Kaleidoscope (18 page)

She again held his gaze steady and nodded.

“I don’t know what you do, not really. And I may not
want
to know what you do, considering it might be scary.”

Again, pure Emme. Not fucking stupid.

She went on, “I probably should have issues with that but I really don’t, if you like it and it challenges you. Except one. You’re not going to talk about it, you’ve made that clear. So that means you’re never going to be able to share about it, and by that I mean the stresses, the frustrations, things people usually can let go of during a mind dump with someone they care about. Which means you’ll likely hide those things from me as well. Therefore, what I’m going to ask is, will you pay attention to how it’s going, how it’s affecting you and stop doing it if it makes you unhappy?”

Staring in her eyes, hearing her words, Deck’s blood heated, his chest got tight and his gut clenched.

But his mouth said, “We haven’t had the conversation, but I seriously hope you’re okay I fuck you without a condom.”

Her head jerked even as she blinked and asked, “Pardon?”

He slid his ass down in the chair, his hands down her back to her ass, pulling her over his lap and saying, “Need to fuck you right now, don’t have one, so I hope you’re good with that.”

Her hips jerked in his hands, her lips parted and he took one hand and moved it between them, finding her wet. At his touch, her eyes lowered slowly, her teeth sunk into her lip, and when her eyes opened again, she didn’t open them all the way.

Fucking gorgeous.

“Is that a yes?” he asked, his fingers toying between her legs.

She let her lip go, her hips undulating with his fingers and her eyes attempting to focus. “I’m…” her eyes slowly closed and again opened halfway, “on the Pill.”

“Saw your pills, Emme, baby, is that your yes?”

Another slow blink.

Fuck.

Gorgeous.

“Have you always used protection?” she asked.

“Always,” he answered.

“Positive?” she pressed.

She was getting wetter and her face was getting hotter.

He needed in there.

“Positive.”

“I have too,” she replied. Her hips moved, her eyes tried and failed to focus on him, and she whispered, “You didn’t answer my question, honey.”

He knew exactly what she was talking about and answered immediately so he could move this shit on.

“I’ll stop doing it if it makes me unhappy. Now, you good with no protection?”

“Yes,” she breathed, more than likely because he slid two fingers inside as she said that one word.

He slid his fingers out, freed himself, positioned and slammed her down on his cock, filling her.

Her head flew back, hair flying with it, then it fell forward. She pressed her face in his neck, and she started riding him.

“What if Mom or Dad comes in?” she asked his neck.

“They won’t,” he grunted, helping her move, his fingers digging deep, pulling her up and driving her down.

“What if they do?” she pressed.

“They won’t.”

“Ja—”

“Baby, favor, you’re takin’ my cock, we don’t talk about your folks.”

She lifted her head, still moving on him and showed him the uncertainty.

He grinned, took one hand, slid it in her hair, pulled her to him and stopped grinning when he took her mouth.

Five minutes later, he lifted her, still connected, walked her to the couch and finished taking them both there.

Five minutes after he brought them home, hands trailing, lips drifting, hers found his ear.

“What brought that on?” she asked.

“Need a reason to fuck you?” he asked in return.

“No, but—”

He turned his head, caught her languid, beautiful eyes and she stopped talking.

“Means a lot you give me my head to do my job, something I enjoy doing, something that challenges me, something I can’t discuss with you and something I know I can now do without you eventually bitching, nagging, wheedling or manipulating.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

Deck held her eyes.

“Means a fuck of a lot, Emme.”

“Oh,” she repeated on a whisper.

Deck lifted a hand, trailed the backs of his fingers along her cheek, the corner of her mouth and down her neck before he rounded her with both arms.

“You wanna snooze here while I work?”

She nodded. “I’ll go get cleaned up and come back.”

He dipped his head, kissed her and pulled them both to their feet. Emme disappeared for five minutes, came back with a thick throw from the family room and stopped at Deck to touch her mouth to his. Then she went to the couch and curled up.

She was asleep within minutes.

Deck worked for half an hour and only stopped to watch Buford amble in, look at Deck, look at Emme in the couch, take half a second to make a decision, then move to Emme and settle with a groan on the rug in front of her.

Grinning, Deck went back to work and did it until it was time to wake Emme so she could get ready to go to the yard.

*    *    *

Six days later…

Deck watched as Emme slid down his chest, her lips moving across it, no tongue, just lips, featherlight, the barest whisper, echoed by her hair which was drifting everywhere.

She moved down and ran her mouth across the ridges of his abs

Those abs contracted.

Her exotic eyes lifted to his. There was fire in them but not all that fire was about what she was doing.

Seeing it, knowing what it said, his abs contracted again as his chest got tight.

“Have I told you I liked you today?” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back.

“Well, I like you.” She kept whispering.

“I like you too, baby.”

He watched her face get soft as she smiled, gifting him with the dimple.

“Come here, Emme,” he ordered.

She slid back up his body.

When her face get close, he drove a hand in her hair, wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her mouth down to his.

She gave it instantly.

Keeping their mouths connected, Deck rolled her onto her back.

Then he gave as good as he got.

And better.

*    *    *

Four days later…

“I don’t believe you,” Emme snapped, the fire in her eyes flashing.

Deck swallowed a laugh and said, “Babe.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Babe? Babe? That’s your response? Babe?”

“How’s this for a response? Babe, you’re just plain wrong,” he told her.

“I can’t be wrong about an opinion,” she told him.

“You can when you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he fired back.

She threw her arms out, narrowly missing slamming one into her avocado fridge.

Buford, lying on the faded linoleum of Emme’s kitchen, lifted his head from his paws, gave her a look at her agitated movements then dropped his head back to his paws, getting used to this because this was Emme.

And Emme, being Emme, kept going.

“Gun control laws are too lax.”

“You own a gun?” he asked.

“I don’t need to to know that’s true,” she said by way of answer.

“I own seven.”

Her eyes got huge.

Cute.

He powered through her cute and kept talking.

“Because of a bunch of assholes, you cannot take away someone’s right to own a gun. Or seven of them.”

“That’s insane,” she breathed.

“Why?” he asked.

“Who needs seven guns?”

“I do.”

“Why?” This was pitched high.

“Work, and I like shootin’ ’em.”

“Can’t you shoot just one?” she asked.

“Not if I don’t have to or I don’t want to and luckily, with the laws the way they are, I don’t have to so I get what I want.”

“Bad people get their hands on guns, Jacob,” she pointed out.

“And they would even if they were illegal, Emme. People get their hands on drugs, have no problem doing it, some of them they even order on-line, and they’re illegal.”

“And therein lies the problem. Guns should be illegal but drugs should be legal.”

Deck stared at her in astonishment at this proclamation before he dropped his head and looked to his boots.

“Alcohol is legal,” she informed his bent head. “I don’t understand why drugs aren’t. And think of all the money we’d have for socialized medicine if we could tax the sale on narcotics
and
stop spending huge amounts of tax dollars on fighting the war on drugs.”

He lifted his head and begged, “Please, can we not talk about socialized medical care? I like you now and I wanna fuck you later. I don’t mind fuckin’ a woman I don’t like, especially if she looks like you, but it’s more fun fuckin’ one I do.”

She wasn’t listening and he knew this because she didn’t fire back but also because her eyes were narrowed on the stove.

“Shouldn’t that burner be red?” she asked, and Deck looked to her rickety, ugly, avocado stove.

Then he moved to it.

He carefully touched the side of the pot that should be water getting warm to boil new potatoes.

Ice cold.

He then put his hand to the door of the oven where a still very raw beef tenderloin was sitting.

“Fuck,” he clipped, and felt Emme come close to his side.

“Have we lost her?” she asked, and he looked down at his girl.

“I think she gave up the ghost, honey.”

Emme rested a hand on the edge of the stove and murmured, “She had a fine run, what with allowing Alice to cook all those meals for Greg, Marcia, Jan, Peter, Bobby and Cindy.”

Through his chuckle, Deck replied, “Yeah, she did. Though I wish she didn’t kick it when I put a forty-dollar piece of meat in her belly.”

Her head jerked up. “That roast cost forty dollars?”

“Yep.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Deck dropped his to it and brushed his lips against it, and seeing as it was open, he took that opportunity to stroke her tongue with his own.

He lifted his head and asked, “Do you think your phone will work long enough to order a pizza?”

The wonder swept out of her face as pique entered it. “There’s nothing wrong with my phone, Jacob. Or my cell phone. Or yours for that matter.”

“Good, then get your ass to one of them and order pizza. A large one. I don’t care what’s on it, just not pineapple. And boneless wings, at least twenty. Yeah?”

She moved away, mumbling, “I’ll go get my credit card.”

He quickly caught her, wrapping his arm around her neck and hauling her against his body so they were front to front.

He dipped his head to hers. “You get your credit card, I tan your ass.”

Her head jerked and she pointed out, “Jacob, you bought the roast. We’ll eat that tomorrow at your place. I’ll get pizza.”

“Babe—”

She cut him off. “The bids for the windows were insane, all four of them, and I just lost my stove, but Dad says I’m getting a bonus this quarter so I can afford pizza
and
windows.”

He ignored the comment about her father giving her a bonus that would just happen to be very close to the amount of the cost of new windows that came in on a bid from a man he trusted, namely Holden “Max” Maxwell. Max was also going to be the man who was going to install Emme’s windows even if his bid wasn’t the lowest.

Instead, he repeated, “You get your credit card, I tan your ass.”

“Jacob, really.”

His arm tightened, he curled his other arm around her and dipped his face closer.

“I’m not joking, Emme. You pulled that shit over Mexican coupla weeks ago, I didn’t like it. There’s things a man like me has gotta do and you gotta let me do them. You don’t pay. No reflection on you and your ability to take care of yourself. It just means something to me. You push this now, I will turn you over my knee and spank that sweet, round ass of yours. You do it in future, you’ll get the same thing until you get it. You with me?”

“Are you serious?” she whispered, neck pulling slightly at his arm which stayed firm.

“Deadly,” he answered.

“You’d hit me?” Her eyes were big and she quit pulling at his arm.

“Spank you.”

“That’s hitting me, Jacob,” she said softly.

“That’s spanking you, baby, and when I do it, your ass will be bare and it’ll end in an orgasm but it’ll also end with a red ass that hopefully will teach you the lesson not to test a man like me.”

Her lips parted but her body melted slightly into his.

Fuck him.

He’d half been bullshitting to get his point across, half testing the waters.

Her reaction indicated the waters were warm.

He felt his dick start getting hard.

“You like that idea?” he whispered.

“I’m not sure… I’m not…” she stammered, swallowed and asked, “Is that supposed to make me do what you want me to do?”

This meant she wouldn’t do what he wanted her to do in order to get her spanking.

She liked that idea.

“Rewards can get sweeter, you’re good,” he told her.

“Have mercy,” she breathed, and he smiled.

“You’re kind of already getting those, baby, but you want an adventure, we’ll take it up a notch.”

Her body melted deeper and she repeated, “Have mercy.”

Fucking cute.

So cute, he had to bend his neck and take her mouth.

She melted completely in his arms, wrapped hers around his neck to hold on and let him.

He lifted his head and watched her eyes slowly open.

When his face was three inches away, she stated, “Krystal Briggs said I shouldn’t become your sex slave.”

“Krystal Briggs is not gonna come as hard or as often as I’m gonna make you come tonight, honey, you get your phone and my credit card.”

Her head tipped to the side and she asked curiously but hesitantly, “So this kind of thing is about making me mind you?”

“No, this kind of thing is about giving you good stuff you’re really gonna fuckin’ like. The credit card thing is about me tellin’ you it’s important to me to do that and you givin’ me that. It’s not asking much.”

“You paid for my insulation too,” she reminded him.

“Explained that then, keepin’ you warm and liquid.”

Her body tightened slightly and she started, “Jacob, this makes me a little—”