Читать книгу Breaking Through - AM Hartnett - Страница 8

She left Simon parked on the street just a few houses down from the one she and Juliet rented and walked through the kitchen door right on time.

The commute had been an easy one: a straight line off the bridge and then a right-hand turn. They made it in about ten minutes, while Miranda was still buzzing from her orgasm.

Her sister was already dressed for the evening in one of the many timeless creations she crammed in her closet. Tonight it was a polka-dot dress with a pleated skirt that looked like it belonged on Lucille Ball, paired with black boots that laced up to her ankle. Her make-up was, as usual, enviable compared to the basics Miranda put on to go to her job: bronze and bold and making her blue eyes look like jewels in the sand.

‘I’ve been dying to know all night what the deal was with that text,’ Juliet said from the kitchen table, where the contents of her enormous handbag were strewn.

‘I got a ride with someone from work I didn’t know very well,’ Miranda lied as she hung her own bag on the hook by the door and draped the damp jacket over it. ‘He asked if I wanted to grab a coffee first and he had a kind of serial-killer vibe to him, so I wanted to be sure.’

‘Hot serial killer like Dexter or –’

‘More like the kind who sits alone in his Mom’s basement.’

Juliet laughed and unscrewed a jar of perfumed lotion, something homemade she’d gotten off of Etsy. Ever since Miranda started to sell her drawings on the site, Juliet had become a raging addict. If she needed something – clothes, make-up, jewellery or a new iPhone case – she went right to the site. While Miranda’s canvas was watercolour paper, Juliet’s was her own body.

‘Is someone picking you up?’

‘I’m meeting Giselle down at Starbucks. I need a caffeine and sugar fix before I go.’ Having daubed her pulse-points with jasmine, Juliet swept her arm across the table and loaded her massive purse once more. ‘I’ll be back before the sun comes up this time, I promise. I’ll bring you breakfast.’

‘I’ll pass,’ Miranda said, remembering the last time Juliet brought her breakfast of a soggy meatball sub.

‘Then you can make me breakfast when I roll in,’ Juliet teased, and for the first time since Miranda entered she looked at her younger sister. ‘Jesus, your make-up. You really ought to switch to waterproof.’

As Juliet pulled her into a hug, Miranda made a mental note to check her face in the mirror before letting Simon into the house.

‘Do me a favour and don’t drink too much,’ she entreated Juliet.

‘No promises.’

‘And please don’t put anything up your nose tonight.’

‘No promises.’

Miranda bit her tongue as Juliet swept out. She didn’t have it in her to be too hard on Juliet about her vices, especially not tonight when Miranda was about to bring a man into the house for near-anonymous sex.

She darted up to her bedroom, to the window overlooking the street, and watched her sister run effortlessly down the street in those heels, then turned on the bedside light and drew the curtains.

She went down the hall and checked on Eddie. Out like a light, just like she’d hoped. On her way home, she’d fostered the fear that he’d still be sick and finicky, but the toddler-sized lump in the middle of the crib reassured her.

She did a quick make-up check, then sent a text to the number she’d punched into her phone on the ride over.

By the time she made it back downstairs there was a gentle knocking at the door. She didn’t even think about the mess in the living room, with toys stuffed into couch cushions and empty soda bottles on end tables. As soon as she opened the door and saw him standing there, filling the doorway, she could only think of how he would look sprawled across her bed.

‘Should I have brought the poncho?’

Miranda stepped aside to let him in. ‘Don’t need it. I’ve got protection.’

As she closed the door and leaned against it, Simon shimmied off his trench and draped it over the back of the rocker. He took a sweeping look around before turning his attention to her.

‘You did the paintings on the walls?’

‘That depends. Do you like them?’

‘I do. They’re simple, but they take you places.’ He strode in front of the sofa and gestured to the painting above it. It was Juliet’s favourite, a grey birch forest with a tiny spot of colour in the branches where a fat bird, a cardinal, rested. ‘And they sell pretty well?’

‘I’m not making a living yet, but I’m not starving. They usually end up in nurseries or kids’ rooms, which is kind of ironic since I started doing this type of thing when Des was pregnant.’

He pointed to another painting, this one above the credenza. ‘And this is her?’

‘That’s Des.’

She pushed away from the door but kept her hands behind her, twisting her fingers together as he gazed at the portrait of her sister. She wanted to hook him by the tie he’d now loosened and draw him up the stairs to her bedroom, but couldn’t bring herself to do so at such a moment, when he was showing reverence not only to her craft but also to the subject.

‘Des,’ he said thoughtfully, then laughed. ‘Desdemona. It has to be Desdemona.’

‘Well done,’ she said as she came up next to him.

He laughed and turned, pulling his tie off. ‘I was a little slow on the uptake, but I get it now. Juliet, Desdemona and Miranda. Shakespeare’s women.’

‘Yeah, that was my Mom. She had that old book for children and she loved it, even if she couldn’t stand to sit through even an hour of Shakespeare By The Sea. I always wonder what she would have called us if we had all come out boys.’

‘And the baby …’

‘Eddie. Not after Shakespeare, after my grandfather. The whimsy passed, thank God, otherwise some kid named Orlando would be getting his ass kicked on the playground in a few years.’

Simon laughed, a wonderful rolling sound that surrounded her like fog, and Miranda gravitated towards him.

‘You weren’t asking about his name, were you?’ she murmured as he swiped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

‘Does he sleep through the night yet?’

‘Yes, thank God, and he could sleep through a bomb. He might need me once or twice, but otherwise …’

With a low growl, Simon cupped her ass. He lifted her onto her toes and pushed forward, letting her know first-hand that he was as eager for her now as he had been in the car.

‘It was a bad idea to leave me stewing in my own juices out there,’ he teased her as he ground against her, the point of his cock pressing against her still-sensitive clit. ‘I mean, leaving me out there to think long and hard about what to do when I had you alone again.’

Miranda rocked in tune with him. The friction was perfect, absolutely perfect, even through the layers between them, and she was still sensitive enough that the pressure against her clit sent ticklish pulses through her pussy.

‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked, slipping her arms around his waist.

Simon bent low, evading the kiss she offered to brush his lips against her ear. ‘For starters, I want you to repay my chivalry by sucking my cock.’

Miranda groaned and melted in his arms as he chased the effect of his words along the slope of her neck.

‘That’s not a very gentlemanly thing to say.’

He chuckled as he lifted her onto her toes. ‘I’m only a gentleman when it gets me what I want.’

‘I knew it.’

Her giggle was stopped by his hard mouth on hers. His tongue pushed away every other thought, leaving only the feverish awareness of the extent of his desire for her. He gave her just a moment to drown in it, long enough for his hard body to tell hers that the game had changed and it was all his, before he released her.

‘Bedtime.’

Miranda blew out a puff of air, but it did nothing to ease the pressure in her lungs or cool her off. She pushed her hair off her hot neck and strode past him to collect the baby monitor on the coffee table. ‘Follow me.’

It had been almost a year since she brought a man home. When Eddie was first brought into the world as a screaming, red-faced thing that needed near-constant attention, she and Juliet had been forced to develop a schedule: on even days Juliet had full baby-duty while Miranda had her turn on odd days. Sundays were designated no-sex days. As Eddie got older and they moved from a cramped apartment into the house, he went into his own room and there was no need for a routine as long as there was a baby monitor for the odd times he would squawk awake.

Yet with Juliet going back to the band exclusively in the evenings and Miranda’s new job, Miranda’s social life – and her sex life – was limited to the occasional hook-up after brunch, and never at the house when the baby was up and on the move. Since moving into the house, she’d been on hiatus.

As if breaking her bedroom’s cherry wasn’t exciting enough, the thought of doing it with Simon made the ascent up the creaking stairs deliciously obscene.

She turned at the threshold of her room and offered him a saucy look. He kept coming, bullying her back into her bedroom, and closed the door behind him.

One quick look around as she set the baby monitor on the dresser seemed to satisfy him. One hot look in her direction pushed her down on the bed, hands flat on the bedding behind her. Neither spoke a word while he pulled off his blazer. As she removed her shorts for the second time that night, Miranda was rapt at the lightning-quick movements of his hands and fingers taking his uniform apart a piece at a time. Buttons were freed from their stranglehold and when he opened his shirt she scrunched the bedding into her fists at the unveiling of hair-speckled skin.

He wasn’t her usual type, that’s for sure. Like Juliet, she liked them scruffy and lean. Simon Reeve was no muscled Adonis, but he was definitely a step up from the skin-and-bones arts boys Miranda usually hooked up with. There was definition that hinted at a man who had been trimmer once, hard thighs that reminded her of a footballer’s, and shoulders that rolled on and on, but the thickness around his middle suggested he had either given up a rigid regimen or age had taken over.

Still, her type or not, he was a sight to behold, bristling with masculine aggression as he loomed over her. Slipping out of her shoes and letting them drop with twin thumps to the floor, Miranda started to scuttle back on the bed.

Simon caught her ankles and pulled her back into place. ‘Not so fast. I like you right here.’

‘I thought you wanted to lie back and enjoy,’ she teased, thrilling herself with the prospect of looking up at him, his head lolling on her pillow while she gorged herself on him.

‘I’ll admit, I’ve got a thing for being at a woman’s mercy, but for tonight anyway I’d rather have the balance shifted in my favour.’ He rubbed his hand along the protruding front of his jockeys and tugged her shirt with the other hand. ‘Your turn.’

‘You’re not done yet,’ she reminded him with a lilt in her voice, then reached out and gave his waistband a snap. ‘I haven’t had a good look at you either.’

He raised his arms and Miranda hooked the elastic in her thumbs. She wished she could have been as fluid as he had been undressing himself. Having to wrangle him out of those skin-tight shorts only frustrated her. She pressed her tongue against her teeth to suppress a growl as she tugged and pulled, then let it out as she freed him at last.

A few of her skinny lads had been well endowed, but they had none of Simon’s virility.

As she reached for him, he caught her wrists and held out her arms. ‘Take it off.’

Miranda shook free but raised her arms higher. ‘Take it off for me, if you want it so badly.’

He dragged the T-shirt up and wrangled her bra off. Before her clothes hit her bedroom floor, he pressed his knee on the bed and pushed forward, forcing her back. She nudged back at him, but just as he had done in the car he took charge as soon as he had her where he clearly wanted her. She wrapped her arms around his wonderfully broad shoulders and sank back as he made a hungry trail from the curve of her shoulder to her lips.

She turned her face away as he tried to capture her mouth, and the weight of his body crushed her as he pushed down against her rebellion.

‘Either fuck me or let me suck you,’ she growled, yanking his hair until he snapped up.

The demonic look he gave her matched the devilry that raged inside her. The cheap Swedish bed creaked as they warred against one another, until his strong thighs pushing hers apart made it impossible for her to gain any mobility. He ground down, his cock butting insistently against the thin membrane of her panties.

‘Where do you want me the most, your mouth or your pussy?’ he whispered, his voice all velvet and smoke.

She gave his hair another twist. ‘I want you in my mouth.’

He jerked his head out of her grip and pushed up onto his arms. ‘You make me come in your mouth and you’ll be in for a bit of a wait.’

‘Do I look worried?’ she teased as he rolled away from her. ‘You seem like the type of guy who could come up with list as long as my arm of ways to keep yourself occupied.’

‘You have no idea.’

She prompted him along the length of the bed, his mussed blond head squashed into her plush pink pillows. He threw his arms up, crossing his wrists over each other and spreading his legs out around her. His expression was as challenging as it was eager.

As she sank between his legs, Miranda gave him a smug look. ‘So how do you do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Make all the girls want to get on their knees and get their mouthful?’

He flashed her a Cheshire Cat smile and drummed his knuckles against her headboard. ‘Pucker up and maybe I’ll let you in on my secret.’

Miranda ran her hands from his ankles to his thighs and watched the hairs stand up in her wake. It thrilled her to see him sprawled across her bed, taking up so much space that she had only the nook between his legs. He was so out of place, so mountainous and masculine, and – she realised as she followed the trail of light hair from his chest to his abdomen – a little intimidating.

Feeling him pressing through his clothing had been one thing. Seeing him fully erect, cock dark and arching away from heavy balls, was another. Puckering up became as daunting as it was enticing.

Yet as she wrapped both hands around him, her mouth watered and she drew her tongue across her lips.

His cock instantly jumped between her palms. She glanced up at him. The amusement on his face had been replaced by nothing but pure and beautiful need.

She bowed and, just like he’d asked, she closed her lips around him and sucked the smooth crest into her mouth. The tang of precome hit her taste buds and filled her mouth as she took another inch. She took him slowly and quietly admonished herself for doubting that she could take him, as she sucked in the entire fleshy length.

Around her shoulders, Simon drew his knees up and made a shelter for her. He opened and closed his fingers against his palms, and his abs clenched, hinting at the definition they had once had.

For Miranda, sucking him became a treat, as he emitted desperate, throaty sounds. She quickly discovered just how to unlock them from the back of his throat: she dragged her tongue back and forth through the groove, then lashed him with it until his ass rose off of the bed.

‘Hey,’ he said, so softly she would have missed it if he hadn’t reached out and brushed her hair out of the way. She glanced up at him, meeting his gaze as his hand came to rest on the back of her neck. ‘Why don’t you get your panties off and come on up here?’

She rose to her knees and pulled off her panties. ‘You just want everything your way, which is everything at once.’

‘And you’re just being selfish,’ he countered, his gaze dropping from her swollen mouth to the slick flesh she revealed. ‘You’ve had a good look and you got your mouthful. It’s my turn again.’

The bed bounced beneath her as she wriggled her way out of her drenched panties. Simon pushed up, but she slapped his hands away as he tried to take hold of her. His second attempt was more successful, and she gasped as he flipped her onto her back and knelt over her, his cock above her face, his head above her thighs. He pushed her thighs apart, and then came the soft point of his tongue.

For a moment she could do nothing but hold onto his hard thighs as he lapped her, dragging his tongue back and forth along her pussy. He had his way, spreading her slick lips apart and sucking her hungrily, until she could stand no more and bit his inner thigh.

He might have laughed or he might have growled. Miranda wasn’t sure, but whatever it was that had spurred that ambiguous sound, his next move was to reach between their bodies and guide his cock back to her mouth.

‘Keep sucking me,’ he said, and as she filled her mouth he did the same.

Fingers caressed and tickled, pinched and tugged, and delved into the wet shelter of her cunt. Wherever they went, his tongue followed, and Miranda could only moan around the heavy column between her lips. She rocked her head back and forth against the bedding beneath her, gorging herself on the first few inches as hungrily as he devoured her, until the hunger spread. As he buried his face between her thighs and flicked his tongue in and out of her pussy, Miranda craved more. She raised her head, inviting him deeper into her throat.

As he gently fucked in and out of her mouth, she longed for more. She didn’t know how he could stand to be so patient. She never wanted to be rid of the sensation of him so hot and alive over her tongue. She wanted to lock her ankles around his thick neck and never let him out again, to move in this perfect harmony until pleasure and exhaustion took them.

Becoming crazed beneath him, Miranda worked her lips around the thick circumference like he was a Popsicle. She felt the effects in her mouth, the insistent throb in the veins between her puckered lips, and yet he maintained this torturous pace even as she tucked her hand between them and jerked the fat length.

His focus was entirely on his slow and feather-light exploration, and it was quickly driving her crazy.

With a gurgle, Miranda lifted her entire body. She couldn’t take any more. He didn’t resist her, but the look he gave her as he rose to his knees, glistening cock in hand, was infuriatingly victorious.

She could have bared her teeth at him and pushed him down, bitten the tantalising curve of his shoulder as she mounted him. She cursed necessity as she reached into her nightstand and pulled out a condom.

Simon crooked an eyebrow as he surveyed the contents of the open drawer.

‘That’s an impressive buy,’ he said of her rabbit vibrator.

She tore into the condom with what she was sure was a maniacal grin. ‘Best hundred bucks I ever spent. There’s a reason I’m not worried about waking the baby up: I know from experience how little sound carries in this place.’

‘Wait,’ he said as she went to unroll the condom over his dick. He resumed his earlier pose, dominating her bed. ‘I want to watch you get crazy while you ride me.’

She rolled the condom down his dick with a snap. ‘You’re pretty sure of yourself.’

‘I have no reason not to be.’

That arrogance stuck her like a pin, but she had to admit she found it a turn-on. His expression didn’t change. He knew what he had done to her with that smug tone, and if he relished the thought of proving himself any more, he would have licked his lips and rubbed his hands together.

Miranda wasted no time. She straddled him, settling on either side of his hips, and held onto his forearms as he reached between them and poised his cock at the entrance of the slippery home he had made.

One tilt of his hips and he stretched her open, and once he laid hands on her hips and urged her down she was corked.

He was a big boy, no question about that, but she was more than ready for him. Placing her hands over his, Miranda eased down slowly and bit her lip as the fat tip neared the sweet spot he had been playing with earlier. She could have screamed when he clamped down and kept her suspended, and she bucked to no avail.

‘Easy,’ he whispered with a hint of laughter. ‘I only get to do this for the first time once, and I want to enjoy it.’

‘Cut the sentimental bullshit,’ she growled at him, and squeezed her cunt around him.

The sudden choking at the back of his throat was a small victory, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

He shook his head and moved his hips in maddeningly shallow thrusts. ‘Sentiment’s got nothing to do with it: you’re as sweet and tight as I thought you were while I was playing with you, and I want to enjoy this for a few seconds.’

Miranda arched her back, but it did little to put him off his stroke. She tried another tack, running her hands from his forearms to his elbows and giving him a pout.

‘Fuck me, baby,’ she coaxed him with a purr.

It was a tactic she knew worked. She had learned it from Des during their brief foray into the bar scene. That innocent look and nibble had earned her free drinks every time.

Simon saw right through it. Laughter exploded from him and he held tight. ‘That doesn’t work on a pro bullshitter like me.’

‘Sure it does.’ She hung her head, letting the waves of hair fall over her chest as she ran her hands across his hairy forearms. ‘I know what you were thinking in that car. You were thinking how much you just want to bury your cock in my pussy, and you knew how bad I wanted it. You know how bad I still want it. Do it.’

She dug her nails in and leaned forward. She could see his resolve breaking down. That hungry look was back, becoming more ravenous with each passing moment, and his thrusts went deeper.

‘Make me go crazy,’ she went on, and he allowed her to lean further forward. Holding his gaze, she moaned as she rolled her hips, fucking only the tip of his cock, then looked down upon him. ‘Drive me out of my fucking mind.’

‘You’re a tricky girl,’ he murmured, and his grip loosened and moved to her ass as she sank down.

She moaned again. This time it wasn’t for show. Every inch spread her open, and as she took almost all of him he squeezed down, spreading her open as he pushed up the rest of the way.

He crushed his head back into the pillow as she rose, then let out a groan as she began to rock in search of that magnificent friction his fingers had found so easily earlier.

‘You’re so fucking sexy,’ he muttered, baring his teeth at her. ‘You were wrong. I was bullshitting you. That first look you gave me tonight when I asked if you wanted a ride, I wanted this.’

‘What happened to your chivalry?’ she asked as she ran her hands along his arms and clasped his wrists.

‘Like I said, my chivalry only lasts until I get what I want.’

He pushed up, and Miranda used her grip on him to build that charge with him. For a few frustrating moments he filled her with steady strokes. She wanted more. She wanted the sharp sting that could only come from the urgent thrust of his hips. She wanted go to crazy, but she wanted him to go with her.

‘You like that, though, don’t you?’ he asked suddenly, and resumed his controlled hold on her. ‘It’s written all over your face. You like that now that we’re here, you get to show off how much you love being fucked.’

‘You won’t let me show off.’ She emphasised her point by trying to buck the authority he held over her body, but her efforts only seemed to amuse him. ‘You’re just a brat.’

He laughed as he pumped into her. ‘And you like that, too, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ she confessed giddily as he allowed her to bounce in time with him.

The temptation to just keep bantering with him remained on her tongue, but as he finally handed the reins over to her she found it hard to do anything but expel the pressure in quick moans that escalated as he shook one hand free of her grip and toyed with her clit.

Miranda held on and pushed up. She felt the strain in her arms and legs, but she didn’t care, not when her pleasure was intensified. It shook her whole body, and before she was able to escape the sudden swell, the bed rocked as the scoundrel beneath her surged up and drove hard and fast.

As soon as she got a feeble hold of her wits, the bed became a battleground. Looking down her body at him, she saw the war in his eyes.

She was his conquest and she knew she didn’t stand a chance, but she loved a good fight.

The harder he pushed up, the harder she pushed back, and as the frenzy built up and the sounds of pleasure exploded all around them, she became less confident about the bedroom at the end of the hall being isolated enough.

Still, she didn’t stop. He’d wanted her crazy, and in the hot rush of blood she gave in to the insanity.

Leaving one hand upon him to keep her balance, Miranda joined her fingers with his around her clit and pushed down.

She showed her weakness, her mounting pleasure, and Simon quickly exploited it with his greatest weapon: the aggravating swagger of his words.

‘There she is,’ he taunted her, his words shaking as they slammed together. ‘There’s that sexy pout you were trying to use on me. I’m putting that there now, aren’t I? How am I doing it? Talk to me, wildcat.’

As much as she longed to rage against him, she hung her head back and gave him what he wanted. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, your cock feels so good.’

‘I’ll bet it does,’ he went on, leaving her to rub her clit while he reached behind and took two handfuls of her ass. ‘I’ll bet this feels good too, doesn’t it?’

Her fingers worked the slippery flesh around her clit, unleashing a storm in her body that rumbled and raged. He kept talking, cooing at her in an almost mocking tone that robbed her of what self-control she had left. He thrust up one last time, unseating her completely, and Miranda was set ablaze.

Without the hand that moved from her ass to the small of her back, she would have crumbled. Ragdoll-like, she dug her nails into his wrists and relied on his strength to keep her from disappearing completely into the ecstatic void.

She deflated, then shuddered through the aftershocks of her orgasm. ‘Oh, you are very bad.’

Without a word in reply, he slipped his fingers down to where their bodies joined. Eyes closed, Miranda’s whole body lit up with the pleasure that spread through every molecule.

‘A very, very bad man,’ she sang, then looked down on him. ‘Still hard, too. You didn’t come?’

‘Not my time. I told you, I wanted to watch you go crazy.’ He left her impaled upon his cock and slid his sticky fingers along her ribs. ‘I could have watched that all night. You’re quite the porn star.’

She could have listened to him talk all night, but her body was coming back to life, keenly aware of just how hard and big he was, and how he’d effortlessly gotten her off twice while he still simmered with that glorious flush on his cheeks.

Leaning forward, she ran her hands across the expanse of his chest as he toyed with her, tugging and pinching, his war still raging.

‘I’m feeling chivalrous,’ she told him. ‘What can I do to repay you for all the good you’ve done for me tonight?’

Try as she might, she couldn’t restrain a smile, and Simon sniggered as she stroked her thumbnail across his nipple until it rose.

‘Whatever you want.’

She pushed forward. Simon splayed his hands across her breasts and barred her from dominating him like she planned, but she still had one hell of a thing in her arsenal: she still had him buried inside.

She shunted her hips back and forth, riding just the first few inches, and celebrated the pleasure that wiped his smirk clean away.

‘What I want is you on top,’ she whispered, mesmerised by the fight in his body and how it was reflected in his face. ‘I don’t want to watch you go crazy, baby, I want to feel it for days afterward.’

She pinned him down with her body, rendering him captive in that tight sheath. Simon arced up, fingertips bruising as he rolled his eyes upwards, then sat up with a growl.

‘You have no idea what you’re asking,’ he said, wrapping her as close as possible before rolling her over.

It was such a swift and simple movement but it turned the tables completely: his thighs held hers apart and he barred her movements with his body both inside and out.

‘I don’t think your bed can take it,’ he teased, ‘but, fuck it, if I break it in half, I’ll buy you another one.’

He rose up on his hands and turned into this feral thing leering down upon her, a man changed by the advantage he had taken, and he watched her as he drew back his hips.

‘Open up for me, honey.’ The savage rasp of his voice didn’t match the sweet endearment.

She grasped his shoulders and spread herself further, pushing her feet into the mattress as he had done.

The war was over. He’d conquered, and now he was going to enjoy his willing spoils.

He bent low, and Miranda lifted her head to meet the kiss she thought he wanted, but instead he drove back into her. True to his word, Simon tested the limits of her cheap bed by riding her hard and fast, quickly reigniting the fire that had cooled after her climax.

Holding onto him was futile. Those thunderous, jarring thrusts drove her closer and closer to the edge of the bed. She threw her arms up and clawed at the bedding around her head until she yanked the fitted sheet clean off one corner.

‘Fuck … oh, fuck, you’re gorgeous,’ he growled. ‘I could come just watching you like this.’

His words zipped through her blood as he slowed the pace of his thrusts to lean down and suck her taut nipple into his mouth. The pleasure from being devoured clashed with the need to keep pushing back at him.

She swung her legs around his hips and pushed down on his ass with her heels, then yelped at the sharp pinch of his teeth as he bit down.

He jerked up, his expression immediately apologetic, and straightened up onto his knees. Miranda was barely able to hold onto the mattress as he dragged her forward. He collected her legs from behind him, spread her open and planted his hands on her knees as he resumed his pace.

‘It’s OK,’ she assured him, noticing how rattled he looked. ‘I’m tough. A little nibble won’t hurt me.’

He seemed to want to say something more, but instead he returned her grin and pushed her legs further apart.

As he picked up the pace, his gaze moved down her body and that hungry expression returned. He slid his hand down the ticklish plane of her inner thigh and gave her clit a wiggle with his thumb, then retreated with a laugh as Miranda protested she was too sensitive.

‘That’s all right. I’ll get my hands on your vibrator soon enough,’ he teased. He grunted as he gripped her knees, pushing and pulling her body in sync with the perfect cadence of his hips.

As he pumped her, his features took on what could only be described as a scheming expression. He was up to something, rocking his hips back and forth with almost mechanical precision, and with the tremor that skittered along her pussy and sent hot sparks racing through her abdomen he gave her a wicked grin.

He laughed, low and sinful. ‘I think I’m going to have you soaking the bed. I might not get invited back.’

‘It …’ she started, but couldn’t finish her thought. To tell him that it would never happen, that she’d never had an orgasm that way even when she’d tried with her vibrator, made her feel shy and inexperienced, and she wasn’t ready to give up her equal footing with him.

Though, as his thrusts became more forceful and the friction against her inner wall grew, Miranda’s body told her that she wouldn’t feel as inexperienced once he was done with her. Every time he went deep, every time he pulled almost all the way, that pulse building within her intensified.

‘Let me feel it,’ he went on coaxing, and stretched along her body until his mouth was close to hers. ‘Give it up for me, honey. Come on my cock.’

He skimmed his tongue across her bottom lip. Miranda surged up to meet him and he pushed her back down. He bruised her lips with his as he fucked in and out of her mouth, tongue matching cock in his total domination of her body.

Her grip on the bedding no longer sufficed. She longed to leave her mark on him, so she ran her hands over his ass and fell in love with the flexing muscle beneath her palms as he pumped her faster. She tried to push words out, some dirty phrase to spur him on, but every attempt caught at the back of her throat in a gurgle, and so she dug her nails into him.

Once more he jolted up with a hiss, but there was no apologetic look this time. He roughly turned her over.

She gasped as he mounted her from behind, and had to hold onto the edge of the mattress as he rode her. His strokes were still precise, but the angle of his cock turned her volcanic as the fat head bumped over that sweet spot, over and over.

Best of all was his firm grip on her hips, dragging her back and forth over his dick, and the hot slap of his belly against her ass and his balls against her humming clit. She was still so sensitive that the constant tap-tap-tap drew her clit from its shelter. If he kept it up, he’d make her come again this way.

‘That tongue’s not so sharp with a hot cock pounding you,’ he said as the hard ball in her throat shattered and the moans poured out. ‘I figured as much. You’ve got that look you had while I was getting you off in the car. I’ll bet you pick fights just for the fucking afterward.’

She couldn’t help but laugh through the fever. He was right. He was absolutely right, and she loved that he got her, and couldn’t wait to give him another chance to push her buttons.

The pace of his thrusts slowed. Miranda whimpered at the prospect of having to endure a bit of teasing when all she wanted to do was come, then her whole body rocked as he made a ponytail of her hair in his fist. With his tug, her spine curved and her ass rose.

‘Get my dick as wet as you got my fingers,’ he said as her thoughts went to hell.

There was only the intense pressure deep in her pussy, a static ball of pleasure and energy that just grew and grew as he kept driving into her until she went off. Somewhere in the fallout she heard him swear violently, but she couldn’t think beyond her climax.

There was the same ecstasy flooding her veins, but she felt it pouring out of her and leaving her slick as Simon rode her harder than ever. With it came the ecstatic surprise that he had done with his cock what she’d been unable to do even with a vibrator.

Fingers pushed into flesh at her hip and he tugged her head back, bringing pain in a universe of pleasure. He thrust hard one last time and his cock surged inside the hot nether mouth that sucked him.

Then he let her go. Miranda went down and he went with her, buried deep where they both still pulsed. Thick arms wrapped around her, holding her like a lifesaver and anchoring her.

‘Oh, hell,’ he gasped, and as Miranda melted into the mattress he buried his face between her shoulder blades.

* * *

‘Your bedroom is so organised it’s almost scary. Make-up, clothes, art supplies, all neatly arranged.’

If he hadn’t spoken, Miranda could have fallen asleep with Simon stroking from her ribs to her hip, his warm mouth moving across her shoulder.

She lifted her head and looked around her. ‘It helps me think to have everything in order. You’ve seen the rest of the house. If it’s not baby-proofed it’s baby-wrecked. What about your place?’

‘I live alone, and everything not still in storage came from Ikea. One day I’ll get motivated to put the rest of it together.’ He dropped another kiss closer to her ear where she was ticklish, and laughed at her shiver. ‘My walls are bare. How would you feel about a couple of commissions?’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Something big for my office, and a few smaller pieces for my bedroom. I have some old photos at home I could email you, and you can quote me a price.’

‘Don’t worry about the money. I already have the supplies, so, as long as you don’t mind yours taking longer than it normally does, I’ll do it for free, since you’ve been so nice to me.’

‘Oh, I’ve been very nice to you, but I don’t want it for free. Give me a discount for my incredible talents.’

Miranda rubbed her palm over his hairy forearm as he walked his fingers over her belly. After a moment, she buried her face into the pillow. ‘That’s never happened before.’

Rather than ask her to elaborate, Simon nipped her shoulder. ‘I figured as much. I made it a bit of a mission of mine tonight to get you squirting.’

With a moan, Miranda squashed her face into the stuffing. His laughter surrounded her as he pulled her closer.

‘Are you actually getting shy on me?’

‘Yes. You do that so well – not talking dirty, but just saying what you’re thinking.’

‘In all fairness, I can’t think of anything else to talk about except your pussy,’ he purred, and slipped a finger between her thighs. She loosened up, enough to let him tease his finger at her drenched opening.

For a moment she just enjoyed the invasion, and moaned softly as he went to the knuckle.

‘You can’t stay the night,’ she said quietly.

He withdrew. ‘I wasn’t inviting myself.’

‘I’m just saying. You have to be out by three-ish.’ She flopped onto her back and giggled at the sly look on his face. ‘What’s that for?’

‘It’s barely ten-thirty. I can’t tell whether that statement suggests you have certain expectations about the next four hours.’

‘Maybe I do.’

She wriggled and squirmed as he crawled on top of her. The kiss she offered him was stopped short by his grunt as she ran her hands over the sweet curve of his ass.

Before he could draw her hands away as he had before, Miranda flattened her palms against his chest and pushed him up.

‘OK, that’s the third time you’ve chased me away from your ass. Do you have a tail or something?’

He hovered over her and what seemed like a million excuses passed over his face before he resigned himself. ‘You might as well have a look.’

For a moment she worried that he truly did have a tail, but when he knelt on the bed and turned around she saw that it was much simpler. Three nasty bruises marred what was otherwise a lovely round ass.

She wondered how in the hell she had missed it when he’d climbed on top of her, but then supposed that with his cock in her mouth she probably would have missed a tail, too.

‘Jesus Christ, do you flog yourself after every orgasm?’

‘The flogging comes before the orgasm.’

Miranda reached out, but this time he didn’t push her away. Muscle went taut, dimpling his ass as she ran her hand across the bluish-brown marks.

‘Why am I not surprised that you’re into something that kinky?’

‘Given our short but sordid history, I’d be alarmed if you felt faint at the thought.’

She traced the outline of the mark, then pressed the outer edge. Simon flinched, but when she looked up at him his smile was back.

‘I’ve never done anything like that,’ she said.

‘Giving or receiving?’

‘Neither. Is that your thing? Being bossed around?’

‘I like all thirty-one flavours, so to speak.’

‘Fuck, I’ve only tried about five.’ She stretched, then squealed as he straddled her hips and pushed her arms down into the mattress. She made a half-hearted attempt to free herself, then resigned herself to being at his mercy at least for the next few minutes.

‘I have preferences. I like being spanked, but I can be just as turned on if I’m giving the right woman a red ass. The same with gender, I’ve been with both men and women, but I’d rather a woman under most circumstances.’ He dropped lower and with a purr teased her tongue with his, then spoke against her mouth. ‘I don’t feel particularly comfortable doing anything too intense with a baby under the same roof, but name the night and I’ll pick you up and take you to my place for a sampler.’

Her head swam at the thought of what might be on the plate for one of his samplers, but he didn’t give her much time to think about it. She groaned as he lowered his head and licked around her nipple, still sore from where he had bitten her.

‘I’m not interested in being squeezed into your busy schedule of sexual escapades,’ she said.

Laughter sputtered wet on her breast. ‘I don’t have a black book, if that’s what you’re suggesting. The blowjob was an impromptu thing, and as for getting my ass paddled, I paid for that.’

While not very surprised by his kink, the admission that he had paid for it startled Miranda. It must have shown on her face, because he laughed and righted himself over her again.

He looked shy all of a sudden, his expression turning so boyish so suddenly that she pressed her hand against his chest to comfort him.

But Simon shook it off. ‘When I’m stressed out I need to burn it off fast, so I just make a call and step out for a while and pay for whatever I feel like. It’s not as sleazy as it sounds, and I’m not just picking names out of the adult personals. I have, I guess you could say, a network. Earlier today I felt like having my ass painted red. It’s more exciting than golf and healthier than smoking.’

‘My eyes have been opened,’ she murmured as he released his grip on her and ran his hands down her arms, ‘though I find some good-old oral sex does the trick to burn off stress.’

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he reminded her as he cupped her tits and flicked his thumbnail over the crinkled tips. ‘Can I see you again?’

‘Sunday,’ she said, gasping over the last syllable as the sharp sting zipped through her.

He readjusted himself, scuttling down to her knees. ‘Sunday. You can come to my place.’

Negotiations stalled as Simon worshipped and Miranda squirmed with delight. He didn’t linger long, moving quickly over her ribs and past her abdomen. As he moved he realigned her body, pushing her knees up and apart and tucking his hands beneath her ass to lift her.

He nudged her clit from beneath its hood in light, flickering strokes around and around, until her head spun in the same churning whirlpool as her body. She dragged the pillow beneath her head, propping herself up so she could watch this wicked tongue-fuck.

‘I might need a breather if you keep it up,’ she murmured.

He gave her a hot look. ‘You have all day tomorrow to recover.’

After that hard ride, her body responded to such soft treatment. She melted into the mangled bedding, closing her eyes and drawing one deep breath after another as he licked her.

Just as she began to lose herself to the silky cadence of his tongue, the inevitable happened: the baby monitor crackled, and then came the cry.

She groaned, threw her hands over her face and peered through them at Simon as he rose up.

‘His timing sucks,’ she said.

‘After all the racket we were making, I’d say he’s pretty generous.’ He crawled next to her and gave her a nudge. ‘Go head. We’ll pick up where we left off when you came back.’

She thought about pointing out that by the time she returned she’d probably need to rev up from zero, depending on the condition of the diaper that awaited her, but she kept her mouth shut as she grabbed her robe from the back of the vanity chair and headed into the darkness, stopping at the bathroom to wash up along the way.

Eddie had pulled himself into a kneeling position and peered at her through the bars of his crib as she entered the room. Tufts of dark hair stuck out at the top of his head as he gnawed the edge of the crib. She didn’t turn on the light and didn’t lift him out, and wouldn’t unless she needed to. Instead, she greeted him with a singsong voice and tucked her hand into his pyjama bottoms.

‘Oh, Eds, your timing is the worst but at least you don’t have a loaded diaper,’ she told him, resigning herself to a wet one. He didn’t babble and he never lost his grumpy expression, a good sign that he’d drop back to sleep as soon as he was changed and back in his bed.

‘Do me a favour and sleep right until six, OK?’ she said to him as she lifted him up. He looked at her blankly, then rubbed his fists against his eyes.

A shadow flitted across the wall and startled her. She hopped to the door and peeked out just as Simon returned. She caught a whiff of the same hand soap she’d used.

He jumped back with a sheepish look. ‘Sorry, I had to hunt to find the bathroom.’

‘I probably should have included that in the tour,’ she said quietly, grateful he had put on his jockeys rather than running around with his dick hanging out, and followed his gaze to the child in her arms.

Eddie was wide awake now, his eyes saucer-like as he looked at the stranger dominating the entrance to his bedroom.

This wasn’t a meeting she had hoped to initiate tonight, but there she stood with a baby in her arms as the man she barely knew and had brought home for bed-shaking sex leaned against the doorjamb and bowed his head towards the kid.

‘So you’re the bugger who threw my groove out the window.’ Eddie strained against Miranda’s chest to get a better look at the intruder. Simon shook his finger. ‘I’m going to remember this in about twenty years and be looking for an opportunity for payback.’

Eddie grabbed the finger in front of him, and Miranda resisted the urge to pull it away as if he had gotten his hands on garbage. She wasn’t even remotely comfortable, yet she seemed to be the only one, as man and boy played tug-of-war.

‘I wouldn’t if I were –’ she began as Eddie joined his other hand with the first, but it was too late. Simon flinched as the baby twisted his finger, and she had to swallow her giggle as she remember how he had been so resilient when she had sunk her teeth into him.

‘I think the man of the house is trying to tell me the consequences of messing around with his aunt,’ he joked and finally freed his finger. The baby let out a wail and held his arms up.

Simon reached out, and though she wasn’t sure she should, Miranda allowed Simon to lift her nephew from her arms.

‘Don’t get him too worked up, unless you want to play all night long,’ she warned as he let Eddie sit on his forearm.

Simon leaned against the door and chuckled as every part of his face was subjected to a hands-on scrutiny.

‘You got any kids?’ she asked him.

‘What sort of vengeful God would let someone like me spawn?’ he said, though it seemed to Miranda that it was more to himself than in answer to her question. ‘I’m better off as immature Uncle Simon who gets the kids all worked up and then goes home. My sister hates my guts when I come to visit.’

‘I can see why.’

Finished with his inspection, Eddie twisted around to look at Miranda and swiped the back of his chubby hand across his eye. She reached out.

‘All right, time to get back in the crib before the tantrum starts.’

Eddie made a bit of a fuss as he was laid down, but he didn’t try to get up, and was silent as Miranda closed the door behind her.

Simon trailed her to the bathroom. As she washed up, she laughed nervously. ‘Just to be clear, this is a first. I never bring men home when I have baby-duty.’

‘The look of horror on your face when I showed up in the doorway pretty much told me that.’ He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned intimately close. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude, though.’

Miranda shrugged and began to dry. ‘It’s OK. At least you put your dick away.’

He looked down his body and laughed. ‘Well, I am a gentleman.’

‘Oh, yeah, you’re a real prince.’ She lifted her foot and nudged his calf with her toe. ‘Ready to go back?’

He gave her such a scoundrel of a look that she became ticklish, even more so when he tugged the belt of her robe. ‘Pick up where we left off?’

He dragged her down the hall and she hit the light on the way. As soon as the bedroom door closed behind her, Simon whisked the belt open and pushed the robe off.

Hands firm on her neck, he drew her closer and pressed his cheek close to hers. ‘Lie back and show me where you want my tongue.’

Such an explicit request rattled a moan from deep in her gut. She curled her toes into the carpet and leaned into his body.

‘A very, very bad man,’ she said on a sigh.

He gave her a gentle push. She lay back on the bed as she had when they first closed themselves in her bedroom but, instead of unleashing his cock as she had done before, she propped herself up on her elbows and drew her legs apart, and Simon fell to his knees.

‘Here,’ she said, her voice coming thick from the back of her throat as she rubbed her middle finger around her clit. ‘I want your tongue right here.’

Simon skimmed his tongue across his upper lip, and his lids seemed to become too heavy to keep open. His lashes fluttered as his fingers followed his gaze to her moist sex. He evaded her clit, instead crooking his finger into her pussy.

‘Not here?’

‘I want your cock there,’ she said in a sigh, and lifted her hips as he added a second finger. ‘Later. After …’

She slipped her fingers through his hair and made a fist as he lowered his head.

Just as he had before they had been interrupted, Simon used his silky tongue to taste, swiping only the tip in a crescent and coaxing her clit to swell. Miranda remained still as long as she could, but once the flat surface of his tongue began to lap through her pussy lips she began to writhe.

There was something so rich about having him between her thighs this time. In the car there had been urgency, and once in her bedroom there had been bravado. Now there was just the hush and the rhythm, her heartbeat drumming out a melody in tune with the motion of his tongue licking her. She couldn’t help but join it and rock against his greedy mouth.

She kept up that perfect momentum by pushing with her feet and bouncing her ass against the bedding, until he withdrew his probing finger and pressed down on the insides of her thighs. The growl that came from him vibrated against her clit. Though she stared at the ceiling, she felt his intense gaze upon her as he sealed his mouth around her pussy and started to suck her.

How he endured the desperate way she twisted his hair in her fingers was something she wondered only fleetingly as she climaxed. The rapture came out of nowhere, exploding through the swirling red mist created by the hot suction of his mouth, and wrapped her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

Her mind was still lost and fumbling through the fog when she became aware of him rising up over her. Shapes formed as the splotches before her eyes faded: Simon had lost his jockeys and unfurled a new condom down his dick, and he reached beneath her ass and lifted her.

‘Oh’ was all she could say as he pulled her onto his lap and quickly guided his cockhead to her slick passage.

She wrapped her hands around his neck and slid along that rock-hard shaft. With every inch she became more lucid, and by the time he pushed her ass up Miranda was ready for him. She slipped her hands back into his hair, this time in the fluff at the back, and grinned at him as she began to push against the mattress to bounce over him.

‘Do you have any idea how dirty I feel right now?’ she said in the face of the expectation that was written all over him.

He groaned. ‘I was wondering how long it would take before it set in that you’re not the good girl you think you are.’

‘I never said I was a good girl,’ she countered, shunting over the thick head that plugged her, ‘but there’s something about you that makes me feel incredibly naughty.’

‘That’s because I’m a very bad man and a terrible influence.’ He said with a breathless rasp. ‘I’m not your type. I should leave, but if I do that I’ll drive myself crazy wondering how good to me you can be.’

‘Maybe, but you’re my bad influence right now,’ she murmured, and pressed her lips close to his ear. ‘So big and hard for me, and I’m so wet. How’s that for good to you?’

He clamped down and dug his fingers into the spheres of her ass. She realised she’d rendered him speechless with her body and her words. In moments he had gone from that grinning fiend to this grunting, rutting beast. He rolled her onto her back, keeping hold of her ass as he pumped her.

As the force of his body driving into hers became frenzied she remembered those marks on his ass and closed her fist in his hair. The harder he thrust against her, the harder she twisted.

Miranda egged him on, a filthy cheerleader chanting words into his head. With his grip keeping her down, his upper body crushing her, her voice and her hold on him were the only weapons left in her arsenal, and she made him bleed.

‘You gonna come in my tight pussy again?’ she hissed into his ear, and set him off like a bomb.

He curled his fingers into the flesh and spread her open as he pounded into her and lost the rhythm of his thrusts. He dragged her into the chaos with him, and once more Miranda was left breathless as he pushed the air out of her lungs with every thrust.

She held onto him, lungs burning from want of breath, as Simon became an engine running out of gas, then deflated completely and flopped away from her.

‘Jesus’ was all he said, his gaze vacant as he looked up at the light fixtures above their heads.

Miranda squirmed next to him and slung her arm over his sweat-dappled chest. Her head fizzed, but at least she could see straight. Simon rolled his eyes and blinked, and after a moment he gave himself a shake.

He turned his head to her and gave her a goofy grin. ‘So much for my plan to pace myself.’

‘Really? That was your plan?’

‘It was, and usually I’m pretty good at it, but as soon as you started with the dirty talk I couldn’t help myself.’

He sucked in a deep breath, and as his broad chest lifted Miranda couldn’t resist running a flat palm across the expanse. His heart still thumped and his breathing was still erratic, but otherwise he looked absolutely spent. He groaned when he tried to roll over, and cursed as he tried again.

‘I know I talked big, but I don’t think I’m going to have it in me for another round,’ he told her.

Miranda shook her head. ‘Me, too. Or, three. It was three, right?’

He reached out and gave her hip a pinch. ‘Four, thank you very much.’

‘Oh, no, thank you, Mr Reeve,’ she tittered as he pulled her close.

For a moment they only breathed together, her hand splayed on his chest and his on her waist. It was nice, and for a moment Miranda entertained the idea of just closing her eyes and letting him stay there with her throughout the night.

Simon quirked a brow, and Miranda’s stomach flopped as though he had read her thoughts and decided that now was the time to bolt.

‘You don’t watch the news much, do you?’

‘Why? Are you a serial killer?’

‘No, but …’ He struggled up onto his elbow and seemed to be struggling for words. ‘I was all over it about a year ago. Do you remember the Connell Davis scandal?’