Bad Influencer by Kenzie Reed

Chapter Nineteen

Jillian

We limp through the mucky crowd until we get to our golf cart. Elliott’s arranged for a driver, who shoots us an amused look.

“Having fun?” he asks as we glide away.

“Oh, yeah. Good clean fun!” Elliott laughs. He looks at me. “Want to hear a dirty joke?”

“Now, of all times, you decide to find your inner comedian?” I grumble. “Thanks for coming to open mic night. Keep your day job.”

When we get back to the suite, we both strip off all our clothes in the tiled hallway and drop them on the floor with a splat, then make our way to the shower. Someone laid down plastic runners, but I still drip some mud onto the carpet.

“I can’t believe you let me do this!” I complain again as we climb into the shower.

“I tooold yoouuu sooo...”

“Remember the part where I theoretically am not allowed to get angry at you?” I glare at him.

He snorts. “There was no theoretically about it.”

He turns on the shower and we proceed to de-mud ourselves.

“Hand me the shampoo,” he instructs, and I oblige.

A few seconds later, his hands are in my hair, massaging and scrubbing. I moan in response to the exquisite feeling of him washing me. It takes a very, very long time and multiple shampoos before he moves on to my back.

“What are you doing?” The question comes out strained as I refrain from moaning again.

“Helping you get clean.”

“I’ll never be clean again. I have mud up the wazoo,” I groan.

“And a very nice wazoo it is, too.” Elliott hugs me, and I press up against him, breathing in his clean scent.

“I think I have cholera. I seriously can’t believe I thought this was a good idea.”

He chuckles. “Well, you smell better, that’s for sure.”

I turn to face him, mesmerized by the streams of water running down his broad chest. “Did I smell that bad?”

“You have no idea.” He grins down at me.

I lift up onto my toes and place a kiss to his lips. “We need to get out… I’m exhausted.”

I reach over to turn off the water, then lean on him again. ”Next time I suggest something this utterly idiotic, can you please save me from myself?”

“I’ll try, but when you get an idea lodged in that beautiful noggin of yours, no known force on Earth can dislodge it.” His eyes twinkle with amusement.

“Well, since you said I have a beautiful noggin, and also you put up with my completely uncalled for bitching and whining, I guess I have to forgive you.”

“I guess you do.”

We dry off vigorously, then grab fluffy white terrycloth robes. Absolute heaven.

We make our way to our suite, and I flop down on the bed, too spent even to take off the robe. Elliott strips his off, and I admire his long, lean muscles as he drapes it across a chair. Then he slides in next to me.

I turn to face him. “I think I’m too exhausted for sexy times, much as I would love to enjoy sexy times with you.”

“Whatever your heart desires, my darling mud maiden.”

I smile. “I could cuddle, though.”

“Cuddling is always nice.”

I roll into his arms. His muscular biceps flex as he draws me up against him, his thick erection pressing against my stomach. I push that thought away, because my body is aching from my scalp to my toenails.

“Today was kind of fun,” I admit.

“It was.”

“The kind of fun you never want to have again in your life,” I add quickly. “This will not become an annual tradition.”

As soon as I say that, I want to bite my tongue off. Our relationship is still in a nebulous state. I pushed for us to keep things on the QT at least until after the final investors’ meeting, and we haven’t discussed it since then. We just kind of end up hanging out after work every single night, sometimes in his work-bed, sometimes back at my house. I’ve begged off going to his house so far, because we’re trying not to be too obvious.

“What?” he says. “What thoughts are swirling around in the beautiful noggin?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Liar.” He kisses my forehead. “Talk to me. I have ways of making you talk.”

I’m tempted to ask him to prove it, but I’m also exhausted right down to my toenails. Running through mud is way more tiring than regular running.

“Okay, fine. I was sort of feeling silly for saying the thing about an anniversary when we’re not really... we haven’t really talked about what this is. Assuming there’s even a ‘this’.”

“There most certainly is a this,” he says, looking a little hurt. “Isn’t there? “I thought we discussed this? After the meeting with the board, this goes public. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes? I hope? If there’s a ‘this’, what exactly is this?”

He frowns, and I realize how much I love his serious face.

“Well, I want to keep seeing you. Exclusively. I want to see where this goes. I hope it goes the distance. The two of us, together, not seeing anyone else. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Are we too old to say that?”

“Well, you are, old man.” I smirk at him, which earns me a light smack on the butt and a scoff of annoyance.

“How dare you. I’m young and vigorous and in my prime,” he says, rolling over top of me.

“Are you, now? Actions speak louder than words.” I grin up at him.

“Got your mojo back, have you?”

I most definitely have, and to prove it, I let him kiss me from the noggin to the wazoo.

Then I return the favor.

There’s something delicious about going down on a big, strong man—feeling his muscles quiver and jump under your touch, watching the desire shadow his eyes as he watches your every move. My breasts brush against his erect cock as I work my way down his body, and his groans and gasps turn briefly to creative cursing as I spend just slightly too long dipping my tongue into his navel and nipping the insides of his thighs before I take his cock into my mouth. I know I’m being a tease, and I enjoy the little thrill of power it gives me before taking mercy on him. The cursing suddenly gets a lot more explicit, then trails off into incoherent groans of pleasure as I suck him like a lollipop.

I bob my head smoothly, taking him as far into my mouth as I dare, then withdrawing slowly and teasing the silk-over-stone flesh with my tongue. He rests his hand against the back of my head, and I can feel the subtle flexing of his fingers and the tension in his hips and core as he fights the urge to thrust into my mouth.

The salty-sweet tang at the tip of his cock tells me he’s getting close to coming, and I brace my hands on his muscular thighs so I can take him deeper, wanting to swallow him down as he comes in my mouth. I want to make him mindless with desire and pleasure. I want to shatter his façade of control so completely that he can never piece it back together again.

But I want him inside me, too—want the roll and thrust of his hips moving against mine and his cock pushing deep inside me. So I don’t give more than a mewl of protest as he hauls me up his body and settles me on top of him, straddling his thighs.

I’m still in charge, and that feels good. I like that although he’s changed things up. He hasn’t flipped the script to put himself in control. I’m still the one setting the pace; I’m the one making love to him.

Making love?

I can’t think about that now, so instead I let myself focus on the warm skin of his chest, whorled with darkish hair, and the way the textures feel underneath my hands. I draw in his scent, letting it fill my senses. It’s not a cologne or a shampoo—nothing as definable as that—just a subtle whiff of pheromones that feel paradoxically both exhilarating and grounding. I sink down onto his generous erection and I drink in the strength of his body, all supple muscle and soft breath and warm embrace. It feels good; really good.

I start to move, and his hands go to my hips, stroking and petting rather than guiding. He lets me move the way I want to, and as he closes his eyes and his lips part, I can see he’s taking pleasure in my body the same way I’m taking pleasure in his. My heart picks up pace, and my breaths turn into sighs, my sighs into moans.

Elliott is right there with me. His hands explore my back, tracing the curve of my spine and flirting over the curves of my ass. I catch his lower lip with my mouth, kissing him, and as I pull away, he opens his eyes and looks deep into mine.

It’s intense. Our gazes locked together the same way our bodies are locked together, and I have the strongest impulse to blurt out something I wouldn’t be able to take back. I take my own advice, and to keep myself from saying something stupid, I kiss him again.

Then I dig my fingers into his hips, urging him to surge up to meet me as I roll my hips and clench urgently around him.

He groans into my mouth and obliges, arching up from the bed to drive further and harder inside me. His breath is a harsh staccato, and I can feel the subtle twitching of his cock that signals his impending orgasm. I moan, excited by his arousal.

The sound is enough to send him over the edge. He gives a final hard thrust into my slick channel before releasing a ragged, heartfelt groan. A subtle rush of warmth inside makes me flush with tingling heat, and I spasm wildly around him, twisting and bucking on top of him as my orgasm rocks me.

I don’t really know when I stop coming, or when he does. We grope blindly for one another, kissing and gasping, shuddering and sticky with sweat, limbs trembling and minds blown.

I decide that getting really filthy has its definite upsides, as long as it’s between the sheets with Elliott.

We lie in contented silence for several minutes, both of us lost in our own thoughts. My mind keeps going back to his declaration that we are, in fact, a couple.

“So, I want to hear you say it again. We’re really a thing? We’re going to give this a go?”

He pulls me in to his chest so that my head is right under his chin. “Oh, we’re a thing all right. To show you just how much, I’m taking you to meet my parents tomorrow. It’s Sunday dinner and you’re coming.”

“I’ve met your mother several times. I think she likes me… and my childbearing hips.”

He groans. “She’s… eccentric.”

“She’s great, and I’m sure your dad is too.”

I sigh as he runs his hand up and down my arm, soothing. He places a kiss to the top of my head and all’s right in my world.

“Okay, then I have a kind of… sort of… favor to ask.” I hate how my voice shakes as though I’m about to ask him for something asinine. I’m not, although he may disagree when I finally ask. “My family has some godawful formal party at a country club. I’m not sure when it is, but I don’t really want to go.”

“Done. I’m coming with you.”

I sit up, turning toward him. “Seriously? You don’t mind?”

He smiles. “Your sister-in-law might try to fix you up on a date with someone completely unfit. Can’t have that happening.”

I smack his chest. “Unfit? Is that all you’re worried about?”

He pulls me down and presses his mouth to mine. I open to him, loving the way his tongue caresses mine. He pulls away too soon, and I can’t stifle a whimper of protest.

He chuckles. “That’s not going to happen. Because we’re a thing. And I’m going so there’s no confusion for any of them. Jillian Fletcher is taken.”

I smirk. “Going caveman on me?”

“You have no idea just how caveman-like I can be.”

“Show me,” I challenge.

He spends the rest of the night doing just that.