CHAPTER SIX
Owen
Pretentious and rude or not, I had to give Grace one thing… she had excellent taste. The dark green bridesmaid dress Tabby wore was as delectable as anything I could’ve imagined, snuggling to her hips and cupping the undersides of her breasts exactly the way my hands were craving to do. Every step she took brought about a gentle billowing of the skirts that parted the centered slit and permitted me a glimpse of ample, creamy thighs. It was hell trying to keep my focus on her face, as beautiful as it was, when every muscle I had was screaming at me to take her to an isolated corner, throw the split skirts over her head, and lick the taste off those thighs until the only thing left to savor was her sweetest of offerings.
I was alleviated from my torture a bit when she was gone for pictures, and again over dinner when she was seated at the head table and I was keeping company with six people who seemed to dislike each other more than sin. Once the dancing began, though, she stepped down from the raised platform at the front of the hall and swept her eyes until she located me, and I was pummeled with renewed arousal.
“So,” she said with a heavy sigh as she plopped onto the empty chair beside me where the forsaken Emily’s date surely would’ve sat. “Maine, huh?”
I clenched my fingers into a ball to prevent myself from reaching out and stroking the hint of leg showing through the slit. “Is this a riddle?”
“You said you’re from Maine,” she laughed. “Lobsters. New England. Were you one of those guys in waders stabbing mud?”
It was my turn to laugh, and I did, heartily. “Those guys aren’t just stabbing mud, kitten. They’re clamming. And, yes, I’ve tried my hand at it a time or two.”
“I’m picturing an expensive suit tucked under rubber pants. I have to admit, it’s an amusing image.” She laughed, a soft musical sound that sent warm tingles over my skin.
“Spot on, except for the top hat. You left out the top hat.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed an ankle over my knee. “I suppose you’d be driven to hysterics if I told you I grew up in a log cabin, then.”
Her eyes widened, and she smiled from ear to ear. “Like Abraham Lincoln?”
“Just like him,” I replied solemnly. “That’s why I avoid the theatre like the plague.”
She rolled her eyes, bent forward, and delicately plucked my glass of champagne from the table. I watched the transparent rim fall flush against her lower lip and the honey liquid slither its way through the gap between her teeth. The glow of the candles in the middle of the table provided just enough light for me to make out the tip of her tongue lapping the bubbly meniscus before she lowered the beverage and smiled primly at me. I needed to get her to The Club soon or I was going to end up catatonic from a chronic lack of blood in my brain.
“Come on,” I said, getting to my feet without warning and holding out a hand to her.
She blinked. “Where are we going?”
“Well, I figured we’d venture out to Bourbon Street and see how many unsuspecting tourists we can pickpocket. If we get enough money, we can share one of those margaritas with a whole bottle of tequila in it.”
She nibbled her bottom lip, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “I’m more inclined than I should be to take you up on that offer.”
I smirked and brandished my hand, encouraging her to take it. “We’re going to dance, sweetheart.”
“Oh.” Rather than placing her palm on mine and standing, she shrank back an inch or two and a look of reservation crossed her lovely features. “I… don’t really dance.”
“I don’t think you heard me correctly,” I murmured, lowering myself to her and brushing a lock of hair aside to reveal the sensuous outer curve of her ear. Despite the thumping music and many conversations happening throughout the hall, I kept my tone soft to better fill it with the calm insistence I meant to portray. “There was no question mark at the end of that sentence. I’m going to dance with you, Miss Rickard. Now, whether you dance with me is your decision, but I assure you the only thing that’s going to be between your body and my hands is that dress you’re wearing, no matter what you choose.”
She shivered visibly, a sight that gave me such a jolt of adrenalized desire I almost shivered myself, but she lifted her chin and took my hand. “Fine,” she agreed. “But you’re not allowed to get mad when I step on your feet.”
The second I stepped onto the smooth, faux-wood floor, I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to me. She moved her hands onto my shoulders, but I shrugged to slip her hands instead to the nape of my neck. The sensation of her bare skin on mine was enough to send goosebumps erupting up to my scalp and down my spine.
“People are looking at us,” she murmured self-consciously, darting her eyes both left and right with as much subtlety as she could.
“You’re too worried about how you dance,” I chided.
She shook her head. “They’re not looking because of me. They’re looking because of you.” She jerked her chin to one side. “Grace wouldn’t be glaring at me like that if I was dancing like a fool. If anything, she’d probably be gleeful.”
“I can’t imagine why I’d draw a crowd.” I didn’t care why I would, either. The only thing that mattered in that moment was how easily my palm cupped the small of her back, and how I only had to slide my hand a few inches south to feel the swell of her ass.
“You should try looking in the mirror sometime,” she returned, a breath of scorn in her voice. “You might find it insightful.”
Little spitfire, indeed.
I pressed my lips into her hair. “And you, sweetheart, should try remembering how impolite I can be.”
“As you so courteously keep reminding me.” She was growing more confident. “Was the whole chivalry thing already dead in Maine by the time you started dating?”
“Oh, chivalry I have,” I corrected her. “Believe me, my father might have bypassed the birds-and-the-bees talk, but he made certain I knew my role as a man. He brought me along on a date with my mom once and made me perform all the little acts of etiquette: opening her door, pulling out her chair, et cetera.” Tabby grinned broadly and opened her mouth, likely to tease me about going on a date with my mother, but I headed her off by leaning close enough to press my forehead to hers. “Unfortunately, the chivalry is accompanied by some very, very dishonorable desires.”
She lowered her chin but raised her eyes until she was looking up at me through her lashes, which was an expression so alluring I physically felt a pulse of blood swell between my legs. Her lower lip twitched like she wanted to say something but was reconsidering. Then, her cheeks sharpened, and she asked stoutly, “Care to share?”
Arousal aside, I wanted to laugh. She’d visibly had to steel herself to ask that question. I may not have known her beyond the title of friendly acquaintance, but I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t the type to make overt sexual innuendoes and requests. Furthermore, the boldness she’d adopted was already fading from her face, and in its place rose the most adorable bashfulness I’d ever seen.
I wanted her.
“Show is much more fun than tell.”
Her toe bumped mine, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her mouth tightened, and she watched me studiously, like she was trying to read something hidden in my eyes.
“Do you have a quarter?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Probably a whole dollar worth of them. Why?”
She leaned forward. “Because I want to do another Christmas bet. A coin toss this time.”
My cock pulsed at the promise in her eyes, and I knew I’d flip a million quarters to make sure she got what she wanted. I dug into my pocket, pulled a silver disc out and held it on my palm.
“What’s the bet?”
She licked her lips, then said something I wouldn’t have expected to hear from her in a million years.
“If I win, I’ll go to The Blackjack Club with you.”
The slow whine of a saxophone paled into white noise as my ears replayed her words as clearly as if she was saying them again. Everything but her grew blurry, and the fabric that had bunched between my fingers on her lower back turned to air. “Is that so?”
She nodded. Her flush was back, light but noticeable, and she seemed to be working incredibly hard to maintain eye contact.
“And why, if I may ask, are you suddenly willing to delve into my oh-so-mysterious world?”
“Because it’s so mysterious,” came her quick reply. When I crooked a brow, she smiled indulgently and shrugged. “I’m just curious, I guess. You seem to really want me to go there with you, and you’ve brought it up so many times the idea has grown on me.” She looked up again, this time with an onset of doubt. “You do want me to go, don’t you?”
I couldn’t wait anymore. She was going to come with me — I was going to get her to The Club. That was just as good as her already having been there.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I growled, “you have no idea.”
She smiled. “Then make your bet.”
I fisted the quarter. “If I win, you go with me to The Blackjack Club, wearing whatever I choose for you.”
She swallowed and bit her lower lip. “Tails for me. Head for you.” Her lips quirked at her play on words. My head pulsed in my pants.
“You’re not a kitten. You’re a tigress.”
The smile grew bigger. “Flip.”
I did, the quarter spinning to a summit before falling neatly into my palm. I slapped it on my arm and lifted my hand. “Tails.”
She laughed. “I won. You really should give up gambling, you know.”
“Never. Not when losing to you is so interesting.”
*
“God, I can finally get out of this thing,” Tabby groaned. The last word was hampered by the sound of her hotel room door closing of its own accord, but the very idea of her stripping out of the bridesmaid gown — or, better yet, her being stripped out of it by me — solidified my wavering resolve to make good on the urges I’d been having all night.
Hell, forget all night. Urges I’d been having since the feisty little nymph slammed into me and spilled my drink on my groin.
I strode forward as silently as a lynx and placed my hand flat against her back. She stilled with her hands in her hair, a pin halfway pulled free from the curled and spiraled updo. Slowly, I pinched the zipper at the top of the dress and began easing it downward. A loosened blonde twirl tickled my cheek as I nudged her temple with my nose and murmured, “I thought you could use some help.”
“Yeah,” she breathed. Her back, revealed inch by inch as I pulled the zipper lower and lower, swelled as she inhaled purposefully. “Thanks.”
“Mhm.” I grazed the bare skin of her spine with my fingernail and delighted as she twitched in response.
A spaghetti strap slipped off her shoulder, then the other followed suit. She crossed her arms over her chest to keep the dress aloft. I gently bit the place where her neck met her shoulder and listened to the whispered rattle of pleasure she breathed out, and when I ran out of zipper, I hummed, “There.”
“Thanks,” she gasped again.
Tabby didn’t turn around, nor did she release her hold on the gown’s bodice, but she turned her head a fraction toward mine. It was a surreptitious invitation to kiss her, I knew, an invitation I would have enthusiastically accepted, but The Club…
She hadn’t come through The Club.
She wasn’t safe.
But she’d agreed to go, and I couldn’t resist her. I had to take the chance.
I crushed my mouth to hers, yanking her to me by the hips until my trouser-suffocated erection was flush against her apple-round backside. She moaned, a girlish moan of need muffled by my lips, but she wrenched herself back before I had the chance to tease my tongue between her teeth and taste her properly.
“Owen, I don’t do this kind of thing.” Her words were part whimper and part pant. The combination stirred something deep inside me. As did the look on her face. Her eyes were hooded with undiluted lust.
I turned her to face me directly, and she clung to her bodice even more tightly to keep it from flapping open. “I know.” My lips found hers again, more fully this time.
She pushed against my chest, but the protest was clumsy as her lips continued to cling to mine. I inched back so she could speak, and I could watch her face as she did so. “No, really. I’m not the hookup-and-forget-it sort of woman.”
Cupping her face between my hands, I lifted her head until she looked directly at me. I wanted her to see how serious I was when I repeated, “I know.”
“It’s not you—”
“Tabby.” My gut clenched as I asked the next question. “Do you want me to leave?”
She opened her mouth, staring me searchingly in the eyes. The entire universe seemed to hold its collective breath as I waited for her answer. Finally, she whimpered, “No.”
I raised her chin a millimeter. “Do you want me to stop?”
She swallowed. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
This time, she paused. Rather than taking the pause offensively, I was pleased. She was giving my question genuine thought, which meant her answer wouldn’t be an impulsive or obligatory one. Finally, she said, “Yes. I’m sure.”
“Then, sweetheart, the only thing I want to hear coming out of that sweet, sweet mouth is the sound of your ecstasy.”
She shuddered, and I tugged her lips to mine again. I didn’t wait to penetrate her mouth with my tongue, and the moment the tip touched hers I tasted a succulent blend of dry white wine and sugared berries. Releasing her chin, I took her wrists in my hands as I kissed her and pulled them away from her dress until a waterfall of green tumbled to her ankles in a pool and her breasts were bared. She arced her back the moment the natural air brushed her freed nipples, and I felt the hardening nubs brush my shirt. Dropping a wrist, I snuck a finger between her skin and the only remaining piece of fabric separating her from me — thin cotton panties. Moisture coated the digit — warm, slick moisture — as I trailed the petaled slit up and down. I groaned into her mouth.
“Fuck. You’re wet for me.”
Tabby moaned as I fondled her opening just enough to stimulate another moan before I circled back up to the hooded bead of nerves at the top of her folds. Experimentally, I tapped. Her moan grew higher, more urgent as I repeated the action. Flicking the hood out of the way, I tapped again. She exhaled harshly, and nails clawed into my arms. Mild pain erupted up to my elbows, cracking my determined restraint to ease into the seduction, and I snarled as I dropped low to scoop her up. I had her flat on her back atop the standard hotel bed before she could emit her shriek of surprise.
“Lift,” I commanded, hooking my fingers into the sides of her panties and jerking them downward. She obeyed and raised her hips, and I wrenched the underwear past her knees to her ankles. She started to unhook a foot through a leg hole, but I shook my head and grabbed her ankle. “Oh, no. No, no, no. You don’t move unless I tell you.”
“But how are we supposed to… ohhh…”
I circled her clit before pinching it between my fingers, eliciting an airy, high-pitched moan from her.
“The only thing I want to hear from you,” I said, making sure she understood just how serious I was, “is that moan.”
She looked up at me through wide eyes, giving her the expression of innocence that sent my cock into spasms. After a long, slow swallow, she nodded.
Taking her other ankle into my hand, I forced her feet up toward her core. Her knees splayed out to either side, spreading her thighs and revealing the pink, glistening Eden within. Her pussy looked as sweet as her mouth had tasted, and I was hungry. Famished, actually.
Bending low, I planted my lips on her mound and breathed a kiss of breath on the drenched skin. She started to tremble, and her knees snapped closed. I jammed them back into place and pressed the flat of my tongue onto her sensitive skin before venturing north at a painstakingly slow pace. Her knees jerked again, but she was mindful enough to prevent them from clenching my head. She wasn’t mindful enough, however, to hold back the spew of pleas that burst from her like a geyser.
“God, Owen, please! Don’t — just — I need more!” she wailed.
I froze, tongue still flush against her, and raised my eyes to meet hers. Her cheeks were pinkening and her breath was becoming ragged, but her marbled orbs were still clear and sparkling with awareness. She wasn’t nearly desperate enough yet, and as punishment for her oral outburst, I flicked a circle around her button with cruel intent. Her hips squirmed in an attempt to intercept my teasing tongue with her wanting clit, but I wasn’t about to make it so easy. Grabbing her pelvis, I dug my thumbs into the v-shaped crevice lining both sides of her mound. She yelped, either with ticklish sensitivity or heightened arousal, and I took her moment of lost focus to drive her rear deeper into the mattress.
“Do. Not. Move,” I whispered.
Tabby moaned yet again, not because I resumed licking her but because she was starting to realize how little control she had and how much I wielded. The cry was an auditory aphrodisiac, and I had to dive back down to prevent my dick from forcing its way out of my trousers and into her. I lapped at her eagerly, slithered to her mons, traced geometric shapes across her miniature globe. Every movement drove her to writhing, but I didn’t bother stopping her this time. I ate up her reactions as enthusiastically as I ate her. Squealing, meowing cries rose through the room, octave and volume rising with every miniscule variation in movement I made. Then, when I plunged a finger deep inside, stroked her recessed soft spot, and fluttered my tongue across her swollen clit, her hands shot down to clutch my hair and I knew it was time.
In a swift motion, I unlatched my belt buckle and shoved my trousers down without bothering to unbutton or unzip. My cock sprang free with a bounce, and I took a condom from my pocket. I watched her watch me roll it on… watched her watch me find her center, the tip of my cock nudging her open.
The waiting was excruciating. Tormenting. Necessary for us both.
Now.
I thrust, and Tabby’s spine seemed to splinter at the center as her torso peaked toward me while her hips and shoulders remained planted on the bed. She was so tight, so wet, so welcoming I gritted my teeth. Good. So damn good.
I thrust deeper and deeper until my entire length was consumed by her. Her moan became a feral roar, and the same nails that had driven me to animalism drilled divots into my shoulders. I pinned my mouth to hers to drink in her euphoria as I barreled forward again and again with sweat sheening on my skin and thigh muscles threatening to burn.
She tightened around my girth, and again I knew it was time. If I kept going, she was going to explode, but I wanted to keep her at bay for a moment longer.
“Don’t,” I hissed against her teeth. “Not yet.”
“I have to!” she protested in a haggard gasp.
Pausing in place, I repeated sternly, “Not yet.”
Tabby groaned in frustration and raised her hips, encouraging me to continue, but I wasn’t about to bend to her whim. I wanted her to come, but it was going to be on my terms. To deliver that message, I wove a hand between our bodies and pushed the heel of my palm against her clit. Her breath hitched. I smirked, rubbed a tempting circle, and mirrored the gesture with my hips. She yowled and lifted her ass again, and I shoved her back down onto the blankets.
“Ask me,” I ordered after she opened her eyes.
“What?” she wheezed. The sparkle I’d seen in her eyes when we’d started had faded, replaced by the hazy cloudiness of teetering climax. She was ready, so ready, and the gift of bliss was mine to dole out.
“Ask me,” I said once more. My voice was low, nearly a whisper, but I kept my gaze locked to hers to ensure she heard every single word. “Ask me to let you come.”
She choked on desperation, then pled almost inaudibly, “Will you please let me come?”
I swirled the circle over her clit a second time with added pressure and cocked a challenging brow.
“Please!” she wheedled.
“Louder.”
“Please, Owen, can I come?”
I smiled, leaned down to kiss her, then whispered against her lips. “Not yet.”
She opened her mouth to scream or curse me, but I didn’t let her shout the obscenities she was certain to start spewing. Instead, I lunged deep inside her again, clashing our bodies together with a brutality we both seemed to need. She moaned a song of sugary sin, and then she arched back, her body a tight bow. “I can’t — I can’t — god, Owen, please, I have to—”
“Now.” I could barely get the word out through my gritted teeth, but I couldn’t let go until she did, and I was about to tip. “Come.”
She screamed, and lights burst behind my eyes. The room, the city, and the world imploded around me, and the only thing I knew was Tabby as I emptied myself into her pulsing, gushing pussy. Her cries were a symphony in our shared utopia, her violent touch a caress. I was reduced to a raw orgasm given by a quirky goddess of myth, and my need for control was relinquished in the throes of her pleasure.
And then we were two damp bodies tangled in wrinkled sheets, and she fit too well in my arms.