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He managed to unlock the door without fumbling, which impressed her, then he banded an arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet to carry her through the door and kick it closed. He didn't let her feet touch the floor until they reached the bedroom. "It's dusty in here," he said, glancing around. "Probably a few spiders."
"I'll protect you from them."
He snorted, but she could see the concern about what she'd think of their surroundings. He might be hot and horny as a rutting bull, but he was a gentleman. She liked that. The bed was draped in a sheet, which he tugged off to reveal a decent but worn coverlet, a couple pillows with cases that looked clean enough. Serviceable for a ranch hand or as an army barracks.
"This isn't really the greatest place to take a lady," he began. "We can--"
"All I want is you, right now, right here. And shut up." Even though she liked the masculine rumble of his voice, she wanted to hear it strained by harsh groans, punctuated with fierce, fervent oaths as she did everything she wanted to him. She moved to the bed, lifting a hand to stop him when he followed right behind her, hands reaching for her.
"I know you're a cowboy, so you probably come with your own whip. But now I'm in charge. Take off your clothes. Slow. I want to savor."
His lips twisted at that. She could tell he knew women found him pleasing in all the right ways, a matter-of-fact thing helpful to get between their legs but sometimes maybe a pain in the ass to him when he wanted something more. She stretched out on the bed, leaning back on her elbows. Though she was conscious of the heat of his gaze on her, she lifted a brow expectantly.
He slid open the buttons of his shirt, keeping to a gradual pace to suit her demands. Maybe he didn't do it in a striptease fashion, but he wasn't that type of man. She didn't mind that about him.
He had a gorgeous upper body, layered with a working man's musculature, marked with some scars. He'd worked shirtless enough that there wasn't much of a tan line between his exposed neck and forearms and the rest of him. She loved the look of a shirtless man in jeans and boots. When he sat down on the end of the bed to pull his boots off, she shifted and closed the distance between them, kneeling up behind him on her knees to slide her palms over his shoulders and back, feeling the way the muscles rolled as he performed the simple action. As he stood to slip the button of the jeans, he turned to face her, and she sat back on her heels, watching attentively.
"I'm used to girls talking when I do this. You don't talk."
"Why would I talk when that takes attention away from what matters?" She met his gaze, then lowered it pointedly, a nonverbal message. Get on with it.
An attractive quirk of his lips, and he pulled the jeans open, the zipper making its pleasing tick-tick noise. He wore basic cotton boxers, nothing fancy, and he took them down with the jeans, removing socks so the whole man stood before her.
He was tough and lean from head to toe, and sporting a cock stand that made her pussy even wetter just to look at it. Sliding off the other side of the bed, she gestured to the mattress. "On your back, cowboy. Legs shoulder length apart. I want to be able to see everything I intend to touch, lick, suck and taste."
"Jesus." He paused, giving her a once-over. "You're a little overdressed."
"That'll change when I'm ready. I gave you an order."
She was testing him. If she'd put a little flirt into it, she knew it would give him an out. He could laugh it off and rationalize that it was silly sex games, nothing serious, but she wasn't in the mood to give him that much mental lubrication. She was going to be honest with this man from the very beginning and all the way through. Maybe because she sensed the yearning in him to cut through a world of bullshit and find something real, something solid, that she'd always needed herself.
Selene, this really might be a mistake.
Their gazes held. "Trust me, Quinn," she said. "If only for this."
Another weighted moment and then he moved to the bed. She wished she could be inside his mind, hearing every turn in the decision wheel that brought him to the mattress, but pleasure surged through her at the end result. He stretched out that long, powerful body, linking his fingers behind his head in a pose of deceptive casualness, even as his brown gaze stayed locked on her expectantly.
Moving to the end of the bed where he'd dropped his jeans, she picked them up. Sliding her hand inside the seat, she enjoyed the warmth of where his ass had been. Then she stripped the belt out of the loops. It still carried the heat of his body as well. She came to the head of the bed, leaned over him. He watched her as she curled fingers around his wrist, tugging so she guided his hand to the iron rails of the headboard. She brought the other there too, making him cross his wrists before she looped the belt in a figure eight around them, cinching and doing a tie that would hold them unless he gave serious effort to getting loose. He didn't look as if he had that plan.
Instead, his breath had stilled, then become a little shallow, even as the pulse in his throat jumped, increasing her blood hunger. His lips parted, tongue wetting them, an unconscious act of anticipation or anxiety.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" she said.
He swallowed, eyes staying on her, jaw tight. "Don't know."
"What a strong man says when the answer is yes, but he doesn't know ho
w that reflects upon his masculinity. Grip the rails of the headboard," she said. "Don't let go."
Keeping an eye to the lower latitudes, she saw his cock surge again as she gave the order, as she cinched the belt and did a loose loop around the rails to reinforce the hold of his fingers. She heard the expulsion of breath, saw the glitter in his eyes. Yeah, he liked this, even as she saw him continue the internal war over it. "Big, tough cowboy," she said quietly, running a nail over his sternum, circling his nipple, biting into it with the edge. "Always in control. In control of your men, your ranch, this place, with women. But there's a different kind of male power, Quinn. One that you've always known is waiting for you, waiting to serve a woman if she knows where to look for that treasure."
He swallowed again, but he didn't speak. Didn't deny it. He was listening, learning about himself. About her. She could see all the wheels going in his head. He didn't know what to say. He'd think about all of it later and they'd probably hit a few bumps as a result when he tried to backpedal. That was part of the pleasure. For now, it was all reaction, and she was fine with that. Very fine.
She stepped away, stood by the bed as she began to lift the hem of her knit shirt. "Close your eyes."
"No." His voice was hoarse. "Hell no."
She stopped, gave him a leisurely once-over. "You can look at me, or you can feel me. Which would you prefer?"
"You get both. Why can't I?"
"Because you get what I give you. No more and no less."
"What if I'm not willing to give you...everything you want?"
A smart question, and one he didn't realize had gone beyond his control the minute a vampire walked into his bar and decided she wanted him. Correction. It was beyond his control if she embraced the whole humans-are-inferior-and-ours-to-use-however-we-want vampire credo. And if she decided she wanted everything from him.
No. Forty years ago, she'd been human herself. Albeit sometimes she felt like she was clinging to a mortal conscience by her fingernails, she still made the effort. Beyond that, she couldn't want everything from him. She wouldn't be able to stay here that long.
