Hottie Read online

  Needing time to set the rules, he turned to go back inside and resolved to deal with her later. If nothing else, he’d maintain control of his own longing.

  “Wait,” Phoebe called. “Come here.”

  Dane stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  “Please?” Still holding the hose, she brought her hands together and steepled her fingers. “I want to talk.”

  Intrigued, he turned, took a few steps, and planted his feet by the metal barrel holding her pack. No need to get too close.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, unraveling the paper from a small bar of hotel soap. “Showers are a luxury for a gal living out of her car.”

  Leaning against the back wall, he studied her. “So, you’re homeless, huh?”

  He refrained from mentioning that his house, complete with shower, was across the concrete pad behind her, and she was more than welcomed to use it.

  “Sort of. At least for now.” She lathered her arms. “Everything I own is in the trunk of that clunker you’re fixing.”

  If she scrubbed any harder, he mused, she’d take off skin. The woman was more nervous than she cared to admit to herself.

  “I wasn’t being stingy,” she insisted. “I really can’t pay you for any of the work you’re forcing upon me.”

  “I figured,” he replied. “It’s not a problem. I can’t set you loose in that car with an easy conscience.” He hoped she’d tell him more. He was curious to know how she’d come upon dire straits.

  “I don’t want to be a charity case,” she declared, moving a soapy hand seductively across her chest. “Is there another way I can pay you that doesn’t involve money?”

  Phoebe saw the muscles in his jaw clench and a hard gleam flash in his eyes. He looked very unhappy all of a sudden.

  “I hope you’re not offering to pay me how I think you’re offering, Miss Morris. I’d better be mistaken.”

  The warning laced in his tone was not lost on her, but she just couldn’t figure out why she’d offended him.

  Shaking his head, he stared at her chest. Confused, she followed his narrowed gaze to where her hands, and the running hose, lingered suspiciously upon her breasts.

  Oh, shit!

  “I meant cooking, cleaning and whatnot,” she clarified, immediately dropping her hands. However, her nipples poked out like little pebbles. She pulled the wet fabric off her skin, but when she let go, it snapped back with a resounding smack. “Damn,” she muttered.

  The thin cami left little to the imagination, but Hottie would just have to deal. She only had one good bra, and she needed it for when she got back on the road. She wasn’t about to get it wet. With an awkward shrug, she turned, giving him her back, and attempted to finish her impromptu bath.

  “Rather than cooking or cleaning or giving me money,” he said, “how about paying me with information?”

  She had no information to give him. Did he think she was some kind of Sticksville spy?

  “Like what?”

  “I’d like to know your story.”

  Phoebe felt shame heat her cheeks. Keeping her back to him, she concentrated on lathering her stomach. Did she dare share?

  “Well, it’s a simple story, really,” she found herself saying. “I graduated from college, top of my class, started a shiny new job, and met the ‘perfect’ kind of guy there—the dashing executive type. Things got serious quick, too quick, and I moved in with him. He was kind of a traditionalist, the ‘I’m the man of the house’ kind of guy, and I was naive and stupid in love. So, I quit my job like he’d asked and did the perfect house wife thing for a couple of years—minus the wedding band.”

  “Minus the wedding band? Did you want one?”

  “Sort of,” she admitted, shrugging the thoughts away. “I was okay with waiting till we got established. I had no doubt we’d eventually get married.”

  “But your family wasn’t happy?”

  “It was just my dad, and he was also an old fashioned kind of guy, so he was thrilled I’d managed to land an up and coming executive. You know, one who could take care of me financially. My job was to keep him happy, not to make any waves, and look pretty. Dad was so wrong. Eric, that’s my a-hole ex, never had my best interests at heart. He was always first and last on his list of priorities. I was a leftover. I just didn’t see it until it was too late.”

  “What did your father say about you parking your degree to play house?”

  “My degree never meant anything to my dad. He said I needed it so I could find a proper husband. He considered my student loans my dowry, and when he passed away, he dictated in his will that I had to sell my childhood home and pay them off. Being that real estate took such a dump, I had just enough for the loans and his funeral expenses after the sale of the house I so wanted to keep.” She nodded and met his gaze. “It’s true. I would rather have held on to the house and worked to pay for the rest.”

  Lifting his brows, he raised his hands and turned them palm side up in question. “You always do as a man tells you?”

  Her mind replayed the stringent rules she’d had to learn, so she could do everything just as jerk-face, tiny-dick Eric had wanted. The bed had to be made every morning just so, breakfast had to be cooked just so, she had to be dressed and waiting by the door to kiss him goodbye when he left for work just so. Then, while he was at work, she had to clean the house, cook dinner, be dressed and waiting at the door for when he arrived back home just so—like some old family sitcom.

  God, she’d been a delusional idiot. She’d believed that was how true love played between a man and a woman.

  “No. Not any more. I do what I want, when I want, and how I want.” She turned off the water and looped the hose over the spout. “I don’t care what others think.”

  “Why the sudden transformation?” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “One day…” Her voice cracked and faded. She worried her lower lip while turning to face him. “One day, I came home to find what he’d deemed as my stuff sitting in two cardboard boxes on the porch. All the locks on the doors had been changed. Long story short, I’d been replaced.”

  “And the life you built together fit in two boxes?” he asked.

  “We weren’t married. Everything was in his name. I couldn’t prove I owned anything more than what was on the porch. There was nothing the authorities could do. When I threatened to sue him, he pulled professional rank and blackballed me. I couldn’t find a job anywhere. My friends turned out to actually be his friends. I have no other family worth mentioning. I was—am—on my own.”

  He didn’t speak, but his jaw set in a tight line and his eyes grew dark.

  “Anyway, I took what little money I had stashed from before we’d met, sold the diamond tennis bracelet he’d given me for my birthday, bought the Caddy on the cheap, and left that horrible mistake and my beloved shoe collection behind, never to return.”

  Phoebe didn’t realize she’d been crying until Hottie, standing inches from her, cupped her jaw with both hands and tilted her face up, his thumbs gently swiping the tears from her moist cheeks. Captivated, she stared into his eyes, hypnotized by the silver flecks she found there.

  “What awaits you two states over?” he asked. “A new job? A different man?”

  “No job. No man.” Phoebe smiled sadly. “Just the hope of a new beginning and some random place I saw on the Travel Channel. It’s so pretty and flowery. You know…the perfect kind of town.”

  “Perfect isn’t always the case. Most of the time, perfection is nothing more than an illusion. Stay with me, if only for a few days.” His fingers sprawled from her jaw to the side of her neck. He was strong. He was steady. He was reassuring.

  He wanted her to stay?

  “I don’t get it.” She stepped back, but he didn’t let her go. Rather, he followed, matching her rearward steps until she could go no further. The solid wall, flush against her back, thwarted her retreat while his muscular chest wall blocked
any chance of escape, not that she’d want to. Not that it mattered, either. His intense regard practically pinned her in place.

  “What don’t you get, Miss Morris?”

  “You were all pissed a minute ago,” she whispered. “You thought that I was propositioning you. It was like sleeping with me horrified you. Insulted your manhood.”

  “Not likely,” he replied, the deep timbre of his tone mesmerizing her as his hands moved to palm the wall on each side of her head, effectively caging her with his body. He lowered his head, and made no effort to hide his enjoyment of inhaling her scent and locking a devouring gaze on her lips.

  Fuck.

  He was hot…

  Was he about to kiss her?

  Holy Hell, she hoped so.

  “So…um, are we going to sleep together?” Was that hope in her voice? Lord—he looked shocked. “I mean, I’m just wondering.”

  “Again, I must admit I love your candor.” With a roguish smirk, he shifted his stance and pressed his thigh against her pubic bone. Her thighs parted automatically, allowing him to fit his leg snugly under her pulsing center. “Do you want to sleep with me?”

  “Well, yeah, but only if you’re good.” Her clit throbbed against the hard thigh muscle and it took everything in her not to grind against him. She looked up into his slate gray eyes and knew he was more than her fantasy could ever be, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “As I said before, I don’t want you to ruin the fantasy.”

  “I think I can live up to it. But you need to know that staying, sex, and your car are not connected, Phoebe,” he stipulated, lifting her onto her tippy toes with the pressure against her crotch. “I don’t do sex for anything other than pleasure…mutual pleasure.”

  Between the commanding tone and the friction of her weight, she thought she might lose her mind—or worse, she might lose control of her excitement.

  “Okay,” she breathed, licking her parched lips. Anticipation thrummed though her body. Her legs grew weak. If he moved a little more… “I understand.”

  He must have felt her torment, for he cupped her ass and lifted her off her feet, wrapping her legs around his waist. She held on tight. He smelled of musk and man and she wanted to drown in that scent.

  “First, we begin with your pleasure,” he said, striding over to the tall wood fence that enclosed the area where she’d bathed. The next thing she knew, he was rolling the large driveway gate and carrying her into a backyard of sorts. The roof she’d glimpsed above the privacy fence was not for a storage building, but a home.

  His home.

  He kicked open the back door and carried her over the threshold.

  “We start with a kiss,” he said, claiming her mouth and stealing her breath.

  Chapter Three

  More Than a Few Hot Climaxes

  “You have no clue how much power you hold, Miss Morris.” His lips found the pulse point beneath her ear, and his tongue swept over it, feasting on her neck. “So much power.”

  “I know you’re strong, Hottie.” Digging her fingers into his broad shoulders, she balanced herself and leaned her head back. “You don’t need to remind me.”

  “Not my power, sweetheart.” He pressed her against the kitchen wall. “The power is all yours.”

  He tore the tank at the scooped neck and straight down the center. Her breasts sprang free, and he captured a nipple between his lips and the other between his fingers. She moaned and arched her back, tilting her hips and grinding her pussy over his abs.

  “You need to be shown how a real man should treat a woman. Miss Phoebe Morris, you deserve to be cherished.”

  Suckling a straining peak, he moved his mouth to the soft skin beside it and staked his claim. She groaned in acceptance, holding his head and pulling him close.

  “Maybe you have a tough exterior, but the tenderness inside is impossible to hide.” He kissed the pink skin that responded to his touch at an amazingly quick pace. “You will never again give up everything to please some asshole and his ego. A proper man should enable you to grow stronger and more successful, not steal your self-worth.”

  “Mmm,” she purred as he stroked up the outside of her thigh. “Can we talk later?”

  “What? You using me for my body and not my mind, Miss Morris?”

  “Is that bad?”

  “No,” he groaned, slowly kissing every inch of her neck. “But, I should at least be rewarded with a feast fit for a king.”

  Phoebe nodded, curved her back, and dropped her chin atop his head, holding herself slightly off his body. The warmth of her cunt moved off his stomach, and he slipped his hand inside her wet panties, caressing the soft curls covering her center.

  “The panties need to go,” he said, sliding a finger beneath the material and between her swollen folds.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “Trust me?”

  “Yes,” she echoed, trying to rip the undergarment from her body, but unable to find the coordination to complete the tear.

  “Yes, what?” He stilled her hands, shaking his head.

  Phoebe looked into his eyes, searching for an answer.

  “Yes, what?” Hottie repeated, nibbling on her lower lip

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “Are you asking?”

  “No, Sir,” she breathed against his mouth, moving against him and offering him more of her body, urging his touch deeper within her.

  “Good girl,” Hottie replied. “It’s Sir or Master Dane, Phoebe.”

  Master Dane? She liked the way it sounded. Her stomach clenched in anticipation of his next statement. Not only did he accept responsibility, he did so demanding respect.

  “When you are naked in my presence, I own your body, and I will do as I please with it. If you do not agree, you must say so now.”

  Fear dueled with excitement. She barely knew the man. But she wanted him. She needed him. Searching his eyes, she found the reassurance required to consent.

  “I agree,” she said.

  “I lead,” he answered, between biting and soothing her kiss-swollen lip. “I tell you when and how. You said yes, the decision is now all mine.”

  Excitement zinged to Phoebe’s core. Her cream-coated channel gripped his thick finger and begged for more. No man had ever taken responsibility for her pleasure. No one had cared.

  “Okay,” she whispered, closing her eyes and inhaling his scent. “It’s all yours. I’m all yours.”

  Hottie placed her flat on the kitchen table, his finger still hooked inside her pussy, stroking the recesses of her most private spots. Lowering his head, he kissed the darkening skin beside her nipple and soothed the deepening bruise. His hair tickled the sensitive area on her heated torso as he licked down the center. Taking little detours, he covered every part of her stomach, continuously playing with the torn elastic of her panties that was still looped about her thighs.

  He added a second finger, stretching her ache and infusing her pussy with wanton desire. His thumb pressed over her clit, and ecstasy pulsed in her core.

  “I’m going to come,” she said.

  “No, you won’t,” he replied, pushing a third finger into her channel and stretching her beyond her imagined fantasy. “You will let it build. You will not come until I say you can.” He strummed her clit, teasing her control and testing her strength. “You still have your panties on. My woman comes without panties, sweetheart.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest. How was she supposed to ignore the magic of his fingers when he said such things to her?

  With his free hand, he rolled a nipple and pinched the peak. Pain jolted through her being, causing her to push down on his other hand and ride his fingers as he continued to roll and pinch her nipple. The pain morphed into pleasure.

  “Oh,” she breathed, her body moving of its own accord. “I so needed to be fucked. But I never thought a finger fuck could be so good.”

  In an effortless move, he took all her weight and swept her into his hold, pulling off her panties
and returning her to the edge of the table. Pushing her knees apart, he revealed her swollen sex, and a guttural groan rose from his throat.

  “Beautiful,” he said, spreading her folds with one hand and slowly running the index finger on his other hand from the top of her clit, along her cunt, into her channel, out, and up again. He repeated the gesture till he had pumped each finger into her alone, in doubles, then triples.

  “You’re so wet. So responsive,” he announced, sliding his middle finger home. He removed it and sucked it into his mouth. “Delicious.”

  Moisture pooled in her core, and her legs trembled as he lowered his head and covered her pussy with his mouth, lapping at her cream and filling her ache with alternating fingers and tongue. Manually shackling her ankles, he held her feet flat on the table, and she lifted her hips off the wood. He licked, sucked, and fucked her, until she fought to breathe.

  “Not yet,” he warned, releasing an ankle and fitting his pinky against the soft rim of her ass. “If you come without permission, I will have to spank you for your disobedience.”

  Spank?

  Her orgasm shattered at the mere thought of him spanking her ass. Prisms of color danced in her sight. The air dissipated, and she thought she’d pass out from the bliss that exploded within her. He pushed his pinky into her anus. The sting of pain brought her back to a state of extreme awareness, yet her cunt clamped on his fingers with the renewed force of another, stronger orgasm.

  “Your ass is mine,” he said. His tongue circled her clit, encouraging her higher. “Pink and swollen, and all mine.”

  “Yes, yes,” she agreed. “Please…”

  Begging, she moved her hips, searching for his mouth. After what seemed like endless writhing, he obliged and finally replaced his fingers with his tongue. She climaxed a third time, her body tingling with the release, and her hips rising to take more.

  Somewhere between her orgasms, his pants had vanished. Large and ready, his naked cock pushed at her. His erection glided between her folds, but did not enter her. The hot, smooth head pushed at her sensitized clit and she whimpered.