Kristen Ashley - Wild Man

He listened for about two seconds then grunted, “Yeah,” and flipped his phone shut.

I waited for him to shove it back in his pocket before I asked softly, “Are you okay?”

“No,” he answered harshly. “I had my tongue in my woman’s mouth and my hand on her ass for the first time in three months. I like your ass. For three months, I spent a good deal of time thinkin’ about havin’ my hand back on your ass. What I didn’t spend time thinkin’ about is havin’ my hand on your ass and someone knockin’ on the front door and that someone being your slimeball motherfucking ex.”

Well, there you go.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Kentucky is becoming more attractive.”

He stared at me.

Then he grinned.

Then his eyes swept the length of me and back again before he said low, “Great nightie, babe.”

“Thanks,” I replied, tipping my head to the side then, to shift the mood and probably breaking all the rules of the game by doing something that would get me kicked out of the sisterhood, I shared, “If I’d have known you were spending the night I would have carved out some time to take a trip to the mall to buy a silky, sexy nightie that shouted, occasion, ” with this, I lifted up my hands and shook them then dropped them and continued, “though it would be carefully selected so when you saw me in it you’d think that was what I wore to bed every night when it isn’t . But since I didn’t know, I had to make do and this is what you get.” To that, I flicked my hand to my cotton candy nightie.

“I’m thinkin’ you did all right in a pinch,” he noted.

“I’m glad,” I said on a smile.

“So what do you wear to bed every night?” he asked.

“Well…” I thought about it then finished, “various versions of this. Though, I will warn you so you don’t get your hopes up, some of them don’t have ruffles.”

To that, he burst out laughing and he did it while walking to me. He stopped laughing and walking a half a foot away.

Then with his head tipped down to me, he said quietly, “Call your girl, sweetness, and then let’s hit the sack, yeah?”

I nodded but asked, “I’m sensing our earlier activities have been scheduled to recommence at a later date.”

He lifted a hand and curled it around the side of my neck as he dipped his face close to mine.

Then he said, “It sucks but yeah.” His hand gave me a squeeze while he went on, “You’re right, this is an occasion, it’s important and that douchebag showing marred it. When that happens between us again it’s gonna be just you and me without the ghost of that guy tarnishing it.”

I liked that. I liked that he wanted to give me that. I liked knowing us connecting in that way was as important to him as it was to me. And I liked holding the knowledge that he wanted to make it special.

I liked it so much, my hand came up, my fingers curled around his wrist at my neck, I got up on my toes and touched my mouth to his.

When I rocked back, I whispered, “Okay. I’ll call Martha and meet you in bed.”

He bent forward an inch, touched his forehead to mine then pulled back and dropped his hand. I released his wrist and he moved around me and toward the bedroom.

I went to my purse and dug out my phone. Then I called Martha. She was home. She wasn’t fine but she’d just opened a bottle of red wine in an attempt to get that way or at least put herself to sleep. We chatted until I heard the tremble go out of her voice. Then I hung up.

Then I walked to my bedroom to find a bare-chested Brock “Slim” Lucas in it, on his back, sheets to waist but hands to his face rubbing.

Those hands dropped when I hit the room but not before I remembered the last time he was in my bed, pressing the butts of his palms to his forehead, his manner conflicted and his expression would provide further evidence of that when he’d turned it to me.

This made a curl of apprehension writhe in my belly.

He rolled to his side and got up on a forearm while asking, “Babe, you gonna sleep on your feet or get in bed?”

I came unstuck, moved to my bed, pulled back the covers and got in cross-legged. Then I took off my glasses, set them on the nightstand, grabbed my tub of moisturizer and commenced moisturizing my face.

Face moisturized, I sucked up the courage to ask, “When I came in, what was on your mind?”

To my surprise, he didn’t hesitate to answer.

“What was on my mind was that Calhoun was the lead on the investigation into Heller.

Calhoun is a good man. A dedicated man. He and a lotta guys spent three years building up to that takedown. They made twelve arrests with that sweep and ten of those twelve are major players in Heller’s operation. That takedown was huge. Planned and orchestrated with precision and the man hours behind it are incalculable. No case is rock solid but what they got on all those guys is the closest I’ve ever seen. And I was thinkin’ that if that asshole fucks with you and I do what I had the near overwhelming urge to do tonight when I looked at his motherfucking face seeing he had the balls to be standin’ right at your front door at ten o’clock at night, I’ll fuck all that.”

I was watching him as he spoke.

When he stopped, I asked, “What urge?”

Brock blinked up at me.

Then he asked a repeated, “What urge?”

“Yeah, what urge?”

He stared at me three seconds then leaned into me, grabbed the tub of moisturizer out of my hand, leaned deeper, half-tossing, half-placing it on my nightstand then, with his strong arm tight around my belly and hip, he pulled me into the bed and into him.

Once he had me settled, arm still firm around me, he said softly, “I am not a normal guy, Tess.”

I’d already got that.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“I’m the oldest boy, I got two sisters, a brother and Mom got us all in the divorce. Dad’s a decent guy but that didn’t mean he didn’t jack her around. He did. A lot. Too much. He and I have come to uneasy terms and, since he jacked her around so much, this took awhile but because of his shit, I grew up bein’ the man of the family. This started when I was seven. I did not learn to be the man I am from my Dad. The man I am is ingrained in me, starting at seven.”

I wasn’t sure I understood what he was saying but I was sure I thought it was fascinating and furthermore, I very much liked lying pressed close to him in my bed with his arm tight around me while he told me stories of his life.

“Okay,” I whispered again when he didn’t go on.

“What I’m sayin’ is, you do not fuck with a woman that means somethin’ to me. And when I say that, I mean, you do not fuck with a woman that means somethin’ to me.”

Oh my.

I got it.

“You wanted to hurt Damian,” I said quietly.

“Hurt? Yeah. In a way he’d feel that pain every fuckin’ day for the rest of his motherfuckin’ life. In a way he’d never forget me. In a way he’d never forget the lesson I taught him. And in a way he’d think about you and instead of you giving precious headspace to wishin’ you never met him, his headspace would be filled with wishin’ he’d never fucked with you.”

Before my mind told me to do it, my body pressed closer to his. But if my body asked my mind, my mind wouldn’t have argued.

I slid my hand up his hard chest, along his corded neck to come to rest on his stubbled jaw.

Then, looking deep into his eyes, I admitted, “I don’t have words.”

His arm got tighter and his face tilted on the pillow to get closer before he whispered,

“Tess, I learned somethin’ early about you. You are the only woman I know who doesn’t need words. Everything you do speaks for you and it never lies. Just your hand on me, babe, said it all.”

He held my eyes and I held my breath because he said that like he liked it, not a little, a whole bunch.

I nodded. His face got soft. Then it dipped to mine where he touched my mouth with his.

When he pulled back, he murmured, “Hit your light, darlin’.”

I nodded again, took my hand away and rolled. I turned out the light then curled on my side, pulled the covers over my shoulder, shoved my hands under my cheek and called,

“’Night, honey.”

Half a second later, I found my body hauled across the bed, my ass in the curve of his hips, his knees cocked into mine, his front pressed to my back, his arm tight around my belly and his lips at my hair.

Only then did he murmur, “’Night, Tess.”

Brock Lucas spooned.

I fell asleep smiling.

The soft strains of Fiona Apple’s “I Know” forced my eyes open to the early morning light. I listened to her contralto, her piano, the soft strum off a bass and the slow gentle beat of a drum for a few long moments before the volume started to increase. Then I got up on a forearm, reached out and hit the button that would freeze the volume like I usually did so I could listen to my music in the mornings.

Then, when I reached for the covers to shove them off, my body moved backwards across the bed and hit something very, very solid and very, very warm.

Oh man.

How could I forget?

Brock was there.

And boy was he there, his hard, heated body behind me, his strong arm around me; I felt his lips at the skin of my neck.

“Honey,” I whispered, those lips trailed up then I felt teeth nip my earlobe.

A shiver slid through me.

Then, a rough, sleepy, deep, “’Mornin’, baby.”

Oh my.

His lips slid to behind my ear as his hand at my belly slid up my ribs and I held my breath until his hand stopped. I let out my breath then held it again when the backs of his knuckles started stroking feather light at the bottom swell of my breast.

Oh my.

I pressed back into him as he pushed into me and his tongue touched the skin behind my ear at the same time his thumb disengaged from his knuckles and swiped my breast just under my nipple.

At that, a throb pulsed through me.

“Brock,” I breathed.

“Unless you got an early mornin’ emergency cake to bake, sweetness,” he growled in my ear, “our earlier activities are scheduled to recommence right about now.”

“The White House tends to give me plenty of advance warning,” I quipped breathily.

“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Brock muttered, rolled me to face him, his hand went in my hair, twisted gently and tugged back but he didn’t have to do that. My arm was winding around him and my head was dipping back so he could have my mouth.

And he took it.

Brock had not lied with what he said in my kitchen when he came back. The first time he made love to me had not been planned. It wasn’t a seduction. It started as usual, we were just messing around but, before that night, he’d always kept it under control. It had usually been about me, him exploring me or him helping me to get off. But something happened and, even as much as I thought about it, to that day, I had no idea what it was but whatever it was, it snapped his control and he picked me up from the couch, carried me to the bedroom and off we went.

This was different from all of that except the last.

Because Brock didn’t have a plan. Brock wasn’t protecting me from exposing myself, giving too much to a man whose name I did not know. There was no reason for Brock to control the situation, his reaction or mine.

So he didn’t.

And even bigger than that night when his control snapped, now he didn’t need it, with one touch of our tongues, lying in my bed in the weak, early morning light of dawn, it exploded.

And even better than any other time, this wasn’t about him exploring me and helping me to get off. This was about us exploring each other.

And for the first time ever, I was free to give as good as I got.

So I fucking did.

It was wild, it was heated, it was energetic, there was a lot of rolling, groping, tongues, teeth, fingers, moans, groans, whimpers, sighs and gasps as he took, I took, he gave and I gave.

And it was when I was giving, crouched low between his cocked legs, my mouth taking him deep when he knifed up, his hands came under my armpits, he hauled me between his legs up his body at the same time he rolled me to my back. I wound my arms around his shoulders as I opened my legs and his hips fell through.