Shameless (St. Martin Family Saga) (6 page)

“He doesn’t believe in marriage or conventional dating. My advice to you would be to move on and let a real woman satisfy him.”

Brook turned to the obviously surgically enhanced woman and eyed her up and down. Her boobs were too high and too round to be real, her lips were injected with collagen, her nails were gelatin, her skin was overly tanned, and her hair was streaked with bleach.

“A real woman, like you? Can you even consider yourself real?”

Julia’s eyes narrowed as she shot daggers at Brook and an evil smirk spread across her face. “I’ve never had any complaints. Least of all from Corrigan. It could be why he keeps coming back for more.” Julia begin to chew lightly at the nail of her index finger.

“Thank you for the advice.” Brook knew she must be lying.

“You’d do well to heed it unless you want to pick up the pieces of your broken heart from the dirt. Corrigan doesn’t believe in marriage, did you hear me say that earlier? So that’s not an option if it’s what you’re after.” She surveyed Brook from head to toe. “You’re a little girl, but Corrigan is a man, with a man’s needs. Needs you could never satisfy like I can.”

Cory stepped behind Julia. He winced and looked to Brook. “Julia, don’t you think you’ve had enough? Why don’t you go home and sleep it off.”

Julia pivoted to Cory, nearly falling as she did so, and circled her index finger around on his chest. “I was just telling this little whippet of a thing the kind of woman you desire.”

“That’s interesting considering I just found out myself. Until recently I’d no idea I preferred whippets. I also discovered I’m very fond of freckles and fresh, clean skin, a natural woman with no enhancements or fillers.” His eyes bore into her as he spoke the words she longed to hear. “They say natural foods are good for one’s diet. It turns out natural is also good for desire. Now get the hell away from her before I slap you sober. You always were a sloppy drunk.”

As Julia sashayed away, she shot back, “You would know.”

Brook’s mind buzzed at the words Cory spoke. And her heart started jumping as well. Did he just state his type out loud? Describing her?

She quickly brought her thoughts into line—he was probably just blowing off Julia. That had to be it.

She studied him. Yeah, just as gorgeous as ever. But he didn’t look like a guy who’d just declared himself.

Brook picked up a rag and started drying the area she’d drenched in water.

She knew her thoughts had been mistaken. Cory St. Martin wouldn’t brag on her, declaring his interest to the world.

He rubbed his fingers on the back of his head as he looked down. “I’m sorry about her. She’s always been a crazy bitch.” He rubbed his head again. “The truth of it is”—his gaze roamed slowly up her body until he met her unbelieving stare—“you satisfy me more than any other woman ever has, and I need more of you.”

5

C
ory sat on
Brook’s daybed, reading a psychological thriller. He and Brook had come to an agreement—getting together for sex whenever the mood struck. And the mood had struck every day—sometimes two and three times a day—for the past several days. They’d had sex at her house, in his office, at the stables out at his house. He couldn’t get enough. And she seemed just as hooked. But he’d made it clear it was sex and sex only. Well, that and seeing that a few repairs were done on her house. Nothing big, just some basics. There was no reason for her to make do with problems when he could so easily replace a faucet and buy parts for her toilet.

He was at a hair-raising scene when a car door slammed out in the street. He heard the snick of a key in lock, and the door opened to reveal Brook on the threshold, admiring the new red front door. There had been something new for her to admire everyday. Yesterday he’d had all the screens replaced, the day before that he’d had a new set of steps delivered for the back entrance.

Cory watched as she slid her palm across the glossy paint and grasped the nickel-finished handset. She pushed it closed and leveled her green eyes on him. Her gaze was lush, like a tropical forest canopy capable of devouring him. As she walked toward him, she shimmied out of her skirt and pulled her shirt over her head. She eased between his legs and bent to kiss him lightly on the mouth as her hands palmed his head.

No words needed to be exchanged. Cory pulled the cups of her bra down and was rewarded with the sight of her nipples growing hard and dark. He grasped the mounds in his hands and sucked them into his mouth, one after the other, licking and tasting and suckling. Brook pressed closer, her breath catching, and he drew from her breast even harder. He loved the taste of her tits, her skin. Loved making her go wild.

He licked a trail from her chest to her navel and while he played with her, he slid her panties down and off. When he was satisfied, he leaned back and stared at her clad in only cowboy boots. Now that was pretty. And damned arousing.

Still fully clothed, he stood and pulled her to a recliner. With one hand between her shoulder blades and one at her neck, he eased her down and positioned her with her stomach across the arm of the chair. Using his foot, he spread her legs wide and pushed her deeper into the chair, lifting her ass until the lips of her cunt spread and revealed her bubble-gum-pink channel.

Cory groaned. Using his index and middle fingers, he massaged her lips, spreading around her wetness. When Brook’s breathing changed, he walked around to stand in front of the chair, where her head rested. Her eyes followed him. He removed his shirt and unbuttoned his fly slowly, watching Brook’s eyes track his hands, and slid his pants down, pulling them from his body. Looping his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, he pushed them down and gripped his raging hard-on.

Cory stood naked in front of Brook with a painfully engorged cock, stroking himself from root to tip. Her groan was low and hoarse as she watched him masturbate. His strokes started slow and steady, but turned violent. When he was ready to come, he pressed his cock to her lips. “Open,” he said. She did, and he spewed his seed into her mouth. She greedily swallowed him down. He pulled free of her mouth, but stepped closer to her. He stroked her cheek as he worked to catch his breath. But she made that hard for him by nuzzling his cock and his thighs, rubbing against him. Licking wherever she could reach.

“Damn, why do I want you so much?”

She had him twisted up inside, but he still couldn’t get enough. And he felt damned good when he was with her. It wasn’t right that a woman should make him feel so good.

He moved around the chair to stand between her spread legs.

“Please, Cory. Don’t make me wait.”

He reached for her ass with both hands, alternately rubbing and kneading. She squirmed as he did, her mouth releasing sounds that drove him crazy. Sounds that made him hard again. He smacked her on the right globe of her ass. She let out a squeal of surprise. He cupped the spot, trapping the heat under his hand. She moaned. He repeated the smack to her left cheek and then thrust deep into her from behind. From this position his cock could press deep, and he sank to the root, causing Brook to gasp on a choked cry. He gave her a few seconds before he pulled slowly out and then he drove in again, starting a frenetic pace.

Cory spread his legs and used her hips to rock her back and forth on his shaft, but he wanted her to feel more.

“Touch yourself, baby. Rub your clit.”

She shifted and slid one hand between her legs. The other she used as leverage against the chair.

The wet slaps against her sex and her own fingers brought her quickly to ecstasy; Cory felt moisture flood her, rush over his cock, and used it to increase his speed. She cried out his name and squeezed around him, gripping and sucking him deeper. God, he was going to die, it felt so good. “Ah, fuck.” He stilled her hips and shot thick ropes of cum deep inside her again and again, until the last tremble left his body.

He knew he should help her up, rub the kinks out of her back and legs, but he couldn’t move. He simply could not pull away.

After a few moments, with both of them breathing heavily, Brook put her hands under her and pushed. He got the message and lifted away, helping her upright as he did so. She steadied herself against the chair and he ran his hands over her hips and thighs, once again kneading her flesh. But this time he sought to comfort rather than arouse. He pressed close when she stretched, and when she dropped her hands over his back and pulled his head close to hers, he went willingly. They stood unmoving until their hearts finally settled.

And then Cory carried a laughing Brook over to the daybed, lowered himself into it without dropping her, and then held on to her, eyes closed, heart content. This was a first for Cory, snuggling after sex. He didn’t understand it, but he knew he needed to be near her, as close as he could get. If his dick wouldn’t scream at him for doing it, he’d cram himself inside her even as they simply sat quietly.

“Cory?”

“Yeah, babe.”

“You know I don’t care about Julia or any other woman you’ve had, but I do care about you, so I’d like you to explain something to me.”

She never demanded anything of him and gave him so much, so he figured she deserved an answer or two. “Sure. What is it?”

“What did she mean when she said you don’t
believe
in marriage?”

Shit, she certainly went for the big one with that question. He’d heard that women got introspective after sex but since he usually took off before they could ask him questions, he hadn’t been prepared for what Brook might say.

Still, he’d told her to ask.

He’d never explained to anyone where his notions about marriage came from. To do so would be like exposing himself, exposing the inner man. But he knew that Brook wouldn’t use the information to manipulate him. He’d watched her, listened to her, with others. She didn’t use their frailties to hurt them. He dropped his head to her shoulder and sighed. He’d never thought that about a woman before Brook, that he could trust her. He’d thought women were all out to get what they could, any way they could.

He shifted a bit and reached one arm around Brook so he could reach her breast. He stroked absently, wanting, needing, that connection. She wrapped one leg around his and curved her fingers over his other hand and pressed it to her belly. He wanted to laugh—was she protecting him or making sure he didn’t pull away?

He swallowed down the lump in his throat.

“When I was twelve, my father took all the kids to a ballgame. All except me. I couldn’t go because I had strep throat. I’d just woken from a fever induced nap when I walked into my parents’ bedroom and saw my mother packing up her things. She hadn’t mentioned she was going anywhere, but she had all her cases out and was loading them with clothes and personal items—photographs, jewelry, collectable bottles, and other items. When I asked her where she was going, she told me to go back to bed. Something… something wasn’t right. When I asked what was going on, she again told me to go to my room. Then she ignored me.

“I walked to the hallway but that’s as far as I got. I slumped against the wall and watched her. She had the driver collect her bags and load them into the car. When she came out of her bedroom, I asked her again what was going on. She said, ‘Grow up, boy, what does it look like? I’m leaving.’ I remember asking her if she were mad at me. She told me not to be ridiculous and that it had everything to do with my father. At that time I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t just overlook whatever he’d done and work it out, just like she and Dad had always told us to do. I guess I still don’t understand that. There are seven of us, and Clara was barely walking and talking back then. You’d think that seven children, one of them a toddler, would be a reason to stay and attempt to work things out. Plus Dad was never around, so what was to become of us?” He laughed, though no one would mistake it for a cheerful sound. “I just couldn’t believe she’d leave like that.”

Cory’s chest began to tighten, as it did whenever he gave more than a passing thought to those days. He took deep cleansing breaths, and Brook turned in his arms to face him. She grasped his hands firmly in hers.

“Cory, it’s okay. You d—”

“When she started down the staircase, I wrapped my fingers around her leg and begged her not to go. I cried and carried on, believing that if she really knew how much I wanted her to stay, she would. I howled like I’d never cried before, but it didn’t change anything. She… she called the stable manager to pull me off and hold me away from her as she left. She let someone—made someone—keep me away from her. I screamed at her not to go. Bill released me once we heard her car start up, and I ran after the car as it drove down the long and winding drive. I never caught her.”

Unable to take Brook’s compassion any longer, he rearranged them until he was once again behind her, his arms wrapped around her.

“She was gone. And I was devastated. She didn’t come around much after that. She has started to these past few years, but I don’t know why. It can’t be for any good reason. The years that counted the most have already passed. She should never have come back.”

Brook didn’t say anything. She just lightly stroked his forearm with her fingertips. Her breath was slow and her heartbeat even, exposing his erraticism even more. Her calm confidence helped center and relax him.

“I can understand your skepticism regarding marriage. I can’t understand what that must have been like, to have a parent abandon you, but surely you know that not all marriages are like your parents’ marriage.”

“My skepticism? Call it what it is—cynicism. That contract they give you, you know the one that you sign? It means nothing to anyone. My brother wasn’t married six months when he walked in on his wife going at it full throttle in
their
bed with another man. I’m not the only cynic in the family.”

Brook once again turned herself around until they were face to face. She used her thumb and index finger to push aside the hair hanging in his eyes. Then she kissed his brow.

“No, you aren’t the only skeptic. Do you plan to have a family?”

“You mean like kids?”

“Yeah, kids.”

“Well, no. I’m not going to have a bastard child.”

“So what’s your grand plan?”

“My only plan is to remain a free man. I don’t want to lead you on. No marriage. No kids. No family.”

≈

Things were not good. For starters, Brook was pretty sure she was falling hard for Cory. But she was pretty sure that he wasn’t falling for her.

He liked her, yes. Liked having sex with her, double yes. But he was adamant about not pursuing a future with her. She knew it wasn’t her—he’d set his attitude about marriage long before they met. But what woman didn’t want to be the one to break through to her man’s heart? That didn’t look likely with Cory.

And then there was the kid issue. When she’d asked him about kids last night, she knew what he would say. Cory didn’t want a wife and he would never father children and then abandon them after what he went through, so that meant no children. Brook didn’t know how she felt about having children in the near future but when she envisioned herself as an old woman, her children and their children always surrounded her. She knew she wanted kids eventually. She wanted as many as she could have so that she would finally get her large, loving family.

Anything long term looked to be out of the question for them. So did that mean she should break it off, start looking for someone else?

But how did you break off a relationship when the ties were still so strong?

A knock at her door pulled her from her thoughts. Parker, looking like sex on a stick, was ready to take her to breakfast. She wished she was attracted to him. Things would have been so much easier. He played no games, had no hidden agenda.

“I like your new door.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at him, and he kissed her cheek, as he always did.

“Waffle House?”