Chapter Two
One hour into her next cleaning visit, Erin was getting worried. She’d hoped everything could go back to normal, but Blake still seemed to be avoiding her. He’d made a brief appearance to say hello and that was it. He didn’t sit on the couch as she folded the clothes or lean against the bookshelves while she dusted. He didn’t tell her about what book he was writing, what article he was researching, not asking her about her classes. Nothing like usual.
Today he wore jeans and a button-up shirt. He always went around his house in sweats, the super comfy kind, thin from frequent wearing and washing. He worked from home and almost never ventured outside. Plus he eschewed such society-imposed discomforts as regular clothes.
She could only assume this new formality was in reaction to the incident from last week. Perhaps he felt violated or unsafe with her, and although she didn’t blame him, she felt horribly guilty.
It didn’t help that she’d had explicit dreams about him and his cock two nights in a row. Dreams where he said those same words, but she was there, naked beside him, and she did what he asked. Masturbating to thoughts of each other was a contagious condition, one she’d now caught, she thought dryly.
He ducked out of the kitchen with a glass of water as she entered it. Concerned and, exasperated, she decided to confront him.
“Mr. Morris,” she called. When he froze, she softened her voice, “Blake, I wanted to apologize again for what happened last time. I should have left right away when I saw what you were doing…well, I was just surprised,” she explained.
He looked surprised now, too. He cleared his throat. “Apology accepted.”
He flashed her what was she supposed was a conciliatory smile but looked more like a grimace. And that made her think of what he looked like when he climaxed. Dammit.
She really should shut up now, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I was wondering if you, that is, if you were thinking of me…weren’t you?” she asked.
His eyes widened even as his lips tightened.
“Well, it’s only that, I wondered if… if it was just a passing thought or if it was more …” She trailed off.
He looked alarmed now and she cursed herself silently. “Erin,” he said, his voice strangled. “You don’t feel that I was asking you to do anything… inappropriate, do you? That I would try to make you do something—something you didn’t want?”
“No!” she exclaimed in dismay. “Of course not. I just meant that, well, if you were interested in me that way, well, I—” She took a deep breath and rushed out, “I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it.”
“You—” He broke off. She noticed detachedly that his hand was gripping the counter so tight his knuckles were white. He swayed forward as if to approach her but then leaned back. “Are you sure? Are you sure you don’t feel pressured? I would never ever want you to feel that you had to—”
“No, no. It’s not that, I swear. And the same goes for you, too. If you don’t want to, please don’t feel that you must—”
“If I don’t want to,” he repeated, sounding dazed. His eyes unfocused for a minute, and then pinned her. He stepped forward and then circled around, standing behind her. Her hair rustled and scalp tingled where his face leaned into her hair, as if he were scenting her.
He trailed a finger lightly from the crown of her head, down her hair, along her shoulder and her arm. It wasn’t an overtly sexual touch, but she found it highly erotic. The past two days of heightened arousal boiled over in her until she felt strung out with need.
“Please,” she whimpered, shocked at herself even as she said it. She considered herself a proud woman, probably to her detriment. Her circumstances, cleaning houses while her classmates drove their Mercedes to class, ought to bring her down, but she would not be cowed. She was like him—she never begged, not for anything, money, favor and certainly not sex. Yet here she was wanting—no, needing him, a feeling foreign but very real.
Thankfully, he acquiesced.
“God, yes,” he breathed into her hair. “Come. Come upstairs where you can be more comfortable.” He led her upstairs to his room. She noticed dust gathered in a corner on the way and reality intruded briefly—that’s what I’m here to do, to clean his house, not have sex—but she forced it away. It had been a long time for her and she needed this badly. She would take this moment without apology to herself or anyone else.
In the bedroom he shut the door. No one else was in the house but the two of them, but it added to the intimacy of the moment. This wasn’t a chance encounter, but an illicit meeting. She stood eyeing the bed and swallowed hard. He came up behind her and again buried his face in her hair. Amused, she made a mental note to stock up on this shampoo. But then the heat of his body and his own woodsy scent enveloped her, and she forgot everything else.
His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then slid down to her breasts. He cupped them through her clothing and her breath caught. The gentle caress dipped down to her waist and then up under her shirt and bra to touch bare skin. She wore yoga clothes when cleaning, comfortable to maneuver in but stretchy enough to allow him access.
He cupped her breasts, stroking and pinching her nipples until they ached. Pausing to draw her shirt and bra up over her head, he returned his hands to her breasts—thank God. His breath, hot and increasingly labored, blew against her shoulder. What a sight she must have made for him, her breasts bared and flushed.
“So lovely,” he whispered.
When he pinched harder, she moaned. Her hips canted forward in search of friction, rubbing against nothing. In answer to her involuntary plea, he slipped his hand into the waistband of her pants and roamed lower until he found her wet folds.
As his hands touched her intimately, his mouth found the skin of her neck in light kisses and licks. He dipped down to her opening to draw the moisture up to her clit, circling and flicking with his thumb. Her head fell back to his chest and her eyes closed as she abandoned herself to the pleasure. His fingers slid down into her folds and slipped inside, thrusting his fingers in as the heel of his hand pushed into her clit. Her hips bucked as she mindlessly sought climax.
She came in a whirl of pleasure and a sigh of relief. Her body fell back against him, sated. The tension of these past few days, of these past few months, if she were honest, finally released.
He undressed her completely and placed her on the bed. She had no strength to stop him. No desire to. By the time she floated back down to earth she lay spread eagle on the bed, completely naked, with him kneeling between her legs. She only had a glimpse of his scarred face, taut and carnal with arousal, before he lowered his head and brought her to ecstasy again.
He was a generous lover, bringing her to climax four, five times—she lost count. He made her come again and again with his mouth on her clit and his fingers thrusting inside her.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” he would moan when she came.
He was relentless in his pursuit of her orgasms, taking unmistakable pleasure in her sounds and responsiveness. She was reminded of how they would discuss topics related to his work or her college classes. He always argued fiercely and often won their debates, but when she would win, he wouldn’t look disappointed or angry—he looked almost proud. Triumphant, even. Like her victory was his, and now her ecstasy was his, too.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured to her throughout. “So damn beautiful. You look like a goddess. Like a warrior. Like you could slay me and you do. Just looking at you ruins me. I love to look at you. I could look at you lying spread like this forever. Open to me, wet and flushed—forever and never grow tired.”
She’d read his articles and treatises and interviews. He had plain-spoken words and clinical words and words of dry humor, but she had never heard these words before. These almost-poetry sex/love words melted her everywhere.
Her body throbbed, exhausted from her climaxes, but her heart burst from his generosity. She wanted to do something for him. She wanted to do everything for him.
Erin reached down and grasped his cock, drawing a gasp from him. The pulsing shaft jerked in her hand but he pulled away. From her position she couldn’t reach him in his retreat. He touched her again and she jumped, oversensitive.
“Just let me please you,” he said. “Let me give you pleasure.” His caress lightened. She moaned and her legs relaxed open again.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, that’s right. Good girl.”
His fingers spread apart her folds, slick and swollen.
“I’ll make you feel so much pleasure,” he said. “So much you won’t care that it’s me.”
Wait, what? She tried to push through the haze of her arousal.
“So good you’ll forget it’s me,” he whispered, staring down at her spread legs, entranced. “You won’t regret this. I won’t let you regret this,” he promised.
“Stop,” she gasped out and he snatched his hand back. “What—what did you say?”
He shook his head and some of the sensual fog cleared from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you…did you want to stop? Are you finished?”
“No, I don’t want to stop,” she said. “I want to keep doing this with you. With you!”
She sighed in exasperation.
“Lie down,” she commanded.
He blinked in surprise but obeyed. Without giving him a chance to reject her, she reached down and grasped his cock again. She sucked him into her mouth.
“Oh God, yes,” he cried, just as he had when he’d pleasured himself with her on his mind. But this time was real and she’d make sure he knew it.
She savored the tangy flavor of his semen as it hit her tongue, and breathed in deep the musky, male smell of his groin. His thighs shook. All this power and virility trembled under her mouth. It intoxicated her.
She took him in deep and then pulled back to the tip. In and out. Deeper and deeper.
The rhythmic motions of his cock sliding back and forth between her lips felt like a chant. This man was so good and so kind and yet, was it possible that he questioned his worth because of his scars? It was ludicrous. Those scars, received in battle as a soldier, proved his bravery and honor. It was another example of him protecting others, the way he advocated for unheard groups and causes in his writing.
How dare anyone—how dare he—question his value? He was everything she could ever want in a man.
She loved him.
What the hell? Where had that thought come from?
Her eyes snapped open in surprise only to find him staring at her intently, as if he could devour her with sight alone. He looked fierce and sexy and intimidating. Her eyes widened at the hunger in his eyes.
Through his arousal, he managed a small smile and touched her cheek tenderly. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “You don’t have to look.”
He thought she didn’t want to look at him, to see his beautiful face? He thought she wanted to pretend it was someone else licking her, pleasuring her?
She grew angry. Angry at him for doubting himself. He doubted her, too, thinking her that shallow. She was angry at the faceless people who had wounded him, outside and in.
It didn’t have to be like that. She’d show him so. Even if this afternoon was all she had with him, he’d know his worth.
She retaliated by tightening her lips and sucking hard. He bucked his hips and groaned, eyes sliding closed helplessly.
She continued her onslaught using strong suction and steady thrusts. She took him in deep, too deep. She was practically stabbing her throat, impaling her mouth with his cock, but she didn’t care. She sucked and fucked him that way as hard as she could, as if his cock was her lifeline and maybe it was.
He thrust his hips up jerkily, mindlessly trying to get deeper, push farther. She tried to oblige him, jamming her head down onto him, her lips grazing the hair at the base. And that groan rumbled all the way into her throat. She could have come from the sound alone, if her hands had been free to touch herself, but they weren’t. His cock choked her, but it seemed insignificant compared to this.
When it was over he lay in a post-orgasmic stupor, reaching his hand down for her, seeking connection. She felt a similar sated haze seep into her. She clambered up his body and curled herself up at the crook of his arm.