House Of Payne: Scout (13 page)

She didn’t need the instruction. His name was suddenly the only word she knew, the only thing that mattered. It was on her every shallow breath as she bucked against him, helplessly writhing, and the sweet tingling that began in her core was the purest bliss. The sensation rapidly bloomed outward, rippling with shockwaves of increasing intensity, and she began to cry out his name louder as the pleasure crept up… and up…

Then it was there, consuming her with savage madness. Even as her orgasm swallowed her in a hold that she wished would never end, he tore the condom packet with his teeth, then applied the protection one-handed. As she trembled in the rippling eddies of pleasure he was suddenly there, spearing into her depths in long, deep strokes so that she was aware of every single magnificent inch of him. The effort behind his powerful thrusts tore ragged breaths from him and with each surging motion he pushed her along the mattress. It was a ride that was so good she would have given sworn testimony that sex with Ivar had the supernatural power to shake the world.

His rhythm changed, sliding into uncontrolled waters, and the anticipation built her pleasure to another crescendo. Suddenly he strained his head back, his face twisting into a teeth-baring grimace as he slammed into her as deep as he could go, and as he came he let loose a shout that shook her in ways she couldn’t explain.

That shout, a testament to how completely he’d given himself over to the torment of ecstasy, was her name.

Chapter Thirteen

Scout hated alarm clocks.
Hated
. Being startled awake by an obnoxious noise was wedged in between tax audits and stepping in gum on her list of Things That Should Be Annihilated.

That was why she loved her bedroom windows. With the unadorned glass facing roughly east, the sun rose over Lake Michigan every morning to wake her with slow, easy-going gentleness. That was exactly what she needed now.

Slow.

Easy-going.

Gentleness.

Man, what a night.

She was no newbie when it came to sex. From the time she’d first bumped uglies with Eugene “Puddy” Pudziecki in the back of his parents’ Pierogies-To-Go delivery van, she’d been a fan—Puddy’s lack of dick control notwithstanding.

So she’d been around the block a few times. Nothing could surprise her when it came to sex, because after a while it became apparent it was pretty much the same deal, with varying shades of intensity and expertise.

Or so she’d thought.

Who knew she could be so wrong?

If there was such a thing as a sexathlon—like the decathlon, but way better—Ivar would have been the undisputed gold medalist in the event. He never got soft. No, that wasn’t quite accurate, she thought, keeping her eyes closed because she had no energy to open them. He did, on occasion, allow himself to come like a never-ending freight train. But within ten minutes or so, he was ready to saddle up and start all over again.

Amazing.

At first she hadn’t understood what the hell was going on. She knew the routine, after all. Energetic boinking, a big groan or two, a sweaty collapse followed by almost immediate snoring. Like clockwork, that was how it was supposed to go. But after their first time, none of that happened. Ivar slowed his roll… but never fully stopped. She knew he’d climaxed; no one was that good of an actor. But instead of deflating, his erection had been as strong as ever.

It was like a miracle. Angels should have been singing in the background.

Her wide-eyed shock had clearly amused him. He then explained that when he’d been in his teens, his agent had booked him for a series of photo shoots for a fashion magazine. The shock-value theme of the series had been to hang various accessories off of an aroused penis. The way he’d described that first day of the shoot, it seemed like he’d started out with as much dick control as Puddy Pudziecki. But after losing that control all over expensive merchandise and being “punished” for it, he’d learned to clench down hard on what he now knew were kegel muscles while being forcibly stimulated for the sake of the shoot.

From the sound of it, it had only taken him to the end of the series of photo shoots to figure out how to avoid having any more so-called accidents, enjoying the sensation  of stimulation and even climaxing without ejaculation if he so chose. Obviously by now, he was a master at it.

She didn’t know what to think of people who hung fashion elements off the erections of young men, though she’d admit she’d seen artsy pictures like that in magazines plenty of times. And she sure as hell didn’t know what to think about a punishment so drastic it scared a kid into strangling the need to shoot his wad during orgasm. She suspected that behind his casual explanation lurked a tale that would probably make her blood run cold.

But facts were facts—she couldn’t complain about the end result. When it came to delivering sexual pleasure to his partner before he reached his own, Ivar was more reliable that a vibrator. He’d proven that by making her scream his name half a dozen times throughout the night.

She also noted that in the aftermath of all that wanton debauchery, he had done exactly what he said he’d do. No way was she going to be voluntarily walking anywhere today. Or tomorrow. Maybe never.

The thought of moving made her frown. If she weren’t still floating on the fading edge of the richest endorphin high she’d ever known, she’d probably be crying. Was it possible to be fucked to death? She was pretty sure it was, just as she was sure she’d come close to shedding her mortal coil, right about the same time the sun was coming up.

She stretched carefully to test things out. Aches between her legs and her back were the first to put up a protest, immediately followed by hips that felt like they needed a dose of the Tin Man’s oil. Holy crap, she was wrecked. And, to her shock, all her girlie bits were still so sensitive that just moving around had her confused nervous system quivering with stimulation.

Great. He’s turned me into a nympho.

“Beautiful.” The faint, familiar sound of a camera shutter clicking reached her ears along with Ivar’s velvet voice. Strength suddenly poured into her leaden muscles, and she pried one sleepy eye open in an effort to find him. “Yes, just like that.” Click. Click. “Slowly open your eyes and stretch again.” Click. “Arch your back and show me your flowers.”

“
You
arch your back. I’m going back to sleep.” She wasn’t, though, and she was pretty sure they both knew it. Just hearing his voice was enough to make the low hum of anticipation start up deep in her belly.

Yep. Definitely a nympho.

“Scout.” The tone was both chiding and seductive, and it made her smile. She couldn’t do anything else. “I thought I made you happy last night and earlier this morning. You seemed happy.”

A shiver rippled over her, and his low chuckle stirred a familiar warmth between her legs. God, how was she supposed to turn off her motor when he insisted on being so damned
hot
? “I was happy.”

“Good.”

“But now I’m sleepy. Give me time and I’ll run the gamut of all the seven dwarves.”

“You were Doc to me when I had my face kicked in.”

“I would have turned into Grumpy if anything had happened to your beautiful face.” She sighed, and it took most of her concentration to pull it off. “Did you know you don’t look like everyone else when you climax? Everyone on the planet gets this twitchy, constipated look that’s really kind of laughable out of context, but not you. You do it beautifully. You do
everything
beautifully.” Eyes still closed, she smiled into her pillow. “In fact, you really could’ve given Puddy a few lessons.”

“Puddy?”

“Well, his name was Eugene, but everyone called him Puddy. Which, now that I think about it, wasn’t an improvement.”

“Who the hell is Puddy, and what could I have given him lessons on?”

“Dick control.” She laughed, and that small burst of energy was enough to drag her eyes open to find him by the windows. Clad just in his pants, he’d obviously retrieved his camera while she slept, because he now had it cradled in his hands by the windows, standing at an angle so his shadow didn’t fall across her. “And as for who he was, well… considering he needed lessons from you when it comes to staying power, it’s remarkable I even remember his name. Maybe I remember him because he was my first time. God knows everything else about him was forgettable.”

The look on his face was priceless. “Are you seriously telling me you gave the priceless gift of your virginal body to someone named
Puddy
?”

She laughed again, absurdly touched he believed her body, virginal or otherwise, could ever be considered a gift. “I was seventeen and stupid and he was eager and available, along with his family’s conveniently roomy pierogi delivery van.”

“Pierogies.” He shook his head before putting the camera up to his eye. “My Scout. What were you thinking?”

“Not much, as I recall.”

“Aha. Swept away by the romance of a pierogi van and teenaged hormones, were you?”

“Actually, the only thing I clearly remember around that time in my life is that I was living in a quiet state of panic. I couldn’t even escape that sense of doom in my sleep. I’d wake up crying.”

His humor faded. “What were you panicked about?”

“I was about to turn eighteen. That meant I was on the verge of aging out.”

“Aging out?”

“That’s the term used when you’re too old for the foster care system. That meant I was destined to be kicked out of Mama Coco and Papa Bolo’s house with no other place to go except a homeless shelter. I think I was looking for a place where I could belong. Even if it was just in the back of a pierogi van and it was only for a little while, I wanted to belong
somewhere
. To someone.” She heard the shutter click and at last her sleepy brain pointed it out. Half a second later she was hugging a pillow to her front and glaring over the top of it at him. “No naked pictures, Fournier. If even one of those shots show up online, I’ll break your fingers.”

“I would never share these with anyone.” He bent low and took a few shots of her peeking at him from behind the pillow. “When you turned eighteen, where did you go?”

“Nowhere, much to my surprise. Papa Bolo and Mama Coco allowed me to stay and pay rent until I made enough money to fully support myself. It’s one of the reasons why I love them so much. They never treated me like a stray, even though that’s exactly what I was.”

She didn’t like thinking of that stress-filled time of her life, when she’d literally had nowhere to go. Whenever those memories surfaced, the anxiety of how uncertain her life had been—how unwanted she’d felt—lingered no matter how hard she tried to shrug it off. It was almost as though that trauma was like a weed, and its taproot had gone so deep it had never gotten completely yanked out of her.

“That is quite an expression in your eyes,
ma fleur
.” Capturing it with a few clicks, Ivar lowered the camera so that he could see it for himself. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking I’m sad my first time wasn’t with you.” No way was she about to confess that deep down, part of her was still that insecure kid looking for a place to call home. “I’ll bet your first time was way classier than mine.”

His grimace made him look roguishly charming. “I should probably advise you not to make that bet. My first time was embarrassing, to say the least.”

“Two words for you, pal—Puddy and pierogi. It can’t get much more embarrassing than that.” When he grimaced again, she managed to find the strength to rise up on an elbow and prop her head up in her palm. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

Her brows shot up. “Awesome! You beat Payne by a whole year. I think that makes you king of the studs or something.”

That earned her a reluctant chuckle. “Well, it is not like I had much choice.”

“Not much choice?” That didn’t sound right. “What do you mean?”

He lifted a shoulder. “It was a few months after that photo shoot series where I learned, as you say, dick control. My agent had been my mother’s agent and was scary as hell—hyper-aggressive, both professionally and personally. She wanted me to be prepared for older, more mature jobs, so one day she locked me in her office and she told me the only way I would get anywhere in that business was if I knew what to do with my dick. Then she told me there was no way I would be leaving that office until I fucked her. She was in her late forties by then and I hated her guts, so it was… awkward.”

All the humor vanished, replaced by a flash of soul-deep horror. “Oh, my God, sweetheart. You were raped?”

“I chose to do what I was told, so no. Not really.”

“That evil skank locked the fucking
door
on you, then
forced
her forty-something ass on a fifteen-year-old innocent who had no power in that situation. Trust me, that’s rape.” When he didn’t respond other than another dismissive lift of a shoulder, she shook her head. “Was that the only time? Did you tell anyone about it?”

“Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know. Your grandmother, maybe?”

“My grandmother gave me to that woman so she could do whatever it took to bring money in. That is where the baroness’s money really came from,” he added, shocking her further. “Everyone assumes that old money keeps the Fournier family afloat, but that is Grade-A bullshit. The family was on the verge of bankruptcy when my mother began her modeling career. That, and the man she would eventually marry, coupled with my career, preserved my grandmother’s image of being blessed with never-ending wealth.”

“What a fucking bitch.” Honestly, she couldn’t have stopped the words if she’d tried.

“And as for that being the only time… no. It went on for years.” For the first time he seemed uncomfortable, and he turned his attention to something beyond the windows. “After my initiation in my agent’s office, she gave me what she called ‘lessons’ on a regular basis on how to pleasure women. Then, after a while, she gave me to others as a give-and-take deal to further my career. I liked sex, so for the most part it was okay. But then she crossed a line when she gave me to a man.” Though she could only see his profile, the clenching of his jaw was obvious. “
That
was a rape. And that was the end of my modeling career, because I was done following orders. I could take a lot, but getting fucked against my will was the single most humiliating, soul-breaking experience of my life.”

Her blood iced over. Everything iced over. “Baby…”

“I was eighteen, and by then I knew the score. I was a prostitute pretending to be a model. But that was how things were done, so I had long since become numb to it. My agent traded me for opportunities to further my career, and I was willing because I wanted to earn money for a grandmother I was always hoping to please. And since I was able to keep a stiff dick, I was known to be the best at my trade. That was the one part I loved.”