Irresistibly Dangerous : A Marriage of Convenience Romance (Irresistibly Yours Book 5), page 22
“Um.” I take another sip of my coffee, needing the caffeine more by the second. “Why would he... why would he do all that?”
They shrug in unison. “No clue,” Brooklynn states. “Legit, I’ve asked him a hundred times, but he never answers me. It’s how we can afford to own the hardware store.”
“Same for me,” Paige says as she picks at her breakfast sandwich and takes a big bite, chewing as she talks. “I’d never be able to own the yoga studio if I was paying premium rent.”
Heather is nodding in agreement, and I can’t seem to understand what’s happening right now. Six years ago, is when Lenox left Boston. When he left me. But who does that? Who buys a town, shells out an untold fortune, pays to renovate everything, including businesses he doesn’t own, and only charges enough rent to cover his expenses?
“It’s done wonders for this town,” Brooklynn tells me. “I grew up a half an hour from here, and this town wasn’t much of a town. It’s always been pretty run-down, but he renewed the whole thing, and in doing so, it brought families and businesses in, and that helped with the school systems. It was a snowball effect.”
I’m utterly floored. I sit back against the soft leather cushion and stare out into the café.
What did he say to me today? My life was a mess, and you loving me was the wake-up call I never knew I wanted or needed. I had to go out and try and fix it. I had to make amends for all my wrongs the only way I could. But hurting you has been one of the main regrets of my life. Up there with letting Suzie die.
Oh, Lenox. Look at all the good you did here. Do you even see it? You certainly never take credit for it.
Because he doesn’t feel he deserves any.
It makes me want to find him and kiss the hell out of him, but it also makes me want to find him and hold him. Lenox’s demons run deep. His guilt along with them. Did he do all this as part of some strange atonement for sins he believed he committed? And am I now a part of that?
Chapter Twenty-One
Tattooing, like playing the piano, is a solitary, peaceful form of art. It’s likely why I was drawn to it. There is no forced conversation. It’s simply the client, who rarely wants to speak while someone is inking their skin, and you with your machine and creativity. Today I spent four hours shading the dragon on a mafia boss’s back.
He’s been flying in every month from Chicago for the last two months, and I think after one more scheduled visit, he’ll finally be done. This was a particularly long session—normally I don’t tattoo for that long.
It was four hours of absolute peace, only to now be interrupted by the redhead, who is once again never far from my thoughts. Like a siren, she walks toward me, purpose in her expression and determination in her stride.
“Lucy, you have some explaining to do,” she says, doing a horrible impression of Ricky Ricardo.
I fold my arms and lean back against the bench seat I just cleaned, wanting her to keep walking to me and never stop. Considering how this morning went between us, the fact that she came to me, that she’s here, that she’s looking at me this way—with a hint of mischief and a touch of awe and admiration—is so much more than I ever thought I’d get from her. Eventually, if I’m lucky, I’ll have a reckoning to face with her cousins, but that time hasn’t come yet.
I don’t ask her what I did. I can imagine she knows all the local gossip about me. Small towns are big on gossip and short on privacy, though they do, for the most part, manage to give me mine.
She stops about a foot in front of me, and for a few minutes, she silently stares up at me, examining me, searching my face as if she’s never seen me before. Then, without a sound, she drops to her knees and it’s as if she just punched all the air from my lungs.
“What are you doing?” I manage, which seems foolish since it’s obvious, especially when she starts to work on my belt, button, and zipper, but this morning she told me I was going to be spending a lot of time with my hand, and this is a gross contradiction of that. Not that I’m complaining. Not even close.
“Giving my husband the pleasure he deserves.”
My heart slams against my ribs like a jackhammer. Fuck. Motherfuck. Her calling me that just about kills me. It sure as hell makes me harder than I think I’ve ever been.
I comb my fingers through her hair, brushing the pretty red strands back from her face so I can see her face better. My thumb drags slowly over her bottom lip and her mouth opens, her pupils blooming into a delicious, sensual darkness. I haven’t forgotten how much she used to like doing this. She told me once she loved knowing how easily she could unravel me.
If only she knew that’s all she’s ever done to me.
She continues to work my pants until she’s slipped them down along with my boxer briefs, where they get trapped around my ankles. My cock springs free, and immediately she takes me in her hand, stroking me, rolling her thumb over the barbells, and around the hoop in my tip. My head falls back and my eyes momentarily close as pleasure so sweet I can hardly think thrums through my blood.
“I’ve never done this before with piercings.”
My chin lowers, and I continue to stroke her face, brushing more strands back. “I’d be disappointed if you had.”
She smirks, but there is a note of hesitation and uncertainty in her eyes. Perhaps a touch of fear too, since the piercings are menacing in their own right.
“Anything you do with that mouth of yours is perfect.”
“Even when I tell you to fuck off and that I hate you?”
My lips twist up. “Maybe not then.”
Her tongue snakes out, licking the crown and flicking at the piercing there, and my lips part to accommodate my ragged breaths. Seeing her like this for me—the desire in her eyes, and the fact that she’s fucking here—is so much more. She is so much more.
Inhaling a deep breath, she opens her mouth wide and dives down, taking my cock in as far as she can go, all the while using her tongue to drag up along the underside of my dick and barbells. I clasp her hair, tugging on it as mind-twisting ecstasy shakes through me.
“Fuck, Georgia, that’s so good. Look at you with your sweet lips wrapped around my cock. You look so unbelievably sexy right now, baby.”
She moans, opening her mouth wider and angling her head to suck me in deeper until she gags. With a slow drag, she does it all again, paying extra attention to my piercings, playing with them, using her lips and tongue, and even a hint of teeth that give me just the right amount of pain. Her tongue swirls around the head of my cock, and on her next breath, she dives back down, gagging once more only to swallow. The way her throat rolls over the head of my dick, over the ring there, is like nothing else.
Pleasure skyrockets through me, tightening my balls and making my abs clench. The urge to start fucking her mouth is compelling, and when the hand not gripping the base of my cock slides around to the back of my thigh, urging me deeper into her mouth, I don’t deny myself. I start to pump in rhythm with her sucking, watching with rapt attention as my goddess bobs on me like a champ. Her eyes are watering, running some of her mascara down her cheeks, and Christ, I could come just from that sight alone.
Her crying not from the pain I’ve caused her but from the pleasure.
Because I know she loves this. I can see it in the flush of her cheeks and the wild darkness of her eyes. In the way her thighs are spread on the floor and she’s gently undulating as if seeking contact where she too needs it.
And because she’s being so good, because she’s here, I need to reward her.
“That’s it. Show me how hungry you are for my cock.” I groan. It’s so good. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do to you after you swallow all my cum?”
She nods vigorously, humming and sending a fresh wave of vibrations straight to my balls. Fuuuuck, this woman and her mouth.
“I’m going to stand you up and then push you over the bench. You’re going to spread your legs for me, and I’m going to peel down your leggings and eat your cunt from behind. I need to feel how wet you are. I need to smell how turned on you are. And then I need to taste you as you come for me.”
Her eyes roll, and she moans, louder this time, like she’s already close without even needing to be touched. And that sound with the deliriously lust-drunk glaze to her eyes and the way she’s sucking me and swallowing me down, and just simply the way I fucking need her, has me coming on a loud, tangled growl. My cock continues to pump into her mouth, forcing her to take and swallow all of me. Tears pour like rivers from her eyes, but she holds my gaze as her throat rolls with every pulse of my cock. I swear, my knees are about to give out just at the sight of her.
Immediately after the last swallow, I grasp her by the back of her neck and yank her to her feet. My lips fuse to hers for a brief but impossibly deep kiss, and then I spin her around and bend her over the red leather bench. I hold her down like this for a moment, taking in the rose flush high on her cheeks, the swollen, bee-stung look of her lips, and the fiery green of her eyes.
She is intoxicating. A revelation. Her hold on me is pure witchcraft.
I’m crazed with how I want her. Past the point of obsession or madness. She is my purpose. My mission. She makes me a stronger, better man, and she does all that simply by being everything perfect and lovely that she already is.
Her hands go up on either side of her head, almost as if she’s surrendering to me, though I know that will never be the case. Not with her.
I shudder out a pleased breath, and then in the next inhale, I tear down her leggings just as I told her I would. She makes a noise in the back of her throat. A noise that grows louder as I crouch behind her and take in the pretty, wet, pink sight before me. I move my thumb, gliding up and down her soft folds, loving how she trembles in anticipation for me. I blow cool air on her and catch her biting her lip.
I smack her ass in warning, one cheek and then the other, loving the quick flash of a red handprint that follows. “No stifling. I want to hear you, Georgia. Every fucking sound you make is mine to hear.”
She starts to move, to push up against the bench, and I rip my belt from the loops of my pants with a loud woosh, band it up in my hand, and swat her ass with it. She yelps, and I do it again before running the smooth leather along her now-dripping pussy.
“You are mine to do with as I please. That includes spanking you how I want.”
“Oh God,” she moans as I lick the red lines on her flesh, nipping at them and dragging my teeth.
“Do you want me to spank this next?” I ask, moving the leather back and forth.
She doesn’t say anything, but I can see the heat unfolding in her eyes, her inhales so quick she’s practically hyperventilating. “Tell me,” I command, spanking her ass again with the belt.
“Yes,” she cries, and a dark thrill runs through me. She likes it rough and dirty with a hint of naughty taboo, just like I do.
I reward her by licking her clit, and then I pull back and smack her pussy with the belt, three quick strikes in a row, before I push the leather up inside her. She rips at the table, her back arching as she whimpers. I want to feed the beast inside both of us. Bring us both to the brink in the most intoxicating way.
“You’re soaking my belt, baby.” I push it in and out of her, fucking her with it and then I stand up, press my hard cock into her ass, and run the drenched leather across her lips. “Lick it.”
Her eyes flare at the degrading command, but she does it. Her tongue sweeps out, and she licks the leather, only to lick her lips after. I rub my aching cock against her ass, so fucking turned on I can hardly stand it. My filthy woman is so perfect.
Pulling the belt back, I start spanking her with it. Alternating between her ass and her pussy. Her clit throbs, filling with blood and growing more sensitive. All the while my hand runs through her hair, and I tell her how beautiful she is, how perfect she is, how I can’t stop thinking about her or wanting her.
She’s moaning like crazy, grinding against the bench, helplessly trying to fuck it, desperate to come. I smack her one last time, take her hands, and pull them behind her back, then wrap the belt around her wrists and forearms to restrain her.
She gasps and moans, and once I’m positive she can’t escape and the binding isn’t cutting off her circulation, I crouch back down, spread her ass cheeks, and shove my tongue straight up inside her.
“Ah, Lenox!” Her pelvis bucks forward, but my hand is there to catch it, my fingers pressing into her mound and using the butt of my palm to press into her swollen clit.
“Now grind into my hand while I eat your cunt. Make yourself come on me.”
She doesn’t hesitate. My girl starts rolling her hips, using my hand to rub her clit on all the while my tongue fucks her pussy, my nose practically pressed into her tight asshole. I’ve taken her ass before, both with toys and with my cock, and I’m dying to do it again, but not now. Not when this thing between us is so precarious. Not when she might still be trying to hate me.
Her legs tremble and shake as she gets closer and closer. My hand is soaked, my face too, and God, she tastes so fucking good. I plunge two fingers straight inside her as my tongue moves back to her ass, where I start to lick and fuck her there. She cries out, bucking and jerking, her body moving faster, harder against my mouth, pumping down into my fingers, and grinding mindlessly against my palm.
“I need it,” she moans, thrashing on the table, her upper body helpless with her hands bound behind her. “I need it now. I need it so bad.”
“Fuck, baby, me too. Come for me, and then I’m going to fill you up.”
And she does. She comes so hard, and it’s so wet, and it’s tearing through her body, making her scream and me grunt as my cock jerks and leaks against me. The moment her pussy stops squeezing my fingers, I make quick work of untying her wrists, massaging the skin, and bringing circulation back into her limbs. Then I rip off her sweater and bra because I need to see her and touch her skin. Her hands immediately shoot in front of her, gripping the end of the bench when she feels the head of my cock rubbing at her entrance.
I stroke myself, my head just inside her tight, hot center, and on the third stroke, I slide inside her, both of us moaning together. I hold her hips steady, and I start to fuck her at a slow, even pace. Something that will drive her wild with want, build her up patiently, and finish her with fireworks.
But hell, does she feel good. And this angle, the way she’s moving…
“Georgia…” My forehead hits the center of her back, my hands gripping her hips as if I need her to keep me upright. “You feel so good.” Too fucking good.
My left hand reaches up and clasps hers, our fingers latching, and my eyes snag on our tethered rings. I push up, rolling onto the balls of my feet with my thrusts, desperate to feel every inch of her pussy with my every move.
She is velvet. She is heaven. And every time I’m inside of her, it is better than the last because every time feels like a new chance to be with her. A new opportunity I wasn’t or shouldn’t have been afforded before.
“You’re everything,” I murmur reverently, though my words are splintered and incoherent. I pump into her, faster and faster, feeling the tight walls of her pussy hold me in. Her body rocks back against mine, meeting me thrust for thrust.
I shudder, licking up her spine, tasting the salt and sweat on her skin, feeling her body quiver as I grind into her, rubbing her. But it’s not enough. I want more. I want deeper. So I slide out, ignoring her groan and protest, and flip her over onto her back so the length of her body is taking up the length of the table. I grasp the end of the table and then slam back inside her. Her green eyes cling to mine as I press my body weight down on her and command her body.
My mouth takes advantage, licking and sucking and nipping at her neck, nuzzling at her racing pulse while I grind into her, rubbing my hips until I find her perfect friction point. She gasps, her hands moving to my shoulders so she can hold onto me. I lift my head, anxious to see her face as her body quivers and trembles and rocks beneath mine.
“Harder,” she begs, and I’m only too happy to obey. My slow push and pull now forgotten as I hike myself up onto my knees, lean forward so we’re chest to chest, and begin pounding into her. Her head rolls to the side, her eyelids flutter, and her lips part.
I watch her face, enchanted by her as I piston in and out.
“Like that?”
“Mmmm…” she hums. “I’m so close. Don’t stop.”
Like I ever would. The way her cunt is gripping me, so warm and wet and goddamn perfect. The way she rubs herself against me with every upthrust. But I see it. The moment her orgasm starts to hit her, the way her body thrashes and her mouth falls open on a strangled scream as pleasure races through her like a drug. Her nails dig into my shoulders, almost pleading with me to pump deeper.
But when she says, “I want to feel you come inside me,” and her pussy starts to convulse, squeezing my cock practically to the point of pain, I can no longer hold off. My balls draw up, and my orgasm barrels through me, cutting off my breath and robbing me of my vision. I give her two more jerky pumps, and then I’m spilling myself inside her, just as she told me she wanted.
My body sags against hers, but the table is narrow and angled, and my fucking jeans are still around my ankles, and because I’m still in a post-orgasmic haze, I start to fall off the table, only to catch myself right before I eat hardwood.
“Shit,” I yell as I collapse to the floor, lying on my back, my forearm over my eyes, smiling dumbly, laughing lightly, especially when I hear Georgia’s giggle from above me. I move my arm up and peek one eye open to find her leaning over the edge, staring down at me.
“We might have to work on your landing for next time. I give that a 6.0 at best.”
I laugh harder, my chest feeling lighter than it has been in years.
“As long as the sex was a ten, I’ll swallow my pride at the dismount.”
