"Okay," she agreed, making his heart rush like the wind shoving her camellia bushes around. "By the way, I saw a used truck I want to drive, would you look at it with me tomorrow?"
Chapter Thirty
She didn't look like Pete Walker's widow now
, Colton thought as he pushed the slipknot tight on the tie he only wore to weddings and funerals. Not with her hair spilling over his pillow and her body spread for his pleasure. And judging from her smirk, she must still think she was in charge, even with every limb tied. But she'd agreed to this, and before he untied her, he'd have answers to some of the things bugging him.
He tugged his shirt over his head. "You never planned to buy that new truck, did you, Delilah?"
"The way I treat a truck?" she asked, breaking into the sunny smile that melted him.
Colton balled up the shirt, firing it toward his closet, amazed at how calmly she admitted playing him. "So, you think you can get around me so easy? Baby, by the time I let you come, you'll understand not to play me that way." He undid his jeans, trying not to smile back at her.
* * * *
Delilah wasn't scared. She'd agreed to this, her "punishment" for the little trick with the new car salesman, one he'd suggested she deserved as they'd walked up the steps to his house. This was something Lila had never experienced, but Delilah was game. Besides, she knew this had everything to do with male pride at being outsmarted.
She watched as he stripped off his clothes at the foot of the bed. The act of being tied had made her wet and his eyes were fastened to her bare, slick pussy. He'd let her come, she decided. He liked tasting her too much. To encourage him, she pushed her hips off the mattress. She was so aroused by being tied and helpless for him, all she needed was just a bit of attention there from his talented tongue.
His smile was predatory. "I'll tell you what I think. I think you've manipulated men all your life, Delilah. You use those pretty blue eyes and those incredible tits along with that quick mind of yours, and you always get your way."
She still wasn't worried. And she didn't bother to deny his observations. He didn't know some important instances where she'd failed and neither cunning nor logic had worked. But thoughts of those failures were far from her mind as he placed his knee on the mattress between her parted thighs.
His lips whispered across her calf, then her thigh, and to taunt her, he kissed the top of her mound, working his way slowly up her body. He thoroughly tasted her belly button, the soft pressure sending tendrils of pleasure curling into her womb. His rigid shaft brushed her mound as he dropped his head to one hardened nipple. Lapping and suckling each in turn until they became aching swords, she thought he'd surely break down and fuck her, but the more she strained toward his cock, the less he allowed the monster to touch her. Her pussy clenched and unclenched while his fingers traced wicked patterns over her straining mound and dripping folds, but he never put them where she needed them to be.
The hot, hard length of his shaft along her thigh taunted her. God, how she wanted him inside her. Her pussy bench-pressed air.
Okay, she might be in trouble
, she thought as she panted, moaning as he turned from suckling to teething. She strained to press her thighs together, even though she knew that was useless. So was pressing her pussy toward his hand. His head rose, tugging her nipple with it for a moment before he stared into her eyes.
She'd never seen his eyes turn quite this shade of green. His handsome face wore an expression she found indecipherable as he studied her.
Caught in his gaze, she didn't see his hand as it descended. Three sharp caresses to her mound tripled her need in a most shocking manner. Her body bowed toward the high ceiling. "That's for thinking you had to pay me back for the work I did on your truck," he informed her.
Her mouth rounded as she tried to think how to best explain again why she had to pay him back, but her deliciously abused clit screamed it wasn't important. She needed to be saying other things, like begging him to give her some relief. "I thought you understood," she managed.
"Just making sure you understand you're mine to take care of, Delilah." Three more hot caresses between her open thighs punctuated his assertion. "Say you understand, baby."
The monster was digging into her hip now, wanting her as badly as she wanted the monster. He'd give in soon and make them both happy, she figured. She shook her head as she arched her back. "Fuck me." Her words were a challenge.
Colton rolled away from her and she heard the slide of a drawer. He turned back and she could only stare in shock as he basted the valley between her breasts with silky lubricant, which he next applied generously to his shaft. Watching the motion of his hand twist around the top third of his cock only increased her need. The intimacy of watching while he jacked himself, knowing she couldn't help or touch her own sex in response, was marvelous torture. She could only look up at him as he straddled her and positioned his throbbing cock between her breasts.
"This isn't fair," Lila cried as he began to fuck her breasts. He was going to come, and leave her needy, giving him more time to use her body against her. She could see the intent in his eyes. She struggled with her bonds as he chuckled, his hips pistoning back and forth.
"All's fair in love and war, sweetheart," he crooned as he pumped his cock between her breasts. "And when it comes to getting your way, apparently. You don't like it when I pay attention, baby?"
"Pay attention to your cock, Colton. You know my hot pussy would feel a lot better than what you're giving it now," she suggested. "Think about it. I'm so wet. Wouldn't you rather be inside me?"
"Not in charge right now, Delilah," he reminded her, letting one breast go as he reached back to punish her pussy again with the flat of his hand.
It was starting to scare her how much her body responded to that hard touch. Her clit was demanding she tell him whatever he needed to hear. Her juices trickled between her ass cheeks in a hot reminder she was helpless beneath him, not an equal in this situation. Need made her wriggle like a worm in hot ashes, but her movements did nothing for her and he seemed to enjoy them far too much.
He smiled down at her, still easing his cock in the channel between her breasts. "What's wrong, baby, you think I'm going to take care of my own needs first?"
"Looks that way," she managed to say.
Still, she got to look at him while he stroked his cock between her breasts, reminding her of their first time, while her untended clit sent out desperate signals for attention, but he surprised her by reaching back to drag a finger through her drenched slit. Her channel ached for him.
"I tried to take care of one of your needs, Delilah, but you wouldn't let me. So I figure we need to work on your trust issues." He removed his finger from her pussy, dragging more of her juices to her anus, circling the tight knot as he spoke.
Her eyes flew to his face instead of the monster right in front of her, a sight she truly loved. She grew even wetter as his wandering finger pressed against her pucker. "Please, yes. I want you there."
He sighed, staring at her. "First, you want to have sex without a condom. Now, you want anal sex. Do I need to explain to you that after this, I'm pretty much going to figure you belong to me in every way a woman can belong to a man?"
She laughed softly. "And they say doctors knock the penises off all the smart ones at birth."
* * * *
Her smile took his breath every bit as much as the eager way she responded to his touch. Returning to her breasts, he labored to dress her in pearls, crying out her name as the pleasure blinded him to everything but the soft feel of his Delilah.
When he slid inside her last unconquered place, the sensation was fucking incredible. Her ass was so tight it felt like they were the same being. Somehow, he managed to hold on long enough for her to go over the edge before he allowed himself to give in to his own desperate need to come a second time.
After the most intense orgasm of his life and one that made her pass out in his arms, why was she sobbing as she came back to herself? He held her as tightly as he could and hoped like hell he hadn't fucked up forever as he tugged the ties loose, praying her tears were from ecstasy; terrified they weren't.
"I've got you, Delilah. I'm right here, sweetheart. Tell me you're not hurt." And because she didn't stop crying, he said the words he'd tried to hold back, because he needed her to know he'd never hurt her on purpose. "God, Delilah, I love you so much, please don't cry. Did I hurt you?"
But she'd been right there with him
, he thought in despair. Surely he hadn't mistaken cries of pain for pleasure?
"Not yet," she struggled to say.
Huh?
He managed to tilt her face up so he could see her. "Talk to me, Lila. I don't understand, sweetheart. Are you in physical pain?"
"Nn-nn-oo-o," she managed to hitch out. "B-b-but we need to talk."
Those four words chilled his soul, especially paired with the look in her eyes. "Can I run us a bath first?" he asked, determined not to panic. She nodded and he wasted no time getting the water running before scooping her out of the bed and settling into the warm water with her. He washed her as gently as he knew how while he watched her try to steel herself for whatever it was she had to say.
Because, God damn it, she wasn't walking out on him without him making it as hard as possible for her, and this felt an awful lot like good-bye. Some-fucking-how, he'd let the caveman mess this up. Damn it. His hopes seemed to go down the drain along with the bathwater.
He toweled her hair and felt a tiny bit of hope when she asked if he'd loan her a shirt to wear.
Like he hadn't waited ten fucking years to see her in his shirt instead of Pete's. He handed her a fresh one from a drawer beneath the bed. At least she wasn't putting on her clothes, ready to demand he take her home.
They settled on the patio, in the wide hanging rattan swing he'd bought last week with this very activity in mind, because she said she wanted to hear the rain. He had to listen closely to hear her words as the heavy droplets pounded down on the metal roof.
"I do have trust issues," she began. "When I was little, my parents divorced, and after a few years of hit-and-miss visitation and spotty child support, he remarried and adopted her little girl and forgot about me, I guess, because he disappeared from my life completely by the time I was Jonah's age. I had a hard time trusting men, since my mom kept dragging them home and they'd pretend to care about us and then just walk out one day, then she'd start over with another one. But I met Pete, and we got married. His family hated me because I wasn't exactly what the preacher's wife had in mind for her baby. I was older than Pete, so it had to have been me who poured that first beer down his throat. Then he left me and Charlie did too, so when I felt myself falling for you, I had to try to stop it. Does that make any sense?"
He got it, but where she obviously saw despair, he saw hope. She might've been unhappy at times, but she hadn't dumped her kid and run. Pete had to be an idiot, though, if he hadn't put her first. "Because everyone you've ever loved has let you down?"
"And because no matter what you say next, so will you."
So much for "Lila, I love you and I'd never hurt you
,
"
he thought. She'd blown that one out of the water. Had she admitted something as well? "But you said in spite of your best efforts, you're falling in love with me, did I get that part right?"
She nodded, looking about as miserable as anyone he'd ever seen. This was so not how he'd pictured this moment, but he'd take it.
"So, that's why you had to pay for the repairs? So I'd get the message you could take care of yourself?"
She frowned, and he corrected himself. "It was an attempt to keep me at arm's length? To protect yourself," he clarified. "If you never depend on me, I can't let you down?" She had more in common with Eric than she knew.
"I guess so," she finally said. "Yes."
In another one of those moments he'd had since being with her, Colton saw she needed to stand on her own a lot worse than he needed to stop her from trying. "Then I'll have Daniel deposit your check, if that's what it takes to make you happy. But can I ask something else?"
She looked so damn off-balance now, it was hard not to laugh. He doubted she had many moments like this one, where she didn't get the fight she was expecting. "Okay," she agreed cautiously.
"Am I about to pay for the sins of every person who ever hurt you?"
* * * *
He thought she was planning some sort of cosmic payback at his expense? Hardly; the big joke was on her. "No, I'm trying to say if one more person I love hurts me anytime soon, I'm going to shatter into a million pieces, and somehow I screwed up and gave you that power. And you will."
"What makes you so certain?"
"Because I won't be enough for you in the long run, Colton. You'll want somebody to have your own children with. I can't give you that. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to, not at my age. I just can't do the birth-to-kindergarten stage again, it's too hard. Even if you don't see that now, you will, when your brothers settle down and start having their own kids."
All he could think was the way she'd said "long run," as in she'd thought about that with him. "I see. Is that your big fear? I'm going to want kids someday and then I'll kick you to the curb for someone that can give them to me?" He was too relieved to be insulted.
* * * *
Perhaps not her only fear, but that was the thing that kept running around in her brain, the problem she couldn't solve. Why had he been the one to take custody of Jonah, if not because he wanted kids? He'd made a few mistakes, but starting close to the end of any major project took a lot of retraining, she figured. On some instinctive level, he had to sense the child-rearing project was simplified in many ways if the parent grew along with the child. "Even if you don't want them now, you will, when your brothers settle down and start having them."
"Lila, I may not be a doctor, but I figured out the little scar under your belly button probably meant kids were out. You might be interested to know that they're out for me anyway, thanks to a late, severe case of the mumps. That's why I insisted on being the one to get Jonah." His jaw worked. "He's the only kid I'll ever have."