Shut Off (Just This Once #3) (2 page)

“Joel,” she whispered between moans. I knew just what I was doing to her, knew just the way to get her body to peak performance. She enjoyed the buildup almost more than when I took her over the edge, dropping her into the abundance of her orgasm.

My eyes slipped down her body to where my hands wrapped around her thighs. It was there where the disparity of our sizes was most obvious, where my hand wrapped around both the front and back of her thigh, maybe an inch or two shy of actually wrapping completely around her limb. Her skin was so soft and delicate, the perfect canvas for my bruising touch. Just then, I had a flashback to the way her skin flashed
stop-sign
red as I slapped her bouncing tits while she rode my cock.

“I think I’m going to need a close-up view. Hold tight.”

I held her thighs open to my perusal, spreading her lips open, to watch her cunt tighten, reaching for something to hold onto, something to pull into its depths. It was like she was calling to me as sure as if she’d crooked her finger, luring me in closer.

The morning sun flooded the room, allowing me to see everything. The flush of her skin, the moisture that beaded there waiting for the smooth stroke of my tongue, the way she scooted across the mattress—every move so minuscule—but displaying her impatience with every centimeter she drew closer.

Smiling to myself, I snuggled in closer, creating a sealant with my lips. She squeaked a soft sound and wiggled down against my mouth. Grasping her waist, I tilted her hips up so I could effectively give her the tonguing that she so desperately sought. I flicked my tongue rapidly against her entrance, and with each tap against her quivering flesh, I could feel her pulse echo back its own rhythm.
Looking up her body, I watched her
chest move a rapid pace, up and down as she tried to catch her breath.

“Doesn’t sound like you have much to say now,
does
it?”

Her hands patted around my head, finding the “just right” angle to sink her hands into my hair, giving me a tug—a response to my taunt. She slammed me back between her legs, and I moved down her clit, past her opening, until I felt her tightly coiled ring that was begging to be owned since the first night she took me home.
Or did I take her home? Her home, my car—semantics.

She had much the same reaction now as she did the first night when my hands sought to find the first place she wanted to be fucked.
Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, I could see her contemplating my silent question. I circled the puckered flesh, waiting for the first sign of her approval. When she still held a mask of uncertainty, I moved in slowly, letting her watch my every move like a snake about to strike. I parted her lips and trailed my tongue from mound all the way back, slowing just as I reached her back entrance. Without her stopping me, I forged on.

Her hips lifted from the bed, and I knew I broke through the last of her resistance.

“Oh my god,” she yelped as I pressed my tongue deeper into her cavity, slipping past the spot fighting my entrance.

“You didn’t know it could feel that good, did you? Put your hands on the headboard. Don’t move them.”

She bore down on my tongue as I slipped back inside her, showing her reaction to my words. She loved it when I talked dirty to her, when I told her all the ways I planned on using her body and making her mine. I owned her as much with my words as I did my body. I fucked her with my tongue and fingers, continuously pulling her body to the ledge and letting her dangle there with a desperation that made her whole body shake. The tingles that pulsed through your veins from an orgasm denied
was
torture. The last couple weeks, without the ability to sate myself inside her, left me a little sexually frustrated. So what? I was taking it out on her; she would thank me for it later.

I was fighting off my own orgasm that threatened to burst free at just the taste and scent of her musky arousal, but the burn of her need etched into my skin had me leaking pre-come like a car with a busted gasket. A quick look at the sheets and I could see my cock swiping through the mess of fluids, the fabric clinging to my skin like glue. Instead of watching the look of euphoria wash over her face, I was too busy clenching my eyes to stop myself from erupting all over her. I didn’t want to come yet, not like that, not until I was buried so deep inside her she’d have to douche to get all of my come out.

“I’m coming. Joel, Joel, ah!” she said between panting and screaming out her release. I continued my assault on her, burying my fingers in her to the hilt, curving them against that spot that made her choke on her screams before screaming louder. A second torrent of juices flooded my hand, pooling in the center of my palm. I licked that up too, like a dog with peanut butter stuck to its fur.

***

“Fuck me, that was amazing. Tell me we can stay in this bed forever,” I said as my cock still clung to the shelter of Blaire’s body. The tension that had been climbing through my system all morning had finally released as I came inside Blaire, and I felt like I could think clearly again.

“Your hermit days are over.”

“
Mmm
, I think I could get you to change your mind.”

I slipped out of her, watching my semi-hard cock release a torrent of drippings as
I freed
myself from her confinement. Rolling over, I pulled Blaire snug against my chest, where I could watch her chest rise and fall over her shoulder, or the way the strands framing her face lifted and fell with every breath that passed her lips. Everything about Blaire fascinated me.

“OK, so you don’t want to talk to me about the case. Then tell me about Lara.”

“Lara? Why do you want to talk about her, here and now, after what we just did?” I was sure as shit not in the right frame of mind to think about my ex, so I had no idea how Blaire could casually bring up her name as if we were talking about nothing more than morning traffic.

She rolled over, adjusting her head on my shoulder and throwing an arm across my chest—trying to pin me in a subtle way.

“Why are you avoiding it?” she asked, her eyes transfixed on mine. There was a depth to that solid brown stare of hers. I didn’t know if it was unsettling because it was the first time I remembered a woman looking me solely in my eyes or if it was the way she looked at me. Blaire didn’t stray, didn’t let her sight absorb the rest of me like so many other women.

I love working out, I love my body, I love women, but Blaire looks at me and I can see she believes those things to be irrelevant.

“What do you want to know?” I asked with a sigh.

“Where did you meet her? What was she like? I saw old pictures of her, and to be honest, she kind of looked like your typical college student.”

She shrugged her shoulders, the innocent movement shaking my chest. I knew what she meant. I thought the same thing when I saw Lara the first time.

“I know how this is going to sound, but please spare me your judgment. She was waitressing at Citizens…” I looked up to see if she was giving me “judging eyes” yet. When her face was blank, still absorbing my words, I continued, “yeah and I gave her my card.”

“You gave her your card? So that’s the kind of guy you are? Tell me, do you travel all over Vegas flashing your card? That makes you sound…sleazy. Still no judgment here.” She raised both hands and swiftly shook her head.

“Sure feels like judgment to me, but yeah, how was I to know she was crazy? I was with her for a while, but we weren’t really together, together.”

“So you were using her—”

“I didn’t use her—”

I shifted my body higher up on the headboard, aware of the physical space I created between
me and Blaire
.
This conversation made me feel
more exposed than I’d ever felt. I had no problem sharing information
about myself or baring my body to Blaire,
but talking about Lara left me unsettled. It could have been the legal case that was actually getting to me, but this was exactly why I didn’t want Blaire involved. I had never felt as vulnerable in my life as I had since the day Lara and I broke up.

“Ah, ah, take it easy. I didn’t mean anything by it. Besides, she was clearly using you, too. Your relationship was mutually beneficial. There, how does that sound?”

“Sounds like I’m less of a fucking scum-bucket.”

“Anyway, so when did she change, because the woman who got me fired is not the girl you brought home from Citizens. I don’t even have to know her to know that much.”

“I would take her places and buy her things, you know, so she would fit in and feel comfortable when I took her out, but then more and more, she would start making plans and expecting me to pay for things. Now, I have no problem spending money, but it’s different when people start expecting it of you. When we went out, she tried harder to be seen, becoming overly flirty with people I didn’t even know.”

“Money is an aphrodisiac to some people.”

“I didn’t blame her, but there was never a guarantee with us. It wasn’t permanent, and I never led her to believe it was, but once my father died…”

“You didn’t want to pretend anymore?”

“Something
like
that.”

Truth was, the last time I saw my father,
we
had spoken on this very same subject. He lectured me on the responsibilities that came with being a
Trevaunt
. Apparently, I was reaching an age where my “playboy ways” were going to become more of an embarrassment than something to be applauded for. My father and I were close. Close enough that I laughed him
off,
unfazed by his concern for my image and the kind of precedence I was setting by parading around with women who looked at me like I was a blank check. I told him I had it under control, and that was that. If I had known that would have been the last time I would see him, I wouldn’t have laughed him off so easily.

Chapter Two

Blaire

I hated that Joel shut me out, hated that I was forced to take matters into my own hands and do some investigative work of my own. Getting answers from him was like pulling teeth, and seeing as how he didn’t want me involved in his legal case, I had to be sneaky when it came to research.

Reluctantly, Joel set off to work that morning to take care of some things he let fall by the wayside ever since he essentially took me hostage. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for the place to stay, especially because I didn’t know what Lara was capable of, but would I have been happier to not have her know my address or, better yet, not know about my involvement with Joel? Absolutely. Now, I had to do what was needed for both of our sakes—to help Joel with his case and to help me get back to my job and home.

After eating breakfast in his actual kitchen, rather than bed, I returned back upstairs to retrieve my laptop. Lucky for me, Henderson
didn’t ask me to leave my laptop at the office when he asked me to leave, so I still had all of the information I had gathered before I left. I just wasn’t sure how helpful it would be now that I was off the case.

I pulled the curtains open, flooding the room with a light that seemed to remind me that it’d been days since I’d been outside. Not that I was the super-outdoorsy type, but my skin felt parched for a hit of vitamin D. Though Joel’s bedroom was beautiful—a room fit for a king, really—I decided to grab my laptop and head outside.

At 9 a.m. it was already eighty degrees, and I felt every degree as I lugged my laptop bag to the nearest cabana with a wood dining table large enough to seat six. The white gauzy fabric swaying in the breeze made the picturesque site look like something you’d see in the Mediterranean, not in the middle of the desert. It was beautiful and quite feminine, not exactly something I’d expect from Joel, but it seemed he was full of surprises.

When everything was up and running, I immediately went through my old files, the same ones that sent up a red flag when I initially looked at the case. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but there was always something that seemed off about the case, and now that I was no longer working, I wasn’t obligated to overlook those little things that had niggled at me.

As much as I hated looking at the photos of her face, I found that looking at her now didn’t nearly affect me as when I didn’t know that the supposed person who did that to her was Joel. I knew
someone
did that to her face, but the fact that she tried to pin it on Joel was disturbing. Now that I knew what she was capable of, I found it harder to believe she wasn’t setting Joel up. For whatever reason, I wasn’t sure. It could have been because he broke up with her. It sounded like she was becoming comfortable with the lifestyle he afforded her, and by cutting her off, she would be back to living the lifestyle of waitress/college student—something I’m sure she hoped never to go back to. I could see why that might cause her to lash out.

I felt deceitful being in Joel’s house, using his internet, and looking at pictures that were being used as proof that he was the one who made her look like that, but he needed my help, whether he planned on asking for it or not.

The pictures were just as bad as I remembered, and out there in the light of day, every purple and blue splotch on her face seemed to be amplified as if a spotlight were beaming down to point out what so clearly was evident. Her bottom lip was split on the left side. Above her left eyebrow was a cut about an inch long but without any bruising. It almost looked like a superficial cut, a little longer and deeper than a paper cut. Her cheek looked the worst. It was puffed out, capped off with a large purple bruise that arched with the curve of her cheekbone and along her eye socket, making the eye slightly swollen.