Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8)

by Lauren Gilley

Carter sat on the side of the bed, his legs open, Leah standing between them, already breathing hard just from kissing. They’d maneuvered over here a little awkwardly, lips locked, and then Carter had sat. When she’d tried to follow him down, all ready to straddle his lap, as willing and eager as last time – more so – he’d halted her with gentle pressure from both hands at her waist. He wanted to look a minute.

  He couldn’t get over wanting to look at her, and even if he didn’t quite understand it yet, it was one of the few things in all of this he wasn’t going to question. He thought, though, that it had something to do with not being able to believe that this was Leah, after all these years, and that she was this open, hungry, sexual woman in a way he’d never expected – and that she was hungry for him, even though she’d once been the kind of girl who could flay a popular boy alive with one look and a dismissive chuckle.

  That was the thing about her, and about Ava: they’d always felt like outcasts, rejected by the girls in his own social circle. But rejection could move both ways, and they’d had no idea of their own power to wound back then.

  He suspected they did now, at least a little. Definitely Ava.

  And Leah, it seemed, had learned that it wasn’t so hard to get his pulse knocking.

  With the lamplight shining behind her, her white shirt turned nearly translucent. He could see the narrow shape of her waist through it; the opaque white cups of her bra; the tiny pink bow on the bit of band between them.

  He slipped his hands up under the gauzy material and touched warm skin, already pebbled with gooseflesh. The realization that he was already affecting her, just as she affected him, sent a thrill through him. This wasn’t just about his pulse: it was mutual.

  “I should have worn a dress,” she whispered on an inhale.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking about” – he skimmed his palms up the delicate lattice of her ribs and palmed her breasts, smoothed his thumbs over the slick satin – “easy access,” she finished on an exhale, then she pulled her own shirt off and tossed it over her shoulder.

  Still full of surprises.

  He glanced up at her face, wondering what his own looked like, as he wet his lips. Hers was flushed, but bore not a trace of nerves. Her eyes glimmered, dark and full of intent. Unmistakable want.

  “I’ve never had the chance to test out one of these mattresses before,” she said, voice a little rough in a way that sent shockwaves rippling down his back. “How are they?”

  He swallowed. “Not bad.” His mind was already full of images, overlapping and heated. But he wanted to be sure…

  “Leah.” He watched her eyes dilate; shit, his voice was ragged. “Last time…I was a little…was that–?”

  She grinned, a fast, wicked slice of teeth flashing. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wasn’t expecting you to be that” – she bit her lip – “intense. Or that good. I mean…damn.”

  He huffed out a breath, lungs tight. “There’s an ego boost.”

  “Take the compliment. And don’t worry about me. I’m loving it.”

  Okay, then. He nodded. “Alright. Go…” Honestly, he was a little surprised at his own take charge attitude. Jasmine had always been the aggressor in their relationship – though he supposed he picked up on a thing or two along the way. When you stopped worrying about what was expected of you, and started doing what felt good – well, if he was intense, and good, and she loved it, that was all he cared about. “Go open the closet door,” he said. “Please. And then come back.”

  Her grin widened, and she made a show of spinning around and walking the short distance to the closet; opening the door. She bent over more than was strictly necessary, offering him a view that left him chuckling. She opened the door – and revealed the full-length mirror hung up on the inside of it.

  “Ooh.” She laughed. “Kinky.” When she turned back, she was still grinning, but her flush had deepened, cheeks fever-pink, and he could see the flutter of her pulse in the hollow of her throat. Anticipation not unlike nervousness.

  “Come here.”

  She did, with slow, prowling steps. He thought it was an act, but a good one. When she reached him, he reached up and caught one of her hands, smoothed his thumb across the back of it.

  “You have flowers on your boots,” he said.

  “You like?”

  “Yeah. Here.” He put his hands on her hips and turned her around, pulled her down to sit in his lap so she faced the mirror. He hooked his chin on her shoulder and looked at their reflection.

  Watched his own hands, dark tan against her paler complexion, slide up her stomach and cover her breasts again. He played with her through the silk a moment, until he felt her nipples tighten. Until her breath hitched audibly, and he could see her biting at her lip. Then he drew her bra straps down, and reached back to unclasp it. The white silk fell into her lap, unheeded, and when he cupped her bare breasts, she pressed her hands to the backs of his, encouraging, pushing her chest forward into the touch.

  His gaze alternated between the mirror – the sight of his hands shaping her breasts, the white of her knuckles as she urged him on – and down over her shoulder. He could hear the distant thump of the music beyond the dorm, and the occasional muffled sound from next door, but here in the room he could only hear the soft rasp of his calluses against her skin, her quick, needy breaths, and his own pulse, loud as kettledrums in his ears.

  He was hard, now, and when she shifted on his lap, he sucked in a breath at the feel of her ass grinding down against him.

  His hands slipped lower, gliding down over the soft skin of her belly, so he could unfasten her jeans.

  They were all but painted on, but with the fly undone, he had just enough room to dip inside with one hand, duck under sleek white silk and find her already heated and damp for him. His fingertips glided through slick wetness, and he watched her face in the mirror while she shivered in his arms: the way her mouth opened, and her eyes fluttered shut.

  He parted her folds and traced her entrance, and her hips bucked forward. She leaned back into him, legs spreading over his thighs, trying to give him better access.

  He didn’t have any kind of savvy dirty talk. He resisted the urge to thrust up against her and said, “Feels good?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was a heated sigh, and it tightened the coil of mounting pleasure in his gut.

  “Look at yourself,” he urged, and her eyes fluttered open. “Look at us.”

  It was a simple picture, but shocking all the same, he thought. Her topless, with her legs spread, and her pants open, his hand down inside them; the flex of his wrist and arm, the undulation of her hips; her overcome expression, and her silly flowered boots, drumming against the edge of the mattress as he worked one, and then two fingers inside her.

  His cock twitched, looking at them. But another image filled his mind; a better one.

  He stood, arm going around her waist so he could hoist her up to her feet. She weighed nothing, and her startled little gasp was all sex, went straight to his cock. He had to get out of his jeans – but first…

  He worked her jeans down her hips, panties, too, chasing them with his palms along her smooth thighs. Stroked the sharp points of her hipbones, and cupped her sex, its tidy dark curls. She was so wet now; when he slipped a finger back inside her, her slick filled his palm.

  She gripped his arm. “You’ve got – oh, God – way too many – mph – clothes on.”

  He gave one last firm thrust and withdrew his hand; his fingers glistened in the lamplight and he wanted to taste them, to taste her – to do everything all at once, but mostly mount her like he was a fucking stag, and –

  He was getting overwhelmed. Again. It kept happening, but it was different, now, with her.

  He closed his eyes, and pressed his nose into her temple, breathing a moment, flushing hot when he realized he was rutting against her back. He stilled, and tried to get himself under control so he didn’t come in h
is pants like a teenager.

  “Carter,” she said. “Honey. You get your clothes and I’ll get mine, huh?”

  She knew. She knew that he was swamped with – everything – and she knew just how to drag him out of it.

  He swallowed, throat suddenly tight. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

  He hated stepping away from her, but then he got to watch her bend at the waist, limber as a gymnast – one with her jeans bunched around her thighs – to unlace her boots.

  He tore at his own clothes: cut, and shirt, and boots, and jeans going in an unceremonious heap. He was still tugging off his socks as he went around the bed to the nightstand and grabbed a condom from the top drawer.

  When he looked up, she was kneeling in the center of the bed, back arched provocatively, not a trace of self-consciousness in sight. “How do you want me?” she asked, breathless, her flush spreading down her throat and across her chest.

  Christ.

  “Hands and knees. Face the mirror.”

  She turned and complied, arched even more dramatically, and for a second, he thought he wasn’t going to have the coordination he needed to get the condom on.

  But he managed, and then he knelt up on the bed behind her, and got to touch her again. It was easier, like that: touching. He stroked her back, and hips, her thighs; smoothed his palms over the curves of her ass and felt her twitch; let out a sharp breath through his nostrils when she pushed back toward her, thighs spreading a little wider on the mattress.

  When he stroked her sex again, she was dripping.

  She was ready, beyond ready, and he was so hard it hurt, but when he’d shuffled into position, he paused with his cock just touching her entrance, slapped suddenly with the memory of his last night with Jasmine – and Chanel, and Stephanie.

  He glanced up at their reflection again. It was Leah in front of him now; Leah’s dark eyes, and silky black hair draped over her shoulder; Leah’s small, sweetly-curved breasts hanging. Her elbows and knees braced on the mattress.

  Her voice, saying, “Carter.”

  He gripped her hip, and pressed inside on a slow, smooth stroke. Felt her stretch and give around him. Heard her shaky, pleasure-drunk murmur. Felt her press back again, taking more of him, all of him.

  And it wasn’t at all like it had been that night with Chanel.

  It was perfect. Because with Leah, it was okay to respect and adore her, and to feel a thrill at the hedonistic pleasure of it, too. He could have both at the same time. Affection for the little constellation of freckles on her left shoulder blade, and delight in the flex and heave of his own sweaty chest, the sight of his cock breaching her body again, and again, and again.

  He rode her hard, and she took it, met him thrust for thrust. Cried out when she came, mouth open, glorying in it. Said, “God, yes,” when he pulled out at the last, stripped off the condom, and came all over her back.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  It was easy as anything to collapse down on the bed beside her, after, and pull her into his arms, sweaty skin gluing together.

  Quiet sex sounds filtered through the walls, and this was his world, and Leah was in it.

  He’d been wrestling with it ever since she got back to town. Ever since he felt the first jolt when Mercy said he was stepping up, but it had taken him until right this moment to label the sensation that had been dogging him for weeks: that of things finally falling into place.

  ~*~

  Reese woke slowly, to the glow of a lamp left on, and a sense of cold and loss along his right side. He turned his head and found Tenny sitting up on the side of the bed, back bowed, his face in his hands. He was all muscle and sinew, but in this light, he looked too-thin. The knobs of his spine stood out prominent. Vulnerable.

  He didn’t speak, but Tenny had sensed that he was awake. Had heard the rustle of his hair on the pillow; the change in his breathing. Tenny’s head lifted, and his hands fell limp in his lap. In a very small and uncharacteristic voice, he said, “I can go.”

  Reese said, “Stay.”

  After a moment, Tenny nodded, and leaned over to click off the lamp. He stretched back out, on his side, facing Reese. Reese saw a fast glimmer of eyes in the dark, and then the weight of Tenny’s head landed on his shoulder.

  “Stay,” Reese said again, and it sounded like a question.

  Tenny let out a deep breath, warm across Reese’s chest.

  Eventually, sleep pulled him back under; his last thought was that it felt nice to have a heartbeat against his arm.

  Forty-One

  Fox had his father’s capacity for drink, which meant he could be near to passing out, but give him some strong coffee, a splash of cold water in his face, and a cigarette, and he could be fight-ready sober in less than an hour. He had enough at the party to get pleasantly loose and warm, but, while he could have ridden home, it was easier to stay late, have another drink, and find a dorm where he and Eden could crash.

  She’d left scratches down his arms, but she’d been quiet and withdrawn after, cuddled up against his side in a way she didn’t normally go for.

  He regarded her now, from his position sitting up against the headboard, her face tense down on the pillow beside him, her brows drawn together even in sleep. Her fingers would curl every so often, slow to uncurl. The pearly, pre-dawn light caught on her lashes as they flickered. She was dreaming – having nightmares, more like.

  They’d celebrated the downfall of the mayor last night, but Eden hadn’t looked very celebratory, hand wrapped tight around her glass, her smiles fleeting, and her gaze distracted. She was still worried about the missing girls, he knew; the two from Knoxville adding to the three for whom she was already searching.

  Slowly, silently, Fox slipped out of bed, tugged on last night’s clothes, grabbed his smokes, and went outside to watch the sun come up.

  He wasn’t the only one who’d had that idea, apparently. A slender figure draped in a blanket sat on top of one of the picnic tables, the smoke from his cigarette just visible in the rapidly-lightening blue of early morning.

  Fox knew it was Tenny before he approached and joined him, but he wasn’t lying when he said, “I didn’t expect to find you out here.” Wrapped in a blanket, he didn’t add.

  Now that he was closer, he could see it wasn’t just the blanket. Under it, Tenny wore sweats and a thin white t-shirt. He was barefoot, for some ungodly reason, and his hair was a rumpled mess.

  His expression, when he regarded Fox with the barest glance, was drawn, and raw, and troubled. He looked his age, for once, and like a real boy rather than a highly-skilled, highly-trained government assassin.

  There were several observations Fox could have made aloud:

  You disappeared in back awfully early last night.

  Reese disappeared, too.

  You need a shower.

  He opened his mouth to say something milder, but Tenny spoke first. His voice was rusty, like he had a sore throat.

  “When I was fifteen, I grew about a foot, and the handlers decided I was ready to add seduction to my repertoire.”

  “Fifteen is young,” Fox said, observationally, without inflection. Whatever Tenny was working up the nerve to say, he knew there could be no rushing it.

  “People like young. And I have blue eyes, and prominent cheekbones, and a soft mouth,” he said, equally flat. Detached. “They brought people in. Teachers. Probably they were escorts, I don’t know. A woman and a man. They taught me what to do. In bed and out of it.”

  “Seduction is a valuable tool of the trade. It allows closeness, without all the blood.”

  “No less messy, though.”

  “No.”

  “I was good at it. Skilled,” he corrected. “I become skilled at everything I attempt.”

  “I’ve noticed. Including denying yourself something you want badly.”

  Tenny took a long drag off his cigarette, and his hand started to shake. He made a face; sniffed hard, and it sounded like h
e’d been doing that for a while. “Sex is a skill like any other, and it serves its purposes. It even provides physical pleasure in the moment. It’s a natural urge; a bodily function.”

  “But,” Fox prompted.

  Another drag, and then he flicked the cigarette away onto the pavement. “I’ve never…” he whispered.

  “Cared?”

  He pressed his hand flat over his eyes. “I don’t,” he said, vicious. “I don’t care. I hate him.”

  Fox sighed. “Well, for one thing, hate isn’t the opposite of care. Hate requires lots of caring, actually. And for another, you don’t hate him.”

  He waited, giving Tenny the chance for a much-needed confession. But instead he wiped his eyes, composed himself, and lit another cigarette.

  “Not that you’ll admit it,” Fox said, “but you’re as ill-adjusted to regular life as him. You’ve had better training, and you can fake it in a way that he can’t. You pull on accents and personas the same way I do. Aside from him, I’m the only one you know who’s anything like yourself. But I’m your brother, and you do hate me, a little, and don’t want to jump my bones, besides.”

  Tenny graced him with a dark look.

  “He understands you, in a way that no civilian ever could, or ever will. He’s a version of you: a distorted mirror image, and you don’t have to pretend with him. Anyone else you sleep with is getting a carefully-crafted mask. An identity that you can pull out of your wallet alongside the condom. But it isn’t the real you. You can’t show the real you to anyone, not even when you want to.”

  Tenny’s brows lifted, and kept climbing.

  “But he sees right through all the bullshit. And he knows that killing a man on orders is the simplest, easiest, freest thing in the world. And sometimes it’s even fun.

  “You’re having real, human feelings all of a sudden, on top of a lot of other feelings, and it scares you – almost as badly as thinking about going back to being alone scares you.”

  The light had shifted, silver on the river, the first rosy glow teasing below the tree line.

  Tenny took a drag, and his gaze came to Fox, blue, and earnest, and heartbroken; a boy at war with himself. “He’s better than me,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Not at fighting, and killing, and talking to people–”