With his wife.
She gave a cheer as the Cocks got a three-point shot. “Did you go to college?” she asked.
“No. Some of my sisters did. But they paid for it themselves, and I didn’t have that much ambition, or more accurately, I didn’t care that much about school. I was already in vocational school by tenth grade, working on engines. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.” He had never regretted that choice. “I’m not cut out to sit behind a desk or work with people. I’m not really a people person.”
She laughed. “You act like you’re an ogre, which you most definitely are not. But it’s good that you understood yourself.”
“I did. I still do.” Rhett took a long swallow of his beer. “Did you ever want to do anything, like be a nurse or a flight attendant or something?” The image of her serving drinks to restless passengers was hard to conjure.
“Nah. I grew up at the track. It was a part of me. There was nothing else I wanted to do, even once I stopped racing.”
“Why did you stop racing?”
“I stopped winning.” Shawn grinned. “I may have had a bit of a problem with being too impulsive. You have to be more disciplined than I am.”
Rhett grinned right back at her. “Well, isn’t that what we’ve been working on? Your discipline?”
She blushed, like he knew she would, her eyes fluttering down briefly before meeting his again. She was the perfect mix of feminine and demure, yet strong and independent. She would hesitate, she would blush, but she always rose to the challenge. He found her to be the sexiest woman he’d ever met.
“Not the same thing, Ford.” She stuck her fork out at him. “And you shouldn’t speak to your elders that way.”
That cracked him up. “That’s not precisely how I think of you. In fact, it’s not even close.”
The waving fork came over to his plate and swiped some of his mashed potatoes. “Hey. Eat your own food.” Though he didn’t mind at all.
“Us old ladies need our food smashed up.”
“Why, do you have dentures?”
That had her hastening to say, “No, of course not.”
He laughed. “I know that, you dork.”
She made a face. “Okay, just verifying. I liked teasing you until it came to that. Then I realized I don’t actually want you to think of me as old, so why the hell am I bringing it up? Maybe I should bite some corn on the cob to prove it.”
“That’s going to prove you’re still young?” Her thought processes boggled his mind.
“No! It will prove I don’t have dentures.”
“Shawn, I’ve kissed you. I’ve slept beside you. I look at you a good portion of every day. I know you don’t have dentures. And even if you did, I would still think you’re hot as hell. Now, why are we talking about this?”
She didn’t answer that question. Instead, she said, “Hey, how come you’ve never had me give you a blow job?”
Rhett almost choked on his T-bone. She was killing him tonight. “Is this really the place to talk about it?”
She shrugged. “The acoustics suck in here. It’s louder than fight night at the honky-tonk. No one can hear us.”
“First of all, does it really bother you that you’re older than me? Do you feel like I’m not mature enough for you?” He was curious about that, given how frequently she’d brought up their age difference.
But she shook her head. “No, I think you’re actually very mature. In some ways, you have it together more than me because you never second-guess yourself. I guess it just seems like society cares about women being older. Maybe I’m bracing myself for the reactions I’m going to get. Maybe I need reassurance that you don’t care.”
“Why would I care? I don’t. Trust me. In fact, I like that you’re a woman in her thirties. You know yourself. Who gives a shit what other people think? They’re just jealous that you snagged a younger guy.” He winked at her.
She laughed. “Well, there is probably truth to that. I thought Linda was going to leap over her desk and lick you.”
Oh, God, there was a terrifying image. That had been a lot of cheetah print and bold accessories. He wasn’t sure he could handle that kind of bling coming at him. “Please save me if that ever happens. I’m not sure I would know what to do in that circumstance.”
She went back into his mashed potatoes. He turned his plate so she would have easier access.
“You can handle yourself just fine. So what about my question?”
Tenacious, she was. It was going to serve her well as they took the track in a new direction. But she didn’t want to talk about the track. She wanted to know why she hadn’t been asked to suck his cock. The thought had him shifting on his seat, an erection springing to life. “Because when you’re having sex the way we’ve been having it, when I’m asking you to give complete control over to me, for me personally, I feel like having you suck me borders on the line of degradation. I want a woman to suck me because she wants to, not because I ordered her.”
“Even if I say I want to?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Because the whole point is, you’ve agreed to agree, so you have to say you want to. Plus you can’t initiate it. So it doesn’t work for me. I don’t get off on that.”
She seemed to mull that over. “Oh, I think I understand. It’s complicated, huh?”
“I’ve given a lot of thought to what I want, very precisely.” Maybe too much thought, but it was his sex life. Why waste time being unsatisfied or choosing the wrong partners?
“Have you, um, done this with lots of other women?” Then immediately she looked angry at herself for asking.
Rhett wanted to reassure her. He wasn’t offended by the question. It was natural to want to know, and he wasn’t going to tease her in such a vulnerable moment, the way he imagined a lot of guys would. Shawn had had enough of that in her dating, she needed a man who would respect her needs and questions. “No. Not lots of women. And never like this. Never the way it is with you. Never this amazing.”
Shawn nodded, thoughtful. “Okay.”
He waited, but that was all she said. “Okay? That’s it?” Not to be an emotional pu**y, but he was kind of hoping she’d throw him a compliment back. Hell, he needed to hear that he was pleasing her, too, even if he knew it when they were in bed. Which only proved that he was falling hard for her if he needed to hear it in words.