Badd Ass Read online

  "That's them." I felt oddly proud that she'd heard of them. I mean, I knew the twins were talented, and that they'd made it pretty big, but when some girl you just met has heard of them, has seen them play? Kind of makes you realize exactly how famous they are.

  "That's pretty cool. They're crazy good. They put on an amazing show. Claire and I went together; we took a long weekend in LA." She pushed ahead of me as we reached the overlook. "Wow...now this is amazing."

  "Quite a view, huh?"

  Ketchikan was spread out beneath us to our right, Gavina Island was directly across from us, and the massive bulk of the mountains sheltered us in the dark shadows of the night. There was a fence following the edge of the bluff, so we leaned against it and stared out at the cluster of lights below and the starlight on the rippling water.

  "So." She tugged the hood of her sweatshirt over her head against the cool breeze riffling through her hair. "Sebastian, you, Baxter, Brock, Canaan and Corin..."

  "Actually, Brock is older by a year," I corrected. "Lucian is next after Bax, and he's a lot different than the rest of us. He dropped out of high school when he was, like, a sophomore I think. He wanted to work the fishing boats. Dad made Lucian a deal that as long as he had his GED by the time he was eighteen, he could work the nets instead of going to school. Luce had that GED in the bag by the time he was seventeen, and the second he had it, he was gone. He got a berth on a tanker and ended up who knows where. He's just an odd cat. He's quiet, intense, and--how would you put it? Wise beyond his years, I guess. Just...he can be hard to get to know."

  "And then Xavier is the youngest?"

  "Yep. Xavier is...he's a genius, in the literal sense. He builds robots and studies quantum physics for fun, reads hundreds of pages in a matter of an hour...he graduated high school at sixteen, got a full ride to Stanford on academics and soccer. He's gonna be the next Einstein or Hawking, I'm pretty sure."

  Mara twisted to lean sideways against the railing so she could look at me. "And then there's you."

  I shrugged, unsure where she was going with this. "Then there's me."

  She hesitated, thinking, and I stayed quiet, letting her have the time to process her thoughts. "I know I bolted last night, or this morning, or whatever."

  I nodded. "You did kind of pull a runner."

  She glanced down, picking at the wood of the railing. "Yeah, well, that's kind of my M-O. And I--"

  "What is your M-O? Just so I'm clear."

  "Sleep with someone after the bar, and leave early in the morning before they're awake. No strings, no weirdness."

  I nodded. "Same here, for the most part. Although I'm not impartial to breakfast if she seems down with it."

  "Yeah, I don't stay for breakfast. I rarely even stay for round two. I just--it's not me."

  "Why not?"

  She sighed. "Can we maybe hold off on the psychoanalysis for the moment?"

  I rolled a shoulder. "Sure. Go ahead, I'll shut up and listen."

  "Good plan." She paused to think again, and then continued. "I'm in Ketchikan for a week. I haven't taken vacation days in a long time, and Claire is only here through tomorrow afternoon, so...I'll have some free time, I guess. And--and...I thought we could...hang out, or something."

  I eyed her curiously. "I'm not sure what you're suggesting."

  "Neither am I!" she said, in a sudden outburst. "I'm, like, crazy attracted to you--I'm just not sure what to do with it. I don't do relationships, and I'm only here for a week, so it's not like it's going to be...a thing, or whatever. But I would like to spend some more time with you."

  I let out a breath, turning to look out at the hometown I'd never expected to be living in again. "Huh. So, when you talk about spending time together, do you mean just sex? Or are you suggesting stuff like spending time together with our clothes on?"

  She lifted both hands palms up. "I don't know, Zane. I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing right now. But I was talking to Claire earlier, while you were collecting all those phone numbers, and she said I needed to open my mind a little bit."

  "Open your mind?"

  She nodded, shoulders hunched as she leaned forward, bracing her forearms on the railing. "Like, start trying things beyond the way I normally do them. But I--I don't know how. Trust is...hard, and I'm just cynical, I guess. None of the guys I've ever met have seemed like anyone I'd be interested in seeing more than once."

  "And I'm safe, because you're going back home in a week, so if I turn out to be a raging douchebag, you can just catch a flight home and forget about me."

  "Exactly." Her eyes cut to mine. "But please, feel free to not turn into a raging douchebag."

  "I'll do my best." I pivoted to put my butt against the railing, looking down at her. "So, yeah. I'm game. It could be fun. I mean, I'm not the relationship type any more than you are. Most of my interactions with women happen either naked, or in the pursuit of getting naked. This would be something new for me too."

  She smirked up at me. "Hey, you can probably count on getting me naked, because let's face it, you're just too damn good at seduction."

  "Good to know," I said.

  She straightened, then, standing beside me, still facing the view, arms crossed under her breasts. "But I would also like to try this whole...being together without the sex thing."

  I considered what she was proposing. "So basically, we're sort of...practice dating."

  She nodded. "Exactly. Practice dating."

  "So, is there a ratio or something for how much time we spend dating and how much time we spend naked?"

  "Um, good question. I don't know. Maybe we just see how things go?" She eyed me with a teasing grin. "But you can't spend every single waking moment trying to get into my pants, or this won't work."

  "No?" I edged closer to her. "Why not?"

  Her fingers fluttered like restless birds, and eventually settled on my chest, playing with the folds in the fabric. "Because you're too good at it, and I'm not very good at resisting. We're supposed to be trying something new, after all."

  "Well, I could argue that since neither of us typically sleep with the same person more than once, if we spend this week fucking like newlyweds we would be trying something new."

  She glared at me. "Goddammit, Zane."

  "What?" I laughed.

  "That's exactly the type of logic we're supposed to be avoiding, mister."

  "It is? Why?"

  "Because the whole point of this experiment is to see what it's like having a relationship with someone outside of sex."

  "Oh."

  She nodded. "Yeah. Oh."

  I consulted my watch. "Well, it has been at least twelve hours since we last had sex, so...maybe we could start the whole clothes-on part of this practice dating tomorrow morning?"

  Mara laughed, her head tipping back, her laughter ringing out through the forest. "You're something else, Zane."

  I slipped sideways, wedging myself between the fence and her body.

  "You can't even make it through one conversation without trying to slip me your dick," she said.

  "I'm not trying to slip you anything," I said, "I'm trying to get you to take your shirt off and give me a blow job."

  She blinked up at me. "You want me to take my shirt off and suck your dick?"

  "Yeah, why not?"

  "For real?"

  I shrugged. "Ever since the first time I saw you smile I've been fantasizing about the way your mouth would look wrapped around my cock. So yeah, for real."

  She stared at me for a moment, just breathing and looking at me. "Okay."

  "Wait, what?"

  She slid my jacket off my shoulders and placed it on the ground, leather to the dirt, inside facing up. "I said, okay."

  "Really?"

  She nodded, and peeled her hoodie off, and then her T-shirt, and then unhooked her bra, setting the clothing in a pile to one side. And holy motherfuck, my cock went ramrod stiff in my jeans. There are few things more inherently erotic than a woman
topless, outside, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a sultry grin. Something about it is just...fucking hot as hell. I'd suggested it as a joke--mostly--not really expecting her to agree, but there she was, bare from the waist up, nipples hardening in the chill of the September night air.

  She knelt on my jacket in front of me and reached for my belt. Unbuckled it, then unbuttoned my jeans and slowly tugged the zipper down. My cock was straining, about to pop out the top of my boxer briefs. She slid my jeans down around my ankles, and then reached up to snag the waistband of my underwear.

  She paused, glancing up at me. "If I have to be topless, I think it's only fair that you do too."

  I peeled my shirt off and tossed it with hers, then let my hands fall to my sides, waiting for her to make the next move. She grazed her palms over my abs, tracing the ridges between the blocks of muscle. I was glad, then, for the nice little weight room Bast had put together in the storeroom beneath the bar; I'd put in a lot of time down there, benching, squatting, and doing weighted crunches, and it looked like my hard work was paying off, judging by the way her hands ran appreciatively over my body. She hooked her fingers into my underwear again, and this time she didn't pause. She tugged them away from my body to let my erection spring free, and then she dragged them down. I was naked, right out in the open on the Rainbird Trail overlook, Ketchikan below us, stars above us, with the most gorgeous woman I'd ever laid eyes on kneeling in front of me.

  Mara wrapped one hand around my shaft and slid it up, then down. Again, slowly. I groaned, aching at the feel of her hand on me.

  "Groaning already, Zane?" she teased. "I'm just getting started."

  I opened my mouth to answer, but then she bent and put her mouth on me, and I could only groan again; any wisecracks I might have had were blasted out of my head by the pure bliss of Mara's mouth. She caressed me at the root and slid her lips around me, gliding lower and lower, swallowing as I pushed into her throat, and then she backed away, her fist fluttering at my base.

  "Jesus, Mara."

  "Mmmm-hmmm?" Holy hell, that moan, that hum, the way she sounded like she knew exactly how incredible she was making me feel.

  "Your mouth feels like..." I searched for a way to express it, but she felt so warm and wet and soft and her hand was stroking and pumping slowly and it was too hard to think, too erotic to form coherent thoughts.

  "Hmmm?" That hum again, encouraging me to keep talking.

  "Feels like I never want you to stop. I don't even want to come, I just want to feel this."

  "Mmmm-hmmm?" She hummed, and cupped her other hand under my balls, squeezing gently as her fist slid along my shaft.

  "God, yeah." I forced my eyes open and looked down to watch her.

  She tilted away from my body and sank to sit on her feet, the angle now allowing her to look up at me through her eyelashes as she drove her mouth on me, pushing closer to my torso, taking more and more of me. Fuck, like this I could watch her mouth take me, watch my cock slide between her lips. My cock was thick enough that her mouth was forced open into a wide O, her jaw extended, and I felt her tongue fluttering along my shaft.

  She let go of my cock then, her palms brushing over my belly, grazing around my hips to clutch my ass.

  God, oh god, oh god. Just her mouth, then her hair in loose golden waves around her shoulders to tickle my thighs, her hands cupping my ass, fingernails digging in fiercely as she moved her mouth back and forth along my cock. She'd swallow as she took me in and swirl her tongue around the head as she backed away, then she'd pause with just the head of my cock in her mouth and give me a series of short suckling little bobs, and then she'd plunge her mouth back down.

  She was playing with me, I realized, feeling me tense as the orgasm rose up inside me, and that was when she'd pause and slow down, letting me back away from the edge. And then she'd start over.

  She played me to the edge again and again, always pausing and shifting or slowing so I'd lose the edge of the orgasm, and then start over. Again and again, until my balls were throbbing and I was growling in need. How long had she been doing this? Four minutes? Five? I'd never had a blow job last this long. If I'm having sex, I can pull back a lot, keep going for fucking ever. But if a girl was going down on me, the point was to come hard and fast, right? So I'd let it happen as it happened, let her decide when I came. But this? Jesus, this? It was unlike anything I'd ever felt. The pleasure of her mouth for so damn long, fuck, it was enough to make me wonder if I'd died and gone to heaven.

  And then, just when I thought she was about to stop playing and bring me to climax, she backed away and let me pop free of her mouth with a loud smack. Before I could ask what she was doing, though, she had both hands around my cock and was...massaging it, I guess you could call it. Way more than just merely stroking it. This was...god, I don't know. My shaft was slick with her spit, so her fists slipped up and down with slick ease, and she was squeezing and twisting on each upstroke, each downstroke, plunging both hands in unison and then separately. When she felt my skin starting to dry out, she formed a cup around the head with her hand and bent over, and I felt warm and wet saliva drip onto me. She spread it around, and now her strokes were speeding up, the tight squeezing massaging touch going faster and faster, until my hips began to move and my cock started to throb and my balls were aching.

  "Fuck...fuck, Mara!"

  "You're close?" she murmured, staring up at me with that sultry, erotic thrill in her eyes, a lazy, hungry look that said she knew exactly what she was doing to me and that I'd repay her in kind.

  "Mara, honey, when I finally come, it's going to be--oh shit."

  She'd forced me off my train of thought by taking me into her mouth unexpectedly, both hands plunging up and down my shaft, her lips suctioning around the tip of my cock.

  For the most part, my hands had stayed by my sides, letting her do this her way. But now...I had to touch her. I rested my hands on her shoulders, caressing everywhere I could touch.

  I was edging closer to orgasm now, abs tightening, thighs shaking, hips flexing, and she wasn't stopping this time, bobbing shallowly on my cock while sucking hard, fists gliding at the same slow pace. There wasn't any stopping it this time. I started to groan uncontrollably, uttering curses under my breath, whispering her name. She reached up and moved my hands from her shoulders to her head, encouraging me to bury my fingers in her hair, which I did, eagerly. The sounds I was making at this point were...well, I sounded like a damn caveman, if you want the truth--unh, unh, oh god, ohhhhh, ohfuckohfuckohfuck...like that. Nonstop. Loudly.

  Everything inside me, everything I was, everything I contained was centered on Mara's mouth, on her hands, on my throbbing cock and aching balls and the crushing need to come. If the entire world exploded right the fuck now I wouldn't care, as long as this moment with Mara didn't end.

  I felt it boiling up inside me, then, that hot white pushing pressure that told me I was done.

  I tightened my grip on Mara's hair, grunting unintelligibly. I was crazed, honestly. My brain was mush, my heart was hammering like I'd just held my breath until I saw black, and I was helplessly pumping my hips. There are two unspoken rules when it comes to receiving a blow job: one--unless you know for a fact she's down for it, you don't try to act like it's a scene in a porno, meaning don't go all Ramjet the Rookie with the thrusting, and two--when you're about to come, you warn her either verbally or with two tugs of her hair, so she can decide whether to spit, swallow, or let you blow your load elsewhere. In that moment, however, Mara had completely obliterated all of my higher functions. I don't think I'd have known my own name, much less been able to respond.

  I couldn't stop it, couldn't even warn the poor girl, I just came with a roar, hips thrust forward hard. And Mara? God, the girl was a fucking goddess. She didn't miss a beat. One hand remained on my ass, pulling me toward her, actively encouraging me to keep moving, and her other hand drifted around between us and her fingers teased over my balls moments before I felt the
first wave blast through me, and then right as I started coming she pressed her two middle fingers to my taint, just behind my sac, massaging. Her mouth was suctioning on me like a vacuum, bobbing, sliding. I heard her gulp, and then she was moaning as I lost the last vestige of control, growling like a damn animal. That moan? Dear sweet Jesus. I think I saw stars I came so hard, and it was made all the more powerful by the way she was moaning as she swallowed my come. Faked or not, I didn't care in that moment, it was just so fucking hot, so intense.

  It may have only lasted for thirty seconds at the most, but I swear that was the longest, hottest, hardest orgasm of my life, and it felt like it lasted an hour.

  Even after I'd stopped actively coming, Mara kept going, backing away, tongue swirling, and then I was out of her mouth and the air was cool on my wet shaft, and her tongue was flicking over my sensitive skin, licking at the tip as droplets seeped out of me. Her hand left my ass and clutched my still hard but slackening cock, stroking, caressing, her tongue flicking, her lips kissing.

  And then, finally, she let me go and leaned back.

  I sagged against the railing, gasping. "Holy motherfucking goddamn shit."

  I had to cling to the thick wooden railing with both arms to keep from collapsing to the ground. And even then, my arms were as limp as spaghetti, like I'd just done fifty weighted pull-ups. I felt myself collapsing, and was powerless to stop it, felt the railing scrape my back, felt the ground rush up to meet me, even as I fought to stay upright.

  I hit the ground hard, and Mara burst out laughing. "Ohmygod, are you okay?" she asked, crawling over to me.

  The grass was damp and cold, the wood chips rough under my butt, my jeans and underwear tangled around my ankles.

  "I think I died and went to heaven and just fell back to earth," I said.

  She tugged at my underwear, trying to help me get them back on. "Come on, big guy, lift up for me."

  "I can't...I can't move yet." I remained as I was, simply because I was completely unable to move anything but my lips; every other part of me was limp and tingling.

  "It was that good, huh?" Her smile was sweet and pleased.

  "That good? I...Sweetheart, that was...that was fellatio as art."

  She was blushing. "I tried to make it good for you."