Old Enough To Know Better (11 page)

“Very good,” he praised.

She gave him the evil eye.  “Don’t get used to it.”

Finn chuckled.  “It’s your bottom . . .”  He took up the dessert menu.  “Shall we indulge ourselves?”

They did – in a wonderful lemon tart that was the perfect compliment to their meals.  They were barely able to waddle out to his car, where Cat joked that he was going to need to use a shoehorn to get her in.

The ride home was quieter than the ride to dinner had been, but it was a pleasant, comfortable silence.  He held her hand on his thigh the entire way in a familiarity she’d never shared with any other man but Clint.  Finn didn’t wait for her to ask him in but took the keys from her as soon as she’d dug them out of her purse, and let the both of them in.

Finn helped her out of her coat, hanging it neatly in the closet, then, before she could escape, he turned her and pulled her against him in one smooth move, his lips claiming hers as he bent her backwards just enough that she had no choice but to cling to him for balance.

Cat’s head was spinning, and she couldn’t even blame it on alcohol.  She could lose herself in him so easily, and that was exactly what he was encouraging her to do, of course.

Finn wasn’t going to give her the chance to think about much of anything.  He intended to press his advantage wherever he could, and he wanted to make love to her tonight.  He needed to feel that closeness with her, and wanted her to experience it with him.  He wanted to lay claim to her, in the most primitive manner as he possibly could.

She was in his arms before he could think twice about it, and within a few strides, they were in her bedroom.  Cat hadn’t made a peep, not that he’d given her much of a chance, though.  His mouth had been plundering hers the entire time.

The way he set her down onto that cream, rose and celery green comforter said a lot to her; she felt as if she was a piece of bone china the way he made certain that she was comfortable and that he didn’t accidentally crush or lean on any part of her.  He followed her eagerly down, cradling her face with his big hands.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asked huskily, his eyes roaming over her reverently.

She knew he was lying, of course.  She knew it.  She’d forced herself to contemplate her figure very carefully in the mirror this morning after her shower, in anticipation of the possibility of this very moment, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight.  She was no spring chicken, and certain portions of her anatomy no longer resided quite where they were supposed to.  It was no wonder ninety nine point nine percent of Hollywood had themselves nipped and tucked.  Gravity was, indeed, a bitch.

But you’d never know there was anything amiss by Finn’s behavior.  His hands were everywhere, but he wasn’t a groping teenager.  His touch was light and sure, over her clothing at first, as if he was gentling her for later things, letting her settle to his hand before he went any further.  Finn’s mouth rarely left hers, and when it did, she could barely bring her mind around to think about anything, although she knew she should.  She shouldn’t have let him do this, shouldn’t be in this room with him, shouldn’t have gone on the date with him, the list was becoming endless but there was no end in sight.  He already had her half out of her mind with wanting him; all his hands and mouth had done was tease her, bring her ever nearer an edge she hadn’t seen in quite some time.  Her body was more than ready for him – much more so than her mind, and it was her body that was in firm control right now, welcoming him with wide open arms and open legs, regardless of how insecure she felt about him seeing her nude.

But he was wonderful.  She still had all of the scented candles and oil lamps that she and Clint had collected placed artfully around the room, and he left her just for a second to light some of them, as well as bump the heat in the room up a bit, cautioning her with a frown to stay put.  The soft, ambient light was perfect to ease her concerns – much better than any harsh, overhead light.  Not, of course, that Finn cared in the least, but he knew she did, especially when she began to realize what his next step was.

She did keep trying to brush his hands away when he returned to lie beside her on the bed, and at one point, he didn’t say anything, but rather reached beneath her to grasp her still sore bottom cheek, and looked deeply into her eyes.  The hands that had been not quite deliberately interfering in what he was doing fell away immediately to lie almost submissively by her sides, but not quite.  Finn nearly smiled.  He didn’t think he’d ever be able to think of Cat as submissive, and that was fine with him, as long as she did as she was told, one way or another.

Finn took every stitch of clothing off her, first, while he remained fully clothed, except for his jacket and shoes.  She assumed a virginal pose, covering the usual strategic areas, but not at all for the same reasons.  When she looked at herself, she automatically catalogued every imperfection that he might possibly see, especially in comparison to some nubile twenty year old that he really should have been with.  Cat covered her breasts because they weren’t as firm as she would have liked them to have been.  They weren’t around her knees, but they weren’t quite as perky as they had been when she was twenty.  And her other arm was less aiming to cover her privates than it was the slight swell of her belly, that, to her, was absolutely enormous, despite her recent weight loss.

Of course, he wasn’t going to allow her to prevent him from enjoying any part of her.  She was his, and he intended to impress that on her this evening, as many times as he physically could, and continue to do so until she could see it for herself.

But, on the other hand, he also didn’t want to bully her.  He wanted her to come to the realization by herself, but with whatever help was needed from him to guide her in the right direction.  It seemed, however, that he had a distinct ally in her body.  She writhed every time he kissed her, and kissed him back with all of the fervor he could ask for.  He could see, peeping out from behind her upper arm, that her nipple was peaked, and her sweet breath was coming in soft pants.

She wanted him, whether she liked it or not, and he intended to capitalize on that, reaching out to brush the tip of his finger over the distended tip of her breast.  He heard her shocked, indrawn breath, and she tried to arch away from him, but he wouldn’t allow it.  Instead, he caught that impudent tip and held it, not tightly, not painfully, but just held it, so that she couldn’t move away from him.

It made her drop her arms away from her body and concentrate on retrieving her nipple and her own indignation, which was his intention.  “Finn, stop!  You can’t look at me, really, I’m not pretty anymore, I’m old!”

Finn carefully, but deliberately, maneuvered her wrists until they were pinned by her head in a classically submissive position that he didn’t necessarily favor, but that got the job done, saying, “I feel several rules coming on about not putting your looks down, and not trying to stop me from touching you, and calling yourself old, and I’m sure I’ll come up with a few more if –”

Out of self defense, Cat raised her head and kissed him before he came up with any more edicts, but then she ruined it by saying, “I can’t help it.  I only speak the truth.”

She found herself flipped over onto her tummy in seconds, his hand claiming her rear as it already had earlier this evening.  “I can still see the imprint of my hand on your wonderful butt, but I’d be glad to warm it up for you, if you feel the need . . .”

It was interesting that he was leaving the choice up to her.  Sort of.  But not really, because in the next instant, that redwood palm connected with her already tenderized rear because she was taking too long to answer him.

“All right, all right, already,” her feet beat a bratty tattoo on the bed.  “I won’t do that anymore.”

“And what won’t you do, sweetheart?” he asked, his lips kissing the area he’d just scourged.

Cat twisted her head to look up at him and said in all seriousness, “You can’t ask a forty five year old woman to remember that kind of thing, honey.  I won’t do whatever it was that you just told me not to do.  I’ll remember the details later, in the middle of the night, when I don’t need them.”

He dissolved into laughter, but swatted her twice, hard, as he reminded her what she was agreeing to, then flipped her back over and claimed a nipple with his mouth, suckling greedily.

And then he stopped, for no reason Cat could discern.  He leaned away from her, his hand lying possessively on her stomach, unable to keep his hands from playing with her breasts.

Cat was moaning, and wondering what she’d done that had caused him to stop suckling, and she gave him a quizzical look.

“I just . . . realized we haven’t talked about what we like and don’t like, and I don’t want to do something you don’t like.”

She rolled towards him, hoping things shifted into some resemblance of a reasonable looking order.  “I think you can safely assume that what you were about to do is definitely acceptable.  And my list of don’ts is probably a lot shorter than you might think.”

“Really?”

She wasn’t at all sure she liked how amazed he was at that thought.  “Yeah.  Did you think I was going to be that high maintenance – ‘don’t touch me here, oh, I couldn’t possibly do that?’” her simpering tone had him laughing, but it was almost uncomfortably close to some of the younger women he’d dated.

“I really didn’t know what to expect, frankly, but I want to know.”

They lay together, on their sides, facing each other. 

“Well?”  Finn was nothing if not impatient.

“Jeez, gimme a minute.  I’ve never had to come up with this list.”

He was amazed.  “Never?  Didn’t you have to . . . you know . . .”  He really didn’t want to bring her dead husband into the bed with them, but it seemed somehow unavoidable at this juncture.  “Tell Clint?”

There was that luscious shade of pink again that made him want to nibble her all over.  “I was a virgin with Clint.  I didn’t know what I liked or disliked, beyond spanking, really.”

He was intrigued.  “How did you know you liked that?”

Cat snorted.  “I was an advanced reader, and my parents let me read pretty much anything.  My mom had a huge stock of those historical romance novels – bodice busters.  You know the ones, with Fabio on the cover, but before he came along. That was back when quite a few of them were A. not much better than soft core porn, and B. had spanking scenes in them.  So I scarfed every one of them that had a spanking scene out of her bookshelf, and got her to buy me more.  Even some of the mainstream, like Harlequins, had spanking scenes before they became more ‘enlightened’ in the eighties.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to this question, but he asked it anyway.  “How old were you then?”

She shrugged.  “Too young.  Way too young.  Young enough that I really didn’t know what I was reading about, at first.  Eventually, I began to read only by author because I knew which ones wrote books that contained the scenes I would be interested in.  One of them turned out to be a man, which I thought was interesting.  I haunted the used bookstores in Ellsworth and Bangor religiously, looking for more fodder for my overactive imagination.”

Filing away all of that information about her, Finn kissed the back of her hand.  “So, what would you say are your likes and dislikes?”

Chapter Eight

She became an even more brilliant pink, if it were possible.  “Uh, I like most things.  I like oral, both ways, but not sixty nine.  It just feels really . . . forced to me, in either direction.  I feel like I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing or on what’s being done to me – there’s just too much getting going on.”

Finn smiled and nodded.  “Any other positions you like or don’t like?”

Cat tilted her head while she was thinking.  “No, not really.  I hate to sound all stodgy and vanilla, but I really do like missionary the best.”

“Good,” Finn pronounced.  “So do I.”

Thinking again, Cat said, “I don’t think I have to say anything that involves those who can’t consent . . .?”  She looked up at him.

“Of course.  That goes without saying.”

“FACE.  Do NOT lick my face.”  She actually shuddered at the thought, and he knew he was going to need to remember that.  “I don’t know what it is, but that really bothers me.  I’ll lick yours, if you like, but just don’t do mine.”

His eyebrow rose.  “Anything else in particular you don’t like done to your face, or on your face?”

“No.  I just don’t like tongue on my face.  Cum is fine.”

Well, that answered that question.

“What about you?” 

Finn was deciding that he liked this position, so he divested himself of his clothes, finally, which, as he’d hoped, helped her feel free to explore him, and he adored her touch.  Her fingertips teased incessantly because her touch was so light, but he was learning to endure it.  He could see it was going to be a lifetime of low level arousal around her.  “Oh, I think mens’ lists are pretty non existent, beyond the non consensual, if they’re honorable in the least.”  He was busily trailing his own fingertips up and down the very sensitive inside of her right arm, lazily, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“I guess I could say that I don’t much like having my toes sucked.  I had a girlfriend once that was really into feet, and it got her off to spend a lot of time down there, but that’s just not my thing.”  He took a distended nipple into his mouth and suckled hard for a moment, then released it and soothed it with the tip of his tongue.  “Now that’s my thing.”  Finn looked up at her.  “Your moans, your hard nipple in my mouth, on my tongue, feeling the way you’re panting as I’m pleasuring you – your reactions to what I’m doing get me harder than anything but your touch, and all I want is more of both.”

He pushed her over, onto her back, and she was powerless to stop him, not that she felt the need.  He wasn’t threatening her in any way, he was simply being a very primal male.  He rubbed his face all over her, as if he was marking her with his scent, nibbling on the more interesting areas he found until he encountered the triangle of hair between her legs.