Chapter Sixteen

Anything? A very tempting invitation delivered by a man on his knees, but even kneeling by the bed in a dark blue sweater and faded jeans, Trace was just too big, too dominant in size and appeal to confuse with a harmless temptation. Strangely, though, his reminder shook a little memory out of the general fog of last night. It rose to the surface of her mind like the message triangle floating to the window of a Magic 8-Ball. Except this message didn’t read, “Yes,” or “No,” or even, “Ask again later.” The message read, “Ask about shea.”

Into the phone, she said, “Key howled something kind of odd last night. Bridget told me to ask you about it.”

The playful quirk of Trace’s lips straightened. His eyes took on the sad, haunted cast she hadn’t seen in a while. Something in her chest grew tight as she waited for him to speak.

“He does that sometimes.”

“That’s exactly what Bridget said.” She hit disconnect on her phone and put it aside. Levering herself into a sitting position while keeping the blanket wrapped around her body, she went on. “Why does he howl for shea?”

Trace put his phone down as well but remained kneeling by the bed. “He howls for his owner. My brother, Shay Shanahan. Being a dog, he can only manage the first name.”

The tightness in her chest intensified. “Where is Shay?”

Trace dropped his forehead to the mattress and took a deep breath. “He’s dead. He passed away in November.”

“Oh, Trace. I’m so sorry.” People said time healed all wounds, but four months wasn’t a lot of healing time. Needing to offer comfort, not really knowing how, she smoothed a hand over his hair.

He caught her hand in his larger, rougher one, held onto it as if hers provided a source of strength as he lifted his head and gave her a weary smile that broke her heart. “Me too.”

Would it help to talk? So many questions flooded her mind.

First and foremost: How did he die? She thought back to their conversation about Captivity having no hospital, only a clinic. Had his brother fallen ill? Suffered an accident that required more medical attention than Captivity could provide?

More concerning, considering the past, no matter how tragic, couldn’t be changed, but the future certainly wasn’t etched in stone: Did his death have anything to do with your decision to sell your interest in the airfield?

Both those questions seemed too agonizing for the moment. She fumbled after something less fraught. “Was he older or younger?”

“Bridget’s age. They’re twins. Though he arrived first, and always insisted he was the middle child”—the corner of his mouth twitched—“but you’d never know it by his personality. Shay was not the peacekeeper. He was a fun-loving agitator, an attention-whore, and a massive pain in my ass half the time. He was good-looking and charming, which generally helped smooth over of the consequences of bone-deep impulsivity. He was unreliable, often irresponsible, and…” He broke off, looked at the wall, and took a shaky breath. “We loved him. Everyone loved him.”

Clasping his hand tight, she repeated, “I’m sorry,” and struggled with the inadequacy of the words. “I’ve never lost anyone close to me. I don’t know what to say.” Feeling that deficit keenly, she placed her other hand atop their joined hands. “Do you want to talk about this?”

He shook his head, then turned back to her with red-rimmed eyes and mustered up the sad smile. “Not really.”

“Okay.” Still bundled in the blanket, she eased into his arms. He caught her and held her close, buried his face in her hair. She held on, too, with her arms wrapped around his neck, and counted the slow, steady expansions of his chest as he breathed. When she reached thirty—one for each year of his life—she lifted her head to look at him. Concern for him and, okay, a tiny bit for her partnership prospects, prodded her to ask another question of him. “Can you tell me one last thing?”

“What’s that?”

“Well, let me start by reiterating that I don’t know a lot about dealing with a profound loss. I mean, I understand there are five stages of grief and other stuff the internet says, but I know experts recommend putting off any big life changes while grieving. Don’t move homes. Don’t change jobs. Don’t make any major financial decisions.” She leaned back and eyed him ironically. “Seems to me I’m here to facilitate a pretty major life change for you. Something that might involve all three no-no’s.”

“Something I’d been thinking about, on-and-off, for a while.”

That helped. Made things feel more stable, but still. “Can you promise me your decision to sell your interest in the airfield has nothing to do with your brother’s passing?”

Promise me you’re not doing something you’re going to regret when it comes time to ink the deal. Promise me my partnership chances aren’t staked on a sale that’s going to fall apart at the last minute when you suddenly realize you don’t want to compound one loss with another?

He cupped her face, looked her straight in the eyes, and gave her lips a soft, brief kiss. “Nothing. One has nothing to do with the other, except maybe to remind me life is short, and you shouldn’t put off the things you want to do until ‘someday.’ Do them now.”

Those serious eyes entranced her, like faceted sapphires, making it hard for her to follow every nuance of the conversation. “W-What do you want to do?”

He raked his fingers into her hair, held on, and kissed her again. Not softly. Not briefly. He dove into her, sank into her, pulled her under with him. And it was like drowning, tumultuous, and overwhelming and undeniably an escape—or a blind search for comfort. Comfort he needed, even if he wouldn’t have recognized the compulsion as anything other than the quest to satisfy a physical urge. Comfort she didn’t have it in her to withhold. She couldn’t give him the right words, or tell him the right direction to take, but she could give him this. Give them both this. Sliding her fingers up the back of his neck to thread into his hair, she parted her lips on a moan and gave.

And he took. Jesus, he took. With every stroke of his tongue, every nip of his teeth. His lips moved against hers, his beard brushed her skin. The thought of those lips moving against other parts of her—all parts of her—made her sweat. The thought of his beard brushing even more sensitive skin made her shiver.

Maybe he felt it, perhaps even misinterpreted it, because he raised his head and looked down at her. “Izzy?”

That was not a look of concern on his face. It was a wicked look, delivered with a cocked brow and a crooked smile. Her throat went dry, and she shivered again. Anticipation alone was making a wreck of her. “Yes?”

“Whatcha got on under that blanket?”

“Oh.” She glanced down at herself, enfolded in his bedding. “Nothing, actually.” Meeting his eyes, she elaborated, “Not a stitch.”

“I’m going to have to see that. I’m not phoning it in this time.”

No, he wasn’t. And neither was she. That decision had been made the moment she’d put herself in his arms, maybe even before then, and she was surprisingly unconflicted about it. Thinking he might expect her to make the move to take things to the next phase—the naked phase, and, really, the point of no return—she started to get to her feet, but instead, he took hold of her. The bedroom tilted around her. Somebody shrieked. Probably her. Then she landed on her back on his mattress. Before she could sit up, he grabbed a loose end of the blanket, yanked, and sent her spinning. She ended up face down on the bed, choking on a startled laugh, bare as the day she was born.

“Good God.” She raised her head and swept her hair out of her face. “I don’t think anybody’s ever gotten me naked quite so quick—”

“Don’t move.”

She stopped in the process of rolling over. “Don’t?”

“Yeah. Give me a minute to enjoy the view.” The mattress groaned as he sat beside her, fully clothed, playful grin in place. But his eyes? His eyes stayed on hers for a long moment—long enough for her skin to turn tight and prickle for his touch. Long enough for her to remember she’d had an orgasm in his bed last night, pretty much exactly where she lay now, with nothing more than his voice in her ear and her imagination working overtime as he delivered on an extremely unconventional scenario of her own suggestion. A flush warmed her face at the memory, then flamed to an uncomfortable burn as his grin turned up a notch. She wasn’t the only one remembering. And still he simply sat, watching her blush while the rest of her grew unbearably antsy. It was all she could do to lie still. When his focus slowly drifted down her body her groan of relief, or need, or apprehension—more things than she could name—sounded pitifully heartfelt.

Slightly mortified, she folded her arms and rested her overheated forehead on them, took some deep, calming breaths and tried not to think too much about…anything. Was he looking at her butt? Was he thinking about their bedtime story and turning it from fantasy to reality? She’d never been spanked for real—certainly not with a cock—and wasn’t sure that what worked like a charm as a phone-sex scenario wouldn’t hurt like the dickens in actuality. Her heart pounded. Her body felt too warm. On the precipice of what promised to be the most earthshattering sexual experience of her life, she might just have a panic attack.

“Izzy?”

“Huh?” She didn’t raise her head. Couldn’t.

Rough fingertips trailed along her side, and she jumped.

“Hey.” Even a woman in the early stages of a sexual panic could detect compassion and amusement in the single word. His hand flattened across her lower back, a touch that had the effect of stirring her up and calming her down at the same time. “I always thought I had a decent imagination, but you’ve proved me wrong.”

“I have?” She murmured the question to the dark space between her lips and his pillow.

“Yeah. You’re even more beautiful than my wildest fantasies, and last night was a pretty wild one.” Blunt, trim fingernails scoured a path over the swell of her backside and down her thigh.

“Well”—she tried for a breezy laugh, but it came out like a dry cough—“I wanted to go wild in Captivity.”

“I know.” Fingernails skipped over to the other leg, skimmed from the hollow behind her knee all the way to the small of her back. “I hope you don’t mind if I depart from the script now that we’re in the flesh.”

What kind of departure? “You know me. I’m…um…flexible.” Stay calm. Picture yourself skating in long, slow figure eights. Inhale as you compete the top part of the eight, exhale as you complete the bottom circle. Rest a beat as you return to the center.

“Oh, yeah.” This time his amusement dominated. “You’re flexible. That’s what you are.”

The mattress shuddered as he got to his feet. Her mental ice skater tripped over her skates and tumbled into a Blades of Glory spinout that made her both breathless and dizzy. She raised her head, craned her neck as she watched him walk to the foot of the bed. “Would you like to hear what I have in mind?”

Or you could surprise me, and I could pass out. “Sure.”

He knelt on the floor at the end of the bed and rested his forearms on the mattress, on either side of her legs. “I’m worried I might have been a little rough with you last night, while we were playing.” He ran his palms over her calves. “This morning, I think it’s my duty to kiss everything better.”

“You…you’re going to…kiss me?”

“I might lick any especially delicate areas.” With his eyes fixed on her, he leaned in, lowered his head, and kissed the back of her knee. The combination of warm lips and rough beard had her skin tingling. The tingles radiated out from the point of contact, shimmering up her thigh and lingering in vicinities north of there. “What do you think? Is that wild enough for you?”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to find out.”

He smiled. The kind of cocky, masculine smile she should have objected to on principle, but she couldn’t find her voice when he looked at her like that. “It won’t hurt a bit, Izzy. I promise.” So saying, he kissed the back of the other knee.

More tingles. Many more tingles. She closed her eyes to savor the sensation, and then—

Two strong hands clasped her ankles and dragged her down the bed in one lightning quick motion. What the…? As soon as she caught her breath and stopped scrambling for purchase, she twisted around to aim an exasperated look at him. But he simply smiled that self-satisfied smile and lowered his face between her legs. She felt the tickle of his beard and the press of his lips along the inside of her thigh. Every muscle below her waist melted.

“More?” he asked, apparently so confident of her answer he didn’t bother raising his head.

“Yes.”

The next kiss came even higher on the inside of her other thigh. Without really meaning to, she inched them a little farther apart.

“Where else are you hurting, Izzy?”

Everywhere. “I don’t know…”

“Here?” He swept his thumb along the vulnerable curve of one butt cheek.

“I…” Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips bestowed a gentle kiss.

“And here?” He doled out the same treatment to the opposite cheek. She pressed her face into the pillow and nodded.

“How about here?” He ran his tongue along the path heretofore used exclusively for her thong.

“Oh my God!” Head up, both hands fisted in the sheets, she instinctively tried to roll over, but found a strong arm resting across her lower back. A second, “Oh my God,” burst from her on an explosive exhale as his tongue suddenly delved.

“Oh…oh.” The quick retreat left her reeling, then… “Ohhh. Oh lord, not again…” But yes, again. And again. And she couldn’t help it, she squirmed. She writhed. She came. Hard and sudden, with her eyes squeezed shut and a high-pitched scream stifled by the pillow. Not deeply enough to relieve the hollow ache at her core, but the kind of blissful release of pressure a woman who hadn’t had a two-person, in-the-flesh orgasm in over a year could really treasure. When the haze of pleasure cleared, she registered those wicked, wicked lips kissing their way up her spine.

They stopped at her shoulder. A head nestled in to share her pillow, fingers combed her hair back from her face, and a low, smug voice said, “What do you say, city girl. Wild enough for you here in Captivity?”

She managed to open her eyes and confirm his expression matched the tone of his voice. She managed to part her lips, too, but the only response she actually pushed from her throat was a weak moan.

That earned her the off-center smile. “No, you’re right. I withdraw the question on the grounds it’s premature. I’m not done yet kissing everything better yet.”

…

Slumberous eyes went wide and round. Dewy cheeks turned pink as rose petals. An unsteady voice panted, “Y-You’re not?”

He’d underestimated by entire universes how gratifying it would be to scratch Izzy’s itches. He could do it all day. Every day. For as long as she’d let him.

Or until the deal closes, an annoying voice in the back of his brain reminded him.

Maybe longer. Maybe after the sale, while he was serving out the transition period, he could sneak in a few trips to Los Angeles. Maybe after she made partner, she could schedule a getaway to go wild in Captivity again. Maybe once he was fully free and clear, they could split the difference and meet up in Seattle to…what? Scratch each other’s itches?

Maybe that was too much effort to ask her to expend to get an itch scratched? Maybe not, if he showed her how well he could get the job done?

A lot of maybes right there. Or possibilities, if one preferred. But he could ponder them later. Right here, right now, the woman he’d been lusting after since the moment he’d seen her come down an escalator in Anchorage was in his bed, and hell no, he wasn’t done yet. He had a pretty powerful itch as well, though he could afford to be patient. A man his size learned the value of extended foreplay early on.

Speaking of which… “I’m definitely not done yet, Izzy. Have I kissed everything better?”

Eyes still wide, and locked on him, she very purposefully rolled onto her back. He almost laughed out loud, even before she said, “I think you were more than thorough.”

Note to self—one tongue-flirting-with-her-backdoor orgasm was enough ass play for Isabelle Marcano. “I have to disagree, I’m afraid. If I followed your entertaining and inventive scenario last night correctly, I think there’s one more very important place that might need some special attention.”

Awareness darkened her eyes, made her body go lax. She licked her lips. “You don’t have to—”

“Oh, but I do.” Laughing, he kissed her argumentative mouth, delivered a preview of what he had in store for her, before continuing. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Izzy. I’ve been aching to taste your pussy since the first night I slept over in your room. And I’m willing to bet you’ve been aching to let me. Have you?” Before she could answer, he went on, “Have you been parting your legs and using that little toy you brought to get yourself off while imagining it was me down there, using my mouth?”

She colored again, which told him he’d hit a bullseye, but all she said was, “Get out of my head, sir.”

He laughed. Wound up, hard up, and high maintenance to boot, but he’d never enjoyed anyone quite like he enjoyed her. He let his gaze roam down her body and endured another blood-searing jolt of lust. He was about to enjoy even more of her.

“Izzy, it’s not your head I’m aiming to get into.” Kissing her again, he rolled onto her, straddling her hips and bracing himself on his forearms to keep from trapping her against the mattress.

Her breath hitched as he slid a hand along her waist and down her body. When he moved his mouth down her throat, she said, “You know, there’s a very uneven clothing situation happening here.” Her voice was a vibration against his lips.

He placed a kiss between her breasts, over her heart. “I’ll let you fix that”—he scooted lower to drop a kiss in the soft hollow of her stomach—“after.”

Her quick inhale and attempt to curl in on herself told him he’d reached a ticklish zone. His beard could wreak a little havoc right there. Could and did. By the time he levered an arm under each of her thighs, she’d already tangled her fingers in his hair and begged for mercy with endearing urgency. She was still catching her breath when he cupped an ass cheek in each palm, hiked her hips up, and used his whiskers between her thighs.

“No! Please no. It tickles… Oh God… I can’t…”

She could. He made sure of it. She twisted. She thrashed. She sobbed his name. And yes, she came, with her pulsing clit pinched between his lips, one foot braced on his shoulder, the heel of the other digging a line down his spine. Slender fingers pulled his hair with painfully gratifying intensity. He stayed with her this time, bringing her down gently with softer, slower strokes of his lips and tongue that let her oversensitive clit gradually calm while keeping everything else warm and wet. Testing, he swirled his tongue around her threshold, then speared into her. She groaned and arched against his face, to make the most of the penetration. So small. So tight. But also welcoming. Giving. Ready, he hoped, because he didn’t think he could wait much longer.

“Trace?”

He liked that weak, winded note in her voice. His balls liked it. His cock liked it. His mind liked knowing he’d made her sound like that. “Yes?” He kissed one shivering thigh, and then the other.

“I’ve enjoyed your mouth and tongue, but now”—she propped herself up on an elbow and looked at him—“don’t take this the wrong way, but…”

Fuck. Was she going to call it off now? Now? Her prerogative, of course. He’d just hobble downstairs and jack off in the car like a teenager after dropping off his date at curfew.

“…right now, I’d really love to get to know that big, energetic dick you’ve been teasing me with since day one.”