“That’s it,” he murmured encouragingly. “Get yourself off because I’m not coming in your throat. I’m coming all over your fucking gorgeous tits.”
My body trembled at his words, but I complied.
I wanted whatever he wanted.
“Faster,” he said. “Spread your legs. Your mouth feels so full, so fucking good on my dick.”
I built up the heat in my body as his thrusts came quicker.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his movements becoming more erratic.
I whimpered around his cock, my orgasm coiling inside me. It was barreling down on me, making my pulse speed. My movements around his dick turned frenetic from the impending rush that would flood my veins.
“Fucking hurry, Shannon.” He grunted, moved faster, and I put my hand back on his shaft to stop him from pushing too hard.
He slapped my hand away and glared down at me. “You’ll fucking take what I give you and you’ll love it, every single fucking time.”
The warning, the threat…the promise, was all I needed. I squeezed my eyes closed as he hit my throat at the same time I exploded beneath him. My knees hurt from the travertine-tiled floor, but it was all secondary to the pleasure that rolled through me, bright lights sparking behind my closed lids when he quickly pulled out of me.
I opened my eyes just in time to see his hard cock in front of me, and his cum splashed against my chest like he’d promised.
He braced himself with one hand on the wall next to us, his other wrapped around the length of him. He tugged harshly as he grunted his climax, shooting in long, thick spurts all over my wet and soapy breasts.
I waited until he was done and then my hands went to my chest. I washed it away while at the same time rubbing it into my skin, smiling when I realized what I was doing.
“Fucking hell,” he said, his voice harsh and dry. “I don’t think I’ve ever had someone suck my dick like you do.”
It was meant as a compliment as he reached down and helped me to my feet before quickly brushing his lips against mine.
I tried to take it that way. I still turned and put my back to the shower, not wanting him to know how it hurt me. The reminder of the women he used for sex, that I was here, at his crash pad and not his home, where we’d just fucked like rabbits for hours and slept very little.
His hands slid to the front of my stomach and he pulled me against him. His lips glided down the side of my throat as I cleaned myself, keeping my eyes closed.
“I feel like you took that the wrong way, or it came out the wrong way. I just meant that I liked it. Fucking loved it. Will be something I always remember.”
At least that was a bonus. When I was gone, when we were done, he’d remember my lips around his dick.
“I should get going,” I said, stepping out of the water and practically jumping out of his grasp.
“You’re hurt, and I’m not sure what I did to do that.”
I didn’t know either. Maybe because this simply wasn’t me. I was moving on from Patrick. I wasn’t willing to get lost in someone like that again, someone whose very presence made everyone want to put their own desires to the side and give them whatever they needed or wanted.
I could see it happening, from the way I responded to his commands to the way I’d thought about him all week.
Perhaps I wasn’t cut out for this after all. It wasn’t my heart I was worried about, it was my own passions, my own desires and dreams. I was suddenly terrified that spending time around Oliver would make me get all wrapped up in him and his desires and that mine would get pushed to the aside.
Again.
This was supposed to be my hour, my time to finally throw myself into everything I’d always wanted. Getting lost in Oliver Powell and his magic cock with his wicked words had the power to throw it all off-kilter if I let it.
“I’ll let you shower,” I mumbled and stepped from the steamy, enclosed space before he could stop me.
“You leave before I get out and I’ll tan your ass,” he said over the din of the water falling. “Not fucking kidding, Shannon.”
I wasn’t planning on it. I was afraid, but I wasn’t a coward. I didn’t enjoy running from something difficult, even though I’d done that too. Sure, I missed Beaux and wanted to be close to family, but at the epicenter of my decision to leave Des Moines was the fact it was too hard to face the memories of Patrick and our life together.
I didn’t want to do it again, though, but it also didn’t mean I had to hop back into bed with the man either. I didn’t have to throw everything I wanted away just because he commanded it.
I was dressed and in the kitchen, drinking coffee and mixing him a protein shake when he walked in dressed in workout clothes, running shoes already strapped to his feet.
“Not trying to take care of you,” I said before he could snarl at me for the shake. “Old habits die hard.”
“Thank you. That was nice.” He took a sip and pulled the cup away from his mouth. “Would you like to explain what happened earlier?”
I shook my head. Nope. I didn’t. I still wasn’t certain myself. “I have to get to work. I’m swamped and everything’s happening so fast.”
I meant the business and the street fair and my own personal fear of failure, but I allowed Oliver to take it as between us.
“I see.” He drained the last of his shake and reached for his keys. “Am I taking you back to Beaux’s?”
“Stamped is closer. You can take me there.”
***
“If you think you’re the only person shaken from this attraction between us, you’d be wrong.” He spoke so quietly when he pulled in front of Stamped that I almost didn’t hear him.
The ride had been quiet and tense, neither of us speaking minus the directions I had to give him.
I’d had one hand on the door handle to make my quick escape, but when he dropped that bomb, I turned to him.
“Maybe you’re right to run,” he said and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Maybe it makes me a bigger prick than you think I am to make it so you can’t.”
“You consume everything, everyone around you. I don’t want to disappear in your shadow.” I looked at Stamped, the first thing to have potential to be all mine, the first thing in my life. “I’m just out of a five-year relationship. Rebounding maybe?” I shook my head. That wasn’t what this was turning into, at least for me, and I didn’t want to cheapen it. “I don’t know what I want right now.”
I didn’t miss the teasing tone in his voice. “I think you like when I consume you.”
I flashed him a look over my shoulder, part annoyed, part scared, equal parts amused. “You know what I mean.”
He pulled his eyes off me to the front door of Stamped. The windows were covered, but the metal sign out front had been hung before the game yesterday. It was polished and perfect, giving a sense of what was inside. And behind those covered windows, I was really freaking proud of what I’d done in a week.
“Maybe you’re right,” he finally muttered. “But I’d still like you to give me a tour of your place. Show me what you do.”
“Why?”
He gave me a shrug, looking as uncertain.
“Fine.” I dug my keys out from my purse and opened the door. “But no making fun of my stuff.”
The beauty of an online store was that I got to have my anonymity. No one bought anything from me because I was the sister of an NFL player. The downside was that I never saw anyone’s reactions when they bought my jewelry and fell in love with it. Were they as thrilled as they pretended in their thank you notes I received or were they just being polite?
Seeing Oliver walk through my small store as I opened the door and led him through made my pulse race in a way it hadn’t yet around him.
I’d always had Beaux’s support. It was what we did for each other. I’d made decent money in college selling to other college students. I made decent money now with my online-only store, in addition to making simple items in bulk and selling them to online boutique clothing stores like Modern Vintage.
Yet seeing Oliver Powell walk through my building, glancing through the display cases and running his fingertips along the edge of the glass like he was afraid to leave a smudge, created a lump in my stomach..
“You make all of this?” he asked, staring at some simple, thick bracelet cuffs. “How?”
I cleared my throat and walked to him, setting my purse near the register counter on my way. “In the back. I have a workroom where I design and make everything.”
“Show me.”
I looked at the clock on the far wall. That space was personal. And a disastrous mess. Letting Oliver into that sacred space of mine would show him more of me than I wanted to reveal.
I didn’t answer. I stared at the door that led to the workroom and private restroom. That lump in my stomach grew larger.
“Shannon?” Oliver asked. “Can I see it?”
It was a tipping point to something I didn’t fully understand. I would essentially be baring myself to him, not my body, but my soul and all my innermost desires…if he could see it through the chaotic mess I lived in.
He walked toward me, his presence growing larger and heavier until he was next to me. From the corner of my eyes I could only see his profile, the way lines popped and appeared at the outer corners of his eyes when he ran a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly.