Return of the bad boy, p.18
Return of the Bad Boy, page 18
She blew out a short laugh. He was so right, and in typical Asher fashion, so damn honest about what he was thinking and feeling.
He let her loose and turned her on his lap. Dark, earnest eyes studied her.
“It’s a lot to ask, I know. But maybe I should actually ask.”
Her smile erased as her heart beat a samba against her breastbone. Subtly, she shook her head. Whatever he was going to say seemed dangerous…because she wasn’t ready. She was beginning to believe she’d never be ready.
“Do this thing with me,” he said. “With me and with Hawk.”
“Thing,” she repeated, because what else was there to say? A panic attack was brewing. Because this “thing” wasn’t a small thing. Maybe she should point that out. “That’s a big ask, Asher.”
“It is what it is, Sarge.”
“You want me to…what? I already hang out here.”
He dipped his chin into a nod. “That’s a start.”
“I have a job, a life. I can’t start something.”
“Little late to regret starting, isn’t it?” he asked, and she heard frustration leak into his tone. Which made her hackles go up.
“I like my space.” She slipped off his lap. Something about fighting with him was familiar. And much more comfortable than talking about playing family. “I like to be alone,” she continued. “Maybe I need to understand who I am in the Cove. Nothing is permanent here yet. Not my apartment, my leased office building…” She swept her arm at the house and encapsulated Asher with it. He wasn’t permanent either. He could leave any time. “I need to know who I am when I’m not attached to you.”
“Attached?” He stood and scowled down at her. “You’re not attached, Sarge. And don’t act like you don’t already know exactly who you are with me. You let go with me. You push yourself with me. You let me push you.” He loomed over her. “You want that.”
“Your spontaneity has boundaries, Asher. It’s not always cute.” She folded her arms over her chest and mentally dug in. “Not everyone can be a big kid all the time.”
His lip curled. “Big kid.”
“Yeah.” It was the wrong thing to say, but she straightened her shoulders anyway and stuck by it.
A muscle in his cheek ticked. “At least I’m not a coward.”
She dropped her arms and her mouth fell open with it. “Do you know what I’ve been through in my life? Do you have any idea how brave I am? How tough I can be?”
“I know exactly how tough you can be, Gloria,” he said, his voice rising. “You won’t stop trying to prove it to me. Have you ever considered that it’s braver to trust someone to catch you if you fall?”
“How can you catch me when you’re the one pushing me?” she snapped. And there it was. The felling blow.
He backed away from her, his lips flattening and his eyes straying to the sky. She felt a pinch of regret, but something in her—that innate stubbornness saying she’d won this round—refused to take it back.
“I have work to do,” she said.
“Do it, then.” He turned for the front door, pausing with his hand on the knob to add, “If you decide to leave, lock up.”
The door slammed, leaving her on the porch. Even the crickets fell silent at that parting jab. If you decide to leave…
Now what? Well. She wasn’t going to run away after that challenge.
“I have a laptop,” she grumbled to herself. “I can work from here.”
She marched inside, shouldered her bag, and headed for the couch. Through the window in the studio, she watched Asher prop the guitar on his lap and pluck in earnest.
She settled into the cushion and stared unseeing at the screen, wishing she could hear him play through the soundproof windows and door. Wishing a lot of things. She opened her computer, having no idea how they’d ended up here or where they’d end up with each other tonight.
Typical, she thought, then began answering her e-mails one by one.
Chapter 16
Asher had gone into his studio to work off his frustration from yet another argument with Gloria, not sure why he was bothering to argue with her at this point. If she was so hell-bent on being problematic, why did he care?
You know.
That thought he ignored.
He spent the next hour writing and playing and living in bliss. Right in his sweet spot. Feeling every note in his bones, losing time and space as he hummed along with each strum. Lyrics came and he jotted them down, then closed his eyes again to return to the music.
After who knew how long, Gloria walked into the studio. He looked up from his notes. With leftover creative bliss saturating his bloodstream, it was hard to look at her and feel anything but want.
The almost pedestrian gray dress with faded white polka dots rode high on her thighs, and the front crisscrossed over her breasts, showing ample amounts of cleavage. Tall shoes sat at the end of her tanned legs, red toenails peeking out. Her ink-black hair was down, windblown from the boat, and an oversize pair of black-framed glasses were settled on her pert nose. She was a recipe for a hard-on if he’d ever seen one.
She took off her glasses and rested them on the table he was leaning over. He set his pencil next to them.
“So…I’m done,” she said, looking around the studio instead of at him.
“Yeah.”
“Are you mad?” she asked, craning an eyebrow as if to say, Not that I’d care if you were. But she did care. That was Glo. She cared; she just didn’t want to admit she did.
“You’re hard to stay mad at,” he admitted.
A small smile, then, “I know the feeling.”
“Wanna make up?” he asked, meaning it.
Her smile grew and she met his eyes with her penetrating blues. “Maybe. What do you have in your bag of tricks?”
“Hmm. Romantic walks on the beach are so cliché,” he said. His eyes scanned her dress, down those legs and up again. He felt a smile inch across his mouth. “But now that I’m looking at you, maybe a few romantic slaps on the ass are due.”
One eyebrow crawled up her forehead, then dropped again. “Whatever, Knight.”
“You’d deserve it for that shit you just pulled.”
“You don’t get to punish me.”
“No, you do that on your own.” No one else could keep Glo down because she was too busy doing it herself. He reached over to the keyboard and pressed a button for a bass drum, adjusting the tempo and volume. “Let me find a good rhythm.”
“If you think I came in here so you could spank me, you have another thing coming,” she said, her voice going a little higher.
He stepped around the instrument and came to her. She liked to be pushed. He had no problem pushing her. Heat stole her cheeks and that fire he loved so much lit her eyes.
“I’m not into the rough stuff.”
“Not rough, Sarge.” He reached around and palmed her lower back, pulling her close enough that her breasts brushed his torso. She was warm and kind of grouchy and that was exactly the way he liked her.
She palmed his chest but didn’t push him away, resting her hand there instead. “I’m not a kinky girl, Ash.” His name came off her lips on a breath and his smile widened.
“You sure about that?”
Blue eyes went wide. She wasn’t sure.
He slipped his hand lower, giving one rounded ass cheek a squeeze, and then slipped beneath the soft cotton of the dress to touch her bare skin, edged by a silky pair of panties. Pedestrian on the outside, but bad girl beneath. God. He loved this woman.
“It’s not kinky. It’s fun,” he said, pushing the words through a clogged throat. Love. Where the fuck had that come from?
“For you, maybe.”
“For me, definitely. But for you, too, sweetheart.” At the drum’s next beat, Ash drew the fabric up, exposing her skin to the air. In the windowed room, he could see her reflection on the pane. And God, she was beautiful, her hair arrowing to a point down her back, black panties doing little to cover the expanse of her ass. With his other hand, he gripped the material of her skirt and held it up. And on the next beat, drew back his hand and delivered one sharp slap onto her ass cheek.
“Oh!” Her hands clutched his T-shirt but didn’t push him away, she dragged herself a little closer. Her mouth was dropped open, her eyes wide and curious. She liked it. It was written all over her face.
“Told you.” He waited for sass, but instead, she emitted a brief sound that was half whimper and all permission. On the next drumbeat, he spanked her again.
She sucked in a breath this time and kept her gaze locked on his. “Why”—she had to clear her throat to finish—“do I like this?”
He was grinning now and damned if he could help it. “Because you trust me not to hurt you.” He rubbed his palm over her backside, silky panties and equally silky skin. “Because you’re a kick-ass, take-charge woman who secretly wants to be taken care of. Because you’re safe and this is fun.”
“Oh.” She darted her eyes away.
“Now let’s try it with you over my knee.”
“What? No.” But she was smiling. Curious.
He led her to the couch. She walked with him. Great sign.
“I didn’t know this thing we were doing involved me over your knee.”
“You want to talk terms, Sarge?”
She rolled those beautiful eyes.
“I’ll talk terms,” he said. “My terms are you by my side every spare moment you have. My terms are no matter what we spent the day doing—dealing with Jordan’s shit, or Hawk being impossible, or you being grouchy—that we always, always make time to be us.”
Her lips parted.
“There’s nothing more ‘us’ than me pushing your boundaries.” He sat and rubbed his palms over his denim-clad knees. “Bend over, beautiful.”
* * *
Strong, tough, independent women did not bend over a man’s knee for a spanking.
Right?
Asher leaned back on the slim leather sofa and propped his arms on the back, a crooked tilt to his mouth, fire in his expression and the promise of satisfaction—the really good kind—in his dark eyes.
Right???
Her bottom still stung the slightest bit from that last slap, and it had the by-product of sending a flood of warmth through her stomach and between her legs. Beyond her hectic heart, the keyboard ticked off the steady beat of a drum.
Asher stretched his arms toward the light switch over his head, his black T-shirt riding high and exposing an army of hard abs. He flipped the switch and the room fell into blackness. Outside, she could see the dock, the lake beyond, and a fat, pale moon—full—lighting the beach below. Inside the dark studio, she could make out the outline of a fantastically talented rock star who wanted to use his hands to turn her inside out.
She squirmed with anticipation. He offered a palm.
She took it.
“We’re going to leave your dress and shoes on,” he murmured in her ear as she bent over him. “But lose the panties.”
Her breath caught when his hand slid under her skirt, wound around the scrap of silk, and tugged her underpants to her feet. She dragged them off and laid over him, elbows on the couch, anticipation and nervousness switching places to the beat echoing in the room.
He ran his hand through her hair, moving it over one of her shoulders.
“Asher.”
“Shh-shh. No talking.” He rubbed his palm over her bare backside, moving in slow, sensual swirls.
“Of course I can talk.”
Snap! One sharp slap landed on her butt cheek before he started that rotating movement of his hand again. She gasped, unable to hide her shock…or how much he’d just turned her on.
“I say you can’t.” His voice was low and playfully sinister. “Right now, Sarge, you’re not the one giving orders. Embrace it. You’re going to lie here, and I’m going to do what I want to you. When I’m done—and only then—you can speak. Although,” he added, and she heard the humor in his voice—the smile around his words, “if you’d like to answer with ‘yes, sir,’ I could completely get into that.”
“Don’t push it,” she said, followed by shocked, “Oh!” when he slapped her ass again.
“What was that?” And now he was rubbing again.
“Yes, sir,” she said with a smile of her own. She clasped her hands and bit down on her thumb.
“Fuck. I like that, Sarge,” he said reverently.
So did she, but she didn’t say so. Instead she did what she hoped would turn him on even more. She wiggled her bottom and purred, “Yes, sir.”
His hips lifted, and she felt the hard ridge of his erection bump into her belly where she lay over him. Both of them were enjoying this, and quite a bit of her enjoyment was coming from the fact that for once in her day, she didn’t have to be in charge of anything. Even her own needs. He was taking care of them for her.
He drew back and delivered the hardest crack yet.
“Ow!”
She felt his stomach move with laughter. Then that laughter stopped when he ran his fingers along the seam of her and found her wet and ready. He slipped over her folds, spreading her wetness and making her squirm. His touch—his attention—was only making her hotter. Wetter.
He pulled away and delivered another slap. Before she could recover from the shock of it, he drove two fingers into her and began fucking her. He continued moving in and out, slicking her wetness everywhere and making her want him inside her. Not his fingers—him.
“You have a beautiful ass, Sarge.” His other palm was resting over her bottom and she pushed back against his hand.
“Asher,” she breathed, but he didn’t stop. She crawled back so she could reach his belt buckle, then flipped the silver piece open and went for his button-fly.
“Not done with you yet,” he announced, turning her on still.
“I want you in my mouth.”
“Not gonna argue with that.”
She didn’t think he would. She fumbled with the buttons, growled how there were too many but finally reached his cock. She dropped her head and tasted him, while he continued moving his fingers in and out and playing her clit with his thumb. The room filled with her hums of pleasure and the sharp sound of Asher pulling in air through his teeth.
He reached a hand inside the front of her dress, plunged it past her cleavage and bra, and fondled her nipple. That, the heady, salty taste of him, and the loving attention being given to every part of her, tumbled her over the edge.
She bucked, squeezed her eyes closed, and moaned around his width. Only then did he stop. Only then did he lift her off him. And when he did, his made it clear what he wanted.
“Ride me, honey.”
* * *
Maybe Asher was being sentimental, but there was something about the way Gloria rode him, her hips swiveling, her skirt pooling around his thighs, and her breasts bared—now that he’d pulled down the top of her dress—that made him not want to come just yet.
In fact, he was wondering how much longer he could get her to continue like this—her nipple on his tongue, his fingers wrapped in her hair, her pussy clenching around him and letting go as she bounced up and down on his lap.
The spanking had been fun. Fingering her had been more fun. Getting his cock sucked, infinitely more fun. But having her on top of him, moving slow, her eyes hooded and satisfied, her mouth slightly open—
Fuck him.
It wasn’t only fun, but soul-crushing. In the best way.
In the years since he’d been a rock star—rock god, he oft argued flippantly to his friends—Ash had had a lot of tail. Pussy wasn’t hard to find on the road and groupies were a dime a dozen. Because of this, he had a lot of experience and those experiences were sometimes good, sometimes better than good. What they never were was what he had with Gloria.
She was complex and a pain in the ass and beautiful and inviting. She didn’t want to be coddled and she liked sex and she refused to show her vulnerable side. There were so many layers to her, he wondered if he would ever get them all uncovered if he started this second and investigated until the day he died.
And that was what he wanted.
He’d dared her earlier to do this “thing” with him, but now that she was on top of him, he knew what he wanted this “thing” between them to be. He wanted her by his side—in bed and out. He wanted what Evan had. What Donovan had. What Connor had. Those guys had women who loved them, who stood by their side and would raise their children with single-minded dedication. And by the looks of his buddies, they were getting plenty more than loyalty and friendship from their girls. They were getting it good in the bedroom.
With Gloria, Asher always got it good in the bedroom. But he’d also like Glo giving them a shot outside of it, too. He’d like to have both those oars in the water at the same time, thank you very much. In the bedroom and out. Hot sex and a long-term girl.
Arguably, this decision was being made mid-sex and really close to orgasm, but because he’d had a lot of orgasms, he could tell this wasn’t his cock talking. This was about Gloria. She was the only woman who had ever made him have thoughts like the ones he entertained right now. Anything longer than a night or two on the road wasn’t something he’d ever been up for.
One cushy breast against his face, he let loose her nipple and slid his tongue to the other. She tasted like heaven and smelled like sunshine. He had one hand on her ass and pulled her back down each time she rose up. Tight…she was so tight, his head was about to explode. She rested her palms on his shoulders and continued riding him, but there was one thing missing.
“Gimme your eyes.”
“Not now, Ash.” She pinched her eyelids closed in concentration. Or in avoidance. Probably that last one.
“What happened to ‘yes, sir’?” He rolled her nipples in his fingers, watching her face contort with pleasure. She made a high-pitched sound and he grinned. “Eyes, Sarge.”
She opened them. And he could die right then. Even not knowing her layers. Even not uncovering all that she was. This moment was perfect and he thought he could just pass on to the afterlife completely whole…
