Sutton
“I can’t share your bed, Miss Landry.”
I rolled my eyes and repeated myself one more time. “Listen, Mr. Williams, you have a head injury. That
means you need to be monitored. I voted for calling an ambulance, but you voted me down. It’s fucking
late, or actually hella early, and I need to sleep. So, your option is to share the couch with me or the
bed.”
Mr. Williams coughed, and I could have sworn the man blushed. “That is highly inappropriate!”
“I am not going to ravish you.” I was starting to enjoy this a little too much. “I am exhausted, and I am
going to sleep. Now, get your ass in gear. We are going to bed.”
Instead of waiting for him to decide, I grabbed his hand and began to pull. To my surprise, the giant of a
man followed me into my bedroom. He looked completely out of place. The mattress was fairly new on
the old double bed. I had saved up for almost two years to buy it. It wasn’t top of the line or anything,
but at least it wasn’t sagging in the middle.
“What side of the bed do you sleep on?” I asked, yawning.
Mr. Williams was looking everywhere but at me. “What?” he said distractedly. “Oh, um, look I am going
to just go back out to the couch.”
It looked like I needed to take matters into my own hands. With brute force I pushed him down onto the
mattress. “Lay down, cowboy.”
He turned toward me, and I noticed once again how close we were in my small bedroom. Clearing my
throat, I climbed over to my side of the bed saying, “You need to relax and lay down.”
He let out a long-defeated sigh, so I reached up and gently pushed his shoulder until Mark laid back on
the bed.
“Are you okay?” I asked hesitantly, my voice sounding louder in the dark.
“Of course, I am.” His reply in that dry tone of his somehow comforted me.
A loud yawn escaped me, and despite the fact that I had a complete hottie in my bed, I was almost
dead to the world. All I wanted to do was get some sleep. Sadly, his large body took up a lot of space in
my double bed. I found myself rolling into his space no matter how hard I tried to hang on to the other
side.
After three attempts at hugging the edge, Mr. Williams gruffly pulled my body into his so that my head
was resting on his chest, and his muscular arm surrounded me. I didn’t move, speak, or even breathe.
But I did feel. I could feel every inch of him—and it was magnificent.
“Neither one of us will be getting any rest, Miss Landry, if you don’t relax. Come on, let’s get some
sleep.”
Rest? Shit, I am now wide awake!
With a gulp I replied, “Yes, sir.”
I could somehow feel his smile against the top of my head.
“Smart ass,” he quipped, and I giggled. I couldn’t help it. “Relax, Sutton, get some sleep.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
“Good, no more talking.”
I worried that there was no possible way I would be able to sleep with a man as sexy and powerful as
Mr. Williams in my bed. Hell, I worried that I would spontaneously combust just by his sheer sexual
attraction. So, imagine my surprise when my eyes grew heavy, and I drifted off to sleep.
***
I was having the most incredible dream. Something was hard and hot between my thighs, and a rough
masculine hand was caressing my naked breast. Moaning into my dream lover’s neck, I rocked my
hips back and forth, loving the way that he made me feel, his hard body driving insistently against my
softer one. He pinched my nipple, tugging on the tip and then flicking it with his finger. Shit, I loved to
have my nipples played with. I ground my core harder against him and felt the familiar tingling racing up
my spine.
I was seconds away from oblivion. Just a few more thrusts of my hips and… nothing.
Damn it all to fucking hell. This was the worst part of sex dreams, when you woke up before the big
finish. I closed my eyes, trying to force myself back into a deeper sleep, but it wasn’t coming.
With a groan I moaned out, “No, fucking hell. I was almost there.”
A man cleared his throat and I froze.
Why was there a man in my bed? I didn’t do sleepovers.
“Sutton?” The deep timbre of his voice caused goosebumps to appear across my skin.
Shit. I knew that voice. My eyes flew open, and to my complete horror, I found a pair of steel-gray eyes
bearing down on me. It was then that I realized the true implications of where I was and who I was with.
No!
My tank top was pushed up and over my breasts, and my leg had been straddling Mr. Williams thigh.
Great, I was humping him like a bitch in heat.
Mark cleared his throat once again and it was then I noticed how rigid he was. I was plastered all over
him and he was lying there like a board. I swiftly tore away from him whilst tugging my top down.
Scrambling out of the bed, I nearly fell on my ass.
The man nearly smiled. “Sutton, are you alright?”
Am I alright? Hell, no! I was all keyed up for an orgasm that wasn’t coming, and I just embarrassed
myself with a gorgeous man. Mortification drenched my soul. What if he thought I was trying to seduce
him? What if he thinks that I am the kind of girl that brings strange men home from the bar?
“Um, yeah. I think I am going to shower now,” I blurted out, turning abruptly and grabbing something
out of my drawer. I didn’t even know what clothes I had snatched up. For all I knew there could be a
tube top and pantyhose in my hands.
“Sutton, you don’t have to…” Mark began again, but I cut him off.
“Please excuse me for just a minute.” I was almost to the door when he barked out.
“For heaven’s sake, Miss Landry, stop for a moment.”
I paused, not wanting to turn around.
“Can you at the very least turn around so I am not addressing your backside?”
The ever-formal Mark Williams had said the right thing to help my embarrassment begin to fade. By
being his highhanded, bossy self, I noticed that I was feeling a little better.
Turning, I raised my chin a fraction. “Did you need something?”
“I need to know that you aren’t upset. You seemed as if the hounds of hell were at your feet. You didn’t
do anything wrong.”
His heated gaze reminded me that he was every bit as aroused as I had been. Fire and lust raced
through my veins as I remembered the dream. Had his hand been on my breast? I immediately wanted
to know what fiction was and what had been reality.
He was looking at me like I was the dessert on the all-you-can-eat buffet line.
I shuffled my foot nervously. As much as I would have liked to climb back into bed with the luscious Mr.
Williams, I knew it would have been a bad idea. With a bravado I didn’t feel, I answered. “There is
nothing the matter with me. I was only going to take a quick shower so that the bathroom could be free
for you and Earl. Was there something you needed?”
His eyes blazed for a moment. “Yes.”
The one word was inauspicious enough, but the way his gaze raked over my body left me without any
doubts as to what he wanted. However, his next words surprised me.
“We will not speak of this,” he said coldly.
I raised a brow. “We won’t speak of what?”
He clenched his jaw, which was sexy as fuck with the shadow of beard that was growing there. His
eyes went to my breasts and he said in a low voice, “You know very well what I am referring to.”
I snorted. “If I had my way, we wouldn’t have spoken of it now. So, if there isn’t anything else?”
Mark frowned as he looked at my hands. “Are you wearing that?”
I had a candy cane scarf and cutoffs in my hands. I felt the color infuse my cheeks. “Um, no. Hold on.” I
whipped back around to find a short denim skirt and a faded peasant blouse, along with a bra and
underwear. Without a word, I darted out of the bedroom and raced to the bathroom.
I passed Earl drinking a beer at my table. He just happened to be wearing my bathrobe.
With a nod he said, “I put my things in your washer, Sutton. I hope that is okay with you.”
I smiled at the old man. He was eccentric and slightly nuts, but he had been a fixture in my life for as
long as I could remember. He grinned at me with those yellowed teeth, and I felt a surge of fondness
for the old man. “Of course, Earl. You know that you are always welcome. Sit tight for a moment. After
my shower I will be out in a bit to make you some breakfast.”
He nodded happily and turned to the newspaper that he likely picked up off my front porch. I knew it
was only a matter of time before his wife Martha would be pounding on my door.
I hadn’t yet rinsed the conditioner out of my hair when I heard Martha screeching, “Earl, I know you are
in there. Open the damn door. You always go to that whorehouse!”
Martha was everything that Earl was not. She liked to mention Mama’s previous profession as often as
she could. I honestly hated her for years. But eventually, I got used to her. In her own twisted way, she
did care about Earl.
I rinsed my hair and grabbed my towel. With a rushed dry job, I hurried to exit the bathroom with my
towel hastily wrapped around me. It was then that I heard Mark speaking. Dear Lord! Why did he have
to try and go to my defense? As sweet as it was, I knew it would only cause Martha to go off the deep
end.
“You will kindly lower your voice. What kind of human being addresses people that way?”
“There are two men in here?” Martha’s shrill voice cut through Mark’s words. “Lordy-Lou, Sutton, you
are just as bad as your mama.”
I stood there in my towel suddenly wishing that I had let Mark deal with things. Because not only was I
dripping onto the linoleum, but I was likely giving everyone an eyeful. My towel did wrap around me, but
it wasn’t super thick or plush. No doubt they could see just about everything.
Trying to play it off, I cleared my throat and said, “Good morning, Martha.” When the angry woman
standing at my door in her second-best housecoat growled at me, I blurted out, “I was just grabbing a
shower, but if you would like to stay for breakfast, you are welcome to.”
Mark’s jaw tightened. I could tell that he was fighting back the words that desperately wanted to come
out. Eventually the words won. “How can you allow this…person, into your home? Did you not hear her
call it a whorehouse?”
I winced. “Yes, I heard that. The walls of the trailer aren’t soundproof.”
Martha let out an indignant huff. “What else would you call a single woman who is entertaining two men
overnight?”
“Lucky?” I ventured for amusing, but the joke fell flat for two of the three people in front of me.
Earl, however, snorted with laughter. It quickly changed it to a cough when he saw Martha’s thunderous
scowl.
“I was thinking along the lines of compassionate,” Mr. Williams said through gritted teeth. “She allowed
your husband to stay in the guest room because he is an elderly man that didn’t have a place to stay.
At his age, a night on the street would kill him.”
Martha looked affronted. “How could you possibly know that? Earl was welcome to come home at any
time. Besides, I don’t see how this is any of your business.”
I was starting to get cold and I knew that the longer I stayed out here the worse it would be. “Listen, I
am going to get dressed now and then I will be fixing breakfast. If you want to stay, then do so. If not,
please close the door on your way out.”
I walked back into the bathroom, turning to close the door when someone bumped me from behind.
Strong arms caught my body before I fell. I heard the bathroom door closing, shutting us both inside.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, desperately holding onto my towel.
Mark released me and I looked up to see that he was staring at the bathroom ceiling. My eyes
automatically went up there as well. But I couldn’t see anything wrong.
Mark, however, seemed to want to take this moment to tell me what to do. “You cannot allow these
people to take advantage of you like this! Good grief, woman, this is beyond ridiculous.”
That hurt a little. I knew that Martha and Earl were a bit quirky, but over the years he had become like a
second family to me—at least Earl had.
“You wouldn’t understand, Mr. Williams,” I bit off. “Are you going to leave?”
I could see the frustration and anger still written on his face. But in his eyes, something else lingered:
lust. Mark Williams wanted me.
The imp inside of me moved a fraction of an inch closer to him. “I need to put my clothes on. Are you
staying or going?”
The lust in his eyes flared and I felt a recklessness race through me. In what could only be described
as stupidity, I allowed the towel to drop. His gaze snapped to my breasts and hips as it dipped lower
and lower.
With a muffled curse, Mr. Williams yanked open the bathroom door and slammed it behind him.
I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. It wasn’t as if anything could have happened with Earl and
Martha on the other side of the wall. But I wanted it to, and I knew that he wanted it every bit as badly
as I had.
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