She was just changing the score.
Something he didn’t know and she couldn’t let on.
Therefore, after he got his beer (he was an ale drinker, good to know) he moved (no cargo pants this time, just an olive drab cargo shirt and jeans, both looking awesome on him) to the island and she had no conversational gambit.
And as she carried on sorting out dinner, he didn’t offer one.
Instead, she realized with some disquiet, he stood still at the island with his hand wrapped around the beer bottle and stared out her kitchen window, looking both oddly uncomfortable and like the view to her pool was not fascinating, but a lifeline.
Surreptitiously watching him, suddenly she was questioning the wisdom of forcing even half an hour of domesticity on Branch whatever-his-last-name-was.
At least this early in the game.
Just as suddenly, she had an idea that segued into the idea she’d had earlier that would make all of this possibly easier on him.
So after she pulled out the bread, drained the pasta and turned to him to hand him one of the two plates she got down, she declared, “Usually, I eat in front of the TV. Go ahead and dig in.”
And with that, she piled up her plate, topped up her wineglass and went to the TV.
By the time he joined her (with double the food on his plate—apparently whatever he had for dinner really didn’t cut it), she had a DIY program on that she was hoping they’d both find interesting enough while she wowed him (she hoped) with her cooking and then got him into the zone where he was clearly far more comfortable being.
“You put pepperoni in your tomato sauce?” he asked.
With her feet up on the coffee table, nestled in the corner of her couch opposite Branch, who was sitting both feet on the floor in the corner of his, hunched over his plate like he was going to dine and dash in her home, she looked to him.
“It isn’t tomato sauce, as such. It’s meat sauce,” she answered.
He looked back to the TV, shoveling in spaghetti and muttering, “Now I get why you got that ass.”
For a second, she froze at what sounded like an insult.
“Next time, double it,” he kept muttering.
She grinned at her fork before she pushed it into her mouth.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who liked ass.
“Can you give me the secret to this bread, or if you do, will you have to kill me?”
God, he was being funny.
Which meant he was killing her.
In a good way.
There was nothing better than a man who was funny.
Except a beautiful man with a great ass who liked her ass and her cooking and her playing with him the way she liked to play … who was funny.
“I brush it with olive oil and a little truffle oil before I sprinkle on the cheese,” she answered.
See?
She’d definitely not been home just half an hour.
“Shit’s amazing,” he mumbled.
She felt like doing a cartwheel.
She kept her seat and kept eating.
“My guess is, the answer is a yes,” he went on, still eating, eyes to the TV, “but to confirm. You come lookin’ for me at the Pound last night?”
“Yes,” she answered immediately.
His gaze slid to her. “Why?”
Her gaze stayed on him. “Because you’re mine.”
He seemed to consider that, but only for a few seconds, before he returned, “Not then.”
“Oh yes you were, handsome,” she replied quietly. “You just didn’t know it yet.”
He adjusted his ass in the seat, the only time he showed physically that he’d come to her as told, and murmured, eyes back to the TV, “Well, I do now.”
“Excellent,” she murmured back and resumed eating and not quite watching the TV.
But as she did, a thought occurred to her and, although it was risky, she decided to go with it.
“I’d been looking for you a long time, Branch,” she admitted.
His attention came back to her but he said nothing.
“You weren’t easy to find.”
“Stunned you managed it. Think you can guess I’m a man who, if he doesn’t want to be found, makes that so.”
“It took me a month and I had to attend a Pound to manage it,” she shared.
“Determined,” he replied.
“I told you I liked what I saw in the red room,” she reminded him. “If you didn’t learn this last night, I get what I want and I don’t mind being creative in doing it.”
There seemed to be humor there and gone before he noted, “Saw you wield that whip, so obviously you can take care of yourself, but before that, would have said you showin’ there wasn’t real smart.”
“There was no threat there,” she returned. “People so zoned out they can barely stand are hardly in a position to bother a sober woman with a baton even if she isn’t exactly a hulk and she’s wearing six-inch platforms.”
“It was a tame night.”
She felt her eyes grow big.
“And it was early,” he continued.
Early?
It’d been after one in the morning.
“What’d I miss?” she asked, curious.
“Catfights. Overdoses. Voyeurs hearing about it, showing, thinking they can watch and getting sucked in, then freaking way the fuck out either because of a bad trip or, say, they’re a chick and it strikes them all of a sudden that they might not have wanted to eat some passed-out junkie’s pussy.”
Her lip curled.
Branch watched it with no expression before he spoke on.
“Yeah, like I said,” he looked back to the TV, “last night was a tame night.”
“Do you go there often?”
“Nope.”
That was good.
“You don’t go there at all now, Branch.”
Still hunched over his plate, facing the TV, his gaze slid to hers.
Before he could respond, she kept at him.
“You have someone else that takes care of you?”
“Evange—”
“She’s gone,” Evangeline stated quietly, but firmly. “Be she one or multiple, Branch. When I said you’re mine, you’re mine, handsome. I do not share.”
He held her gaze
Then he looked away and murmured, “Not a loss. She sucks at it.”
Evangeline carefully and silently let out a long breath of not only relief but exultation because he didn’t fight it and the “She sucks at it” inferred that he felt Evangeline did not.
He finished his food first and she took her time finishing hers, doing this purposefully, regardless of the fact that he seemed uncomfortable again, sitting on the couch with her, still hunched over his now empty plate like he didn’t know what to do with himself.
And watching him without letting on she was, she had the troubling thought that maybe with this beautiful man she’d bitten off more than she could chew.
It was time to get him to a place where he felt safe.
She took her feet off the coffee table and stood up.
His head tipped back and he straightened in the seat when she did, watching her and looking like he’d join her.
Evangeline went right to him and took his plate but bent over him.
“Now, Branch, I’m relaxed and in a place where I’m good to spend a lot of time on you without anything but you on my mind. So I’m going to go tidy up, you’re going to prepare for me and I’ll explain,” she told him. “When I get back, I want you naked, on this couch, displayed for me. Your back to the corner, legs and feet up, one calf on the back of couch, the other thigh splayed wide to the side. I want your arms out, one down the back, one down the arm, and when I get to work, you’ll keep them there. When I return, baby, I wanna see all of you with easy access, I want you hard for me and I want to see my jewel buried deep. Do you understand your instructions?”
He slid immediately into his role and he did it with a b
rief, flashing flare in his eyes that, although brief, said everything she needed to know.
He was in his safe place.
He was hers.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded and bent closer. “Right, now, before I go, we have to have two quick chats. One, what’s your safe word?”
“Don’t have one.”
“Everyone has one.”
His gaze went intent and he enunciated his next two words precisely. “I don’t.”
He knew it but she felt it pertinent to say regardless.
“You have to know with your experience that that’s not smart.”
“What I know with my experience, Evangeline, is that works for me.”
Evangeline tipped her head slightly to the side. “Anything goes?”
“You wanna do it to me, I can take it.”
She had no doubt.
Or at least the things he thought she might do.
Sitting with her and enjoying a meal she cooked while doing something normal like watching TV, not a chance.
They’d get to that.
Maybe.
If she managed to wring a miracle and broke through.
“Right,” she carried on, “as that’s the case, the second part of our chat might now be moot but I’m going to ask it anyway because that’s how I play it. Are you trained?”
“Been in the game a long time. Anything you want, I’ll do it.”
She bent even closer. “Your ass, Branch. I mean your ass. You’ve been very good. You requested a fucking. You’re going to get one. How much can you take?”
Another flare, less brief this time, and she felt her pussy quiver.
“Whatever you wanna give me, Evangeline, I will take it.”
“I feel like testing you, baby,” she warned.
“I’ll pass,” he growled. “So bring it on.”
Her big boy.
Raring to go.
Lovely.
She nodded and straightened. “Prepare for me, handsome.”
With that, she walked away.
She did the dishes then she slid her feet in her flip-flops and went out to her studio to get what she needed.
When she was in her playroom, she didn’t think of having Branch out there, something she hoped to have, and soon.
Now, she wanted to take him in the intimacy of her home. She wanted him surrounded by her in that way, not her playroom, her, her life, her things, making him a part of it.
Evangeline took her time with all this. She wanted Branch to understand he was worth that time, and more, she would be worth the wait.
Finally, after returning, having flipped off her shoes, on slightly shaking legs, more than ready to get on with the evening’s festivities, she went back to the family room and rounded the couch on her side so she could see him fully positioned in the corner of his.
He was exactly as she’d told him to be, and that was an extraordinary sight to see.
But he was also more.
He was displayed for her on her couch, legs up and open, cock hard, balls heavy, plug winking, eyes on her, alert, exposing some arousal in his expression (if not all she’d like to see, but that, she was learning, was Branch—she’d get him there with that too), and he had no hang-ups.
He didn’t look anxious. He didn’t look tense. He didn’t look embarrassed.
He looked ready to play.
He was a thing of beauty.
She put the stack of towels down on the coffee table, the toys she’d selected hidden among the folds, and turned back to him.
Shimmying up her tight skirt a smidge, she entered the couch on a knee between his legs.
She leaned in close to his face but not touching him.
“Now to get you ready, handsome,” she whispered.
He just held her eyes.
She moved down his chest, ignoring the scars she’d like to soothe with her fingers, her lips, she kissed his right nipple. His left. Down, she kissed his belly. Down, she kissed the tip of his hard cock. And down, she kissed his sac, giving herself the pleasure of drawing in his scent there, something she’d discovered that morning during her blowjob she very much liked.
Back up, she went to work on his nipples, nibbling, tonguing, sucking. She engaged her hand on his other one to twist and pull.
She knew he was feeling it when he squirmed under her.
With all his experience, he was still sensitive there.
Excellent news.
She switched nipples, mouth and fingers, and kept at it until she got more squirming.
Only then did she lift slightly away and reach out to the towel. Flipping over an edge, she exposed what he’d be getting that night.
And heard the light hiss of his breath.
Her big boy could take what she could give?
They would see.
She fought a smile and nabbed a nipple clamp.
Holding herself away, she pinched and pulled a nipple, her gaze to his face.
He held hers like it was a dare, only a slight clenching of his teeth exposing she was affecting him.
Being a bad boy, holding back.
She’d get him.
She clamped the nipple and did it so tight, his jaw hardened.
God, she loved the look of that.
“Is that okay, Branch?”
“Yeah,” he pushed out.
He felt pain.
But he liked it.
“Good,” she murmured and went to work on the other nipple.
The instant she finished clamping it, she wrapped her hand around his dick and pumped.
A muscle jerked up his cheek.
She allowed her eyes to wander him, splayed for her, nipples clamped, cock thick and reddening, and she saw his ass clenching around his plug as her hand stroked.
And she knew she could have that moment and that moment alone, he could get up and walk out, and she would be okay with it.
For an instant.
But then she’d realize he was like a drug, and once you got your dose, you were good. You were brilliant. You were flying high.
But when it was gone, you needed more.
She did not let this thought alarm her.
She rode it, reached out, tweaked his nipple hard and he sucked in an audible breath.
Her gaze moved to his. “You’re so pretty.”
He didn’t reply but there was a flush to his cheeks, a heat in his return gaze.
Oh yes, she was affecting him.
She bent closer, stroking him deeper, tighter.
“I’m going to fuck you now, Branch,” she whispered.
“As you like it, ma’am,” he ground out.
“I like it rough, Branch. Can you take that?”
“Told you, take anything you wanna give me, you make me come doin’ it.”
“You’ll come, baby,” she cooed, bent closer, almost like she was going to kiss him but instead she brushed her lips along his rough jaw, feeling the bristles against her lips score down to her clit. She slid her mouth down his neck, gentle, sweet, so it made him jump slightly when she glided down and took a fierce nip at his clamped nipple. “Lovely,” she breathed.
Making quick work of it because to do it she had to stop stimulating his cock and she wanted the stimulation not to cease, she prepared the toy thoroughly then came back to him.
Capturing his gaze yet again, her unoccupied hand went to his plug.
“Slide down a little, handsome.”
He slid down, his chest rising and falling, no longer able to fully hide he’d seen what was coming.
But she knew by the look in his eyes he wasn’t fearing it.
He couldn’t wait to get it.
And that “it” was a lot. He was going to be stretched wide and filled deep.
And he was going to seriously get off on it.
God, he was a thing of beauty.
She carefully slid his plug out and swiftly set it aside on the towels.
Then she went back to h
im. The thick head of the toy to his anus, her hand back to his cock, she leaned over him, close, so all he could see was her, all he could smell was her, but he would still feel everything.
“What do you want, Branch?” she whispered, putting pressure on the toy against his hole.
“I want that,” he growled.
“What, baby?”
“Fuck me with that, Evangeline.”
She pressed and his body tensed, the cords in his neck stood out and she sensed his fingers digging into the couch.
“Shh, handsome.” She stroked his cock gently, still putting mild pressure on at his ass. “Relax.”
“Shove it deep.”
Oh yes, her big boy couldn’t wait to get fucked.
Her panties drenched.
“Take it slow,” she coaxed, feeling him open.
“Fill me,” he grunted.
“Baby—”
“Fuckin’ fill me,” he bit off.
She pushed the cockhead of the toy in, Branch closed around it, then in a smooth, slow thrust, she glided it home.
When she did, his head dropped back, his chest arched forward and his ass sought her hand as a low groan rumbled up his chest and filled the room.
Evangeline convulsed all over, nearly orgasming at witnessing the depth of his pleasure.
Then his head came up, his cool-blue gaze slapping her with an ice burn that sent her shivering with anything but cold.
“Take my ass, Evangeline,” he growled.
She was so excited, she didn’t make him ask twice or say please.
She moved closer, working him, cock and ass, her face in his, their eyes locked.
“Faster,” he grunted.
She ramped him up every way she could, faster, harder, tighter, deeper.
His head dropped back again so all she saw were the muscles of his neck standing out in tense relief, the strong line of his jaw, and he started to move.
His fingers clenching the couch, his head thrown back, he jacked his own cock viciously in her hand at the same time rocking the toy up his ass, the sub who was a master, Evangeline along for his wild, beautiful ride.
“That’s it, baby, take yourself there,” she encouraged breathlessly.
“Fuck,” he grunted.
She put her weight into it, she put all she had into it and he fucked her fist and rode his toy even harder.
“Yes,” he hissed out between his teeth.