Into His Keeping (21 page)

“Good girl. Feel how you love it. Damn, Jilly-girl, you’re gushing.”

His voice stroked her with praise that made her see what he saw. She loved it, she wanted it, but more than anything, she loved that he loved it.

His cock was a hard, thick monster that subjugated her with its intrusion and still took her without pain. Finally, seated all the way in, both of them moaned. Jill felt as if the world were spinning beneath her feet as she gasped in guttural moans. Hot excitement burned through her and emotions whirled out of control.

Bent in front of him as he took her like this was so sharply humiliating. Loving it and pushing back on him in eager excitement meant she was a nasty slut. Oh God. Was she that slut? The answer was yes. For Holdin she was anything he wanted. Not because he wanted it any more than she wanted it though. What Holdin wanted showed her how much she loved being his. He knew she’d want this and he’d taken her.

How could she not have known this about herself? How had he known it? That’s when she realized it didn’t matter. He knew her. He knew her to the depth of the woman she couldn’t face. That creature was this person.

Jill sobbed in surrender and felt herself shudder in unimaginable excitement as he played with her pussy and drove his cock into her ass. The new stimulation of his cock fucking her ass was amazing. The thrill of loving his possession, his control, his complete understanding of how nasty she really was almost drove Jill over the edge into orgasm. He even knew that.

Holdin gave her a few short thrusts and pulled out as he reached for the showerhead again and immediately pointed the spray into her still-open ass, effectively rinsing the soap out of her then washed himself again.

“Stand up, baby. That’s it. Good.” Holdin reattached the showerhead and pulled Jill back into his arms. His forearms crossed as his big palms each cuddled a breast while holding her to his chest. They stood under the spray a few minutes shuddering. Jill was shaking in reaction to the experience and Holdin shaking in reaction to pulling out of her.

“Okay, baby?” he softly asked eventually.

“Yes.” Jill turned around to bury her face in his chest as her arms wrapped around him and clutched him to her. His hands moved up and down her back, gently caressing her as she pressed into him. Her breath started coming in hiccups.

Holdin cradled the back of her head as he kissed her neck. “Tell me what the tears are about.”

“Nothing. I just… This is so intense.” Jill’s muffled explanation into his breastbone was halted and jerky.

Holdin smiled into her damp hair. “Okay, you just let it out. I’ll take care of everything.” He picked her up to step out of the shower. Putting her down, he kept an arm around her as she still huddled into his chest while he flipped the shower off and grabbed a towel. Her sobs were short little hiccups of emotion, much like a tired child who is trying not to cry.

He dried all of her he could reach while she hid in his chest. Comforting her with the safety of his touch. “We need to talk about this, baby,” he started as he rubbed her hair. “I understand those were not tears of pain or fear. Crying is a very strong statement to me.”

Jill dragged in a deep breath as he gently set her away from him and ran the towel over her. “It’s hard to explain. I feel so dependent on you somehow. What we did just now felt so good and yet I can’t believe I do whatever you say when we’re together. It doesn’t seem right but I want to so badly. I’m not making sense, am I?”

Holdin wrapped the towel around her, tucking it in under her arm. He grabbed one for himself and quickly wiped the water from his body.

“Well, it does make sense actually. You’re feeling conflicted about our relationship and don’t understand your responses to me,” he told her calmly. “Part of you is fighting it. The internal struggle is deeply emotional. Your basic desires that you surrender to me are battling with what you’ve been taught is the right way to be.”

“I feel guilty and excited, sorta embarrassed and so free. I feel all mixed up.” Jill shivered slightly.

“Nothing is wrong with you. We’re just different than you expected a relationship to be.” Holdin pulled on his jeans and went to the stove, shutting off the burner. He took a mid-sized rectangular metal box off the shelf. It had a metal top and was the type of item often seen in doctors’ offices. In it he dropped a short stack of clean washcloths from the shelves where they were stored then poured enough hot water over them to soak them. He sealed in the heat with the lid. “Jill, what’s between you and me is different. A relationship like this isn’t bad or wrong. It’s something that’s been going on a long time between really honest people. People brave enough to be who they are and lucky enough to have found each other.”

Holdin set the box down and leaned against the counter. Jill was standing in front of the shower where he’d left her. He didn’t want to crowd her for this conversation. It was too important. “Here’s how I see it. We fulfill needs on a very basic level. I need to be in control and it turns you on when I am. I think that takes us to a much deeper level of intimacy than most people reach. The more turned on you get, the better it is for me.

“So we sorta drive each other. My control becomes stronger and your submission to it becomes deeper. You relax and let yourself enjoy what we’re doing without having to think about it. That surrender drives me nuts and also controls me. Your trust is the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m so damn proud every time you give it to me. Saying I love you seems small compared to the way you make me feel.”

Holdin gripped the sink behind his butt to keep from reaching for her. She had to understand how deeply he felt about her. How much he valued her gift. It was more than just loving her. He treasured her. Pulling her into his arms would be influencing her with the sexual heat that flashed between them so easily. That would be unfair and playing dirty. He wasn’t about to do that, but it was damn difficult to stand here and not touch her.

Jill’s head tilted and her hands clasped together in front of her nervously. “When I think about how I am with you, I feel like a spineless idiot. That’s usually long after I’m at home in bed. When I’m alone, I can’t imagine what you see in me besides a stupid robot who follows orders like she doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together.” Jill shrugged and looked at the floor as she confessed the rest. “I promise myself I’m not going to be like that anymore and the next day it happens again.”

Her head down, Jill looked up. “You’re waiting for me at work and before I can say anything you put an arm around me and give me that quick kiss. I’m an idiot again. I want more. You know it and, and…”

“And I tell you where I really want to taste you,” Holdin finished for her with the same wolf’s smile he usually had on his face in the mornings when he whispered what he wanted in her ear.

Holdin always found those first few moments in the morning difficult. They both worked the early morning shift, starting at six. Every morning he battled the urge to rush to her. Mostly he wanted grab her and take her on the spot. There was some strong, basic wiring in his brain that demanded he establish possession both physically and mentally after being away from her overnight. He did it with words, but not “I love you” or some other lame crap like that. No, he needed her to feel his possession and her surrender to it on the same primitive level he wanted her on.

He worked stocking so there was usually a truck to unload. Strangers or staff were around and being hot to get his hands on her definitely wasn’t cool. So he’d solved his problem by murmuring explicit instructions or questions in her ear. Jill would blush and step under his arm, obviously eager to be close to him. Worked real well. It’d never occurred to him that she’d be embarrassed about it.

“Yes.” Jill smiled helplessly. “I just lose my mind and then I’m right back where I started.”

“Jill, you don’t lose your mind. It’s just when I see you in the morning, I’ve missed you.” Holdin gritted his teeth. He didn’t really want to confess making sure she lost her mind around him. “You’re my girlfriend. Wanting to be with me isn’t wrong or bad.”

Jill walked into his body, her hands petting down his bare chest and around his waist to stroke his back in open-handed caresses. “No, but needing you is. I don’t mean just wanting to be with you, Holdin. I
need
you. I can barely walk up those steps in the morning. I want to run. That’s just pathetic!”

Holdin wrapped his arms around her, one hand tunneling under her damp hair to cradle her skull, the other sliding down her bottom to pull her against him. He chuckled softly, “Oh damn, baby. There isn’t a morning that I don’t want to leap down those steps and grab you. Waiting for you to walk to me is torture. So we both are losing our minds. Don’t tell anyone, okay? We’re way too cool a couple to be the desperate idiots who slobber all over each other in public.”

Jill’s face lit up. “You want to rush to me? You feel just like I do?”

“Oh yeah. I want to do a damn sight more than get that little puritan kiss. Someday I’m going to wake up beside you and show you how I feel in the mornings.” His hips nudged into her pelvis for emphasis. “I’m a morning person,” he teased as his head dipped down to taste her neck.

“I could have sworn you’re an afternoon person.” Jill tilted her head to enjoy the neck nibbles. He knew he could make her tingle from that touch alone.

Holdin growled in a low rumbling complaint that was all male. “Texas men take what we need and don’t whine about the rest. It’s what I can get with you, woman.”

Jill laughed softly. “I feel much better, you know. I needed to know it wasn’t just me.”

“Baby,” Holdin’s head came off her neck so he could look her in the eye, “I am more into you than I know how to say. I act all casual most of the time. But you’d be embarrassed if I didn’t.” He grinned his lopsided smile. “And sometimes I need you to blush for me but not because I’m acting like an idiot.” His hands both dipped beneath the short towel and came up her thighs to cup both bottom cheeks. Very slowly he separated them and Jill blushed hard at his suggestive handling.

“Yeah. Just like that, so I know you understand whose girl you are. No one else, Jill.
Mine
. It’s not wrong and it’s not shameful when it’s between us.” His voice was barely a whisper into her mouth as she strained up on her toes. Hard male lips crushed down on her mouth as his hands slid down her thighs again and lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist as they moaned into each other’s mouth.

Holdin lifted his head. “Time to go back upstairs, Jilly-girl.” Her body tensed to get off him. “No.” His hand spanning her bare bottom gripped firmly. “Stay right there.”

He picked up the square tin in the other hand and stepped over by the towel rack. “Grab my shirt,” he directed. Jill picked it up and they were out the door.

Holdin strode down the brightly lit barn ally. It was late afternoon and the center of the barn had been roofed in a material that let sunlight filter through. Jill relaxed in his arms completely and realized she was smiling. This was exactly where she wanted to be and he’d just freed her from any lingering guilt over it.

Back at the blanket in the loft, Holdin knelt carefully and laid her down. Jill’s smile was sensual as she arched her back and stretched her hands over her head. Holdin carefully put the tin container down, shucked off his jeans and moved to kneel at her feet. Picking up one of her feet, his thumbs started massaging right below her toes with firm pressure.

“What are you doing?” Jill wanted to know as she purred at the new sensation. It wasn’t even sexual and it made her feel amazing. He was just kneeling there rubbing her foot as he smiled lazily. His eyes were moving over her towel-wrapped body with every indication of pleasure.

“I’m looking at you, touching you,” Holdin answered almost absently.

“I’m not even naked.”

“No, but you will be.”

“You can’t reach the towel from down there.”

“When you’re ready, you’ll take it off, baby. It’s your choice.”

“I will?”

“Yes, you’ll do it for me because you want to. Or you won’t because you don’t want to. Either way I get to do this and enjoy looking at you.”

Jill came up on her elbows. The foot massage was making her leg tingle with contentment. He picked up the other foot and started on it. “You mean you like rubbing my feet? You do it for me because you want to.”

“Yes.” Holdin nodded. “I want to because I know it feels good. You are mine. From these toes to the top of your pretty head and I take care of what’s mine.”

Jill bit her lip as she looked at the big, magnificent male kneeling at her feet, rubbing them. He wasn’t touching her sexually or encouraging her in any direction at all. They were here because she wanted him to take her virginity. He hadn’t said no but he’d argued against it. Now he was giving her time—again. Not ignoring her and not arguing with her, just taking care of her while he waited for a sign that she was ready.