Taking the Lead(39)

I had a sip myself, and yes, it was ridiculously rich and decadent. No wonder she'd given me that look; this was not Swiss Miss. 

When she opened her eyes I took her mug, poured from mine until hers was all the way full, and then gave it back to her.

"Chivalry is not dead," she joked, but she took it and gulped gratefully.

"Maybe I just decided it's in my best interests not to get between you and your chocolate," I said.

"Hm. You're smarter than you look." She tipped the mug back, taking it in silky swallows. When she was done, she had a rim of chocolate along her top lip.

"There's plenty for me right here," I said, and pulled her gently toward me until I could lick her mouth and kiss her clean. Which I did, with slow and luxurious sweeps of my tongue.

She leaned her forehead against me. "You said you could be good."

"Wasn't that good?"

"Axel. Seriously."

"Okay, seriously. If you want me to be hands off tonight, I will. It'll just take more willpower to resist you if you're covered in chocolate."

"I am not covered in chocolate!"

"Not anymore."

She actually made a little fist and thumped me on the shoulder with it, then said, "You're incorrigible."

"Yep. I'm only corrigible when it's really necessary," I said, trying not to grin too widely. "That's why you like me."

She sat back and noticed I hadn't finished what was in my mug. I handed it to her without a word. As she took it, though, she said, "That might be true."

"What might be true?"

"That I like you because you're not  … "

"Corrigible? I think I made that word up."

"No, silly." Her smile was worth millions. I was glad she seemed happier now than when I'd first walked in, and I hoped at least a little of that was me and not chocolate. "You're not like other men. You're neither bossing me around nor deferential."

"I save that for the bedroom," I said seriously. "I'm not your boss."

"You're one of the only people I can think of, besides Gwen, who'll make a joke around me," she said.

"Now you know why kings and queens had to hire jesters."

"Why?"

"Because no one else would dare crack a joke around them."

"Hm." She went quiet then, thinking about that.

I didn't want her to become too broody or moody if I could help it. "So anyway, Your Highness, you tell me if I'm supposed to behave tonight."

She glanced around the kitchen. "Let's go into my wing to talk further."

She put the dirty dishes into the sink and led me to her door, the one I remembered from before with the security keypad.

Ricki's wing of the mansion alone was larger than the largest house I'd ever lived in. I wasn't sure exactly how many rooms there were, but there were six or seven doors leading onto the central hallway that I could easily see. She had a bedroom, a small office, a guest bedroom, a media room, and a couple of rooms I guess you'd call parlors? In a regular house I might have said one was the living room and one the den, but this wasn't a regular house.

She took me into the media room, where music was playing quietly-a soundtrack album I didn't recognize-and the couches were dark leather. I could see a copy of TTT on the coffee table.

"I read the article," I said, as I reflexively pulled her into my arms from behind. My palms wrapped around her stomach and I took a deep breath with my nose in her hair. Oh, that shampoo. I had a sudden flashback to her bathroom. The scent of orange blossoms was going to be an aphrodisiac to me forever, now.



       
         
       
        

"Then you know why I'm hiding."

"Because you don't want to talk about painful family stuff with total strangers and co-workers? Understandable."

"I don't want to talk about it with anyone."

"You don't have to talk with me, either," I said, "unless you want to. But if you want me to behave myself-"

"You had better. I'm about to pop."

"Pop?" I wondered what that was a metaphor for.

"Literally. I'm about to get my period."

"Ohhhh. And I thought the chocolate was for the stress."

"Well, that, too, but when I'm about to get it, two things happen. One, my chocolate craving spikes, and two  … " She trailed off and I nuzzled her neck, waiting for her to continue.

When she didn't, I optimistically added, "Your sex craving spikes, too?"

"Well, yes, but that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say I go through moments when I want to kill everyone with a baseball bat."

"Mm-hm. That sounds like sex craving to me."

"Axel. Not everything is about sex."

"No, but I bet if we have sex, afterward you will not want to kill me with a baseball bat. And also the cramps will lessen."

"How do you know about my cramps?"

"Rick'." I ran my hands up and down her belly. "I can feel the tension." Plus I had a college housemate who was a raving lunatic in the forty-eight hours before her period, whose lunacy was greatly lessened by vigorous fucking. Or so I'd learned from experience. I didn't think this was a good moment to bring that up, though.

"I'm so not sexy when I'm like this, though," she said.

"Let me be the judge of how sexy you are. If you don't feel like having sex, that's one thing. If you think I shouldn't find you desirable just because you're having a normal biological thing, sorry, you don't dictate how I feel."

She pressed back against me. "But it's gross."

"What's gross? How bloated you feel?"

"No. I mean  …  it makes a mess."

"Oh, you mean if you get your period while we're at it?"

"Yeah."

My hands found the ridges of her hips. "Tsk. No one will see the bloodstains on these dark brown leather couches."

"Axel!"

"Seriously, Rick'. I don't know about other guys, but blood doesn't bother me. Not for fucking, anyway."

"I'm two days late," she moaned, but her hands were on top of mine now, and she was pressing them downward. 

I let one of them keep traveling until my fingertips had slipped under the waistband of her warmup pants and her panties. "Probably because you're stressed," I said. I had to bend my knees to get my hand all the way down between her legs. Her labia felt dry at first as I spread them with my fingers but then my middle finger found her wettest place. "Hm. Either you've got it now, or you're really happy to see me."

She cocked her hips, giving me more access. "I'm really happy to see you."

"Good." I slid her pants and panties down to her ankles with both hands. "Bend over. Hands on the arm of the couch."

I knelt down behind her so I could take a leisurely look at her hindquarters. Gorgeous ample asscheeks with the cutest little pucker between them. No wonder her family was so rich: she must shit gold it was so clean. The only thing that kept me from jamming my tongue into her asshole was the thought that she might refuse to kiss me later if I did. I settled for wetting the ends of my fingers well and good and teasing, slipping one in just up to the first knuckle. She tensed and then sighed, accepting the intrusion.

"Have you had much anal sex?" I asked.

"Only once," she said.

"Was it good?"

"If it was, don't you think I would've done it more than once?"

"Oh." I trailed my wet fingertip up and down over that sensitive pucker, watching her suck it in. "Wasn't done right, then."

"That's for sure."

"Tell me about it, Ms. Hamilton." I leaned on her name a little to be clear that it was a command, not a request, and pushed my fingertip into her ass again.

Ricki yielded to my force, both physically and mentally. "Yes, Mr. Hawke. It was a college boyfriend named Robin."

"Cock Robin?" I eased the finger in and out of her.

"You could say that. He was eager to stick it anywhere it could go, anyway. Including my ass. And my roommate's."

"You had an anal three-way in college?" I asked, incredulous.

"No no, I mean, after he tried anal sex with me and it was a disaster, he started cheating on me with my own roommate. I came home a few days later to find him with his dick in her rear." I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

"That doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant experience."

"Especially since as I opened the door I could hear her shouting, 'wrong hole, you bastard, wrong hole!' "

I gave her my best scandalized-sounding "No!" I pulled free of her then and switched hands, massaging her pussy until her clit swelled against my middle finger.

"Yes. He claimed it was an accident, but you know, when you're doing doggie style? Putting it in the wrong hole?"

"What a loser."

"That was what we both thought at that point. We kicked him out with his balls blue."

"You forgave her?"

"He'd told her we had an open relationship."

"Tsk tsk tsk. A loser all around. Had he told you 'wrong hole' also?"

"No. I'd agreed to try anal  …  oh, this story is stupid."

I spanked her lightly, once, with my free hand. "It's not your job to judge the story. It's your job to tell the story, Scheherazade."