* * *
Branch woke to Evangeline stroking the back of his thigh.
“Wake up, handsome,” she whispered in his ear.
Jesus.
How did he sleep?
“Roll over, baby, I feel like sucking cock,” she ordered.
Jesus.
He didn’t hesitate, he rolled.
She moved too, tossing the covers off them, but he was already hard with a morning erection, head foggy with sleep and full of the memories of what she’d done to him the night before, he didn’t feel the cool air hit his skin.
She shifted between his legs.
Then she put her hands behind his knees as he stared to the windows in the ceiling and tried to assess what time it was.
It was February. Sun still not out too early, light in the sky, but it was barely dawn.
These thoughts flew from his head as she put pressure behind his knees and his eyes moved to her.
“I want them up and cocked for me, please.”
He did as told, lifting his knees and cocking them.
She moved her hands from behind his knees to the sides when his calves would have trapped them.
“Wide,” she demanded.
Fuck, she was good.
He opened his legs wider.
“More, Branch,” she said, giving a slight press to the sides of his knees.
He opened them wider until he felt a stretch down the insides of his thighs. It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t ignore it.
And it went right to his balls and hole.
“That’s it,” she whispered.
Replacing her hand at his left knee with her mouth, she trailed it down.
Down.
Before she got to him, she lifted her gaze and caught his.
“I want you watching.”
Oh, he’d be watching.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She grinned, slid just the tip of her tongue out and grasped his cock in her fist.
She lifted it from his stomach to her tongue and touched it, tip to tip.
He bit his lip.
God, fuck, shit, he hoped he’d earned his orgasm.
She ran the tip of her tongue down to the base, between his testicles, and up.
Then she gobbled him deep.
Fuck, he’d never seen anything that pretty.
And the feel of her?
Christ.
The brilliance of it made him do something else he hadn’t done in years.
Lose control and close his eyes as he dug his head into the pillows. He couldn’t help it. Her sweet, hot mouth was something.
She raked her nails down the back of his thigh and he lost her mouth.
“Did I say watch?” she asked when he looked between his legs.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then watch, Branch,” she demanded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Hands on, and apparently mouth on, she didn’t hesitate again to suck him deep and God, fuck, shit, it took all he had to watch her pretty curls, pretty mouth, and pretty face bobbing on his dick, taking him deep, the tip of his cock hitting the back of her throat, and not throw back his head and groan.
Phenomenal.
She kept going as she ran her hands up his thighs, pressing them wider, the stretch deepening, the pain coming, his ass lifting, his cock gliding into her mouth.
Magnificent.
Pure, fucking glory.
He took it and he took more and he watched the whole show, his ass tightening around his plug, his balls hanging heavy, he couldn’t help it and didn’t care she ended it and tanned him again.
He started rocking into her mouth.
She slid up and breathed, “Yes,” against the tip and went at him again, this time now with her hand, meeting it with her lips. Hand up, lips down, hand down, lips up, all the while he added to the sweet torture, rocking into each stroke.
Fucking ecstasy.
He took it and he took more and he loved every goddamned second.
And he did it until he could take no more.
“Ma’am,” he grunted.
She released him and looked up.
“My big boy need to come?”
“Yes,” he puffed out.
Suddenly, she was between his legs, her warm, soft pelvis resting on the heated hardness of his, her face in his, her hand wrapped around the side of his neck, fingers back in his hair, holding his head up.
“In ten minutes, you’re going to leave,” she declared and he just managed to bite back an oath. “You keep me inside you. You can slide me out to shower and get on with your day. I’m going to give you my number. At nine o’clock, you text me. Then you slide me back in and you take your fist to your cock but you do not come, Branch. You text me when you’ve had enough. You slide me out. You go about your day. At one o’clock, you text me back. You take me inside. You jack your cock for me until you’re about to come but you do not come, handsome. You text me when you’re done. You slide me out. And at seven o’clock tonight, you come to me, full of me, and then, my big boy, I’ll take care of you.”
She had him.
Christ, shit, fuck.
She had him.
“You’ll make me come, ma’am?” he bit out.
“How do you want it?” she asked.
“Like you said.”
“Say it.”
“Fuck me, jack me.”
“By then, you’ll have earned it. So that’s what you’ll get.”
“Then give me your number.”
She smiled brilliantly at him and the world shrank.
There was nothing.
Nothing but her pretty face and that brilliant smile lighting a soul gone dark.
His soul.
His soul that had been dark far longer than it took Di, Piz, Lex, Benetta and Rob to die.
No, it had gone dark years earlier, after he’d finished it with Tara and she’d fucked up by placing an ad and getting herself a “sub” who wasn’t big on people who liked kink so the motherfucker had caved her head in.
All that burned away with the brightness of Evangeline’s smile.
Shit.
“I’ll give you what you want, handsome, but I’m me. I might have to get creative.”
“You let me blow, you can do whatever the fuck you want.”
Her smile got bigger.
Oh yeah.
Shit yeah.
Totally fucked.
And he knew it more when, ten minutes later, he walked out of her house to his truck, clothed, still plugged, her number written in dark red lipstick on his chest, his cock ringed with the same.
He knew it even more when he got off on the feel of her everywhere, inside him, the rasp of his still-hard dick against his fly, and the first thing he did (after shifting the seat back) was lean over, open his glove box, find a pen, some paper, and open his shirt so he got her number down before it smudged.
But he knew it the most when he finally got his shit together enough to buckle in, start his baby up and back out of her drive, feeling relief that, by some miracle wrought by an enchantress, her Fiat was parked at the curb.
seven
Domesticity
EVANGELINE
Evangeline stood at the stove, stirring the meat sauce, her head bent to her texts.
Not a problem, read Barclay’s text, which had just come in as a late reply to the one she’d sent that morning expressing gratitude for him coming to her house, grabbing the key to her car, which she’d put in a pot outside, then driving all the way out to fetch it and return it. And don’t worry about the gift card. Just tell me you found who you were looking for.
Definitely.
Barclay was the decent kind of guy.
But now what did she do?
People at the Pound saw her with Branch and she didn’t know those people. She didn’t know if he knew those people. She didn’t know if that was going to be a problem for him.
What she did know was that she was precluded from talking about hi
m in any way.
And Barclay was obviously worried about the unknown person someone he barely knew was concerned about.
It’s all good. And again, I really appreciate you helping out. If no gift card, then I’m making you dinner. And trust me, I love cooking and I’m good at it. I’ll make it worth a way too early in the morning drive out to no man’s land, she texted back.
She put the spoon aside for the meat sauce, looked at the clock and turned on the flame under water she’d already boiled so when she needed it ready to roll, it would be.
Her phone buzzed in her hand and she looked down at it to read Barclay’s reply of, You’re on, beautiful.
She grinned.
Then she moved her thumb on her phone to get to her list of texts and touched the listing titled “MBB” (My Big Boy).
The text string came up.
9:01: Starting.
9:13: Done.
1:03: Again.
1:12: Done.
Branch whatever-his-name-was.
Man of few words, even in texts.
Reading it (again), Evangeline’s grin turned into a huge smile.
She’d had hope, but she couldn’t be sure. He’d left with her toy inside him and a promise to text and come back that night to let her finish him off.
This could have been a tactical error. He was no novice submissive. He would know, regardless of her assertions she owned him, that her giving him instructions to carry out during the day meant something deeper. And he’d know what that deep meant.
And for Branch, that could be a big problem.
Not to mention life, separation and time had ways of messing with your head. Considering what Evangeline had run into last night at the Pound, Branch’s head was already messed up with something she’d decided she was going to straighten out.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that, being away from her, he’d let that mess talk him into not coming back to get what he needed.
But he’d texted. He’d done what she’d told him to do (she was sure of it—if he wanted to be a good boy, she was realizing he could be very good).
Even so, between 1:12 and—she checked the clock again—6:52, he could change his mind.
Her heart was telling her he wouldn’t.
Whether it was his heart, his head or, the biggest probability, his cock telling him to come back, she would probably never know.
But she was betting one of them would.
On this thought, she started to put her phone down in order to pick up her wineglass to take a sip when it rang.
She looked at the number. It was out of state and she didn’t recognize it, but seeing as her business was her business, that happened often, therefore she answered the call with, “Evangeline Brooks.”
“Evangeline.”
Damn.
She knew that voice.
“Damian,” she replied.
He’d gotten a new number, e-mailed it to her, but she’d never programmed it in.
Obviously he hadn’t lost her number.
“How’s it going, my beautiful girl?”
She looked to the clock again, not needing to be on the phone with Damian when Branch arrived but needing to do a variety of other things to finish off dinner and she had to have it all as ready as possible when Branch showed.
She was suspecting he wasn’t big on domesticity and getting-to-know-you activities so she had to be resourceful, because to break through why she was guessing he’d formed that marble around him she had to find a way to make this not (entirely) about how hard she could make him come.
She had to make it about who they were and how what they had could fit into life.
“It’s going good, Damian,” she replied, rechecking that the oven was preheating for the bread. “Aryas told me you were back in town.”
“Yes. I’ll probably be here for a year, depending on how this project goes, maybe longer.”
“It’ll be good to have you back.”
“It’s good to hear you say that, Evangeline.”
She drew in breath and tucked the phone between ear and shoulder so she could dress the salad, doing so now not only to have everything ready when Branch arrived but also to avoid her guilt that she’d given Damian any impression she might not want him back in her life.
“Listen, I’ve got something happening in about five minutes so it’s great to hear from you, honey, but I can’t talk long,” she gave him the truth, if not a detailed one. “Maybe we can do lunch sometime soon? Catch up?”
“It’s good to hear you say that too, sweetheart,” he murmured, sounding like he meant that a good deal.
She drew in another breath.
Damian kept talking.
“Aryas said you’d checked out. Word is, you’re checking back in.”
“Yes, well, it was time,” she shared. “It was actually time months ago but I got addicted to selling houses and being able to pay for the new shake-style roof my house needed about seven years ago that looks so amazing, if I wasn’t scared of heights, I’d climb up a ladder and kiss it, so I let it go but, well … now I’m back.”
“Glad of that, Leenie.”
“So we’ll do lunch.”
“You should come to the club.”
Damn it.
“Damian—”
“Aryas says you’ve checked back in but not that far in.”
“Taking baby steps,” she lied.
Last night, she’d taken one giant leap for Mistress-kind.
“Take one with me. I’ll hit the Honey. Find a sub. Let you know. You can come, outside the glass, Evangeline. Watch me work.” His voice lowered. “I know how you like to watch me work.” Before she could get a word in, his tone returned to normal, with a hint of amused when he finished, “Get your juices flowing again.”
She cut her eyes to the door when she saw headlights beaming along her driveway.
Oh, her juices were flowing.
Damn it!
“We’ll talk about it later.”
It was like she didn’t say anything. “Or we can watch Leigh with her stud and do it together. I hear the work she does with him is sensational.”
This made Evangeline press her lips together.
Although it could not be said she didn’t like to watch (because she very much did), she, personally, was not into exhibition. It was just something she wasn’t big on doing. If a sub had earned a punishment, she might work with them with the blinds up in a playroom at the Honey, but she, herself, would not perform. She’d make them perform.
But this kind of occasion was rare.
When she interacted with a submissive in any real, intimate way, she wanted privacy, for her, for her sub, for the focus she wanted them both to have on each other and what they were doing, feeling, sharing.
She had seen Amélie play with many of her toys.
But the idea of watching her play with the man she lived with, the man who, if how she talked about him, how she looked when she talked about him, and how others looked knowingly at her when she talked about him, would be in her life for the rest of it, didn’t appeal to her in any way.
Both, she would assume, very much enjoyed showing off the beauty they could make together.
It was just Evangeline that felt that was an invasion she couldn’t perpetrate.
“I’ll call you,” she said hurriedly, moving to the packet of spaghetti to put it in the water. “We’ll make lunch plans. Talk about it then. But now, Damian, I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
“All right, Leenie. Dinner, sometime soon.”
Dinner?
She didn’t say dinner.
“I’ll call you,” she promised.
“If you don’t, I’ll find you.”
She stilled
He’d find her?
“’Bye, Leenie.”
“Goodbye, Damian.”
He disconnected.
She tossed her phone down, dumped the entire packet of spaghetti in the rolling water (who kn
ew? Branch wasn’t a huge guy but he still had a lot of muscle to fuel, so he could be a huge eater) and the door to the kitchen opened.
Branch walked in and stopped dead, hand on the door handle, not even closing the door, eyes to the stove, nostrils flaring at the smells in the air, the entirety of his manner alert and on edge.
Nope.
Not into domesticity and getting to know you.
His gaze cut to her. “Dinner?”
“I’m hungry,” she replied.
“Evangeline—”
“I got home only half an hour ago.”
Lie.
For the herbs and diced pepperoni she added to her meat sauce, that enhanced the flavor exponentially, to do their job, it needed at least that amount of simmering, usually more. She’d been home an hour and a quarter and hadn’t even taken off her skirt and blouse (but she did take off her shoes) before she started cooking.
“If you’ve eaten, you can hang out while I do it. If you haven’t, you can eat with me,” she finished.
“I can also come back in an hour,” he said low.
She locked eyes with him.
He needed it played this way?
She’d play it any way he needed.
“No, you cannot,” she replied just as low.
They battled with their eyes.
When he didn’t back down, she asked softly, “Do you want to experience what I’ve decided to do to make my big boy come for me?”
His delay in reply lasted too long, forcing her stomach to twist as panic edged in.
But finally, he answered curtly, “Yes.”
“Then you wait until I eat. Now, Branch, have you eaten?”
His gaze moved back to the stove before returning to her. “Not anything that was as good as that looks and smells.”
He had no idea, but she was about to rock his world.
This being, of course, before she hoped to God she rocked his world.
“Then come in, grab a beer. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”
She wasn’t about to tell him she didn’t drink beer. The five varieties currently in her fridge she’d purchased guessing he did, but not knowing what he liked.
Instead, she got busy finishing the meal, and as she did so, she came to understand the flaw in her plan.
To Branch, what was going on between them was not about getting to know you. She could have no idea what Aryas shared, but her guess was that Branch would need some kind of assertion that the Domme Aryas was setting him up with would know the score. Therefore, he would assume Evangeline knew the score (and she did).