Authors: Seraphina Donavan,Wicked Muse
“Is there something wrong?” he asked, moving nearer.
Cass cocked her head to the side and then impulsively, she gripped the lapels of his tuxedo jacket and rose on her toes to kiss him. Her lips brushed his softly, once, twice, and then he took over, kissing her in a way that left no doubt in the minds of anyone who happened to see them what the nature of their relationship was. When the kiss broke, they were both breathless and more than a little starry eyed. “What was that for?” he asked.
“That was for finally coming to my senses. Between you and Evie, I’ve decided that the elitist matrons of Gresham County can kiss my lilly white ass.”
Reed tugged her closer and, with a wicked grin, said, “Me first... Let’s go to your house. Your kitchen is better stocked.”
She chuckled. “Do you ever think about anything other than food?”
“Yes... I think about you,” he said.
With his voice pitched low, the deep bass rumbling over her skin, Cass could only shiver in response. “Show me.”
Reed kept his hand at the small of her back as he guided her through crowd. Cass handed her ticket to one of the valets and Reed followed suit. As they waited, Reed touched her constantly, his hand smoothing over her back, touching her arm. Cass leaned into him, enjoying the luxury of being able to touch him publicly, to revel in the heat, the spark between them, without trying to hide. Turning her face into his chest, she craved the feel of his skin against hers and resented the clothes between them. It was only when she felt him tense beneath her, his arms tightening around her the muscles of his chest bunching beneath her cheek.
“Cass, this is not good,” he said.
Cass recognized the controlled fury in his voice. She’d heard it before, years and years earlier when he’d been ordering a man more than twice his age to stay away from her. There had been other times, too, she thought. Reed had always been there, looking out for her. Slowly, she turned her head and what she saw made her heart sink and her stomach turn dangerously. Her car was ruined. Vicious, ugly words had been spray painted all over it and scratched into the paint. The word ‘whore’ was emblazoned across the hood.
“I will fucking kill her,” Cass said. It had to have been Crystal. There was simply no other option.
Reed slipped his phone from his pocket and sent a text to Jackson, who was inside. “It’s fixable,” he said. “Jackson can take care of this... and if it was Crystal, I will handle it. It’s my fault for not being more clear with her.”
“Seriously? You fired her crazy ass for flashing you her hoo-ha... That’s pretty clear,” Cass said moving toward the car to survey the damage more closely.
“Holy shit!”
The exclamation came from Jackson and was accompanied by Evie’s gasp of horror as they stepped outside. “Oh my god! Cass, this is horrible! Who would do this?”
“We have a good idea,” Reed said. “Jackson, can you fix all this?”
“Yeah, I can fix the car,” he said pointedly. “I can’t fix the crazy that did it though... What color you want, Cass? Same one or do you want to change it up a little?”
Cass looked at the bright, fucshia letters and sighed. “Anything but pink.”
“Will do, darlin’. Will do. Give me your keys and I’ll get this out of here before we have more gawkers... unless you want to call the cops.”
“No. They wouldn’t do much anyway. Just take it,” she said, and passed the key to Jackson, just as the second valet pulled up in Reed’s SUV.
Within minutes, Cass was safely ensconced in the passenger seat and Reed was driving toward her small house. It would be all over town by morning that she and Reed had been kissing at the party and that her car had been vandalized. They would be the topic of more breakfast conversation than she even wanted to consider. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Even those few moments of feeling free, of letting herself be open and totally unabashed in her feelings for him had been heady and addictive. She had no plans of stopping now.
With that thought in mind, when they stepped into her living room, Cass untied the halter top of her dress and let it puddle to her feet. The stick on bra which was decidedly unsexy came away next as she walked towards the back door, her bare behind swaying seductively. She had left her heels on and knew that her legs, and her ass, looked amazing.
“What the hell are you up to?” he asked.
Cass smiled, “I don’t think I’ve given you the full tour of my house. There is one thing that totally sold me on this house,” she said, her voice sounding distant as she stepped onto the back porch.
Following her, Reed stopped in his tracks. The back of the house was an old fashioned sleeping porch. Screened in, there was a small overhead light with a ceiling fan. The large trees that grew on either side of the house shielded it from view and the privacy fence at the back kept anyone from the next street over from seeing them. An old fashioned iron bed, the enamel cracked and peeling, was situated against one wall, facing out into the night. Covered in white, frothy sheets and laden with pillows, it looked inviting and completely seductive. It was decadent and totally her. “If I do what I want to you out here, the neighbors will probably call the police with a noise complaint.”
Cass slipped off her high heels and climbed onto the bed, the springs creaking lightly. “Are you suggesting something other than sleep, counselor?”
Reed stripped off his tie, then the jacket. Each piece of clothing was removed with speed and efficiency, until he could feel the cool night air on his heated skin. Climbing onto the bed beside Cass, he let the natural sway of the ancient springs propel him towards her until she was in his arms. Her breasts pressed against his chest. The soft and newly shaven mound of her sex pressed against his hip. Her long legs tangled with his and his hand coasted over the lush curve of her hip and over her bottom. It felt so right and so perfect to touch her. “I don’t see sleep coming on for quite some time.”
She smiled and pressed a kiss against the whisker roughened skin of his jaw, “Then I think we’ve found a perfect starting point for our negotiations.”
Reed shifted onto his back, pulling her on top of him. She straddled his hips, and their bodies strained against one another, seeking. At that point, Cass had lost count of how many times Reed had been inside her. He’d had her every way imaginable and she’d enjoyed every last minute of it. But as she rose above him, his hands coasting gently over her hips as he nudged his swollen cock inside her, she recognized that it was different. Whatever had passed between them that night, whatever line she had crossed in taking their relationship public, had changed the dynamic between them dramatically. There was a weight, and intensity to their touches, there in the moonlight on that porch. His hands were gentle as they coasted over her skin, his mouth was soft and sweet as he tugged gently at the hardened buds of her nipples. When he thrust inside her, there was no rush to finish, there was no desperate climb toward an impending climax. She rode him slow and easy, rocking her body against his, and he responded in kind.
In spite of the gentleness of their lovemaking, and how very different it was from all that had gone before, the orgasm that swept through her was not a gentle one. It was hard and deep and left her shaking in its aftermath as he erupted inside her. The heat of him inside her, triggered another rush of warmth and soft tremors that only heightened the lingering pleasure. Collapsing atop him, Cass nuzzled her face against his chest. His arms tightened around her even as his heart thundered beneath her cheek. The fear was there, coiling inside her, but she ignored it, refuting the urge to simply bolt. She’d run from men her whole life--some, like her mother’s perverted boyfriends, because they’d repulsed and frightened her, and others, because they hadn’t. Trust didn’t come easily for her, and somehow, without even trying, Reed had wormed his way inside, to that place where she didn’t let anyone in.
Reed held onto her, and planned to for as long as she would let him. He could sense the wheels turning inside her head, and knew that she was analyzing, picking things apart and anticipating every disaster that could occur. “Stop thinking,” he said.
She looked up at him, propping her chin on her hands. “That’s sort of impossible to do.”
“Stop overthinking,” he corrected.
Cass’ smile was sweet and self deprecating. “Am I that obvious?”
Reed rolled her to her back, looming above her. “Yes. Your face is an open book.” He kissed her then, claiming her mouth, nipping gently at the full curve of her bottom lip.
“So which is the real you, Reed?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you the small town attorney and all around nice guy, or are you the dark, dominant man who ties me to beds and makes me scream?”
“Why can’t I be both? We all have a dark side, Cass... I just have the option of letting mine show when I’m with you.”
“I don’t have a dark side,” she protested.
He smiled, a sardonic grin curving his lips. “Oh, really? What we have, Cass, is only the illusion of me being in control. I don’t do anything that you don’t want me to do. So, if I have a dark side, sweetheart, you can bet your sweet ass that you have one too.”
Cass knew that it was true. She wasn’t a virgin by any stretch of the imagination, but she wasn’t the slut others had always assumed she was either. Still, nothing in her experience had prepared her for the lengths that Reed pushed her to. “So, how did you discover that this was something that you were in to?”
He rolled to his back and sighed, staring up at the beadboard ceiling of the porch. “You really want to do this now? Dissect our sexual histories?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s quid pro quo, Cass. Every secret I reveal means I get one back.”
She thought about it, briefly considered withdrawing the request, but then she knew she couldn’t. She had to know. “Okay.”
“When I was in the army, I became involved with a woman who... well, let’s just say that she outranked me, by a lot. I was a kid. Maybe nineteen. When she told me what she wanted, I was stunned... but gradually, she introduced me to a world that was totally outside of anything I’d ever imagined.”
“Do you miss that?”
“No... I don’t. I like what we have, Cass. I like the fact that I can spank you, play rough with you and fuck you until we’re both mindless... I also like the fact that I don’t have to do that. That I can climb into a white, ruffle covered bed and make love to you....Now, it’s my turn. Why the questions, Cass? Why now?”
“This just isn’t what I thought it would be. I figured we’d have a little bit of fun, maybe a few weekends here and there, but that eventually we’d get bored with one another and go our separate ways.”
Reed rose up on his elbow, staring down at her. With her flaming hair fanned out on the pillow and her skin still bearing the red marks from his whiskers, she was a feast for the senses. “And you’re not bored yet?”
She shook her head, biting her lip as she considered her answer. “No. Not even close. If possible, I want you more now than I ever did before.”
“Why is that a bad thing, Cass?”
“It’s my turn to ask questions,” she said.
She wasn’t going to distract him from it, but he let her take the lead. “Fine, ask one.”
“What’s going to happen if you get bored before I do?”
So that was it, he thought. That’s where the questions and insecurities were coming from. Cass was the one who walked away, never invested in relationships, never intending to stick around, and she was afraid now that he would want out first. There were things he needed to say to her, but he knew she wasn’t ready to hear them. So instead, he said, “That’s not going to happen. How could I ever get bored with you? You challenge me at every turn. You never do what I expect you to, and just when I think I have you figured out, you go and change the rules on me. Like you did tonight.”