernails were right on the edge of the cliff, barely hanging on.

He looked up and pinned her with narrowed eyes. “Did you fuck him?”

Her stomach plummeted to her knees, and she took a step back. “What? Are you kidding me?”

“I need to know. Did. You. Fuck. Him?” he repeated as if she didn’t hear him the first time.

“How dare you?” She advanced until she stood less than a foot from him. She needed to be in his face to make sure she was understood. “What gives you the right to ask such a question? What gives you the right to be here at all?”

“You still haven’t answered the question, Lacey.”

So all of a sudden he wanted to talk? After she hadn’t heard back from him Sunday or Monday, she’d swallowed her pride and contacted Paula on Tuesday. All kinds of frightful scenarios had rolled through her head. Had he been injured? Was he sick with no one to help? No, he must have received a last-minute assignment and was somewhere without wireless service. Otherwise why hadn’t he called?

Her lungs contracted as all the hurt and anger she’d experienced when she’d received an answer to her inquiry rushed to the surface.

“Lacey, dear, Rye hasn’t gone anywhere. I talked to him an hour ago, and as far as I know, he’s fine. Is everything all right?”

Even now, Paula’s gentle words pierced her heart with the precision of a hot knife through cold butter. He was still in town; he had better things to do than communicate with her. She should have stuck with their friends-with-benefits package; it would have been a much smarter choice for her heart.

“And you didn’t return my phone calls, so I guess we’re even,” she gritted through her teeth.

“Damn it, answer me. Do you know what I’ve been through imagining some motherfucker’s hands on you, touching what’s mine?”

“Yours?” she shrilled. “You have a funny way of showing it. After ignoring me for days, you have the nerve to show up here and call me yours? I don’t think so.” She shook her head and turned away from him.

Before she could take a full step, he jetted from the chair and then turned her around to face him. “Put everything you thought you knew about me as a friend and neighbor on one of your lists, then ball it up and throw it in the trash. You need to know me as your man.”

Was he serious? Did he think she invited every male she counted as a friend into her bed? She’d acted as far from just a pal or neighbor with him as she could get. A knot in her throat made it difficult to form words. “I thought we were getting to know each other as a couple, as you called it, but you walked away.”

“No. I took some time to get over you omitting very important information during our conversations after your ‘lunch date.’ I still wouldn’t know a damn thing if it weren’t for Katie.”

She straightened her back. “You don’t get to do this, Rye. We hadn’t agreed to be exclusive, and I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t think so? That’s where you’re wrong. You are mine, and I will not share. Do you understand?”

“You know what I understand? You walked away from me without a word,” she said, her voice hollow.

He pulled her forward to stand between his legs. Then he sent her blouse and skirt to the floor. He grazed his thumbs along the edges of the soft cotton thong where her thighs cradled her sex. When he lowered to his knees, a pool of heated, disloyal moisture to rushed to her core. Eyes closed, she bit her lip to hold back a needy moan.

He worked his thumbs over her sex, her breath caught, and her legs trembled. Only a steel rod of stubbornness kept her back upright when he pushed his stiff tongue against her drenched thong, spearing her clit.

Never had she been more in need of an orgasm in her life, although she didn’t want it. She didn’t know how she was going to stop her two-timing body, but she couldn’t give in to his demands after his callous treatment. However, her sensitive pearl, absent of his touch for days, spoke a thousand words. It wanted him and responded accordingly. Her knees buckled, and if it wasn’t for him holding her steady, she would have landed on the floor.

“What gives me the right?” His rough voice revealed his arousal. “This gives me the right. This is my pussy,” he declared as he ripped her panties from her hips as effortlessly as he would to tear a square of tissue paper. Then he used his thumbs to open her plump lips, baring her folds. “You gave me the right when I tasted you for the first time. When we fucked until neither of us could walk. My bad for not staking my claim then.”

So now he remembered his so-called claim.
Seriously?
A war was brewing within her. On the south side, her throbbing sex insisted she utter any words necessary to placate Rye’s ego. If he then sucked her clit until she lost her mind, the release would be considered collateral damage. Up north, her brain issued the order to maintain control, and her pride assumed a defensive stance, prepared to body slam her libido if necessary. Sacrifices had to be made, and above all, she must not give in.

He lowered his head and licked a path from her moist slit to the hood of her sex, creating shocks of pleasure along the way. It felt so good she almost voiced her love right then and there, would almost door say anything he wanted as long as he didn’t stop licking her pussy. But he did. Just when she was on the edge and only needed a little nudge to cross into pure sensation, he pulled back.

He lifted his head and nuzzled her stomach, right below her belly button. “Did he touch you like this, smell your sweet scent?”

“Why do you keep asking—”

Before she could finish her question, he moved her to the bed and propped her knees on his shoulders. Then he opened his hot mouth on her very center and inserted his tongue into her slit. Her scream was so tall it reached the vaulted ceiling. She’d never felt anything as primal, sexy, and mind-blowing as the tongue-fucking he was giving her. Her entire body sizzled, was on fire, and he seemed resolved to wrestle away the tiny thread of control she’d preserved. She was just as determined he wouldn’t. Not a word crossed her lips.
Hold out. Don’t beg
. It was all she could do to obey her dwindling will. Even though she was a desperate mess.

He pushed his finger into her grasping, needy opening. At the same time he pulled her clit into his mouth and worked his tongue in waves against it.

“Ahh,” she cried out, voice hoarse and tormented. Mad with lust, she shoved her heat in his face. With absolutely no shame, she curled her fingers in his hair to bring his mouth down harder, trembling as she raced toward completion. He pulled his head away again.

“Did you give my pussy to someone else?” he growled.

Somehow she managed to salvage her pride, and instead of begging for his mouth, she asked a question dragged from the recesses of her mind. “Just because I fucked you the first night, you think I fucked someone else just as easily?”

He lowered his head again. “Tsk-tsk, Lacey,” he chided against her aching clit, making the agony worse. “That’s where you’re wrong. See, we never really
just
fucked. You should have known we’ve also been making love.”

Love
. All this time they’d been making
love
, and hearing him say it melted the ice around her bruised heart. Quicker than a sink full of water just unplugged, all the fight went out of her. One beautiful, wonderful word made her willing to give him what he wanted so he would
make love
to her right now.

“The answer is no. Rye, no. He never touched me. I never wanted him to touch me. I don’t want anybody else. All I could think about was you.” The words rolled off her tongue with aplomb though she willed his head back to her quivering center. She was strung out and needed a fix, relief only he could provide.

Her answer seemed to satisfy him. He swiped his tongue against her wet, swollen lips and ended with a Hoover-force suction on her clit. For long, agonizing minutes, he devoured her, sending a gush of wetness to her folds, which he soaked right up.

Her orgasm was the most intense, concentrated physical reaction she’d ever experienced. Every nerve ending in her body decided to gather at her core to stand and applaud, paralyzing her body with ecstasy.

“Please, please, please,” she moaned, but she didn’t know what she was asking for. All she knew was her pussy had transformed into a pleasure station, doling out sensation even as she tumbled from her high. Yet she wanted more, needed his hardness, his weight on top of her.

His clothing made a soft rustling noise just before his belt buckle thudded against the floor. In answer to her desire, his lean hips aligned with hers. Her legs opened like they operated on an automatic switch, anticipating, hoping he’d plunge deep within her and cement his pronouncement of her being his.

“I need you.”

“Where, baby? I want the words.”

His gritty demand was another form of torture. She had no choice but to pay the price. “Deep in my pussy. Now.”

He scowled at her. “Whose pussy?”

She whimpered her frustration. “Your pussy, Rye. Yours,” she cried as she closed her legs around him, anxious to swallow him whole.

Suddenly he was there. With a masculine growl, he sank his condom-wrapped cock into her moist sheath. “You’re mine,” he rasped against her nipple. “No other man will have this.”

He pumped his hips in a tight, quick rhythm, punctuated by a series of harsh grunts. The thrusts were so powerful and deep the bed slats screeched with every stroke. The sensual feedback was music to her ears.

“You look so fucking good taking this dick.”

A delicious shudder worked through her body. She squeezed her buttocks and lifted against him so she could take even more.

“Damn, baby, this feels so good, but I need you to come.”

She gasped as her internal muscles convulsed, signaling her impending climax. She needed the release too but didn’t want it, because then the lovemaking would be over. She wanted him to never stop filling her with his hard length, wanted this to last forever.

But it couldn’t, because she was too far gone.

She arched toward him as naked sensation thrust her into another dimension, one where only the two of them existed, and it was perfect. Suddenly, he pulled out of her pulsing sheath.

“I need my cum on you.”

He quickly jerked the condom off, palmed the base of his cock, and shot thick ropes of his seed low on her belly. Branding her. Marking her. Making her his.

Chapter Fourteen

Lacey opened her eyes and then peered at the clock on the nightstand. Two a.m. It was unusual for her to even know she was in the world, let alone be wide-awake after Rye fucked her. Correction,
made love
to her. He was the best sleeping pill there was, and after a dose of him, there was no reason she shouldn’t still be “in a coma,” as Monica had put it.

She turned onto her side and examined his sleeping form. Those couple of days without him had been pure misery. Him being on the road was one thing; being disconnected while he was in the area was quite another. It was perverse, but she hoped his ass suffered without her so there wouldn’t be a repeat. She traced the firm arch of his cheekbone with one finger. Then she eased down to the bow of his half-open lips and on to the hard plane of his chest. Maybe it was her imagination, but he seemed thinner. Not for long, though. Cooking was her favorite thing in the world to do, and she especially enjoyed cooking for him.

Never in a million years would she have guessed Rye would be the one to make her heart flutter and her box hot. She almost laughed out loud when she recalled several choice words from her ex-fiancé.
Frozen pussy indeed
. If Rye made her any hotter, she’d need to implant permanent ice packs between her legs. Speaking of which, she could still feel the remnants of his generous contribution to their lovemaking on her stomach, although Rye had wiped her with a washcloth. It was odd, but she hadn’t been freaked out by his primitive display of possession. It turned her on to know this prime example of masculinity wanted to brand her as his.