Chapter 10

Some days I eat salads and go to the gym. Other days I eat three pounds of bacon and drink a dozen beers. I call it balance.

-Steel to Winnie

Winnie

Curiosity killed the cat.

In this instance, it almost killed Winnie.

Me.

Shit!

“What are you reading?”

I slapped my laptop closed and smiled guiltily.

“Nothing.”

He grunted something in reply and went to his bag for a new pair of underwear and a dry pair of jeans.

“Tomorrow I’m gonna need my flannel back!” he said. “It’s the only thing dry I have left! Plus, I’m an old man. I need to stay warm.”

I grimaced and looked down at my attire.

I was wearing his flannel shirt, but only because my own shirts just weren’t cutting it.

With the hurricane came a cool front, and that cool front was chilly to the point that I needed more clothes than I’d brought.

We’d tried to stop and pick up a sweatshirt from a drug store, but apparently along with the food on the shelves, everyone had bought all the sweatshirts they had in stock as well.

“You’re so full of shit. You’re not that old.” I headed to the bathroom door.

“I’m old.”

“Not old enough that it matters.”

He turned and gave me a long look that felt like he’d stripped me bare.

“I’m old enough to be your father.”

I laughed. “You’re not. But even if you were, why would that matter?”

“It matters because I’m old, and you’re young. You’re in the prime of your life, while I have an adult son that could be your brother. It’s just…odd.” He finally settled on.

I felt my heart beating faster. “Yes…but the heart wants what the heart wants.”

He looked away.

“And, just sayin’, but I have a sixteen-year-old.”

“But you also have a five-year-old.” He pointed out. “And an ex-husband that is a part of his life. I’ve done my civic duty…and I’m honestly over the ex game. Trust me when I say, I’m too old for you. Too jaded. Too set in my ways.”

I grunted but didn’t call him on his bullshit.

“Just…I need my shirt, okay?”

I realized that the matter was closed, and we wouldn’t be discussing it anymore…at least tonight.

Okay, then.

“Okay,” I called. “But I can wear it right now?”

He slammed the door closed.

“Yeah,” he yelled through the door. “Do you want me to leave the shower on for you?”

I moaned. “No. I already took one while you were getting dinner.”

“Okay.”

Then the shower turned on and I guiltily opened my laptop once again.

The webpage I had up was a blog that I loved to follow.

It was composed of two mothers around my age, both of whom were hilariously funny.

Today’s topic of conversation was blow jobs.

I’d never been good at blow jobs, and honestly, I didn’t have to be. Why? Because Matt didn’t like them.

Yes, I know. It was weird. What guy didn’t like blow jobs?

I’d tried to give Matt a blow job once and only once, and he’d started to freak out because my mouth was too close to him.

See, Matt had a fear of mouths.

Yes, you heard that correct.

Mouths.

He was grossed out watching me brush my teeth. He didn’t like kissing me. (And, from what I’d heard, he didn’t mind kissing Slut-Bag Angelina, which chafed.) He abhorred going to the dentist because someone was going to be doing stuff in his mouth, and the icing on the cake was his incessant need to get away from me—or our kids—if it even looked like they were going to open their mouths near him.

Dear God, there was this one time that Matt had been holding Cody when he yawned near his face. I still remember it like it was yesterday instead of years ago.

He’d been sitting on the couch, Cody—who’d only been a few months old at the time—resting on his chest. Cody had lifted his head, brought his face almost directly into Matt’s, and then yawned.

Yawned.

That was all he’d done.

And it was like Cody had projectile vomited down his throat instead of just doing a normal bodily function.

He’d practically thrown Cody across the couch.

I still remember the bounce he’d done before almost landing on the floor.

Had Conleigh not been there, catching him before he could continue his roll, he’d have landed face first on the corner of the coffee table.

Fucking Matt.

I’d never, not once, had the pleasure of giving a blow job.

Yet, I wanted to give one.

I wanted to give one to Steel.

Jesus Christ, did I want to give him one.

The man turned me on in ways that I had no clue were my turn-ons, yet here I was, wondering what it would feel like to give the man a blow job.

My curiosity got the better of me as I googled more tips—which they’d said they’d done as a comparison—and then I got lost in the World Wide Web.

My first stop had been Cosmopolitan!

My second had been some random Joe-Blow (literally, that was the name of the website) blog that gave the men’s top ten best blow job tips—according to men.

1. Maintain eye contact.

2. Tie your hair back, it shows your dedication.

3. Allow him to put his hand in your hair and control the movements.

That, I could do! In fact, the idea of Steel putting his hands in my hair and controlling all of the movement was downright arousing.

4. Use your hand as well as your mouth. Twist it side to side lightly as you pump and suck him.

Okay, pump, suck and twist. Check!

5. Don’t use your teeth. Ever.

I shivered at the thought. That would suck, accidentally biting Steel’s dick. He’d probably never let me near him again and kick me straight the hell out of his bed. Though, I had to get in his bed first…

6. Drop down so he’s standing and you’re kneeling. There’s nothing more arousing than watching a woman get on her knees.

That thought made me shiver. Would Steel like me on my knees?

I sure the hell hoped so. I’d love to get on my knees for him.

Then again, I was doing good with my rehab…he still might have to help me back up.

I winced. Maybe I should just get on the bed between his splayed thighs…yes, that was how I’d do it.

7. Suck his balls.

Suck his balls? How the hell did I put those in my mouth? There wasn’t enough room!

8. Go slow. It’s not a race.

9. Swallow.

Well, that was self-explanatory. But I didn’t know if I could swallow. I’d try, but what if I gagged?

10. We like it when you gag.

Did they? What if I accidentally threw up? That would completely ruin the mood.

“What are you doing?”

I squeaked and jumped as Steel came out of the bathroom.

After our first night together, he hadn’t bothered to be modest around me in the least.

If we weren’t working, I quickly realized, Steel would rather be shirtless.

I quickly shut my laptop and smiled.

“Reading,” I lied.

Well, I guess technically it wasn’t a lie. I was reading. What I wasn’t doing was reading a book.

I flushed.

“Hmmmm,” he said. “You ready for bed?”

I nodded.

We were in a hotel room in the outskirts of whatever city we were in. I couldn’t remember which one it was at this point seeing as we’d been to so freakin’ many over the last two days.

We were lucky to find a hotel room, to be honest. Yesterday we’d slept in Steel’s truck in a convoy of other rescuers, on the side of the road.

I’d slept like a freakin’ baby.

“Yep!” I lied.

I wasn’t ready for bed. Not even a little bit.

But tomorrow was going to be another long, exhausting day. Then we had to drive home because Steel—as well as I—had to return to work.

Steel moved around the room turning off lights as I snuggled deeper under my blankets.

I shivered, wondering again why it was so cold in here.

The air wouldn’t turn off. We’d tried. Multiple times.

And, sadly, it wasn’t one of those window units where you could just unplug it. Nope, not this hotel. It was fancy—and by fancy, I mean four hundred dollars a night fancy.

Yes, I’d almost swallowed my tongue at hearing that price come out of the concierge’s mouth.

However, they’d expressly informed us that they were having problems with their air conditioning systems—not that they would be comping the room for us or even reducing the price because of it, mind you.

Luckily, we were informed, that we got one of the rooms with air. Apparently, about half the hotel didn’t have it due to surges in power during the storm.

However, what air the other half of the hotel wasn’t getting, we were.

Meaning it was a chilly fifty degrees up in this bitch.

“You want my blanket?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Also, along with the fact that it was cold, there weren’t any extra blankets to be had. With the hotel being so close to the area of disaster, people had flooded the hotel with their families. In some rooms, I’d noticed how there were as many as ten people in it. Obviously, they’d gotten the extra blankets.

This also meant that we were left with what was on the bed only.

A single white sheet, a small waffle-pleated blanket, and two pillows per queen bed.

Two.

My bag had dropped out of the truck earlier into a puddle of muddy water, and because of that, I was wearing a pair of my panties and one of Steel’s shirts…and nothing else.

All of my other belongings were now being washed and dried—promised to be returned by morning—by the hotels extremely high-priced laundry service department.

“Are you sure?” He pushed.

“I’m fine.”

I wasn’t fine, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to take Steel’s blanket when it was fifty fucking degrees in here.

Dammit.

Without argument, he turned off the light.

Then I heard him stripping his pants off, the belt clinking against the ground as he dropped them, and then the bed squeaking as he climbed under the covers.

I licked my lips, wondering if I’d ever work up the courage to touch the man.

I’ve seen the appreciative looks he’d send me, but since he apparently thought I still needed time, he was giving me the space that he must have thought I needed.

Space that I didn’t need.

Not at all.

Not anymore, anyway.

Not after knowing Steel Cross for the time that I had.

I wanted him.

I liked how he took care of my kids. I liked how he took care of me—even when he tried to act inconspicuous as he did. And I liked him.

A lot.

He made me laugh. He humored me when I did things I probably shouldn’t want to do—like this trip with him to the hurricane-affected area for example. He also took care of me even when I didn’t think I needed to be taken care of.

He was an all-around great guy.

But he also had a streak of bad boy in him.

He was a president of a motorcycle club. He was brash, hard, and unforgiving.

I’d watched him take down a criminal—right in the middle of our street—who had been trying to break into my car.

Seriously, I loved the good guy part of Steel Cross, I truly did. But I needed the bad boy in him. I needed him with the power of a thousand suns.

In my vagina.

Soon.

I just had to find a way to let him know that.

And, as my eyes closed, and I thought about anything but the freezing temperature of the room around me, I realized that I would have to flat out tell him that I wanted him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make the move.

He’d actually said he’d have dated me in a different lifetime, before our lives had gotten so complicated, on our drive down.

Maybe I needed to show him that we didn’t have to make it more complicated than it already was.

Maybe we should uncomplicate things.

Shivering even harder than I already was at that thought, I closed my eyes and felt my eyes grow heavy.

I didn’t fully drop off into sleep.

Couldn’t. Not with my teeth clattering together every couple of seconds, and chills racing over my body making the bed springs underneath me squeak.

My dreams, however, were beautiful.

I closed my eyes and drifted, thinking of him.

Somehow, I found myself warm despite my knowing I shouldn’t be.

I didn’t care how. Didn’t honestly care why. I just cared that I was deliciously warm, and was finally able to get to sleep.

***

Hours later, my eyes opened.

A sound had woken me…what had it been?

Another sound, a bump from the room toward my head, sounded again.

The bed.

A bed was hitting the wall that our bed was on.

Our bed?

That’s when I noticed that I was no longer alone in my bed.

I had a distinctly male body practically underneath me.

My leg was thrown over one strong thigh. My head was resting on the strong, slightly hairy chest, with a strong heartbeat beneath. My panty-clad pussy was pressed up against a distinctly male hip. One of my arms was crossed over a very hard belly, and finally, a strong fist was tangled in my unruly hair.

I was in Steel’s bed. Laying half on top of Steel’s very hard body with my own. Holy shit.

My knee was about halfway across his hips, resting lightly just above where the waistband of his underwear rested.

I moved my calf slightly to the right, bringing my foot to rest directly between his thighs on the bed. It also meant that my calf was now pressing against his dick.

His dick that was currently soft, yet still hard…if that made any sense at all.

I could feel it there, and all of a sudden, I wished I had nerve endings in my calf like I did in my fingers.

I tried to feel his cock. Tried to imagine what it looked like.

And then I shifted.

I couldn’t help it.

I brought my leg farther down until it—his cock—rested against the side of it.

Then, ever so slowly, I moved my hand as if I was still asleep. It came to a rest right above his boxer briefs and stilled.

Two fingers were resting on the band itself, and the other three were resting on his skin. Skin that was covered in a soft trail of hair that led the way to where I most wanted my fingers.

Shit, shit, shit.

The heat between my legs grew, and suddenly I could feel myself getting wetter, something I’d never before accomplished outside of when I was reading a really good smutty book.

Oh God.

This was torture.

My fingers itched to move.

I wanted them somewhere else so bad that they actually twitched.

My middle finger slipped under the waistband and came to a halt.

Everything inside of me screamed.

I hadn’t meant to do that, yet I couldn’t move them again.

What if he woke up? He was going to wake up. He’d have to wake up.

Oh God.

I squirmed inwardly, wanting to grind myself against him at the same time that I also wanted to shove my hands down his pants the rest of the way.

The bed hit the wall again and then again.

That’s when I felt Steel stiffen.

Both in body and in cock.

I was unsure how our position came to be, but I assumed that Steel had either moved me to his bed, or he moved to mine.

I couldn’t see any light in the room due to the blackout curtains, so I couldn’t even tell where we were in the room.

But I could feel Steel all around me.

His arm tightened slightly around my shoulders and then dropped.

His hand met bare skin, which was when I realized that my shirt had somehow ridden up.

And when I say it rode up, I meant that I could feel my bare breasts against his very hot chest.

Oh, fuck.

Goddammit, I was horny.

I didn’t dare move.

Whatever had gotten us into this mess was a Godsend.

That’s how I took it, anyway.

I’d needed a way to get closer, and he’d practically given it to me by crawling into bed with me.

I couldn’t help that my body was attracted to his, drawn to him like a magnet.

He tried to move away from me slightly, and I did what any sane woman would do in this situation.

I moved, acting like I was still asleep, and practically rolled straight over on top of him.

He didn’t move for a long minute.

I didn’t, either.

Couldn’t, really.

I was sure, any second, he’d roll me off of him. My heart was thundering in my chest, and I could feel his cock—which was definitely getting harder by the second—against my inner thigh.

My breasts were now fully pressed against his chest, and I was right.

He had chest hair. Quite a bit of it, actually.

Saliva filled my mouth, but I didn’t dare swallow.

He’d know. I knew it. If I so much as did anything overtly obvious, he’d roll me off and tell me this wasn’t a good idea.

So I stayed still.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

His cock, also, never deflated.

In fact, I almost wanted to say it got harder.

It took everything I had not to grind myself against him.

My clit was throbbing, I could feel my wetness saturating my underwear, and I knew that soon, it’d be obvious to not just me but him, too.

His hand came up and he fisted my hair again, tugging it lightly.

I couldn’t help it.

I moaned and rubbed myself against him.

He froze again. For long, drawn out seconds, he paused and didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe.

Then his hand—the one that wasn’t fisted in my hair—came down to rest on my ribs.

His thumb came out and swept down, swiping all the way along my outer breast.

My nipples pebbled.

He did it again, and this time I couldn’t help but squirm on top of him.

His hand moved down the length of my back to my leg that was resting between his thighs, and he pulled it up until it was resting on the outside of his other thigh.

I moved then, re-centering myself on his body until my breasts were in the middle of his chest, my head tucked up underneath his chin, and my pussy centered directly over his very hard cock.

And that’s about the time that the people on the other side of the wall really started to go at it.

It was also when he realized that I was no longer even remotely asleep.

“Awake?”

I swallowed, then nodded.

“Thank fuck.”

I grinned and brought my head up, searching blindly in the dark for his mouth.

His beard was the first thing my lips touched, and then his hand was there, guiding my head until I was lips-to-lips with him.

“There,” he said against them.

I kissed him then, relishing in the act.

Matt hadn’t ever let me do this.

But Steel?

He owned my mouth.

Fucking. Owned. It.

He dragged my mouth to his, took what he wanted and didn’t let me go.

Not until I was out of breath and grinding against him in desperation.

But I wanted to do something. I wanted to do it so bad that I actually said what I wanted.

And he didn’t argue.

Not even a little bit.

“I want you in my mouth. I want it so bad.”

He growled something against my lips, and then he was helping me down between his legs.

The blanket went with me as I crawled, and the fist in my hair stayed as I settled myself and hooked my fingers in the waistband of his underwear.

I pulled them down and then realized with dismay that I wanted to see what I was doing. Really, really bad.

“I want to see,” I breathed.

I felt him move underneath me, and then a light lit up the room.

I looked at his cock, suddenly right in front of my face, and my heart dropped.

“What?”

He read the devastation on my face.

“I read about how to give a blow job—but I can’t give you one,” I told his dick.

His cock jumped.

“Why?”

I could hear the strain in his voice, and I knew instantly that I was going to give him one whether I knew how to do it or not. The huskiness that had overtaken him was downright sexy.

He wanted my mouth on his cock.

“Because you have an uncut dick…” I told him. “I don’t know what to do with an uncut dick.”

He laughed, and the laugh caused his cock to jump up, tapping my lips.

We both groaned.

“It’s the same as cut dicks, honey,” he explained with a humor laced, husky voice. “Just a little bit of extra skin.”

“What do I do with the extra skin?” I questioned him, touching the tip of his cock that was covered by the extra skin under question.

“Pull it back.”

I pushed it with one finger, revealing the head of his cock—his leaking cock—and let it go.

The skin pushed back up, but it didn’t go as far this time, stuck right around the crest of his cock head and stayed.

Now his cock head remained in view, and I couldn’t help myself. I had to touch his cock with my tongue. I had to.

So I did.

I bent down and licked the little bead of come off the tip of his cock.

His entire body stiffened, but he didn’t try to grab me. Didn’t try to rush me.

“Tell me what else is different about your cock,” I ordered.

Steel started to chuckle, and I watched, fascinated, as his cock moved each time a burst of laughter poured from his beautiful lips.

That’s when I lost the battle with my curiosity and swirled my tongue around the head of his cock.

He brought my hand up to his cock and wrapped me around him as I did.

I looked up at him and watched him watching me.

“Pull it down like this,” he ordered.

I did as instructed, wrapping my hand timidly around his cock.

He tightened his hand and made me fist him like I was holding onto him for dear life.

“I won’t break.”

No, with the cock he had, I didn’t think he would.

It was big, thick and beautiful.

Honestly, I’d seen pictures of uncircumcised cocks on the internet. They looked like aardvarks…or at least the ones I’d looked at had.

This one that Steel was wielding, though? Yeah, no aardvark for him.

His was a pipe. The foreskin had acted like a shield for what lay underneath, but once it was revealed, well…the man wasn’t lacking in the cock department.

The tip of his cock was ruddy and there was a healthy drop of fluid coming out of the crown. The actual shaft was riddled with veins, and he had a very juicy one on the underside of his cock that ran the entire length of his penis. So juicy, in fact, that I found myself licking up and down, loving the way it pulsed against my wet tongue.

As a paramedic, veins were my porn.

Steel had some nice ones on his arms. I’d dreamed about giving him an IV. But this one? The one that I was currently running my tongue up and down? Yeah, I was fairly sure that no other would ever displace it from number one.

It would be forever dubbed ‘the best vein’ in my personal book of vein porn. It would never have its crown taken away.

Not ever.

“Suck me into your mouth already.”

I glanced up, remembering about the eye contact, and then sucked just the tip into my mouth.

He about came off the bed.

That’s when I started noticing his body.

I’d seen his shirt plastered to his chest, and his pants against his thighs, for days now.

But, seeing him naked and watching me down the length of his body?

Yeah, his penis vein wasn’t the only thing that was going to be a reoccurring spankbank memory.

This image? The one where I was looking up the length of his body? Yeah, I’d remember it forever, too.

The way his chest hair gathered on his muscular, defined pectorals, then funneled down his chest in a sort of triangle shape to puddle in a skinny pool along the length of his abs.

Abs.

Plural.

Steel was in his fifties, that I’d been able to ascertain.

I didn’t know his exact age, but I knew for a fact that any man would be lucky to have the body that Steel did at his age.

He was goddamn gorgeous.

I also knew that he liked to eat healthy.

After eating with him over the last couple of days, I knew that he got the best thing on the menu, regardless of where we were.

For instance, the day before yesterday we stopped at a gas station. They had typical gas station food. What they didn’t have, however, was anything healthy but a basket of fruit in the front of the store, and a turkey sandwich on wheat bread in the cooler next to the fruit.

While I had always gravitated toward foods that were healthy for me due to my marathon training—which I would get back to—it was a rare sight to see a man gravitate toward it, too.

And looking at him now in all his glory, it showed.

“Push the skin back and suck me down.”

I pulled his skin back with my hand while my mouth went farther down his length.

His abs clenched, and I gagged slightly when his hips lifted involuntarily, causing his cock to hit the back of my throat.

“Sorry, girl.” He closed his eyes, likely searching for control.

I looked back down at his cock since he wasn’t looking at me any longer, and moaned when I felt a drop of pre-come touch the taste buds on the tip of my tongue.

He tasted good.

A lot better than I was expecting him to.

I sucked him up and down, then let his dick fall from my mouth as I took a good look at his balls.

They were big, but I had faith that I could do this.

Pushing his dick up and sideways, I dropped my mouth farther between his legs and tentatively licked his balls.

He cursed, and suddenly I had two hands in my hair instead of one.

I thought at first that he was going to yank me up, but he held still, the only thing changing was the tighter grip in my hair. Hair that was quickly escaping the hap-hazard bun I’d tied it into before falling asleep.

I could feel some of the wispy pieces of my hair falling against my face, but I didn’t care. Not then. Maybe later, when it was all said and done, I’d care that he was tangling it beyond redemption, but now? Now I was too engrossed with the way his body was a live wire waiting for the next shoe to drop.

“Fuckkkk.”

I almost grinned, but I didn’t want to take my mouth away from the ball that I’d lovingly sucked inside of my mouth.

Reverently, I swirled it around on my tongue, relishing in the way he tensed and shook each time I jacked his cock off and sucked lightly on his ball.

It was as I was shifting over to the other neglected member of his anatomy when he struck.

One second, I was on my knees between his legs, and the next I was on my back with Steel’s hulking form towering over me.

I gasped and spread my legs in surprise.

He fell more fully between my hips, and then his cock was pressed against my pussy.

My pussy that was more than ready to take whatever he was willing to give.

His eyes met mine, and I saw resolve there.

We were doing this.

He thought I was too young.

I wasn’t.

But he thought I was.

He didn’t want to get involved with me. I had two kids, an ex-husband that all of a sudden wanted something to do with me and my kids now that Steel had started hanging around, and that was the last thing he needed.

He had an ex-wife who called every couple of days asking for money. He had an ex-girlfriend who was dead set on getting back together with him. And he had a motorcycle club and a job that demanded the rest of his time.

He didn’t have time for me and my kids.

Yet, he’d done okay so far.

He’d let us take a peek into his life, and he’d taken my daughter under his wing.

We were already there.

I was already there.

And now, so was he.

“Steel…”

“Call me Big Papa,” he ordered. “Nobody but you calls me Steel.”

I grinned and shook my head. “Maybe outside of bed. But I’m definitely not calling you that in bed. And, I’ll call you that when I feel like it, and not a second before.”

“Steel makes me feel old. No one has called me Steel since my parents were alive twenty years ago,” he growled.

“You’re older, yes.” I ran my hands up his chest, then circled them around to his pectorals. My fingers flicked over both of his nipples, causing him to jerk. “But you’re sexy.”

He smirked.

“I’ve been watching you since we moved in,” I admitted. “I was so freakin’ mad at Matt. There was nothing in this world that would make me consider going for another alpha male…then you came around the first time. You were checking your mail. Some kid was driving too fast down the street, and you stepped out in front of him. Then you proceeded to scare the crap out of him. You had on a pair of worn-out jeans that fit your ass perfectly and a tight black t-shirt. But that kid looked at you, scared to death, and hung on your every word. Just like I did, and have done, since.”

“Winnie…”

“I’m broken, or at least I thought I was broken. But over the last couple of months, you’ve shown me exactly what a real man is, and Matt was never one. I know that down to the bottom of my heart. You showed me, and then you helped me get over him. You made me realize that what I had with him wasn’t anything compared to what I could have with you.”

“I’m not good stock, baby,” he said. “My track record is shit…but I can offer you this.”

His ‘this’ was followed by a grind of his hips.

His cock split the lips of my sex, and then he was sliding up and down the length of me in slow, shallow strokes.

I wanted more with him…but I was hesitant.

I didn’t want to be disappointed again. I didn’t want to find out that he wasn’t what I’d made him out to be.

But…the way he was with Conleigh? That was everything to me.

Everything.

I’ve never once seen Matt act like that with her. He’d been there physically, taken care of some of her basics needs, but he never treated her like a daughter, building a relationship with her and teaching her the ways of the world. He didn’t offer to take her fishing or do anything with her one-on-one, and he never got her anything that she didn’t actually need.

When she started to slip into one of those moods that all teenage girls got into, Matt would yell at her and tell her to go to her room. Steel talked her through it. Found out what the core of her problem was.

It was the sexiest thing in the world to watch.

He actually cared about my kids.

He didn’t just tolerate them.

And that, out of anything he could’ve done to win me over, was enough to make me love him forever.

“I don’t care,” I told him. “I want you. I want this. I don’t care if you can promise me tomorrow. I don’t care if you can’t give me forever. I want you now, and that’s all I wish to think about.”

“In that case, we’re doing this.”

I would’ve laughed had he not pulled away from me at the same time as he spoke.

“Where are you going?” I gasped, missing his heat almost instantaneously.

“Condom,” he said as he started to push himself off the bed.

I reached for his wrist and yanked him back.

If he hadn’t wanted to come, he wouldn’t have.

But I could tell his control was nearly gone.

“No condoms,” I ordered. “Just you and me.”

“Winnie…”

“I’m on birth control. I’ve been tested, too. Matt…he…well. He cheated, and I had to make sure that he didn’t give me anything. I had to be sure. And since I was there, I had them put an IUD in.”

I barely got the words out before he was on me.

That control gone.

His cock was at my entrance, and then he was pushing inside of me.

There was no resistance.

No waiting.

No nothing.

All of a sudden, I was just filled. His big body was up against mine, and his chest hair was tickling my nipples as he planted himself to the root and stilled.

My eyes were too busy rolling back in my head to notice the look of pure desire and possession on his face. Because, if I had, I would’ve known that he was just as deep in this as I was.

I would’ve known that he was feeling more than he was saying.

But I didn’t have any control over my eyes—or the rest of my body—when his cock was inside of me.

His huge, thick, filling-me-to-the-brim dick.

I didn’t think I’d ever be the same.

“Oh God,” I breathed. “You’re so big.”

“You’re just small.”

“No,” I shook my head. “You’re big. I’ve had two kids. They sewed me up tighter than tight…but I had you in my mouth. I had your dick against my face. You’re big. Trust me on this.”

He started to laugh.

I would have, too, but then he pulled out and then thrust back in.

My breasts bounced under my shirt, drawing his eyes.

“Take the shirt off.”

I did, taking the shirt off and throwing it down onto the bed.

It landed next to my face, half of it touching my neck.

I didn’t take the time to remove it, though, because all of a sudden, he was fucking me so hard that I couldn’t breathe.

He was hitting my cervix with each thrust of his cock inside of me, and I couldn’t quite make my brain work.

It was as if the pleasure he was pulling from me was short-circuiting my brain.

Then his mouth was headed downward, and my nipple was pulled between those perfect lips. His beard tickled my chest, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I came. And came. And came.

Implosion.

There were no other words for what happened to me.

His grunt had me gasping for air, and all of a sudden, I felt him coming inside of me.

Bursts of his release filled me up, making me a hundred times slicker than I’d been before, and easing the way for his thrusts.

Then I was holding his heat in my arms.

I couldn’t breathe with his entire upper body plastered to mine, but I didn’t care.

Not one single bit.

Because Steel fucking Cross was in my arms, and I was as happy as I could fucking be.

***

The next morning, we both woke up at once, but it was me that reached forward for my phone.

I had it in my hand and placed to my ear moments later, thinking the only person that called this early was Conleigh.

Which made me worried almost from the start of the conversation.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?” I repeated.

“Who is this?”

I pulled the phone away from my face and stared at the screen.

Lizzibeth.

I didn’t have a Lizzibeth in my contacts…

“Shit, sorry,” I said, putting the phone down on Steel’s chest. “That’s your phone, not mine.”

He started to chuckle. The sound was deep and husky.

“Not a problem,” came his just as deep and husky reply.

It was at that instant that everything we’d done the night before came back to me. Everything.

And I wanted it.

Again.

My hand slowly slid down his chest as he picked the phone up to his ear.

“Yeah?”

I shivered and hoped that he’d never direct that particular tone towards me. Ever.