Sex Machine: A Standalone Contemporary Romance (11 page)

“Need you,” he mumbles.

Ah fuck, why’d he have to say that? While my brain asks
why
, my girl parts shout
yes, yes, YES! We are needed! Get your ass in that shower!
As I pull off my clothes, I suspect I’m going to regret this. In fact, I know I’m going to regret it, but I do it anyway. I step naked into the shower with the hottest man I’ve ever known—and his Cock with a capital C. His hands are all over me, touching, stroking, caressing, while his lips devour.

I’m immediately overwhelmed, with all my senses fully engaged and my defenses shattered by his touch as much as his obvious desire for me. The man who could barely stand when leaving the bar recovers his mojo in the shower. His hands cup my ass, and he lifts me up, pressing me back against the tile wall.

I gasp from the chill of the tile and the almost-painful stretch as he presses his way into me. How can this be happening when he’s so drunk, he could hardly function half an hour ago?

He’s all power and no finesse this time around, driving into me relentlessly, making me forget all about my resolve and the distance I intended to keep between us. Hell, he makes me forget
my own name.
Even when he’s drunk and disorderly, it’s so damned good with him. My fingers dig into his dense shoulder muscles as I hold on for dear life. I’m hanging in there until he starts talking and ruins me.

“Ahhh, Honey, God, your pussy is the sweetest I’ve ever had, the tightest, hottest Honeypot. Always loved you, since we were little kids, loved you. Honey… God, Honey.” And then he’s coming, and I’m trying not to bawl my head off from the things he’s saying to me, things I’ve never suspected he felt, not once in all the years I’ve known him.

I want to tell him I love him, too. Of course I do. He’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and after being with him this way, he’s wedged so far under my skin—literally and figuratively—I’ll never get him out. I don’t want him out. As I tighten my legs around his hips and move on his still-hard cock, I want him in, in,
in
.

I fist a handful of his hair and drag him into another heated kiss. I can taste the beer and the whiskey on his breath as his whiskers abrade the skin on my face. I don’t care about any of that. All I want is more of the amazing way he makes me soar, body and soul. I’ve never flown as high as I do with him, and I’m becoming addicted to the way I feel when I’m in his arms.

He fucks me hard against the wall, so hard that my back will be bruised tomorrow. I don’t care. I want more. I want everything. He fucks me until the water runs cold and shocks me when he shuts it off and hugs me tight against him to carry me from the shower to his bed. If you’d asked me half an hour ago to bet if he was capable of that feat, I’d have lost the wager.

We fall wet onto his bed, and he picks right up where we left off in the shower, his big cock surging into me over and over again, so hard and so fast I can’t catch my breath before he’s pressed deep into me again. This is insanity, and I never want it to end. The idea that every day and night could be like this for the rest of our lives is the most exciting thing I can imagine for myself—and him.

“I want you here,” he growls in my ear, the press of his finger against my anus leaving no doubt as to what he wants. Though I can’t imagine taking him there, I can’t find the words to deny him. “Say yes. Tell me I can.”

“Yes, Blake. I want you. I want you every way I can have you.”

He withdraws from me suddenly and knocks the lamp off the bedside table in his haste to open the drawer where he keeps the lube. Somehow the lamp doesn’t break, and the bulb glows from its new spot on the floor. There’s just enough light for me to see the way his hands tremble as he lubricates the monster he plans to stick in my ass.

Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I begin to inch away from him, but he grabs my ankle and pulls me back. “Don’t leave me, Honey. Please don’t leave me. Need you.”

Hearing this man who is known for being an emotionless machine profess his need for me is humbling, to say the least. My heart, soul and body are his to do with as he pleases.

“I love you, Honey. I’d never hurt you.”

I brush back the hair that’s fallen over his forehead. “I know. I love you, too.”

The sweet smile that stretches across his face has my heart dancing once again. We’re doing this, we’re actually doing it. Blake Dempsey and Honey Carmichael are together. We’re going to make a go of it, and I couldn’t be happier. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier about anything than I am about being with him and knowing that this time I get to keep him.

My celebration is interrupted by the intense pressure of him pushing his way into a place where no one else has ever been, and I quickly discover why—it hurts like a motherfucker. I can’t do it. There’s no way.

I’m about to tell him to stop when he presses his thumb against my clit and effectively splits my attention between back and front, which is now being coaxed toward an orgasm of potentially epic proportions. I don’t know how he does it when he’s had so much to drink, but he enters my ass slowly but surely, and at some point it stops hurting so badly I feel like I’m going to pass out. I wouldn’t say it feels good—not by a long shot—but I no longer want to die from the pain.

A heated sensation is emanating in waves from my core and building on itself until it’s all I can think about.

“Yeah, darlin’,” he says in a low guttural voice that turns me on more than I already am—if that’s even possible. “That’s the way. Let me into that tight, hot ass. Hottest ass in town. Every guy in town wants to be me right now.”

He rocks and rolls and pushes and shoves until that giant cock is fully seated in my ass, and then he presses again on my clit, and I ignite, coming so hard that I bite my tongue and taste blood in my mouth. I’m transported right out of this body, this room, this universe to a place I’ve never been before. I’ve never been anywhere even remotely like this place he takes me, and when I come back to myself, I discover he’s fucking my ass, hard and fast, and I’m lifting my hips to encourage every deep stroke.

I did it—or I should say I’m doing it. I’m taking The Cock in my ass, and nothing has ever felt so amazing. In the back of my mind is the niggling thought that I won’t be able to sit for a week, but who cares about that when another enormous orgasm rocks me, and him, too, if his sharp cry is any indication. He’s so deep inside me that I can feel him in my belly. I feel the heat of his release and the ridges of his cock.

“Fuck,” he cries as another wave of pleasure has him trembling on top of me.

This is, without a doubt, the most intense thing I’ve ever experienced, and I feel closer to him in this moment than I ever have to any human being, even Gran. I’m sobbing from the painful pleasure that consumes me. And when it’s over, he collapses on top of me, his cock twitching and pulsing in my ass and his sweat mingling with mine.

He’s breathing hard, but so am I. The weight of his body pins me to the mattress, but I don’t mind. He loves me. He’s wanted me for as long as he’s known me. We’re together now. Everything is working out the way the universe intended, and neither of us will ever be lonely again.

A low grunt precedes his first attempt to withdraw from me. I cry out from the pain of it. Who knew it would hurt as bad coming out as it did going in? Tears roll down my face from the tug of his cock against my sensitive flesh. It hurts like fucking hell. The head finally pops free, and I can breathe again as the tears flow freely.

He lands flat on his chest on the pillow next to me and passes out.

I stare up at the oddly lit ceiling thanks to the lamp on the floor. My body is on fire, and my heart is trying to catch up with what just happened. When my head finally stops spinning, I sit up and immediately regret moving and sitting. Oh my God… What’ve I done? I limp to the shower and pray the hot water heater has refilled in the last twenty minutes. I give thanks and praise to the god of hot water when I step into the shower and turn my back toward the spray. I look down and see the pink tinge to the water and realize I’m bleeding. Not badly, but a little. I suppose that’s to be expected in light of what just happened.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. At first it was pretty painful, but it got better, and he was careful with me. I’d do it again, I decide, not right away, but we’ve got all the time in the world to try new things, and I want to try everything with him.

I wash up and wince when the soap stings abused flesh. The hot water doesn’t last long, and I get out to dry off. Back in the bedroom, I return the lamp to the bedside table and put the cap on the tube of lubricant before I put it back in the drawer, where there is also a box of extra-large condoms. I wonder why he has that stuff in there if he never brings women here. I’ll ask him about that in the morning.

For now, I’m content to crawl into bed with him, to snuggle up to his warm body, to breathe in his appealing scent, even if the hint of whiskey in the air reminds me of how he spent his evening.

It’s okay. He works hard and everyone has the right to blow off some steam every now and then. As long as no one gets hurt, why would it bother me if Blake did that once in a while? It wouldn’t. Nothing will bother me as long as he loves me and I love him. We can get through anything together.

Resting my hand flat on his back, I take that thought to sleep with me, a smile on my face and my heart at peace for the first time since I lost Gran.

A
relentless pain
in my brain wakes me from a sound sleep. Someone has driven an ice pick through my skull while I was sleeping. That’s the only possible explanation for the agonizing pain. I try to move my head and discover that’s the last fucking thing I should do, followed at a close second by opening my eyes to bright daylight.

Wait. What the fuck? I force my lids open again to find a mass of honey-colored hair on the other pillow. I know that hair. Why is she here? I let my gaze fall lower to her bare back and the two tiny dimples at the base of her spine. The sheet covers her ass, but the rest of her is a sight for my very sore eyes.

But what is she doing here? We’re over. We both agreed it was for the best when I left her at her house the other night, even if I’ve regretted that stupid decision every second of every minute since. So why is she in my bed, and how did she get there?

I move painfully to my back and stare up at the ceiling, trying to remember what happened last night after work. I went to the bar, had a beer or maybe two. After that, my mind is blank. I don’t recall anything beyond those first couple of beers. Jesus, when was the last time I drank myself to blackout?

Not since the months after Jordan died, when I did it so often, my family threatened to drag me to rehab. But like all things, time soothed my need to blot out the memories with alcohol. A relentless dedication to my work helped, too. I replaced the alcohol with my machinelike focus on staying as busy as I possibly could. It worked for me until I spent a weekend with Honey and got a taste of what I’d been missing out on.

And now here I am, drinking myself to blackout again.
Fuck
. The last thing in the world I want to do is go back to the black pit of despair that followed Jordan’s death. I never want to sink that low again, which is why I’ve stayed far away from emotional entanglements with women. It’s why I left Honey with that chaste kiss on the forehead the other night and ended this thing between us before it could get complicated.

So why is she here? What the hell happened last night? And why can’t I remember a fucking thing?

Feeling like the proverbial kid in the candy store, I reach out to touch the soft silk of her hair, letting it slide through my fingers. Though I tell myself one touch and one touch only, I quickly go back for more while breathing in the sweet fresh scent of her hair.

She sighs in her sleep and then shocks me when she turns over and cuddles up to me, her soft breasts pressing against my side, her leg hitched over mine and her hand on my stomach, centimeters from the tip of my suddenly hard cock. Her breath flutters across my sensitive skin, and I hardly dare to breathe from wanting her so badly, I can taste it.

This can’t happen. I thought she knew that. So why is she naked in my bed, and why am I filled with a sense of dread over what might’ve transpired during the lost night? I have so many questions and no answers.

Her leg slides up my leg, and her hand wanders south to wrap around my cock.

I gasp when she begins to stroke me in a slow, lazy rhythm. I’m filled with an almost painful yearning to begin each and every day exactly like this—with Honey pressed against me, her hand wrapped around my cock, her pussy hot and moist against my leg. That would be my idea of heaven.

The word heaven stops me short. That’s where Jordan is, and she’s there because of me. She never got to have any kind of life, so why should I allow myself the sweet pleasure and joy I could find with Honey? Why should I be allowed to let a beautiful woman like Honey love me and care for me when Jordan is gone forever and can never have any of that for herself? And what if I were to take this huge chance with Honey and something happened to her, too? I barely survived it the first time. There’s no way in hell I’d ever survive it again.

I push aside the painful yearning and gently remove her hand from my cock, though that’s the last fucking thing I want to do. Extricating myself from her soft skin and sweet fragrance, I sit up and take a minute for my pounding head to catch up.

“Are you okay?” she asks in a sexy, sleepy voice.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to get you some painkillers?”

“No.” The one word comes out more harshly than I intended, and I feel the loss of her body heat when she backs away from me. I’m a fucking asshole, and I hate myself for whatever series of events brought her to my bed last night. I only hope I didn’t say or do anything that can’t be undone.

“What’re you doing here, Honey?”

After a long,
long
pause, she says, “Jimmy called me to pick you up.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” That doesn’t tell me one damned thing about why she’s naked in my bed and stroking my cock like she has a right to.

Without looking back at her, I get up and go into the bathroom, intending to take a cold shower to wake me up and extinguish my raging hard-on. I stop short at the sight of our clothes, intermingled on the floor outside the shower.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Feeling more desperate by the second to fill in the missing gaps in my memory, I bend over to retrieve her thong, bra and dress, holding the items close to my chest for a brief moment before hanging them on the hook on the back of the door.

I feel sick, and not because of the beer still sloshing around in my gut. While the water warms up, I take a leak and desperately try to piece together the previous night. But like before, my memory ends with Jimmy, the bar, the beer, the...
Fuck
. Whiskey. That’s why I can’t remember anything.

Standing with my back to the water in the shower, I wonder if there’s any hope at all that we didn’t have sex. I glance down at my cock and note for the first time it’s tinged with red. Is that…
Oh my God
… My heart begins to pound erratically and my hands don’t want to work right as I quickly wash my body, including the dried blood on my cock. I made her
bleed
?

I’m going to be sick.

It takes a herculean effort to hold back the nausea that burns my throat. I sling a towel around my hips and reach for the door, noticing that her clothes are gone. Panic surges through me as I chase after her, running through the house and out to the driveway without a thought for decency or anything that doesn’t include stopping her from leaving before we get the chance to talk.

She’s pulling out of the driveway when I burst out of the house.

I chase her down the street, but either she doesn’t see me or she ignores me. I suspect it’s the latter. And more than that, I suspect I’ve done something awful to deserve her disdain and her hasty departure.

He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember. Oh my God, he doesn’t remember
.

The sentence cycles through my brain on repeat until I begin to fear I’ll go mad if I have to think about it for one more second.

Tears slide down my cheeks, making it difficult to drive. Fortunately, I don’t have far to go. Not only can I not see, sitting is excruciatingly painful. I choke on a sob. How can he not remember telling me he loves me and needs me and doesn’t want to let me go?

How can he not remember the searing intimacy of what we did in his bed?

I’m going to die from the embarrassment as much as the heartbreak. Just when I thought I couldn’t be a bigger fool than I’d already been with him, this happens to show me I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of my own stupidity.

Brushing away tears that refuse to quit, I’m not sure if I’m more hurt or angry. Hurt. Definitely hurt. The pain inside me reminds me far too much of how I felt when Gran died and I woke up the next day to realize I was all alone in the world. That’s exactly how I felt this morning when it occurred to me that he had no memory of what transpired between us last night.

Now I feel like someone has run a spear through my chest, making it impossible to breathe or think or feel anything other than crushing pain. I arrive at home, and when it hurts to get out of the car, I decide to do something I never, ever, ever do. I’m canceling my appointments for the day to stay home and lick my wounds, which is just another reason to be furious with Blake. Now he’s ruining my business along with my life. I make the necessary calls to cancel my day, apologize to my clients and reschedule them for later in a week that’s already booked solid. It’ll make for some long days, but at least I’m free today.

I draw a hot bath and dig out Lauren’s box of Epsom salt. Gran swore Epsom was the cure for every ache and pain. I suspect the magic might not extend to broken hearts. Lowering myself into the steaming water, every muscle I have fights back, or at least that’s how it seems to me.

Whimpering from the pain that radiates throughout my body, I begin to cry all over again, as if I haven’t already dehydrated myself this morning.

All at once, someone is pounding on my door and yelling my name.

I’m frozen with indecision. He came after me. Surely that must mean something.

“No, Honey. It doesn’t mean anything more than he feels bad that he doesn’t remember last night. That’s all it means.”

I force myself to stay put, to not get out of the tub, to not answer the door even if I’m worried that my nosy neighbors will call the police. Let them. That’ll be his problem, not mine.

He pounds on the door for at least ten minutes, yelling for me the whole time.

I close my eyes, cover my ears and pretend I can’t hear him. Eventually, he’ll go away—or be arrested. At this point, I’m not sure which outcome I prefer.

Finally, the racket stops, and the silence is almost as loud as the noise was.

I wait until the water goes cold before I drag myself out of the tub, put on my coziest robe and go to peek out the front window to make sure Blake is actually gone. There’s no sign of him or his truck outside, and I’m gutted all over again.

“What did you expect? To find him sitting on your front stoop waiting you out? That only happens in bad movies.” I make myself a cup of tea and take it to bed, where I plan to spend the rest of the day hiding from the world.

* * *

I
’m
sound asleep later that afternoon when my cell phone rings, jarring me awake. I ignore it and turn over, intending to go back to sleep. It rings again.

I’m almost certain it has to be Blake, but I check the screen just the same and see Lauren’s name along with a text from her that says 911. I take the call.

“Lo? What’s wrong?”

“Thank goodness you answered, Honey! Where are you? There’s been a water-main break on Highland, and the whole street is flooding. You need to get to the studio to save what you can. Honey? Do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you.” I blast out of bed, ignoring my aches and pains, and pull on shorts, a bra and T-shirt. I jam my feet into sandals and run for the door, grabbing my keys on the way out. “I’m coming.”

“Hurry, Honey.”

As I drive the short distance into downtown Marfa, I try to think about what might be in the line of fire from the flooding. Mostly the hundreds of framed and matted photos I have available for sale in the studio. All the photos are backed up in the cloud, but I’d lose thousands of dollars in materials if they’re ruined.