Slick as Ides (42 page)

“Fuck, woman, how many rooms do you think this place has? I already told Dad I’d take care of Libby and she could live in the guest house. He’s scared to death she’s not being protected enough from Rich.”

Her head pops up, and her eyes flood with unadulterated fear. “What the fuck? You weren’t going to share that with me?” She smacks her palm on my chest. “How are we ever going to be safe now with the one piece of meat Rich wants, hanging out in front of our fortress, dangling there like an enticement he can’t possibly resist? Are we begging him to aim a bullet between our eyes?”

I pull her up so she’s straddling me, and then I lower her down, close to my length. “Ride me, and I’ll tell you how this is going to go . . .”

“Why won’t you talk to me about anything important unless you’re inside me?” she argues, but slips onto my length anyway.

“Foooohhhh,” I exhale with a grunt. “That’s it, sweetheart. God, you feel so slick and tight. I’m glad you stopped making me wear those shitty condoms. Makes my job easier when I get back inside that pussy when you’ve been sleeping.” I bite back the word “bitch,” and growl instead. God, it’s dying to come out, but I won’t. I can’t do that to her.

“Only because you’re still an asshole and won’t let me clean up afterward. I suppose I should kiss your ass for allowing me to wear my dental floss, rainbow colored panties?” She flutters her eyelashes at me on purpose and then pinches my nipples. “I liked the condoms. It contains the mess better. It’s not like you gave it a real chance anyway. You only did it for a week.”

“A week of
hell
. . .”

She pinches my nipples harder this time.

“God, girl, I bruise like a peach—careful with my chest,” I joke, then pull her down to me, removing her hands off my chest.

“I really do bruise like a peach. Stop making fun of me.” She smiles with a devious look, bites my lower lip and sucks it into her mouth with a loud groan.

I quicken my thrusts and grip her ass, holding her down so I can control the speed and depth.

“Fuck, I love how tight you get when I hold you down like this. Do it, girl. Squirt.”

“No way.” She shakes her head.

I smack her ass. “Do it! I need it. Soak me.”

“No.”

I smack her ass twice more. “Why not?”

“I told you why last night. I don’t want to do that in a hotel. I can’t stand the thought of some poor maid having to clean up what might be piss. You know they don’t have time to shampoo mattresses. It’s repulsive to think of someone else lying on this bed tonight.” She grimaces.

“Oh, those poor unsuspecting douchebags, lying in your come. Poor them. Boo fucking hoo.” I pretend to cry.

She laughs, sits up and rides me as hard as she can, considering I’m still holding her ass cheeks pretty tight.

“Squirt hard, and we can renegotiate Dad’s place.” I grin so wide it makes my tongue move and forces a swallow.

“If I squirt, I’m putting down two towels under us first,” she offers.

“Not happening, Dena.” I release my right hand and stroke her very naked pussy.

“It’s tender, careful,” she says.

“Shit, thank God you let me finally shave you down there. Next week we’ll wax it instead.” I stare at her bald pussy as best I can in the diminished lighting.

“Fuck no!” She tries to jump off me. “Ewwww! Someone else touching me down there? Hell. Fucking. No!”

“That’s it, honey, curse. You know it makes me harder.” I grip her by the arms, roll her under me and push my way back inside. “I’ll wax you myself. I’ll tie you down.”

“You forgot the bitch part.” She blinks and stares at me like there’s some answer hidden there.

“Jesus,” I sigh, “will you stop with that? I’m fucking you senseless here.”

“You’re the one that’s senseless. Why won’t you call me that anymore?”

“Aaaaagh!” I groan, pump harder and grind my teeth.

She grips my ass and squeezes hard. “Tell me? Please? It kills me you’re keeping this from me.” Her voice is shaky and thick with emotion. “I feel like you’re pushing me away.”

I pull out and roll off her, sitting on the edge of the bed, gripping my head. “Good Lord, woman, why are you nagging about this?
Pushing
you
away
? Are you serious?” I gaze at her over my shoulder. “I’ve been in your cunt three times in the last twenty-four hours. How is that pushing you away?”

She scoots over to me, presses her chest into my back, holds me with one arm and reaches around, then strokes me with her other hand. “You know what I mean. Something’s eating you up, and it isn’t me.”

“I’d like it to be. If you’d use your mouth on me instead, though, you wouldn’t be saying this shit to me.” I watch her hand move over me. She’s got a good rhythm going. I jut my hips up and flex into her hand each time she hits the tip. “Shiiiiit, woman, feels so good.” I drop my head back onto her shoulder.

“Call me paranoid, but I think you stopped saying it because of Libby,” she says in my ear, then kisses it.

“So what if it is?” The words linger in the air, thick and heavy like my panting breaths.

“Why does she change anything between us?” She strokes my chest with her hand, and it’s erotic and sweet and everything I want.

“Almost there . . . Keep going,” I say with a thick rasp, then reach back and grope her thighs.

“I love I can do this for you, make you feel good, but it’s not enough. I want all of you, Nick. I came to you and let you inside. I don’t have any secrets from you anymore. I want the same from you. Can you give me everything, sweetheart?” She shoves her tongue in my ear, and her hands are all over me, pumping me quick and dirty.

Within seconds I’m spurting on my abs, on her hand and landing a million kisses all over her a second later when I pin her back down on the bed.

“I love you,” I say. “So much.” My favorite sexy bitch.

“I know.”

“The right response is, ‘I know, asshole.’” I smirk.

“Why would I call you that?”

“Because you love it, and because that’s who I am.”

She blinks and her expression drops. “But I’m not your bitch anymore because I’m no longer a pain in your ass, worrying about germs, refusing to squirt when you want me to or have your kid? How has that changed? I know you want to call me that name. I see it in your eyes. You grit your teeth, growl and then hold it in. Sometimes you even bite me like you’re dying inside to break out of this prison you’ve put yourself in.”

“Fine,” I huff. “It’s because I don’t ever want you to feel abused like Libby was. I’m exactly like my dad, and I realize that now, but I don’t want to be. I want you, I want us, and I want to be my own man, not that dick I grew up with. He never said he was doing all that shit because he was so psychotically in love he couldn’t stand it. He never said he was trying to find a way to save her and make her well again. All I knew was I’d been a disappointment from day one, never did shit his way and that he owned my ass.”

She kisses me, and it’s kind and soft and full of pity.

I break away. “Not like that, Dena. I don’t ever want you to do that to me again.” I turn my back on her.

She strokes it with her petite hands, and they’re still moist from jerking me off. It’s probably killing her to know they aren’t clean, but she ignores it. For me.

God, my heart pounds for her and beats her name into every inch of my body.

“Not like
what
? Not like I care that you’re hurt and projecting?” She smothers the back of my top shoulder with velvet kisses. “You’ve never hurt me. Not once, and if you ever tried, you know I’d find a way to leave. Libby is not me. You are not Rich or Stephen. You are my favorite asshole. You turn me on, you invent the most amazing stuff I’ve ever seen, and I love you because you’re not afraid to come unleashed and call me names because you want to tear into me. It’s not offensive to me. I love it, and God”—she tosses herself around me so she’s looking at my face—“I miss it. I miss
you
.”

“Why in the fuck would you miss being called a dirty bitch? You hate that shit.”

“Because you love it,” she tosses my words back at me. “So I do, too. It’s
us
. It’s who we are together, and you know I don’t really hate it. I just like pretending it annoys me—makes it more fun. Gets you all amped up.”

I lean over, kiss her forehead and sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I . . . God, it makes me crazy to know my dad was suffering like that, and I was making his life harder. I didn’t know. I didn’t . . .”

“I know . . . And it’s not your fault you didn’t understand what he was doing.” She holds me, rocks me like a small child, and in the quiet of our hotel room, I sob in her arms.

Chapter 25

Two days later . . .

“Uh, Libby. Hi, I’m Nick,” I say, extending my hand to shake. She ignores it and stares at me with a blank expression.

“Hi,” she says, voice devoid of emotion.

“I was told my dad worked this all out—that you’re to stay at his place with my
fiancé
and me.”

She nods and stands still as a statue in the doorway of the hotel room she’s been staying in.

“There will be guards constantly at the house, and Dena and I will be in and out all the time, so any time you need anything just ask anyone around, okay?”

She blinks, but that’s it. Is she breathing?

“Do you have some luggage I can take for you?” I ask.

She steps aside and motions at her tiny bag. It looks more like a large woman’s purse. That’s it? That’s all she has?

Her features are very pretty, so I can see why Dad’s infatuated with her, but even if she has nice auburn hair and big green eyes, she’s like talking to a tree. I know she’s alive, but she’s just
there
. . . Not giving off any emotion.

I take her bag, she checks out of the hotel, and when we get to the car, Dena steps out. “Hi, Libby. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m—”

“I know who you both are,” Libby finally responds. “You were wonderful children. I’m glad to see you found each other.”

Again, no expression on her face. She could be reading the
New York Times
with the way she’s speaking so woodenly.

The car ride isn’t much better. Dena and I sit in the front. Libby sits in the back with Westin, who we brought along as a body guard of sorts.

Mostly he’s chatting with her—well, really
at
her—nonstop. It makes the ride a little more bearable to have him there, keeping the uncomfortable silence at bay.

Dena gives me several sad looks in regard to Libby. The poor woman is so shattered inside I wonder if she’ll ever be the vibrant woman again I remember from so long ago.

I remember her laugh that carried through the house, and how much Libby liked to cook. Damn, she made the best lasagna ever, and she even made me these yummy blueberry shakes from time to time.

Westin helps her out of the car once we park, and we give her a tour of the house.

Her eyes betray nothing.

I show her the guest house in back where she’ll be staying. “Is any of this familiar at all?” I ask.

“No. There have been some extensive remodels,” Libby answers. “But it’s fine. I like to keep to myself anyway.”

“Well, you’re welcome to use the pool and Jacuzzi anytime, and feel free to enter the main house for anything, even if it’s just to hang out and raid the fridge,” I offer.

Dena loops her arm in mine and gives Libby a kind smile. “We’d love to have you join us for breakfast and dinner if you’d like.”

I smile. “Definitely. Dad has a huge table, and it’s kind of weird when it’s just Dena and I sitting there by ourselves. Join us.”

Libby nods, and then she’s gone inside her new home.

I stand there, blinking, and wondering if we’ll ever see her come out again.

Not that I blame her. I expected her to be jumpy about little noises and being near two men she didn’t know, but she was more ghost-like than anything, as if she was barely there in front of us. Even her movements look numb.

Poor woman.

We’ll provide her safety, but I don’t know what else we can give her to bring her back to life.

* * *

A month later . . .

In the middle of the night, Dena wakes me up.

“Did you hear that?” She grips my arm.

“It’s just Libby.” I pull her into my chest with one arm. “Go back to sleep. You know she won’t want to be around us.”

“Why does she keep coming into the main house then? She has her own place out back, and she hasn’t said a single word to either of us since we’ve brought her here. She keeps to herself. Having her inside the house at night creeps me out.” She yawns and strokes my bare chest.