Page 50 of At Her Pleasure
Or would have, but he caught her wrist before it made contact. He gave her a return smile and put his mouth on her fingers.
While his mouth felt nice, she wasn’t going to be denied her retribution. With the jar in her lap, she slapped his head with the other hand. He didn’t take his lips from her palm or stop her this time, accepting the admonishment as his due.
“Let go of me and turn back around.”
When he complied amiably, she eyed his back. “Ros has a three-legged cat, Freak. He can still contort himself just like any other cat and clean almost every inch of his body with his tongue. Humans got gypped.”
“We got thumbs. It’s always about the trade off.”
She spread the pungent stuff over his shoulders and back. She wasn’t pampering him. No woman would pass up the chance to stroke and knead his muscles and firm skin. She also wanted to feel the cane and whip marks she’d left on him, the M she’d created.
As she passed over other scars, the ones that didn’t belong to her, she spoke again. “You’ve lived an interesting life, Mick.”
“Everyone does, Mistress.” His head was down, his gaze seemingly fixed on the concrete in front of his braced bare feet. “Even if most of it is spent in the same place, the mind can take you to hell and back. That’s never about geography.”
CHAPTER NINE
It had been a fucking interesting day all the way around.
A few hours after they went their separate ways at the warehouse, Mick thought about texting Cyn, telling her he couldn’t come to dinner, and leaving it at that. He preferred not to lie to her. Instead, he found himself navigating the motorhome to Tiger’s place on the fringes of the city, a property with marsh view and lots of acreage.
Not too bad for a man who’d had far better odds for being a corpse before he reached thirty. Or a permanent guest of the Louisiana correctional system.
Mick’s research on the people closest to Cyn had produced insightful tidbits like that. He wondered if Tiger knew that Cyn and he had walked a similar path. Mick suspected he didn’t. Cyn undoubtedly considered this group her chosen family, but there were doors she still hadn’t opened to them. He understood not wanting to excavate what you’d killed and buried. Mick would be the last person to criticize her for that. If he threw those rocks, his glass house, about the size of a coffin, would shatter.
Tiger had lots of parking, and a fleet of vehicles were already there. Mick found a space for his that didn’t block them, near Cyn’s monster truck with the whip hanging in the gun rack. His back twitched, remembering the kiss of its cousin in the warehouse. She’d worked him over, but the ointment and salve had helped. Even if it hadn’t, thanks to his eventful afternoon, that discomfort had been eclipsed. The way a toothache was forgotten when you slammed your hand in a door.
He’d wanted to feel the lingering pain of her marks, though. Losing that chance so soon kind of pissed him off. He didn’t want to forget any single benefit of his time with her. Even the agony of that saltwater.
It had all been at her hand. At her pleasure.
He’d endure hell if it came attached to those three words. Mick sat behind the wheel, gazing sightlessly at the house, remembering her hands on his back, working the ointment in. Touching him. Just…touching him.
Hell, he needed to get his ass out of here. Out of New Orleans. Before he had to face the harrowing truth that the soul he’d thought he’d lost had been here all along. With her.
A bay window showed movement in the kitchen. Skye emerged from the side door, carrying a foil-covered tray. She saw him, damn it, and raised her hand.
Busted and stuck. Committed now.
She pointed toward the back and waved him on as she disappeared around the brick ranch house.
At least she didn’t stick around to see him get out of the vehicle. He dry swallowed three more OTC painkillers to knock the edge off. It took a few tentative steps, and a fierce talking-to with his body before he could achieve a casual, sauntering gait and follow her path.
Cyn had seemed to want to see him in jeans, and mentioned this deal was casual, so he’d been able to balance his current state with her desires. He wore jeans without a belt, a T-shirt loose over them. Not sloppy; the clothes were comfortable but nice for presenting himself to her people.
He touched the side of Cyn’s truck as he passed, his gaze scanning the other vehicles. Vera’s Aston Martin, Ros and Skye’s Mustangs. Skye drove a vintage blue one, Ros a more current model in red. Abby and Neil had come in his pickup. Tiger’s motorcycle, a muscle Harley, was probably parked in the barn he saw near a dirt track.
Coming around the corner of the house, he saw a large gazebo, custom built with cedar. Roll-down screens kept out bugs, and it sheltered a nice outdoor furniture set and wet bar. A nearby concrete pad held grill, fire pit, and a cluster of Adirondack chairs. Tiger was busy at the grill, Lawrence and Neil keeping him company, lounging in the chairs, beers in hand. The women were under the gazebo, sitting companionably on cushioned chairs and love seats.
Cyn was in the same snug sleeveless top and boots, but she’d traded out her slacks for jeans with a saliva-producing fit. She also wore the skeleton necklace. It brought back powerful images from earlier in the day. Her arms were slim but strong. The way she’d climbed his body, lifting herself up and down on his cock with no aid, wanting him to act as if he was bound, had proven it. She’d carried herself to climax with no signs of flagging.
She glanced his way, but her brief wave toward the men was easy to translate. Girl time right now. Go play with the boys.
She still had a Jersey girl’s frankness. The inner smile helped him keep moving the way he needed to, because even though she acted indifferent, he wasn’t fooled. She was as hyperaware of him as he was of her.
The club, the straw bales, the warehouse, all of it had opened a fire of want. He expected it to burn hot long after he put New Orleans in his rearview mirror.
Stick that in the bucket of things he wasn’t going to think about tonight if he could help it.