“Thanks, Jethro!” I had the door open before he’d come to a full stop and darted from the car, taking off at top speed and doing the mental calculations in my head.
It was now just past 1:00 PM on a Thursday. If Roscoe were coming home for the weekend, he’d be here past 9:00 or 10:00 PM. Billy didn’t come home from the office until 7:00 PM at the earliest, unless the family gathered for a special occasion. Does me being released from jail count as a special occasion?
Lord, I hoped not. I needed at least three hours alone with Cletus’s body. Yes! I said his body! We’ve already established my sex fiend status. Accept it.
Pushing through the front door to the carriage house, I stopped, scanned the family room and the small kitchen just beyond, working to catch my breath.
“Jenn?”
I spun around to face the door I’d just run through, finding Cletus jogging up the path. The heavy weight of anxiety and worry and all sorts of other unpleasant emotions completely evaporated, my chest expanding with air and relief. I felt like I could finally breathe.
And, my goodness, he was handsome. Just so damn handsome. His messy brown hair streaked haphazardly with stubborn blond and red highlights, his beard framing his gorgeous mouth and full lips, his bright, brilliant eyes that looked at me like I might be the most wonderful person, place, and thing in the entire universe.
My heart swelled, my eyes stinging, and I attacked him as soon as he crossed the threshold, jumping in his arms and likely suffocating him with kisses.
“I missed you. I missed you so much,” he said, kicking the door shut behind us and carrying me to the bedroom. He kicked that door shut too. His hands were everywhere, searching, grabbing, making me feel a little better about my own reaction and need.
“Take your belt off,” was all I could manage, tugging at the hem of his white long-sleeve T-shirt. Priorities people. I could handily remove all his clothes in less than a minute if he wasn’t wearing a belt.
Disobediently, he worked to divest me of my clothes instead, removing my skirt, panties, shirt, and bra. The letter—his letter—I’d tucked away between my breasts went flying, but I’d think about that later. His mouth felt frantic, he placed urgent kisses along every inch of my neck, shoulder, collar bone. I moaned, breathless at the wonderful, ticklish sensation of his beard, lips, and teeth devouring my skin and waking each nerve ending, goose bumps rising over the surface of my now bare skin.
“Take off this belt,” I demanded, gripping the leather roughly. “Or I swear I’ll destroy all your belts. I’ll burn them.”
A breathy chuckle rumbled from his chest, a deep, purely masculine, taunting sound. And he did not obey, instead toeing off his shoes and sliding his hand down the front of my body possessively, capturing my breast, weighting it, rubbing his thumb over the center. “I want to—”
I pushed him away, separating our bodies, undeterred by whatever plans he’d been scheming. Not this time. I wanted what I wanted and, for once, he was going to capitulate.
“Cletus,” my voice shook as I held myself away, capturing his eyes. “Take it off. Now.”
The look he gave me was a dark one, his left eyebrow lifted a scant millimeter above his right. “My sweet Jennifer, I missed you,” he said, reaching for me, not removing his belt.
Straightening my back, irrationally angry with this man I loved and lusted, I stepped away, lifting my own eyebrow and giving him my own dark look. He wanted to push? He wanted to play? Fine.
Game on.
Turning, I walked to the bed and climbed on top of it, positioning myself in front of the floor-length mirror leaning against the other wall. On my hands and knees, giving him a full view of my bottom and the apex of my spread thighs.
I saw his frown in the mirror. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I locked eyes with him and saw his dark look dissipate, replaced by wonder. He appeared stunned.
“Cletus!”
His hands moved to his belt, unfastening it lightning fast. “You want me to take you from—”
“Yes! Like before.” I arched my back, restless. “Do I need to draw a diagram?”
“That will not be necessary.” His gaze dropped to my spread legs, growing instantly hazy. Free of belt and pants in record time, he gripped his impressive length, and my mouth watered at the sight. I felt the mattress depress as he placed a knee between my legs, his other palm coming to my backside, sliding to my hip, and squeezing.
I tensed in anticipation, deepening the curve of my arched back. He cursed, and then he was inside me. A second later his eyes met mine in the mirror, and I lost my breath. Him. Behind me. Mounting me. Us. Naked. His lips. His chest. His arms. The ridges of his stomach flexing and contracting as he moved.
Like the one time before when he’d taken me this way, Cletus used quick, punishing thrusts, his thighs slap, slap, slapping mine. He was deep, so deep inside. His gaze murky, shamelessly watching wherever he liked. He looked almost callous, gritting his teeth, his jaw a severe line.
And I panted with need, unable to catch my breath. This was what I’d wanted, what I’d wished for over the last few weeks but had been reluctant to ask. I could cry with how great it felt, how great he felt inside me, the sting every time he entered, pushing me forward. The twisting and pooling in my belly as I instantly hovered on the precipice of climax, knowing I wouldn’t reach it until he deigned to stroke a skillful finger between my folds. The anticipation, the longing—God, the longing.
“Jenn. Look at me.”
Not realizing I’d closed my eyes, I opened them, and ours immediately caught in the mirror.
“Watch us . . ” he said, the command just above a whisper.
I moaned helplessly, my body clenching around him, because, once again, it was the word he hadn’t said.
Watch us fuck.
He held my gaze for just another second before his broke away to blaze over my body. I trembled, doing as he commanded, watching him look at me; watching him move his hands from my bottom to my hips, my sides, and pull me upward, exposing my front to the mirror. He didn’t enter me as deeply this way, but he held me entranced as he nuzzled my neck. One of his hands splayed over my stomach, the other fingering my breast with movements meant to tease rather than satisfy.
Everything about what he was doing at present felt like one giant tease. With me upright, he rolled his hips in a way that maintained the shallowest of penetration; my clitoris swollen, aching, and neglected; the barely there, taunting brush of his fingertips against my nipple; his mouth kissing my neck so sweetly it felt cruel, with the barest hint of suction.
I whimpered. “Please.” Restless. Tortured. Elated.
“How long have you been thinking about us like this?” Maybe to anyone else he would’ve sounded calm. But I, intimately familiar with this particular edge in his tone, recognized his control slipping away. I shivered.
I wanted to touch him—all of him—so badly. Inexplicably, I loved that I could only hold on to his muscled thighs, that I had no choice but to take whatever he gave me, rely on him for balance. And simply feel and watch.
Our eyes again locked. Held. The unveiled lust in his stare made me dizzy. What madness was this?
And why did I find the hunger, the possessiveness, and—yes—the callousness in his features so damn sexy? He looked at me like I was his plaything, an object, something to use for pleasure. He looked at me like he had plans for my body that I may or may not find objectionable, but that he didn’t care.