enough to move his hips, then let him go.
I stepped back. "He's not my boyfriend. But that doesn't
mean you can just keep coming over here and expecting
me to let you in my bed."
He puled his shirt off over his head and dropped it to the
floor. I'd traced those ribs with my teeth and lips and
floor. I'd traced those ribs with my teeth and lips and
tongue. I knew the holow of that bely and the taste of his
skin. I knew the heat of him.
He put his hand to his belt and undid the buckle. Then the
button. When he notched the zipper down one tooth at a
time, I bit my lower lip. When he shoved the denim over
his hips and down the thighs I'd spent hours nibbling, my
headache disappeared.
He stepped out of his jeans and pushed his socks off, too,
along with his briefs, and stood naked in front of me.
Austin was proud of his body and had a right to be. He
wasn't fuly hard, and I remembered the times I'd taken
him in my mouth to get him erect.
"Fucking won't change things," I warned him. Austin
shrugged and moved toward me, but I held up a hand to
stop him. "No."
He frowned and made as though to speak, but again I
stopped him. My voice surprised me, husky and low and
utterly, without-a-doubt, in charge.
"Go to my bedroom, Austin."
He took a hesitant step, then another, while I stayed stil.
He watched me bend to lift his jeans, the long denim legs
dangling while I yanked the belt from the loops. Austin's
eyes grew wide when I wrapped the leather around one
palm.
"Paige, what the hel?"
"Go to my bedroom," I repeated and puled the leather
tight between my two fists. "Get on my bed, on your
knees, facing the headboard. Put your hand on it and wait
for me."
I'd known this man for half my life. I'd seen him take hits
on the footbal field and stand up for me in a bar brawl. I'd
seen him cuss out men on the construction site who
weren't puling their weight, and I'd listened to him share
rowdy, dirty jokes with his friends. He'd balked at cooking
and laundry because those were "girls' work" and we'd
had screaming fits about separate checking accounts when
we were married because "women whose husbands took
care of them right didn't need their own money." I knew he
would never let me tel him what to do.
I didn't know him as wel as I thought I did.
I didn't know him as wel as I thought I did.
Chapter 30
Austin, without another word, turned and went to my
bedroom. I heard the creak of the headboard when he
grabbed it and of the mattress as he shifted his weight.
Then, silence but for the sound of my heart beating fast in
my ears and my breath trying to get unstuck from my
throat.
I hadn't wasted money on frily decorative pilows for my
bed, and I'd covered it with the worn quilt my grandma
had made for me when I was born. The headboard of
slatted wood had seen me through childhood and high
school, and I'd taken it from my mom's house to the
apartment I'd lived in after leaving Austin. We'd fucked in
my bed but had never shared it. My hands had gripped the
wood where his now clenched, but his never had.
He turned his head when I came in, then looked back at
the wal. His head bent, shoulders hunching, and I admired
the play of muscles in his back and thighs. His feet dipped
furrows in my bedspread as he pushed down with his toes.
I had to lean in the doorway to keep from going to my
knees at the sight. My fingers gripped the wood as the
knees at the sight. My fingers gripped the wood as the
cool metal of his belt buckle bit into my palm hard enough
to hurt. The sting of it pushed my blood faster through my
veins. The leather dangled, brushing my calf.
When I slapped it lightly against my palm, Austin tensed
but didn't take his hands away. He didn't look at me. The
muscles in his back and ass went tight, then released, and I
drew in a slow, silent breath.
Austin stayed in the place I had told him to stay. This man
break me, but he wasn't doing what I told him to do
because he wasn't able to say no. He wasn't afraid of me.
He trusted me.
That trust almost broke me more than his hands ever had.
It turned me upside down and inside out; it filed me up so
I couldn't imagine ever having been empty. I stood in the
doorway watching him give himself to me for whatever I
wanted, and the leather slid through my suddenly slick fists
with a sound like a whisper.
My feet moved even though I couldn't feel the floor. When
my knees hit the bed and I got up on it, the mattress
my knees hit the bed and I got up on it, the mattress
shifted. Austin gripped the headboard tighter, his head
turning. I saw the flutter and shadow of the long lashes I'd
always envied on his cheek.
"Paige…"
"Shh." I moved closer to kneel behind him, between his
ankles.
The cotton of my gown brushed his skin and I watched,
fascinated, as gooseflesh broke out on his back. Again he
bent his head. I could see his hands, the knuckles white. I
couldn't see his cock until I moved a bit to the side, and
then I bit my groan into silence so he wouldn't hear and
know how much the sight of him erect aroused me.
I had always been the one urging him to pin my wrists. Pul
my hair. I had taken him down paths he folowed eagerly
but only because I led him there. Now I folded his belt in
half to make a loop of it, and I ran the flat side of it down
his spine and over his ass.
I folowed it with the flat of my hand and reached between
his legs to weigh his bals before I ran my finger along his
perineum, up the crack of his ass and onto his back again.
Austin shivered at the touch, but didn't move. He didn't
Austin shivered at the touch, but didn't move. He didn't
speak.
Looking at the leather against his skin, I drew in a smal sip
of air. My world spun so much I had to clutch his
shoulder. My nails dug into his skin, and Austin made a
smal noise.
I didn't want to hurt him. Not realy. I didn't want to beat
him, or raise welts on his flesh. I wanted to colar and leash
him. I wanted to own him.
I tapped his ass with the strap, not hard enough to cal it a
slap. "Spread your legs wider."
His knees slid on my sheets and the headboard creaked.
Austin leaned forward until his forehead rested against my
pale green–painted wal. Those big shoulders hunched.
Those big hands gripped. The muscles in his ass flexed.
My hand found the familiar length and girth of his prick. I
stroked him gently a few times before withdrawing. I drew
a finger along his bals and ass crack again. I put a hand on
the back of his thigh to feel the tension th
ere. I put a knee
on either side of his calf and pressed myself along his
back.
back.
I couldn't reach his ear, but I kissed the smooth expanse
between his shoulders. I bit him softly where his wings
would be if he were an angel and smiled at the sound he
made. I pushed my cotton-covered crotch against his bare
ass. He made another noise when I gripped the hem and
puled it to my hips so my bare crotch touched his skin.
I always shaved my bikini line, but I hadn't short-trimmed
my pubic hair in a while. Now the fluffy curls brushed him
as I moved my hips from side to side. It must have tickled,
because Austin shivered again.
I shivered, too. With my cheek pressed between his
shoulder blades and my cunt aligned with his ass, I
reached around to stroke him. Without lube my palm
skipped along the silken skin of his prick, up and down.
Austin pushed forward into it anyway.
"Do you like that?"
"What do you think, Paige?" His voice, harsh and low,
sent another shiver through me.
"I want to hear you say it." My heart was trying to leap out of my chest, and al I could manage was a whisper, but he
heard me.
"I like it when you touch me. Yeah."
"Like this?" I twisted my palm over the head of his cock
the way I knew he liked it.
"Yeah, like that…" he groaned.
I dropped the belt. It was a prop and I didn't need it.
Wasn't going to use it. If I couldn't leash and colar him
with my words, then I didn't deserve to have him. It hit the
floor with a thunk of metal. Austin didn't even look at it.
I molded myself to his back and closed my eyes. His skin
smeled like nothing else in the world but Austin. No
cologne or soap could take the place of it. I breathed him
in, and in the darkness behind my eyelids, I lost myself in
remembering the way it had always been.
It was a little different now. He jerked when my now-free
hand slid between his legs to cup his bals, and when my
thumb pressed his anus in gentle counterpoint to each
stroke of his cock. His body tensed and he muttered a
smal exclamation, but it didn't sound like it was of protest,
smal exclamation, but it didn't sound like it was of protest,
and I kept on what I was doing.
Stroke, stroke and press, press in time to the slow, subtle
bump of my cunt against his ass. I imagined filing him the
way he'd filed me so many times. Austin shuddered, his
groan sounding desperate. His cock sweled impossibly in
my fist. The tender, secret muscles of his ass tightened
under the pad of my thumb, and his bals contracted.
Subtle signs of his impending climax I'd never noticed
before.
"Do you want to come?" I asked him, certain of the
answer and surprised by his reply.
"No…not yet. Please." The word slipped out on a sighing
moan and he took a hand away from the headboard to put
over mine and stop my stroking. "I want to f—I want to
make love to you."
I kissed and nibbled his back for a second before I puled
away and spread myself out on the bed. "Use your mouth
on me first."
Austin looked over his shoulder, the side of his mouth I
could see tipped up. "Yes, ma'am."
could see tipped up. "Yes, ma'am."
He was teasing me a little, but I liked the sound of it
anyway. "Less talking, more licking."
Austin turned, stil kneeling, his prick in one fist. He let go
of it to hold his weight as he moved between my legs, but
he didn't dive straight into my pussy the way I expected
him to. He brushed kisses over both my knees, first, then
up my ticklish inner thighs. His nose nuzzled my cunt
before his mouth did, but when his tongue found the tight
bud of my clit, I wasn't quite ready for the shock of
sensation.
My fists clutched the quilt as my back arched. "Oh, God."
Austin murmured against my cunt. His lips and tongue and
teeth formed words I couldn't understand. He teased my
clitoris with smal, sweet licks and opened me with his
fingers to stroke me inside, too.
Everything about it was perfect. I didn't have to tel him
what I wanted or what I liked. He already knew.
In moments my orgasm built, ready to spil, but I didn't beg
him to hold off. I lifted myself against his mouth, urging him
to move faster. The world faded away until nothing
to move faster. The world faded away until nothing
remained but the tension coiling in my bely, the pleasure of
his mouth and hands on me, the soft sigh of his breath as
he whispered my name.
I went over. Slip-slide-fal and up again, desire blocked
out everything else. The world crashed, and Austin was
with me al the way when it did. His mouth eased off while
his hands cradled me until the leap and jerk of my muscles
stiled.
But if I knew Austin, he knew me, too. With less than a
minute for me to come down, he moved up my body to
take my mouth. His fingertips found my clit again and
circled. He took me to the edge within seconds. His cock
nudged me a moment after that.
I'm on the pil but I'm not stupid, not even for Austin. Not
like that, at least. "Condom."
He reached a long arm to yank open my nightstand, even
though I hadn't said that's where I kept them. He puled
out the long string of them—the same ones I'd bought a
year ago when I was thinking about having lots of random
sex with strangers. I never had gotten around to it. I'd only
ever used them with him.
ever used them with him.
It was tricky, him putting on the condom without leaving
my clit, so I helped him out by using my own hand in his
place. He roled on the rubber and moved between my
legs. Breathless, I put a foot on his chest to keep him from
sliding inside me.
"No," I said.
My fingers were wet when I took them away from
between my thighs. That was what he'd done to me. For
me. I held out my hand and he took it to help me off my
back. I pushed him gently until he sat and I gripped his
cock to hold it stil as I slid onto his lap.
Chest to chest, groin to groin and then, mouth to mouth.
My arms went around his neck and held the back of his
head. We kissed, hard but slow. Our tongues fought. He
tried to move, but without my cooperation could only rock
upward a tiny bit. Even when his hands gripped my hips,
my legs wrapped around his waist and I held my body stiff
and stil except for the kiss.
He let out a shuddering sigh. "Paige…"
I rocked my hips and squeezed him with my internal
I rocked my hips and squeezed him with my internal
muscles, but said nothing. I looked into his eyes. Austin
blinked and swalowed.
"Fuck," he said. "Just…"
"I like it when you say please," I told him.
He blinked again. I watched his throat work as he
swalowe
d. My fingers twisted in the hair at the nape of his
neck. I watched him give in to me.
"Please," Austin said, and I came just from the sound of his acquiescence.
His arms tightened around me as I shook with it. His
mouth found mine again. This time when he started to
move, I gave him what he wanted. I moved with him, not
against him.
His hands slid down beneath my ass to lift me higher on his
cock, and I countered with a downward thrust and a rol
of my hips that twisted me on him. I lost my grip in his hair
and had to settle for clutching at his back. My nails dug
furrows he'd notice later, but just then he only moaned into
my mouth.
my mouth.
I couldn't come again, but it didn't matter. Austin could,
and did with a grunt. His fingers bruised my ass and I
didn't care. Our bodies smacked and slapped, and my bed
shook. I bit his shoulder and he shouted and thrust so
deep inside me it hurt. I didn't care about that, either.
Blinking, tasting sweat, I opened my eyes and looked into
his. I felt the jump and play of muscles in his thighs and
bely and arms. Austin shivered a little, but I didn't think it
was from the cold.
I unwrapped my arms from his neck and tried to do the
same with my legs, but he clutched me close. "Don't go
yet."
The fucking was done. We used to spoon sometimes after
sex, in the bed we'd shared. In the dark. That was when
we talked the most, after the fucking was done.
I didn't want to talk to Austin now. With my body sated,
my mind wanted to block out the feelings he always
brought up in me. I pushed at his chest, and he let me go.
I went to the bathroom before he could say anything else. I
turned on the shower and got in without waiting for it to
turned on the shower and got in without waiting for it to
heat. Austin didn't come into the bathroom until steam had
veiled it. I heard him use the toilet, then run water in the
sink. I heard him fil my glass and set it down a moment
later. I waited for him to open the curtain and come in, but
though I was prepared to tel him to get out, Austin left the
bathroom.
He was dressed and sitting at the smal desk in my corner
by the time I came out, wrapped in a towel. He was too
big for my chair and that desk, another old piece I'd
inherited from my grandma. He was too big for me.
He looked up when I came in, and I saw he wasn't just