Cherish Hard
Page 43

Stripping off his briefs, he chucked them aside, toward his other clothes.
Ísa gave a little gasp and reached out a hand, but Sailor shook his head, staying out of reach.
“No touching,” he said. “Your sister doesn’t need that kind of a sex education.”
“Just a little taste,” his redhead negotiated. “Bite down on your arm to muffle any sound.”
Sailor’s brain cells surrendered.
Closing the distance between them, he lifted one forearm to his mouth while putting the hand of his other arm gently on the back of Ísa’s head. She didn’t seem to mind, and—
A roar of sound rising in his gut as the sumptuous heat of her mouth closed over the engorged tip of his cock.
Sailor broke contact a bare second later. “No.” His breath came out in harsh bursts. “I am going to be way too noisy for even a gag to work.”
When Ísa’s eyes gleamed, he knew he’d given her another idea.
His cock jumped.
Taking it in hand, the tip shiny wet from her kiss, he decided to put himself out of his misery before his balls turned electric blue and fell off. “Sometimes,” he told her, “I like it slow.” He showed her exactly how slow. “I think about a certain gorgeous redhead, her pretty white thighs clamped around my head while I lick her, and I stroke just like this.”
His words, the fantasy, were doing nothing for his control, but it was Ísa’s reaction that interested him. She was flushed, her breathing uneven, her nipples dark pink and pouting.
“But,” he continued, “today I don’t have the patience for slow. Today I want it hard, fast, so fucking good.” He moved his hand in time with his words until he lost the rhythm and, throwing back his head, allowed his body to buck into his hand.
He hadn’t come in his hand in a while; it was usually easier to do this in the shower, but when he opened his eyes and saw Ísa watching him with an expression that said she wanted to devour him, he had zero regrets.
Blowing her a kiss with his free hand, causing a startled light to come into her eyes, he walked into the bathroom, cleaned up. He was surprised to see Ísa—T-shirt back on—
walking in as he stepped out.
He ran the back of his hand over her cheek. “Everything okay, spitfire?”
Her eyes skimmed down his body, his very naked body, and the tips of her ears went pink. This time Sailor didn’t fight the temptation. Leaning in, he nipped gently at one.
She jumped, her hand coming to lie against his chest. “What was that?”
“Just a thing I wanted to do.” And something he’d be doing more often, because it was so damn adorable. “You need the bathroom?”
Her ears went even more pink if that was possible. “Yes,” she said before entering the bathroom and shutting the door firmly behind herself.
Sailor frowned… right before he got it.
He was grinning when she came back out. “Naked under that T-shirt?” he asked, unable to resist teasing his cute redhead.
She glared at him. “Had to wash out my panties. Thanks to you.”
He took a bow. “You’re welcome.” He’d pulled his own briefs back on since he had nothing else in which to sleep and he didn’t trust his naked cock around Ísa. He’d go commando tomorrow.
However, the idea of Ísa being sweetly bare under that T-shirt, it was a damn fine one.
He pulled back the covers. “Get in,” he said. “I promise to only molest you a tiny bit.”
“Just remember the noise issue,” Ísa replied with spitfire spunk and slipped in.
Smiling, he got in after flicking off the light. He made sure to snuggle her close to him so that she was tucked against his chest, his thigh pushed up between hers. He’d had a long day. Lots of satisfying manual labor, topped off by a powerful sexual release that had flooded his body with endorphins and turned his limbs lazy.
So despite his threat to tease and play with his redhead, it only took him a couple of minutes to fall into a dark, dreamless sleep.
* * *
ÍSA FELT SAILOR DROP OFF; no wonder, his muscles had to be exhausted after the day he’d put in—the days he’d been putting in one after the other. She knew the kind of grueling work it took to start a business, then take it to the next level. She’d seen both her parents do it.
It scared her to see Sailor walk the same unforgiving path.
Because the one thing, the one thing she’d always told herself, was that she was to never ever fall in love with a man who had a business to run. She had no intention of repeating her lonely childhood as an adult.
The idea of eating dinner with relative strangers, or alone as she had as a young teen who’d outgrown nannies, was her own personal vision of hell. She’d survived those early teen years mostly because of Nayna’s family, who’d semiadopted her. It was why she understood the complex dynamics of her best friend’s family, understood the intense, abiding love entwined with the strict rules that threatened to crush Nayna’s spirit.
After Catie’s birth, Ísa had made sure the poor, tiny girl never felt lonely as she had, even though Jacqueline had been her usual absentee self once Catie was out of the hospital, while Clive was a brilliant, adoring father one day and off racing cars in Los Angeles or some other harebrained thing the next. Catie had been three, Ísa eighteen when Jacqueline and Clive divorced. Only Ísa had remained a constant in her sister’s life.
She’d always be there for Catie. Just as she would be for Harlow.
But her siblings couldn’t fill the hole in Ísa formed during her own childhood. They were children. What Ísa needed desperately was a deeply adult thing—for the man she loved to not constantly push her aside for more important matters. She needed him to see her on the most primal level.
She needed him not to forget her.
This isn’t love, she thought, comforting herself. You’re just confused because of the orgasms.
Ísa had to believe that; it was the only way she could risk continuing this relationship. Because sooner or later, Sailor Bishop would come to a crossroads and have to make a choice: go all in on his business dreams or live a life with a little more balance, a life that included time to love a woman, time to build a family.
Having seen his drive and ambition, Ísa had no illusions about the choice he’d make.
I’m married to my business. She’s also my very demanding mistress. Doesn’t tolerate other women for long periods.
When that time came, Ísa had to be ready to walk away. She couldn’t risk being tied to him by love while her soul shriveled with loneliness. Throat thick, she whispered, “Please don’t break my heart, Sailor” while knowing that to be an inevitability.
* * *
THEY HAD AN EARLY BREAKFAST the next morning. Despite the late night, Sailor had woken at five, as was his habit. Usually he made time to go out for a run. You’d think with such a physical job, he’d have given up the running, but he liked that early-morning stretch. Today, however, he had nothing to run in even if he’d wanted to leave the bed.
Ísa woke when he stirred, and he nuzzled a kiss into her neck. She’d been an easy sleeping companion, no wiggling around from Miss Ísa Rain; she’d stayed nicely tucked up against him all night long.
“You’re very cuddly,” he told her with another kiss.