After Hours (InterMix)(67)

“Good, Kelly.”

“Make me come. Make me come.” He begged with more than his words. He pleaded with his hips and eyes and the fingers digging into my thighs, with every twitch of every muscle in his huge body.

He grabbed my ass as the climax hit, jamming our bodies together, burying his cock so deep I winced through a cramp. Three times he tensed, before his grip relaxed, traveling up my waist to stroke my back. His smile was sudden and guileless, catching me off guard.

He muttered a disbelieving, “Oh, sweetheart,” then dropped his forehead to my collarbone and sighed. The affection was a pleasant surprise, and I was glad he couldn’t see how poor a job I was doing, biting back a dopey grin. I stroked his hair, feeling how his flaring breaths slowed alongside the fingertips caressing my back.

He cleared his throat and raised his head. “Damn.”

“You’re welcome?”

He kissed my mouth. “That was amazing.”

Ever cagey, I deflected. “How very gracious of you to let me be on top.”

Kelly gave me a dry look. “I’m not into weak women, you know.” He flipped us over like I weighed no more than a pillow, kneeling between my legs and stripping the condom in a practiced motion.

“No?”

“Nah. Quite the opposite. I like tough girls, ones with a little crust to them.”

“Oh lovely,” I said, faking annoyance. “I’m crusty now.”

Kelly reached under me, urging me to arch my back. He fingered my vertebrae like piano keys. “I love how every time I push you, you go all stiff, right here. I like a girl with a rock-hard spine.”

“All the more fun to dominate, I’m sure.”

“Snark all you want, but it’s true.” Kelly braced himself on his elbows, leaning in to kiss my forehead.

“I trust I proved a worthy challenge.”

He sat back on his heels, squeezing my calves as he gathered his thoughts. “When I was about twenty-four, I was sort of dating this stripper—”

“Of course you were.”

“I was bouncing weekends at this topless bar for a few months, and I knew all the girls who danced there. They came from all kinds of backgrounds—plenty of them were what you’d expect, desperate or worn out, or supporting some habit or other. But this one chick, she had a spine made of f*cking iron. She didn’t take shit from anybody, and it f*cking blew my mind.”

I ignored the hot snake of jealousy wriggling in my gut. He was talking about someone he’d known fifteen years ago, after all, plus I didn’t want to miss a new clue into who this man was and how he’d gotten that way, just because it made me insecure.

“I mean, my mom was a complete doormat,” he said. “That was my female role model—a woman who couldn’t defend herself or her kid. I’d never met a girl as bullshit-proof as this dancer. It made me want her so bad, just knowing . . .”

“Just knowing she’d put up a fight.”

“Nah. Just knowing like, this chick doesn’t let any guy between her legs unless she f*cking wants him there. I’d gotten so used to muscling my way through life, it was like some revelation. The first woman where I thought, damn, I want to earn my way into a taste of that.”

“This is a very romantic anecdote, Kelly.”

“Shush. And I did eventually get with her. I wasn’t her boyfriend, I don’t think, but we had a thing, for a while. It just blew my mind, to be with this woman that I knew didn’t roll over for anybody. I mean, I saw this girl naked every day I was at work, but it was like the armor never came off. And I wanted to get under there, even more than I wanted to get with her.”

“Did you?”

“No. I never really did, but it still completely changed how I felt about women.”

“Did you try to like, rescue her from herself?”

“Maybe, yeah. That was sort of the only role I knew, at the time. But this woman didn’t want or need rescuing. If any guy tried to help her, there went her entire identity, you know? If she wasn’t in control, she was nothing, in her mind.”

“That sounds like someone I know.” I’d meant Kelly, but the second the words came out, I realized they could just as easily apply to me.

“I swear she had f*cking rebar instead of bone marrow.”

“What happened with you two?”

He shrugged. “She got bored of me, I think. Or got bored of me like, worshipping her. Told me to f*ck off and give her some space, so I did. Found a different job.”