Chapter Seven
The Myron Bar was exactly what she’d been expecting—a slightly dive-ish, small-town, there’s-nowhere-else-to-go-within-twenty-miles-so-deal-with-it type of place. Since they offered bar food, Lauren didn’t care. At that point, she would have entered hell to eat something besides jerky or candy. They grabbed a grungy table against the back wall and gave their order to a bored waitress with blonde streaks in her dark-brown hair and an unfortunate muffin-top creeping over the waist of her skinny jeans.
The food came fairly quickly. Lauren fell on her burger and onion rings with a little too much enthusiasm. Cal’s eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“That good?” he asked, taking a bite of his own burger.
“Heaven,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food. “It’s meat, and yet it’s not dried. Amazing.”
He laughed and took a drink of his beer. Despite Cal’s relaxed pose, Lauren noticed his eyes were constantly scanning the mostly empty bar.
“Does that—” she nodded at the bottle in his hand “—affect you? Like normal people, I mean.”
Cal snorted. “Normal people?”
Rolling her eyes, Lauren took another bite of her burger and waited for him to answer.
“I don’t know.” He eyed the beer. “I probably have a higher tolerance than most people. I don’t remember how alcohol affected me before, so I could’ve always been an expensive date.”
She grinned around a mouthful of onion ring. “So I can’t even get you drunk to get you to put out?”
His eyes went narrow and molten. “You want me to put out? Let’s go. Fucking now.”
Lauren was very, very tempted, but her burger tasted so good. She curled an arm around her plate and hugged it toward her. “Not quite yet. Just let me have a few more bites.”
“Seriously?” He sat back, taking another drink of beer. “I’ve lost out to a hunk of ground beef?”
“Very tasty beef,” she corrected, taking another bite. “That’s not dried.”
Cal just smirked and then went back to eating and scanning the bar. A few more people were wandering in, and the noise level went up a few notches. A schmaltzy country song blared from the jukebox, and a few couples shuffled together on the tiny dance floor. Lauren finished her food, washed it down with a drink of her beer and then sat back with a groan.
“I’m so full,” she complained. “Why’d you let me eat so much?”
“You would’ve bitten me if I’d tried to stop you.”
“True.” Lauren winced as another song came on and started digging through her purse. “Someone has really sucky taste in music.”
“Where are you going?” He grabbed her wrist as she stood.
She opened her fingers, showing her handful of quarters. “I’m going to save my ears.”
“I’ll go with you.” Standing, he pulled a few bills from his wallet and dropped them on the table.
“Just to warn you,” she said, slanting him a sideways look as she slung her purse strap over her shoulder, “there may be dancing.”
“I’ve been trained to withstand torture.” He shrugged. “I’ll probably survive dancing.”
Lauren punched him in the arm and then shook out her hand, wincing. “One of these days, I’ll learn to stop doing that.”
He laughed, grabbed her throbbing hand and headed for the jukebox.
The selection wasn’t great, mostly country and classic rock, but Lauren found a few songs that didn’t suck quite so badly as the previous selections. The first was fast and bouncy, and the other couples on the dance floor whooped their approval of her choice. With a laugh, she tugged Cal to the middle of the floor.
Lauren had a moment of shyness that instantly evaporated when Calvin started moving to the music. He was good, dancing unselfconsciously in a way that made her stare for a moment.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She started moving with him, grinning. “Didn’t think I’d get you to dance, that’s all.”
Looping his hand around the back of her neck, Cal pulled her in close so his mouth was touching her ear. “I have lots of hidden talents. You’ll see.”
She could feel the flush starting at her toes and burning all the way up her body to her face. “I’m sure I will,” she muttered, trying to keep from panting.
He laughed, low and husky, and Lauren felt a rush of moisture between her legs. When Cal pulled back far enough to give her a look that said he knew how excited she was, that he could smell her, she thought she’d melt to the floor in a puddle of embarrassment and arousal.
The jukebox switched to a slow song, and Cal pulled her close.
“Not fair,” she sighed, although she allowed him to press their bodies together. She tucked her face against his chest, feeling the slow thud of his heartbeat against her cheek.
“What isn’t?” His breath moved against her hair with the words.
She sighed again. “That you’re so freaking delicious.”
Cal laughed, and she felt the echo of it all the way to her belly. He didn’t say anything but just pulled her even tighter against him.
They danced for song after song. Even when Lauren’s selections ended and the slow country songs started up again, they didn’t seem so bad when she listened to them pressed up against Cal. That fact, she decided, made her the worst hokey country-song cliché ever.
“We’re going now.” Cal’s low words brought her out of her daze.
“We are?”
He pressed a hand to her lower back, holding her against the hard bulge at his crotch. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
Turning her toward their table, Cal kept her close in front of him. He grabbed their jackets off the back of the chairs and then steered her toward the exit. Lauren reached for her jacket, but he held it open instead. As she slid her arms into the sleeves, he wrapped the coat around her from behind. She knew he was just zipping the front, but it felt like a hug. Closing her eyes for a moment, she reveled in the cozy warmth of having his arms around her.
When he nudged her through the door, the cold hit her like a slap, smacking away any last traces of dreaminess.
“Brrr.” Lauren shivered, burrowing into Cal’s side until he threw a heavy arm around her shoulders. That helped a little.
He started walking toward the motel, his steps long and fast.
“Hold on there, cowboy,” she said, resisting his forward pull. “Gas station.”
He stared at her as if he were two seconds away from tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her to the motel room, which, she thought, was pretty hot. She shook her head, trying to focus.
“Condoms?”
“Fuck.” He changed direction, tucking her under his arm again as he jogged kitty-corner across the street toward the lit gas-station sign.
She giggled, a little breathlessly since he was moving fast. “I can’t believe you forgot after you kept remembering at the very worst, most fun-killing times. Nice memory, enhanced-brain boy.”
A sound almost like a growl rumbled in his chest. “It’s your fault for being so distracting.”
She laughed again. “I short your circuits? Is that your excuse?”
Stopping abruptly in the middle of the gas-station parking lot, he kissed her hard. “Yeah,” he rasped, lifting his head. “You do.”
Lauren yanked him back down so she could kiss him again. She didn’t think she could ever get enough of that beautiful mouth that looked so soft but felt so hard. As he took over the kiss, she made a sound, a kind of whimpering moan that would’ve embarrassed her if she had room in her brain to think about anything except how good Cal’s mouth felt against her own.
He yanked away too soon, breathing hard, and towed her toward the gas-station entrance. “Let’s go.”
As Cal headed single-mindedly toward the condoms, Lauren hit the candy aisle, picking up Starbursts and gummy worms. She also grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the cooler and carried her stash to the checkout counter, where Cal was waiting, obviously impatient. As she passed the jerky display, she gave a little shudder and looked away.
Cal smirked at her when she dumped the candy and water onto the counter next to the jumbo box of condoms and a bottle of—was that lube? She tilted the bottle to see that it was, indeed, lube...warming lube, in fact. She rolled her eyes at Cal, who just grinned at her.
The clerk checked them out, her bored expression never changing. “Have a nice night,” she said in a monotone, holding out the bag filled with condoms and candy.
“Thanks,” Lauren said, unable to keep from smiling as Cal took the bag and turned toward the door. “We will!” The last word ended in a laughing yelp as Cal latched onto her wrist and hauled her through the exit.
“Warming lube?” she asked, laughter still in her voice.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Weren’t you supposed to grow out of having to buy fifty other things along with your condoms in high school?”
“Hey!” She slapped his arm. “We’ll need that candy and water for tomorrow’s drive, smart-ass.”
“I thought your mouth was still raw from all the shit you ate today?”
Lauren sighed with long-suffering patience. “That was from the Sour Patch Kids. I just got gummy worms. Totally different.”
“Uh-huh.” He pulled her along after him as he crossed the road.
“By the way,” she said breathlessly, doing her usual half skip, half jog to keep up with him. “I haven’t said anything yet about the jumbo-sized box of condoms.”
“We were unprepared before.” His eyes were scanning as they crossed the parking lot of the motel. “I want to be prepared from now on.”
With a glance at the plastic bag holding the ginormous box of condoms, she muttered, “We’re prepared for the next year or two.”
He snorted as he unlocked and opened the door to their room in one smooth motion. He tossed the bag containing their purchases on the table. “Sweet pea, this won’t even last us the week. Stay here.”
As Lauren choked on that, not able to come up with a retort, Cal did the same routine as earlier, locking the dead bolt and chain, then checking the bathroom while she waited by the door. He was back in front of her within seconds, before she could catch her breath. There wasn’t even time for nerves to kick in before he was kissing her, his hand wrapped tightly around the back of her neck.
Cal grabbed a handful of her unzipped coat and pulled. Her arms slid free of the sleeves and he tossed the jacket in the general direction of one of the chairs. His own coat was next, forcing him to release his hold on her neck for a few moments as he shed the jacket and let it drop to the floor. He never stopped kissing her, his mouth hungry on hers.
He toed off his boots and then backed her toward the bed. She went without thinking, her entire mind consumed by his kiss. It was deep and raw, overwhelming and purposeful. The backs of her legs hit the side of the bed, and Cal reached to yank down the covers. Grabbing both sides of her waist, he lifted her and tossed her onto her back on the sheet-covered mattress. He pulled her boots off and dropped them on the floor. Her socks were next, yanked free and discarded, and then his hands were at the button on her jeans.
She grabbed his hands in a sudden flash of modesty. He’d seen her the night before with his freaky owl vision, but this was different. This was about to be straight-up, fully illuminated nakedness.
His hands dropped away from her jeans, and he stood straight, undoing just enough buttons on his shirt so that he could yank it over his head. He didn’t hesitate like she had at the fastening of his jeans, but had them and his boxer briefs down and off in one swoop. He freed his feet from the puddle of fabric at the same time he swept off his socks.
Lauren knew her mouth was open again, but she couldn’t help it. He’d gone from fully clothed to bare-ass naked in just a few seconds, and her eyes couldn’t completely process the overwhelming beauty of the mountain of man in front of her. Her gaze dropped down the defined muscles of his chest and abs to his rigid erection.
“Wow,” she breathed.
Letting out a choked laugh, Cal knelt on the bed, his knees straddling her hips. His hands found hers and lifted them above her head, pinning them against the mattress.
“That’s what I think pretty much every time I look at you,” he murmured, tucking his face into her neck and pressing his lips against her throat. He kissed and nipped his way to the corner of her jaw, before latching onto her earlobe with his teeth.
Lauren hissed and her hips rose, seeking contact. “Okay,” she gasped.
“Okay what?” he asked before continuing his assault on her ear.
She moaned and twisted her body again before answering. “You can take my pants off now.”
His laugh was partly a groan, and then his lips found hers. He skipped any teasing and went straight to one of his bossy kisses, taking over her mouth like he owned it. Shifting so that he held both her wrists in one hand, he moved his other down to her waist and slid his fingers beneath the hem of her shirt.
She sucked in her stomach at the contact and then instantly regretted it, since it moved her skin away from his touch. As his teeth closed on her bottom lip, his palm flattened against her belly, his thumb dipping into her belly button. Lauren made a small sound and squirmed against him, loving the way his hands and mouth held her against the bed.
To her momentary disappointment, Cal released her wrists. He quickly redeemed himself when he grasped the bottom of her shirt with both hands and pulled it up. She arched, trying to help, wanting to feel him, skin against skin.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” Cal tossed her shirt aside and just stared.
She squirmed under his gaze, mostly from arousal, although a tendril of self-consciousness was creeping back in now that he wasn’t kissing her. Her hands still rested above her head and she fought the urge to fold them over her chest.
He touched her then, both hands flattening against her abdomen, and once again her brain only cared about how he made her feel. All thoughts of covering up were blown away as she whimpered and arched into his touch.
Cal was so strong and yet so gentle, barely making contact with her skin. His hands slid up her body until they cupped her breasts, the calloused pads of his fingers brushing against her erect nipples.
“Please,” she begged. All the muscles in Lauren’s body were stretched tight, quivering with arousal and the need for more contact.
“Please what?” His face was close enough to her breast for her to feel his breath, damp and warm, against her straining nipple.
She arched her back again, lifting toward his teasing mouth. “Just...more.”
His laugh was soft, blowing more moist air across her skin. Then his lips were on her, sucking her desperate nipple into the wet heat of his mouth. Cal pinched the tip of her other breast between his fingers, squeezing and tugging until the pain-laced pleasure had her squirming beneath him again.
His teeth closed on the erect nub and, crying out, Lauren nearly came off the bed. Her hands flew to his head, fingers twisting in his hair. She felt as if she’d fly apart if he stopped what he was doing. He sucked and nipped, harder than she would’ve thought she’d like. With Cal, it was perfect.
“Don’t move,” he growled, and his heat and touch were suddenly gone. Before she could do more than give a disappointed whine, he was back, dropping a fistful of condoms onto the bed next to them.
Lauren had to laugh. “A handful? And you have really big hands, so your handful is a...well, a handful.”
“I want you a handful.” Cal had her jeans unfastened and was sliding them down her legs before she could even think about being self-conscious. As her pants hit the floor, his fingers were already hooked in the sides of her panties, pulling them down and over her feet to join her jeans.
He moved over her again, this time between her legs, his mouth doing amazing things to her neck as his hand slid from her waist to her hip, and suddenly she couldn’t talk or laugh or even breathe anymore. His fingers crossed over the top of her thigh, and air moved back into her lungs in a gasp. Desperate for his touch, she spread her legs wide, giving him full access to the wet heat of her pussy.
Without hesitating, his finger drove into her and her body clamped around the thick digit. Now that she had him inside her, she wasn’t about to let him go.
“Jesus,” he rumbled, thrusting his finger deeper as his thumb flicked against her clit. “You feel fucking incredible.”
It was her turn to cry out, her hips bucking into his hand. Cal was rougher than anyone she’d ever been with before, and she was startled by how much it turned her on. The edge of his thumbnail scored a line along the side of her clit, and she moaned, her hips twisting as she tried to regain that almost-painful contact. Instead, those tormenting, amazing fingers disappeared, making her cry out in disappointment.
“I want to be inside you when you come,” he rasped, grabbing for one of the condoms and ripping it open. Lauren curled her shoulders off the bed, reaching for the condom, but he already had it rolled down his erection before she could offer to help. She was a little disappointed at losing out on the opportunity to slide her hands over his gorgeous cock.
“Next time,” he promised, and then he was inside her.
Her shoulders hit the mattress again. She was tight, and he was huge, and the sudden entrance knocked the breath out of her lungs for a few painful moments. He groaned and lowered his forehead to her temple. Before she could fully recover, he started to move, sliding out before driving back. The too-stretched ache faded, and she caught his rhythm, arching her hips up to meet every stroke, tilting her pelvis so he drove even farther into her.
Each thrust was hard enough to move her across the bed. Cal wrapped his hand around the junction of her neck and shoulder to hold her in place as he pounded into her. His thumb wrapped across her throat, not restricting her air, but just the restraint drove Lauren wild. Tangling her legs around his hips, she pulled him down as she pushed her hips up, their bodies meeting with an almost violent collision.
Her pussy clamped onto him as she came, pleasure erupting from her center and spreading through her. His thrusts grew faster, wilder, every one bumping hard against her clit and sending her higher until she gave a guttural scream and lunged upward, catching his meaty shoulder in her teeth.
Even with her brain spinning with her orgasm, she felt him tense against her at the bite. The fingers around her neck tightened, and his other hand latched onto her hip, holding her firmly against him, his cock as deep in her as he could possibly go.
As her orgasm eased, her jaw relaxed, and she released his shoulder, giving the bitten spot an apologetic brush with her lips. She collapsed back on the bed, watching the straining tendons in his neck and his agonized expression as he came. Lauren wished she could feel his come inside her, hot and wet and his.
Cal lowered his weight in a slow collapse on top of her, pressing her into the mattress for only a moment before rolling them both onto their sides. She sighed, enjoying the last echoes of pleasure drifting through her as Cal’s hand traced random patterns on her lower back.
“Wouldn’t have pegged you as a biter,” he rumbled.
Lauren blinked and then shot up into a sitting position. “Really? That’s your post-sex cuddle-time lead-in?
He laughed as he rolled onto his back, his chuckle rough and incredibly sexy. “Why are you offended? I’m the one with the teeth marks.”
Feeling a little guilty, she rubbed a thumb over the pink impressions denting his skin. “At least I didn’t draw blood.”
He shrugged, his still-sweaty shoulder moving beneath her touch. “Didn’t really mind it. It set me off like a rocket, actually.”
“Kind of like the hand thing you did set me off.” She settled on her back next to him, amused that they were still crosswise on the bed.
“Hand thing?”
She gestured lazily toward her throat. “The whole hold-me-down-with-the-tiniest-threat-of-choking, rough-sex thing.”
His eyes were heating up again but then he glanced down. “Shit. Condom.”
With a reluctant groan, he pushed up and headed for the bathroom. Lauren shifted so she was between the sheets and fluffed a pillow under her head. Feeling sated and sleepy, she smiled and let her eyes drift shut.
“Nope.”
She blinked at Cal as he slid in next to her. “Nope what?”
“We haven’t even made a dent in the handful.” He nodded toward the pile of condoms spread over the covers.
Although warmth started to spiral through her belly, she turned on her side and snuggled into her pillow. “But I’m sleepy.”
“You’ve been driving me nuts since the day I started working at TechnoCorp,” he growled, pulling up the covers and plastering the full length of his front against her back. “I’ve barely started on the things I want to do with you.”
“Yeah?” She still feigned tiredness, but she knew he could hear her pounding heart. “What kind of things did you think about doing to me as you sat alone in your mail room?”
His hand stroked her side, following the dip at her waist and rising to her hip. “Wild, filthy things.”
She couldn’t stop her ass from pushing back against his erection. He was as hot and hard as if it had been days, not minutes, since he’d last come.
“Tell me.” Her words came out in a moan.
“When I came by one day with the mail, you were bent over, getting something from the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.” His hand stroked down the side of her thigh and caught in the crook of her knee, pulling upward until her top leg was bent. “I looked at your gorgeous ass and imagined walking behind you and yanking your skirt to your waist.”
His fingers were massaging her ass cheeks and Lauren was panting. “Then...then what?”
“You wouldn’t be wearing any panties, just those stockings that came to here.” Using his finger, he drew an imaginary line across the inner thigh of her bottom leg. “I wouldn’t wait or ask but would just shove my cock into your pussy, hard, until I was balls-deep.”
“In front of everyone?” Her voice caught on the last word when his fingertip brushed the edge of her pussy lips, skating along with just the hint of pressure. She arched into the touch, needing penetration, but he ignored her unspoken request and kept talking.
“Yeah, we wouldn’t give a shit who was watching. You’d be wet, so fucking wet, and I’d wonder if you’d been thinking about me.” His voice was hoarse as he traced patterns in the dampness on her inner thighs. “If you’d sat at your desk, pretending to work, with your hand tucked between your legs while you imagined it was me fingering you.”
He caught her clit between two fingers and tugged. Beyond words, she just made a desperate sound, a kind of squeaky moan that would have been humiliating if she wasn’t so far beyond embarrassment. All she cared about was that he kept touching her, kept talking, kept bringing her closer and closer to climax.
“Even though you’d be wet, you’d be tight, so fucking tight that I could barely stand to move. I would, though. I’d grab your hips, pull almost out and then slam back in. I’d pound into you, and it’d feel so good you’d scream.”
Lauren definitely felt like screaming. To her intense disappointment, his fingers left her clit and were dipping just slightly into her pussy. If she didn’t get some kind of penetration, his fingers or his cock or something more than this teasing touch, her head was going to implode.
“I’d come inside you so that, even after I pulled out, after you stood up and tugged your skirt down, after I walked away, you’d still smell like me. The other guys in the office, the ones who were always checking out your ass or your tits when you walked by, they’d know to stay away, know I’d just fucked you and that you were mine.”
On that last word, he finally, finally drove his cock into her. He filled her for only a blissful moment before he was gone. Lauren cried out in protest.
“Fuck,” he grunted, twisting around to reach for a condom. “Got caught up and almost forgot.”
She managed a choked laugh. “I completely forgot. Your story—”
Her words were cut off as he slammed his latex-sheathed cock back inside her, stealing her breath. Holding her against him, Cal turned her onto her belly, lifting her hips so she could draw her knees beneath her.
Once she was positioned how he wanted her, he began to fuck her, driving into her just as hard as in the fantasy he’d described. Keeping one hand locked on her hip, his other dove beneath her to cup her breast. His fingers scissored her nipple, squeezing and tugging in that almost-rough way that made her eyes roll back into her head. With one final, blissfully painful pinch, his hand left her breast and stroked along her sweating side.
When his palm moved to rest on her back between her shoulder blades, Lauren groaned and tilted her hips. Although his hand wasn’t pressing hard, the feel of being held down wound her muscles so tightly, she trembled with the need to come. His fingers traced the line of her spine as his hand slid along her back, finally landing on her ass cheek.
His thrusts sped up as he squeezed her round cheek, digging his fingers into her flesh and then releasing. With a gasp, she tried to thrust her hips up to meet each stroke, but Cal’s hand on her hip held her still. His hand shifted, his thumb finding the crevice between her cheeks. He drove his cock into her, so deep she gasped, and then he pushed his thumb into her ass.
Her hips tried to buck up again as she came, fighting against the hold on her hip. Holding her effortlessly, he hammered his cock into her, his thrusts growing faster and uneven. His thumb moved in and out of her ass in the same rhythm, and the unfamiliar sensation mixed with twinges of pain pushed her orgasm even higher until she screamed into the pillow beneath her face.
After the final tremors of her climax shuddered through her, Lauren floated, her lax body absorbing each punishing slam of his hips. He pulled his thumb free and grabbed her other hip, holding her ass tight against him as he came with his cock as deep inside her as it would go. He shook and groaned before finally easing on top of her, pressing her facedown into the mattress. Just as she started to worry about her inability to breathe, he lowered his hands to the bed and supported most of his weight.
Nuzzling aside her hair, he kissed the nape of her neck. “Okay?”
She could only hum her contentment. He’d driven all her words out of her.
“Lauren?” His teeth nipped against the back of her neck. Obviously, he wasn’t translating her happy hum properly.
“So good,” she sighed with a shiver as he slid out of her.
The bed rocked a little as he got up. She assumed he was headed for the bathroom, but she wasn’t able to lift her heavy eyelids to watch. She figured she must be tired if she was willing to miss out on the excellent view of a naked Cal walking away.